In
this guide, I have a quick tip on animation cancelling in the Lord
of the Rings Online. This method of combat allows you to increase DPS,
quickly finish skills, and potentially smoothen gameplay.
This
guide has three parts:
· Overview on animation cancelling with video examples
· Class-by-class animation cancelling abilities
· Closing notes
In
this guide, you may notice the use of the words “ability”
and “skill”, these refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably.
Animation Cancelling Overview
In
LOTRO, ability speeds are inherent properties of every ability in the game that
determine how fast your skill will trigger when you press or click the button
to activate the ability. The three possible speeds are:
· Normal (no text is displayed)
· Fast
· Immediate
By
using an immediate ability, your character instantly stops
what they are doing to perform the action of the immediate ability. Thus, cancelling
the animation.
Animation
cancelling has three basic steps:
1.
Use an ability (that you want to
cancel the animation of)
2.
Wait for the ability to trigger
(usually a fraction of a second)
3.
Use an immediate ability
This
is often done with powerful, long-animation abilities to quickly trigger the
full attack/benefits of the ability to skip the animation and be able to
quickly use your other abilities.
One
important note is on what immediate abilities you
use. Most immediate abilities provide some utility or strong benefit to you or
your group. It may be wise to save their use for when needed, to not ‘waste’
them on DPS and faster actions.
Many
immediate abilities interrupt inductions, a powerful effect.
Below
is a video showing animation cancelling (right) as it compares to the normal
animation of abilities (left) on a few classes with some popular combinations
of abilities to animation cancel.
Immediate Skills by Class
Below
is a list of immediate skills that can be used to animation cancel (excluding long
CD skills) sorted by class, alphabetically.
Beorning
Viscious Claws – Interrupts
inductions and deals damage (gaining other benefits from class traits).
Burglar
Addle
– Interrupts inductions and increases
induction time. Improved Addle adds a tactical damage debuff to the enemy.
Double-edged Strike – Unlocked by a critical hit at the
start of the critical chain, it deals damage and opens critical chain finishers.
Captain
Kick
– Interrupts inductions and deals
damage.
Champion
Clobber – Interrupts inductions and deals
damage. Costs 1 fervour.
Battle Frenzy –
Yellow line -
adds fervour.
Sweeping Riposte – Blue
line - available after parrying, it deals AoE damage.
Sudden Defence – Blue
line - adds a personal bubble, absorbing damage.
Unbreakable – Blue
line - defensive buff that increase morale and tactical mitigation. After being
hit, Mighty Roar unlocks, another immediate skill that deals AoE damage.
Guardian
Stamp
– Interrupts inductions and deals
damage.
Ignore the Pain – Removes debuffs.
Hunters do not get an immediate skill (that is used to animation
cancel).
Lore Masters
do not get an immediate skill (that
is used to animation cancel).
Minstrel
Cry of the Chorus – gives a buff, based on stance, to improve
ballads and codas among other boosts.
Gift of the Hammerhand – Gives a bubble to the target, absorbing
damage.
Soliloquy of Spirit – Blue
line – heals the target.
Rune Keeper
Final Word – interrupts the target, attuning 3
neutral attunement. Improved Final Word removes up to 3 corruptions.
Word of Exaltation – Gives a bubble to the target, absorbing
damage.
Essay of Exaltation – Blue
line – ground targeted ability that gives a bubble to nearby allies, absorbing
damage.
Wardens
do not get an immediate skill.
Closing Thoughts
Cancelling
animations can allow you to continue to use other abilities in combat faster,
ultimately allowing for more damage or the ability to use important abilities
earlier. For classes with long animations, such as Guardians and Champions, it
can make gameplay feel smoother, allowing for some skills to have a more
immediate impact (such as Sweeping Cut). Frequently, animation
cancelling will just increase kill speed, however, it may save you sometimes! It
is often important to save immediate utility skills for their use and not
use them just for animation cancelling. This is especially true with cooldowns
and interrupts!
On
a personal note, I am not a big fan of animation cancelling being a thing, in
particularly of it being needed for a class to perform optimally. I believe any
utility skill that has a niche use should not have a use for animation
cancelling. On the other hand, it is important for interrupts and similar
skills to go off quickly after their use – for some classes with long
animations, having them immediately go off is important.
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As
I work on class mini guides, I have noticed some important game mechanics that
are worth their own topic. I will be formatting mini guides knowing that these
have been or will be released. As the game mechanic topics come up, I will
focus on those guides. Otherwise, I am still working on class mini guides!