Crab gun redraw time?

[Scientist]

So when I was setting up my Crab build back on Live, a goal was to avoid any Soldier gun attacks, because the redraw animation slowed things down in a rotation.  My understanding is that late in the game, there was an animation pass by BABs so that redraws would not slow down animations, but I never revised the build.  Does it now make sense to use the first two Gun attacks, which are faster animations, in place of Channelgun and Longfang?  The AoEs (Venom Grenade, etc.) seem to be equivalent, though Suppression on the Crab of course has double the arc.  

 

I realize Channelgun has energy damage, which is less resisted than the lethal of Single Shot, but Single Shot is also 1 sec instead of 1.6 sec, for example.  

 

Also, does anyone happen to know if the gun redraw animation is one of the ones that can be turned off at the Tailor?  

[Justisaur]

VEATs can't turn off redraw.  It's really my biggest annoyance with my Bane, as I like to use VG & WAWG, both cause redraw from my mace.  I was thinking of taking either Frag Grenade or Heavy Burst too for some more AoE.  The redraw definately slows down attacks considerably when it happens, I'm not sure exactly how much it adds, but it's quite noticeable, and I'd guess 1.5 seconds, but that may just be my annoyance at it.   I find myself waiting for both VG & WAWG to be up before using them, and use them together so I suffer the least amount of redraw.

[Scientist]

So it sounds like what I might gain in animation time by using the gun ST attacks in place of the Crab ST attacks, I'm likely to lose in redraw time.  I'm not willing to give up the huge Suppression cone from Crab, which is also energy damage, so back to Crab attacks it is.  Thanks for the info!  

[Jeneki]

What I did on my Bane is organize my attacks into groups, to minimize redraw annoyance.

 

Step 1) Start with gun AoE attacks.  Venom, burst, and if any small fry are left toss the frag.  By this time the group is probably doing cleanup.

 

Step 2) Switch to the mace, and single-target the remaining hard targets into paste.

 

Once I switch to mace-mode, I do not switch back to gun unless it's a long drawn out AV fight and I want to re-venom.

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by Jeneki

[Timepants]

The animation pass at the end of the game was bigger than most people thought, actually. Now, redraw doesn't change the actual animation time of an attack. The full animation will still play if you let it, but if you're diligent about queuing your next attack while the current one is going, it'll now do a sort of animation cancel after the regular Arcanatime runs out and chain into the next attack faster.

 

So yeah, break out that gun! I do it all the time on my mace-Banermind to get my full -Res suite up. Give it a shot and see for yourself!

[Justisaur]

I'm pretty sure it takes a lot longer for that first attack after switching to hit, but I'll give queuing an attack a try, I'm always afraid to try that because if my last one isn't done and I don't see the white circling that it'll do the other attack, and the order is important.

 

I also do group my attacks, but really all I have right now is WAWG and VG in the wolf set, though thinking of trading to more.  It's probably more valuable to switch on a bane, as the ST attacks on Bane are a lot better, and the AoE attacks on Wolf are a lot better, where Crab is AoE & AoE, and you can get VG in the Crab attack set if you prefer to have suppression I agree it's one of the better looking attacks, and don't like skipping out on it on the crab side, it's also a wider cone than HB, which is nice.

[Scientist]

On 7/25/2019 at 1:25 PM, Timepants said:

The animation pass at the end of the game was bigger than most people thought, actually. Now, redraw doesn't change the actual animation time of an attack. The full animation will still play if you let it, but if you're diligent about queuing your next attack while the current one is going, it'll now do a sort of animation cancel after the regular Arcanatime runs out and chain into the next attack faster.

Good to know, I'm discussing this with a friend who is going to dual build Crab/Bane, it will change both my and his powers chosen.  I actually kind of like the gun models, but Suppression is too awesome to give up.  

 

Do you happen to know if anyone has tested this for the VEAT powers, btw?  Sometimes the devs did forget about HEATs and VEATs when rebalancing things. . . 

[Timepants]

 

On 7/26/2019 at 7:07 PM, Justisaur said:

I'm pretty sure it takes a lot longer for that first attack after switching to hit, but I'll give queuing an attack a try, I'm always afraid to try that because if my last one isn't done and I don't see the white circling that it'll do the other attack, and the order is important.

 

I also do group my attacks, but really all I have right now is WAWG and VG in the wolf set, though thinking of trading to more.  It's probably more valuable to switch on a bane, as the ST attacks on Bane are a lot better, and the AoE attacks on Wolf are a lot better, where Crab is AoE & AoE, and you can get VG in the Crab attack set if you prefer to have suppression I agree it's one of the better looking attacks, and don't like skipping out on it on the crab side, it's also a wider cone than HB, which is nice.

It changes where the damage "hits" in the animation, which can make it feel slower than it actually is. And you gotta be good about queueing your next attack, or then it'll play the full animation which is lame. But it's less of a problem now than it was, which is nice.

 

But yeah, it's more important on a Bane than a Crab, which can kind of partition ST to the gun and AoE to the legs or just go full crab people if it wants. 

59 minutes ago, Scientist said:

Good to know, I'm discussing this with a friend who is going to dual build Crab/Bane, it will change both my and his powers chosen.  I actually kind of like the gun models, but Suppression is too awesome to give up.  

 

Do you happen to know if anyone has tested this for the VEAT powers, btw?  Sometimes the devs did forget about HEATs and VEATs when rebalancing things. . . 

 VEATs were the ones my testin' buddies and I tested it on; we originally were testing switching between mace for Shatter Armor and claws for Night Widows (which is its own can of weird spaghetti code worms), and they're the ones most affected by redraw issues most of the time. 

[Justisaur]

I might just have been feeling shatter's animation time as it's SO LONG (2.33 sec) - also because when I switch to mace I'm often doing something like survailence, placate, build up, shatter which a bit more than 5 seconds before I do damage.  It does 'feel' longer when going back to venom grenade then going WAWG, but it's really hard to say without taking some video or something to go through what it's doing.  I suppose I could do that as it's bugging me.

 

Update: I took a video and went over it for about half an hour.  It appears Timepants is right at least with bane mace attacks.  They're still taking the same amount of time switching, but switching changes when the attack goes off in the cycle to near the end, so it feels like it's taking longer, but it's pretty clear it just changes the timing so there's a wider gap between the last attack with one weapon and the first attack with the next, then a really short gap to the second attack with the same weapon, which amplifies the feeling.  It's a lot easier to see this when watching the video than trying to tell while playing.  Overall you aren't losing any time, but may take ever so slightly longer to put a killing blow on something when switching, but then evens out for the next attack.

 

Venom Grenade and WAWG seem to both be taking longer than they should though, each about 2.1 seconds instead of 1.65 as stated in the power info.  I'm not sure if this is due to switching (switching to for the first power, switching from for the second) or if the activations are just longer than the info says- since those are my only wolf powers, I suspect they're just longer than stated, since the bane powers aren't affected, and they have the same long/short attack landing in the animation, but hard to say for sure.  I could switch to my leveling build which had more wolf powers and check there, but didn't think of it last night, or just have patience and let the attacks refresh and try again.  I may try that tonight.

Edited July 30, 2019 by Justisaur

[Scientist]

I assume the Venom Grenade you are testing is from the gun, right?  Pines builder lists both the gun and Crab venom grenade as having a 1.848 sec animation, part way between the 1.65 you see and the 2.1 sec you measure.  Same animation for WAWG from the gun, a Crab doesn't get that.  

[Justisaur]

Yes, I'm a bane, not a crab so they both come from the wolf gun.  The in game info says 1.65 sec on both wolf gun powers, I see 1.84 in pines for the wolf gun ones too, perhaps there was some increase in activation time at some point that wasn't included in the power info?  It's appears slightly longer than that but .2-.3 seconds is pretty hard to validate in video.

[Scientist]

A friend of mine told me that many powers have their actual effect take place before the end of the animation, so perhaps the Venom Grenade takes effect at 1.65 sec, and the animation finishes and lets you do something else at 1.84 sec?  For attack chaining purposes you might want to use the latter number, but for purposes of something not shooting back at you maybe the former.  He said Suppression is especially pronounced this way, a long listed animation time but it starts doing damage pretty early in it.