Mobs Reacting to Snipes Before Snipe Is Fired

[Rudra]

I'm running through the Brickstown Safeguard and every time I go to snipe an enemy at range, they turn and charge me before I even fire my snipe. I'm running an Elec'/Elec' Dominator and the snipe is Zapp.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

I'm running through the Brickstown Safeguard and every time I go to snipe an enemy at range, they turn and charge me before I even fire my snipe.

 

Based on previous conversations about other issues, I'm making the assumption that you are well on the long side of the snipe range, that you are not targeting other snipers, and you don't think it is lag related.

 

Also I guess it should be ask if you are running it solo or if someone else might be alerting the enemies of danger.

[Rudra]

There were 2 of us. My Dominator and her Beast Mastery MM. However, the 2 of us were almost never anywhere near each other as we worked on different parts of the map looking for the Warhulks. I was at long range and nothing was reacting to my presence, and she was nowhere near me or the spawn each time. There were no sniper class mobs on the map. And each time I went to snipe a Council Eclipse Nightwolf Champion, Galaxy Adjutant, or a support mob near them, the entire spawn would turn to face me at long range and immediately run into long range for their attacks and start attacking me while my snipe was building up. However, they never interrupted my snipe, even when they fired before me, despite me not having anything to reduce the snipe's interrupt time and the snipe being the long form version. If it helps any, they never reacted at the start of the snipe. I'm not entirely sure, but I think they were reacting after a short form snipe time.

 

Edit: I should also point out that after we cleared the map and exited the mission, I could snipe foes normally again.

 

Edited June 15 by Rudra

[Frozen Burn]

 

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

I'm running through the Brickstown Safeguard and every time I go to snipe an enemy at range, they turn and charge me before I even fire my snipe. I'm running an Elec'/Elec' Dominator and the snipe is Zapp.

 

I have noticed this issue with some Blaster snipes too.  Solo and being out of normal blast range but within snipe range, of course.  I don't remember which powersets i was on at the time, but I've experienced this often enough.

 

I am wondering if has something to do with the secondary effect that a snipe might have.  Similar to what was recently reported in another thread with Cryo-Freeze Ray where the hold takes place before the power actually finishes.  In this case, the -End debuff of Zapp aggros the mob before the snipe and damage animate / hit.  

[Calculator]

I had this happen on Excelsior with one toon (an Energy/Shield stalker), and on Torchbearer with four toons ([Energy|Electric|Dark|Fire]/Shield stalkers) last night (Friday). It was pretty severe..at least half-a-second.

 

I checked this morning and it was essentially non-existent..probably due to server load.

 

I posted about the MapServer Event awhile ago..and this seems, to me, to be the same type of client update lag talked about there.

 

Since the mobs are turning to face me before my Assassin's Strike goes off and my invis drops, I'm assuming there is a processing priority assigned to the different types of client update packets. The fact that mobs turn before the power animation is complete tells me that packets are coming in timely and network lag isn't the cause.

 

The only things I can think of (sans source code) would be the way the client prioritizes update actions..or, priority-based server updates. I'm sure there are other things it could be, as well...

[Greycat]

Hmm. Quick run through a few -

 

Elec/elec blaster, running around open world mobs (Tsoo, Freakshow, Family) - no reaction like that. Slotted with SOs.

Dark/Dark dom, open world, Carnies, Malta, Posessed Scientists - no reaciton like that. SO/standard IO

Fire/fire blaster, open world, Warriors, Tsoo, COT - dropped an Executioner's chance for disorient in to see if that did anything - no reaction.

 

So... yeah.

[Rudra]

21 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Hmm. Quick run through a few -

 

Elec/elec blaster, running around open world mobs (Tsoo, Freakshow, Family) - no reaction like that. Slotted with SOs.

Dark/Dark dom, open world, Carnies, Malta, Posessed Scientists - no reaciton like that. SO/standard IO

Fire/fire blaster, open world, Warriors, Tsoo, COT - dropped an Executioner's chance for disorient in to see if that did anything - no reaction.

 

So... yeah.

Yeah, like I said in my 2nd post, after we finished clearing the Safeguard and exited the map, my snipe resumed working correctly. I don't get it other than it is inconsistent.

[Greycat]

*nod* Mostly just throwing more data points in. (Which is why I was mentioning slotting, mobs and that it was open world vs. mission.)

[RikOz]

I get a chuckle when targets of my SS characters' Hurl do their dodge animation before I've even finished ripping up the floor. The odd part is that they "dodge", but are otherwise not aggroed. That is, aside from the dodge animation, they don't react to my presence until the rock actually hits (or misses) them.

 

I've seen similar things with any kind of ranged attack.

 

It's also puzzling when I pull up short, just out of aggro range, and the entire spawn turns to face me, as if they've seen me ... but then they do nothing until I actually attack or move into aggro range. Like we're just having a staring contest until I cross that invisible line.

[srmalloy]

7 hours ago, RikOz said:

I've seen similar things with any kind of ranged attack.

Back before the effect delay was taken out of Rain of Arrows, I would regularly see spawns aggroing on me the instant the animation started, even when I had Stealth running, a Celerity:+Stealth in Sprint active, and had been doing the micro-move dance to get into power range, so I know I was at max range for the power, outside of normal aggro range. Now that the damage takes effect with no delay, I still see them aggro, but I don't worry about being taken down before the attack fires.

[Bo7a]

Just one more data point - My Poison/Fire def experiences this fairly regularly, and is 100% repeatable when sniping council in PI radio missions. Setup is out of combat from max snipe range and solo.

[srmalloy]

I'm also annoyed that every single mob seems to have millimetric-wave counterbattery radar running 24/7/365; when my AR/EM Blaster fires off a Snipe, the rest of the spawn with my target instantly knows exactly where I am and comes charging straight for me -- I can understand this for, say, Fire Blast, where your snipe draws a bright line straight back to you, but there's no visible projectile for AR (yeah, I know, it's a balance issue, but...). The only exception is when I'm far enough away that I need Boost Range to hit them, in which case it generally takes two snipes before the rest of the spawn aggros; I can only imagine the conversation -- "Hey, Frank fell over."  "Must not have eaten his Hero-Os this morning."  "Now Joe fell over. We're under fire! They're on the roof across the zone; get them!"