Severe delay in Animation/Damage/Timing

[RamathRS]

I have noticed a serious delay in the use of Grav Round in the Commando's Gunnery tree, and I'm hoping to at least have it looked at, and preferably addressed, by the powers at be.

 

The ability is a 1.5 cast time, followed by an attack animation, which does direct damage and also applies a stacked debuff to the target. This ability is the mirror of Tracer Missile for the Bounty Hunter's Mercenary spec.

 

I noticed that once the 1.5 sec cast bar is finished, the animation takes a while to travel from me to the target. This, in and of itself, isn't a huge issue as there are many other abilities like it in the game. However, the animation is very drawn out, and the damage is still delayed even longer after the animation is done.

 

I had a friend willing to shoot about 50 missiles at a training dummy and let me observe him and how the ability worked. Tracer Missile has a very noticeable point of impact when the missiles hit the target. There is an audible explosion, a visible smoke cloud and the damage ticker appears right as the missiles hit. This is not the case with Grav Round.

 

Me and my friend then changed over to our Republic characters and he watched me use Grav Round several times on a dummy, acting as my witness and confirming that I wasn't just imagining it.

 

Grav round's animation and damage extend far beyond the ability's cast time, and the damage is applied even further beyond the animation. It is clearly noticeable and isn't a lag issue. It is so bad, in fact, that I when I fire a second Grav Round, the second cast bar is finished just as the damage from the first cast is applied. This means a 1.5 cast time ability is actually taking 3.0. In addition, I am able to fire High Impact Bolt directly after Grav Round, and have my HIB travel from me to the target, hit and apply damage all before my PREVIOUS Grav Round hits. This means that my debuff from Grav Round, which reduces the target's armor, is not even in effect for when my HIB hits, which in turn means I'm missing out on damage. If I want my HIB to be effected by Grav Round's debuff, I have to stop what I'm doing and wait for the delayed effect to finally apply before attacking again, which means it's still lowering my damage output.

 

Unlike, TM, Grav Round has no noticeable point of impact. The audio for the ability starts at the beginning of the cast bar, and simply stops at the end, with no notification of impact beyond the cast bar. There is a very small light when the damage is applied, but this is long after the travel animation from me to the target.

 

Also, on a more aesthetic note, the animation for Grav Round is extremely minimal. While it can be seen when I am alone and shooting at a training dummy, its nigh invisible when I'm in a group shooting at a enemy in combat. This is the center ability for most Gunnery spec Commando's and it's underwhelming and depressing to have my central attack so hard to see. Even my healing companion's basic pistol shots are easier to see, and I'm using a gun bigger than my companion herself! The effect of the shot looks awesome, I just wish it was easier to see and wasn't so pathetically invisible.

 

Please don't misunderstand me. This is not a complaint that the cross factions are not balanced, or that this is unfair to the Trooper over the Bounty Hunter.

 

I know that similar issues have been addressed and adjusted in the past, and they were done quite well. But there are still a few lingering issues that need additional attention. Please take another look at Grav Round's timing and visual effect!

[Luceon]

I have absolutely no idea why your grav round is blown out of proportion. It has always been a bother to me that it does take more time to do the damage but some of your story just doesn't make sense. Like the second cast bar being finished before the first grav round hits, I just cannot ever see that happening without lag. Ever. Now HiB can hit before grav round, it happens every time and that isn't so bad seeing as how HiB is supposed to be a real quick hit. As for comparison to bounty hunter I still am not seeing the difference. Not at all, I can easily say this as I can use the HiB equivalent (been a little while since I played my bounty hunter) also hits just before tracer missle does (again, this is unless there were some changes to BH in the past month or two). I also find the sound grav round makes rather easy to notice impact. You can hear a thud like sound to confirm its hit. On top of that there 'vortex' animations triggered on the target (it is mostly composed of light however it has 'flairs' that can be seen protruding from the target). I usually rely on the sound over the animation however.

 

I am not sure about the conditions of your testing but for the more extremes it certainly sounds a bit like lag to me. Though I, and any one else, can still agree there is a slight time lag between completed cast and hit. Also on the aesthetic note I would like some more to the animation to enforce the concept of our central attack.

[GrantyJPS]

It 'misfires' all the time, but I've seen lots of classes have that problem, so I dont think it's a Trooper thing. As for the travel time, that's true. I can fire GR and immediately try to HiB and get 2 or 3 'Target not vulnerable' messages before it will actually work because the debuff has not yet been applied.

[TrooperSol]

I have always noticed the delay in the debuff for a while. The target not vulnerable message is so annoying when attacking a new target with full stacks of charged bolts, and waiting to fire HIB a second or so after grav round hits. It also scales with distance, being farther away makes the debuf take longer to apply than being close up. I wonder if its just an aesthetic thing, where the debuff is actually there but doesn't show up for a second.

[oaceen]

i had always figured it was server lag or something, but there is some noticeable lag with grav round

 

twice this morning while running dailies, i used grav round followed by high impact bolt as the final attack on an enemy mob.

both times the victory message in chat listed grav round as the killing shot