Talk:Activation time

There's another article titled "Activation Time" that has more accurate information. erm, I don't know how to do the whole redirecting thingy... (Terra Xin 09:55, 30 April 2007 (EDT))
 * Done. For reference, just replace the content of the page with, and you're done. --Dirigible 10:20, 30 April 2007 (EDT)
 * I want to point out that if the article naming policy passes the articles will have to be switched around. Just so if it passes and I forget to switch it later on, someone else will see the note and maybe do it for me. - B e X  10:39, 30 April 2007 (EDT)

"The activation lag is zero for queued skills, they activate as soon as the previous skill in the queue activated (and the aftercast delay for that skill passed)." Huh? It sounds like the writer was expecting (thanks to another game, probably) an additional delay between skill activations other than aftercast. Or maybe I've forgotten all game mechanics... -- Mafaraxas  22:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
 * When skills are queued, the queue can exist on two places: on your client or on the game server. If the queue is stored on the client, the activation lag (whatever your lag is to the game server) would apply to the queued skill, but this is not the case, the queue is on the server so there is no lag in the skill activation. (However there is lag in the cancellation/overwriting of the queue, so when you try to change the queued skill to another one, often you can't do that even though the activation of the first skill hasn't even finished yet, because the queue is stored on the server, and by the time the server received your request for change queue, the activation of the queued skill has already started.)--Brainless Thought 20:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Really, really fast
If you decrease your casting time to a quarter of what it would've been - let's say via MoR and Mindbender - and then use a 0.25 second skill your character won't perform the casting move, not even really fast. Ɲ oɕʈɋɽɕɧ  04:00, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I always thought the minimum cast time you could attain was .25 seconds....though I could be wrong. [[Image:User Wandering Traveler Sig2.png|19px]] Wandering Traveler  04:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * At least it's somewhere around 0.0625 seconds. A stack of ectos if you interrupt that (not random). Ɲ oɕʈɋɽɕɧ  04:02, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Instant_casting.jpg|600px]]
 * The chances of interrupting it go way up if you operate under the assumption the caster is spamming it, or will use it immediately after another skill; you can time the interrupt relative to aftercast to have it land immediately when they would start casting. --[[Image:User Mafaraxas_sigimg.jpg|click moar]] Mafaraxas 05:29, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

how come air of superiority....
is listed both under skills with aftercast delays, and Skills without aftercast delays which cannot be activated in mid-action. One says it has a delay, and the other says it doesn't.216.119.178.127 00:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Some missed details...
I would like to suggest to add an explanation of some particular, but important details about activation. I can't do this because don't know exactly how they do work, only have some guesses...

1. Need to mention the progress bar which shows an activation process of long-activated skills. It seems for me, that time threshold is about 2 sec. For example, Ray of Judgment has 2 sec activation and this bar is usually visible, but when HCT in staff/wand is triggered, activation decreases to 1 sec and the bar isn't shown. However, the real behaviour of bar between 1 and 2 sec is unclear because need to decrease the activation time by small values. Maybe someone can do such test with Mesmer, increasing Fast Casting step-by-step.

2. "Attempting to move during a long activation time... will cancel the skill" (citation from Fizzle). But it's unclear, which exact time is counted as long. I suppose, also basing on my practice, a long time is a time when a progress bar is shown. For example, Ray of Judgment can be cancelled by moving when bar is visible and can't be in the case of HCT, without bar. Also would be well to confirm this and reflect in article.

3. "Attempting to activate a targeted skill while the target is out of range will cause you to follow the target...". The problem is, not all targeted skills behave according to this rule. For example, shout "You Move Like a Dwarf!" can't be activated if target is out of range: character doesn't attempt to move to a target (error message is shown instead). Whether this is a common feature of targeted shouts, or skills with zero activation, or maybe some other group, I don't know yet. --Slavic 18:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Is there also a list of items and skills that reduce activation time? -Decollete 14:49, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

confusion
is the activation time the time between when you click on a skill button and when the skill actually fires in game. if so, then why don't we just say that the activation time is the time between when you click on a skill and when it happens rather than, "The activation time begins as soon as the player activates the skill, and ends after that time has passed." thus changing 'after that time has passed' to 'when the skill starts'?

Also, does the activation occur when we see those ripples on the skill button in-game? 70.126.102.22 04:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Big changes.
I made them. Problems? &mdash; Raine Valen    17:10, 7 Sep 2010 (UTC)

Activation Cap
Not sure if this is true or not, but i did some testing and apparently :

Healers Boon + Holy Haste =

50% less activation from Healers boon, and 50% activation from holy haste. Technically, if you had a 4 second cast spell (such as restore life) the activation would be 4 seconds/2 = 2seconds/2 = 1 second. however this is not the case. I ended up with a 2 second activation time for restore life.

Now either there is a cap on activation time, or whether activation time increasing/decreasing cant be stacked. I don't see this mentioned in the article so it should be added as a note. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.239.166.194 (talk &bull; contribs) at 09:29, 30 June 2011 (UTC).

Overhaul
I've overhauled the article as follows:
 * Rewritten the introduction to emphasize what activation is (and then qualify it after).
 * Combined various like ideas (sometimes moving them to a new section):
 * The list of specific skill types was overly long (and mostly said the same thing: activation time is as stated in the description).
 * Some of the comments under attack skills applied generally to all skills.
 * Some notes were moved to the section to which they were specific.
 * Removed some of the aftercast delay details; those properly belong in the relevant article (this article focuses on activation time).
 * Reworded almost all the examples to emphasize the concept being exemplified (there were often color details that distracted).
 * Created a Notes section (and, in keeping with similar articles, moved it above the fold, i.e. before the long list of specific skills).
 * Extended the See also, since many of the concepts are more complex than covered in this article.
 * Added a stubbed section for effects that influence activation time (since there are several).

I think the article could probably use one more major edit and it's probably missing a couple of key notes (e.g. with regard to specific caps on activation times). — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 18:17, 30 June 2011 (UTC)