Ironfisto
02-22-2007, 10:09 AM
This guide is going to be quite long as it trys to explain everything on animation cancelling and its related terms. To make it reader friendly, ive organized it in such a way simpler things are explained first.
Before we begin lets have some understanding why animation cancelling is important.
1) What is animation cancelling?
Ans : It is a act of cancelling unneccessary animations to greatly reduce the downtime of your heroes to perform other actions
2) What is its main uses?
Ans : The most notable uses is in chasing. This concept as links very closely to orb walkers also.
3) What are orb walkers?
Ans : They are heroes which have orb-like arrow spell abilies like bone, viper, silencer. These heroes have the option to manual cast and autocast these skills
4) Why should i know all these?
Ans : If you want to be able to deny/lasthit/harrass very well. You will probably do better if you understand these concepts. Denying and lasthitting cannot be trained alone on practice and knowing to attack by gut-feeling.
5) So you mean if i understand this guide fully, i can master denying/lasthitting?
Ans : Yes.
So here goes;
Author: ThugLife
Topic:Mini "What is Attack Cancelling" Guide
Link: http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=121696
A LOT of people lately have been learning and hearing about attack cancelling is, which naturally leads to a lot of "what is it" questions. Here's the breakdown:
First, you need to understand the mechanics of attack,
When you run your hero up to an enemy, there will be a slight delay before they do their damage. Of course everyone notices it takes time for a melee hero to throw a punch or swing a sword, or the windup on certain heroes before they fire their projectile (think lina, she has a very long attack animation)
What this 'delay' is referred to in wc mechanics is the Damage Point. It's exactly what it sounds like. On a melee hero, it's how long from the attack's beginning until your attack produces it's damage. On a ranged hero, it's how long it takes the hero to 'wind up' and throw the projectile. Mind you this is when the projectile is launched, not when it hits, so there is obviously more delay on the damage involved as it needs to travel to its target.
So during this time before the damage point (a fraction of a second) your hero has stopped moving, and is performing an animation. If you want the attack to follow through, you naturally have to let your hero go through the motion.
However, every hero also has another animation in it's attack. This is the wind down. During this time, just like the wind up, your hero will stand still and follow through with its attack.
Fortunately, this animation serves absolutely no practical purpose (besides aesthetics) and can be stopped as simply as commanding your hero to move during it
And for the still confused, here's a frame by frame of how to do it.
Suppose you're lina, you ult your enemy, but he lives with marginal hitpoints. You have no mana left, and you know he's faster than you. Unfortunately it looks like it'll take 2 hits to bring him down and hes getting away
If you simply click on him, you'll throw a projectile, he'll likely get out of your range for the next one, get away fine, and you'll rage quit (joke)
However using attack cancelling you can get the edge you need to get more hits in on a fleeing enemy
Heres two numbers that are going to be important in explaining what you're doing
Lina's Attack Point : .75
Lina's Backswing: .78
Lina takes .75 seconds from the beginning of an attack until she fires her projectile. She then spends .78 seconds winding down her attack. This is what we're eliminating.
First step, you click your enemy, and begin your attack. You're forced to deal with the .75 second delay because you need the attack to succeed.
.75 seconds elapse, and you fire your attack. Now if you continue to do nothing, Lina will remain in place for an additional .78 seconds as she winds down her attack (i.e. wasting your goddamn time)
But thats .78 seconds during which your enemy is getting away from you. What your job to do is cut that time down. The second you see your projectile launch is the second your hero starts wasting time.
So naturally, to attack cancel, the moment you see your projectile fire, you manually get closer to that enemy hero. (assuming you're pursuing someone) Lina will stop winding down, and follow your command. Now when it comes time to fire your second attack, you're actually in position for it, so you dont have to waste precious time chasing for it.
Using this technique, you'll be able to hawk fleeing enemies down with much greater efficiency than by auto-attacking.
This takes time to practice, as your window for opportunity is fractions of a second. The best time to do it IS as soon as your projectile comes out, but don't be overzealous and cancel before you attack. It's better to err late if you must. Naturally the occasional lag will be your enemy once you've started getting used to it, but you'll get over it.
Before we begin lets have some understanding why animation cancelling is important.
1) What is animation cancelling?
Ans : It is a act of cancelling unneccessary animations to greatly reduce the downtime of your heroes to perform other actions
2) What is its main uses?
Ans : The most notable uses is in chasing. This concept as links very closely to orb walkers also.
3) What are orb walkers?
Ans : They are heroes which have orb-like arrow spell abilies like bone, viper, silencer. These heroes have the option to manual cast and autocast these skills
4) Why should i know all these?
Ans : If you want to be able to deny/lasthit/harrass very well. You will probably do better if you understand these concepts. Denying and lasthitting cannot be trained alone on practice and knowing to attack by gut-feeling.
5) So you mean if i understand this guide fully, i can master denying/lasthitting?
Ans : Yes.
So here goes;
Author: ThugLife
Topic:Mini "What is Attack Cancelling" Guide
Link: http://forums.dota-allstars.com/index.php?showtopic=121696
A LOT of people lately have been learning and hearing about attack cancelling is, which naturally leads to a lot of "what is it" questions. Here's the breakdown:
First, you need to understand the mechanics of attack,
When you run your hero up to an enemy, there will be a slight delay before they do their damage. Of course everyone notices it takes time for a melee hero to throw a punch or swing a sword, or the windup on certain heroes before they fire their projectile (think lina, she has a very long attack animation)
What this 'delay' is referred to in wc mechanics is the Damage Point. It's exactly what it sounds like. On a melee hero, it's how long from the attack's beginning until your attack produces it's damage. On a ranged hero, it's how long it takes the hero to 'wind up' and throw the projectile. Mind you this is when the projectile is launched, not when it hits, so there is obviously more delay on the damage involved as it needs to travel to its target.
So during this time before the damage point (a fraction of a second) your hero has stopped moving, and is performing an animation. If you want the attack to follow through, you naturally have to let your hero go through the motion.
However, every hero also has another animation in it's attack. This is the wind down. During this time, just like the wind up, your hero will stand still and follow through with its attack.
Fortunately, this animation serves absolutely no practical purpose (besides aesthetics) and can be stopped as simply as commanding your hero to move during it
And for the still confused, here's a frame by frame of how to do it.
Suppose you're lina, you ult your enemy, but he lives with marginal hitpoints. You have no mana left, and you know he's faster than you. Unfortunately it looks like it'll take 2 hits to bring him down and hes getting away
If you simply click on him, you'll throw a projectile, he'll likely get out of your range for the next one, get away fine, and you'll rage quit (joke)
However using attack cancelling you can get the edge you need to get more hits in on a fleeing enemy
Heres two numbers that are going to be important in explaining what you're doing
Lina's Attack Point : .75
Lina's Backswing: .78
Lina takes .75 seconds from the beginning of an attack until she fires her projectile. She then spends .78 seconds winding down her attack. This is what we're eliminating.
First step, you click your enemy, and begin your attack. You're forced to deal with the .75 second delay because you need the attack to succeed.
.75 seconds elapse, and you fire your attack. Now if you continue to do nothing, Lina will remain in place for an additional .78 seconds as she winds down her attack (i.e. wasting your goddamn time)
But thats .78 seconds during which your enemy is getting away from you. What your job to do is cut that time down. The second you see your projectile launch is the second your hero starts wasting time.
So naturally, to attack cancel, the moment you see your projectile fire, you manually get closer to that enemy hero. (assuming you're pursuing someone) Lina will stop winding down, and follow your command. Now when it comes time to fire your second attack, you're actually in position for it, so you dont have to waste precious time chasing for it.
Using this technique, you'll be able to hawk fleeing enemies down with much greater efficiency than by auto-attacking.
This takes time to practice, as your window for opportunity is fractions of a second. The best time to do it IS as soon as your projectile comes out, but don't be overzealous and cancel before you attack. It's better to err late if you must. Naturally the occasional lag will be your enemy once you've started getting used to it, but you'll get over it.