If you are already pro at this I guess you can ignore this post (or maybe add to it as I bet I have missed something!)
What am I talking about here?
Weaving in (adding to your combat rotations) Light Attacks and partially charged Heavy Attacks in between Ability attacks (known as medium attacks) using animation cancelling.
This is something I only really personally became aware of myself when taking up ESO again early this year and deciding to research endgame a little more and other performance improvements such as this. Although apparently this has been used and talked about by many players since release I believe?
Firstly this is NOT officially an exploit as far as ZOS are concerned.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/150072/zos-please-stop-animation-canceling-aka-spell-weaving
(Read the responses – nowhere have ZOS officially said this is an exploit as far as I am aware. It has only been mentioned as “being part of the game” by developers – whether this was intended or not is a separate issue.)
Some players seem to like it and others do not, you will have to try it yourself and make your own choice. All I am doing here is letting people know about it and explaining it as best as I can and giving information and links.
So why do it?
It can greatly increase your DPS and help with resource management.
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-GB/discussion/241204/what-exactly-is-meant-by-weaving
It’s fun?
Well maybe, I guess this is a personal choice. I like it as I feel it adds a bit more complexity and choice to your actions during combat. Also I am a bit of a DPS junky so anything that adds more DPS is pretty much always good as far as I am concerned.
So what exactly makes Animation Cancelling (A.C.) work?
There are a lot of good video’s that demonstrate how it works; I have linked some of these at the bottom of this post.
Basically due to the priority order of your combat actions you can end the animation for an action early by activating a higher priority action.
The priority works as follows (1. Being the lowest priority)
1. Light Attacks/Heavy Attacks.
2. Class and Weapon Abilities.
3. Dodge Roll and Weapon Swap.
4. Blocking.
So how do I use that priority in order to help me?
There are many combinations possible and the effectiveness of AC varies on the ability and weapon type used. I don’t have the time or the knowledge to explain every option, (this is something you will have to experiment with) but here is the most common option I use on my Stamina Night Blade at the moment.
Heavy Attack – Surprise Attack – Bash
The Heavy attack is cancelled early (about halfway through the animation) followed by the Surprise Attack Ability and then Bash as fast as possible right after. This enables you to dish out more DPS than if you let all these 3 actions fully complete their animations before starting the next action.
Here are some other more general AC options you can try out.
Animation cancelling to increase DPS, some common rotations.
1. Light Attack (LA) – Ability (A)
2. LA - A - Block (B) (or Bash)
3. A-B
4. Heavy Attack (HA) – Ability (Also known as medium weaving)
5. HA – A – B (or Bash)
6. Dodge roll and weapon swap also cancel ability animations.
You will possibly find these ideas easier to grasp from watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLZzGoPp9Ug
or this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZYoEztDilE
You can also find videos explaining the use of weaving specific skills like this one about Rapid Strikes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7mbaNHtt6I
One particular PvP implementation of this commonly used at present is the Wrecking blow spam, certain abilities with longer animations (Like Wrecking Blow) have to be cancelled at specfic times for maximum effect. You will have to practice with your skills of choice to see what works for you. Also bear in mind that game lag can have a big effect for your timing of AC.
How to Wrecking Blow and LA HA weave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIz6J_c9GQc
There are many other guides and videos other players have linked on this whole subject just search under Animation Cancelling and/or Weaving.
This is quite a complex detailed topic so please feel free to add and contribute.
