From what I understand, Kinetic Melee has the shortest AS animation because it has the longest Build-up animation.
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Hmm that's not it. According to Mids, KM build has a 1.17 second cast time which is the same as the BU in all of the other primaries except for Spines and Claws. Those two are even shorter at 0.73 seconds but their AS are just 3 seconds, not 3.67 like DB and BS. Odd.
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Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
From what I understand, Kinetic Melee has the shortest AS animation because it has the longest Build-up animation.
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I am more inclined to believe it's a case of the "tail wagging the dog". i.e. The cast times are that long because the animation they chose for that particular AS took around that long to complete. Historically, the devs did not pay much attention to the impact of animation/cast times on performance. It was not originally part of their damage/recharge/endurance balance equation for powers.
I also wonder if KM might be something of a low-key experiment on Stalkers. It has a shorter than usual Assassin Strike animation and a 100% crit chance PBAoE power. Could be Castle is reclining in his evil underground lair watching the data go by... plotting. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid. 
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Or it could be Castle's left...
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Originally Posted by Zem
Could be Castle is reclining in his evil underground lair watching the data go by... plotting. Or maybe I'm just being paranoid.
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Mmmm, I level my Kin/Dark to 50 3 days ago and it feels like Build Up is faster now? It's back to 1.17s?
What's left is to normalize all Assassin Strikes and improve Stalker's old sets (Claw, MA and EM)! You don't need to bring back the missing PbAoE attack. You just need to make the existing ones better! For example, make Slice a WIDER and LONGER cone.
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Hmpf.. guess I should read Dev digest once in a while.
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Originally Posted by Diggis
Or it could be Castle's left...
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KM's Build Up cast time was reduced after the set went live - it was the 1.93 seconds that Power Siphon has initially. But I still couldn't tell you why the variations in cast times exist on KM's Assassin's Strike, Assassin's Blade (it's NB, not DB, btw), and Assassin's Slash. It's not weapon draw since Spines and Claws also have a draw, albeit a shorter one.
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Originally Posted by baron_inferno
Hmm that's not it. According to Mids, KM build has a 1.17 second cast time which is the same as the BU in all of the other primaries except for Spines and Claws. Those two are even shorter at 0.73 seconds but their AS are just 3 seconds, not 3.67 like DB and BS. Odd.
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Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle
it has gone from unconscionable to downright appalling that we have no way of measuring our characters' wetness.
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Originally Posted by Brillig
It's hard to beat the entertainment value of Whackjob Wednesdays.
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I see. It's been a long while since I've made it to test server so I had no idea it was changed. That would've made sense had KM retained the old cast time. |
Originally Posted by Siolfir
KM's Build Up cast time was reduced after the set went live - it was the 1.93 seconds that Power Siphon has initially.
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| But I still couldn't tell you why the variations in cast times exist on KM's Assassin's Strike, Assassin's Blade (it's NB, not DB, btw), and Assassin's Slash. |
So I have several stalkers, each with different primaries (NB, DB, MA, KM) and something has been bugging me for quite some time now. Maybe this question has been addressed in the past but why is there a great variance between the cast/animation time for AS belonging to different primaries? For example, for BS and DB it's the longest at 3.67 seconds. For KM it's 2.67 which happens to be the shortest. Everything else is at 3 seconds. Between the cast times of AS for DB/BS and KM sits a 28% difference which is somewhat significant in my opinion. This is especially strange considering the damage, accuracy, endurance cost, terrorize duration, interrupt and range is exactly the same across the board. If anything, primaries with only lethal damage (possibly the most resisted type in CoX) should have the shortest animation time instead of KM. I just can't figure out the logic behind these rather arbitrary variances.
One possibility does remain though. Perhaps the devs are using KM as a guinea pig to test out shortened AS cast time and in the future they intend on making that universal across the board. Any ideas, explanations or otherwise?