Seriously. There have been SO many threads lately about animation cancelling; light attack weaving almost invariably gets lumped into those discussions.
I'm assuming that those of you who claim light attack weaving is an exploit have not played many MMORPGs before and do not understand why light/heavy attacks were added to this game. Most old-school MMORPGs (think EverQuest, WoW, LOTRO, etc.) had/have combat systems that feature passive auto-attacks. Auto-attacks provide small amounts of melee or ranged damage, and generally fire off during the global skill cooldown (GCD). Players have ZERO control over auto-attacks, though some of these games do allow you to turn them off (resulting in a small DPS decrease) if you don't like them, or if having auto-attacks turned on results in accidental enemy aggro. A lot of macro and animation cancelling setups in other games require careful timing to make the most of auto-attacks. See this hunter build for LOTRO as an example:
http://heedlesstosspotts.shivtr.com/forum_threads/2372522
Relevant quote (again, for a hunter in LOTRO):
No matter how well the following things chain skills or cancel animation, your auto-attacks can do both. Don't jam an auto-attack together with a skill, but do try to time skills right after an auto-attack animation begins (the animation begins before your character actually moves to shoot). It is essential to master the timing between each auto-attack. This will make your skill transitions smoother than an oiled butt. If you screw up and use it too late after the auto-attack animation begins, you'll get a short animation lock.
Guess what ESO had in alpha? You guessed it! Auto-attacks. Long-term MMO players and Elder Scrolls fans wanted a more active combat system, however -- one not reliant on the traditional auto-attacks, auto-blocks, auto-dodging, and tab-targetting that defined old school MMOs. Light and heavy attacks were born. Like auto-attacks, light/heavy attacks provide a small amount of ranged or melee damage. Like auto-attacks, they should be weaved between skills during the GCD. Like auto-attacks, their animations can be cancelled by firing off a skill as soon as the animation starts to increase DPS slightly.
ESO is not the only MMO that made the transition away from auto-attacking. Active light damaging skills are used in other modern MMORPGs as well. Not everyone has been a fan of that transition (see this reddit thread, for example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/43euzg/discussion_where_did_the_auto_attack_go/ ), but many of us have been, because combat is now far more engaging. It's awesome that we can fire off light attacks ourselves, rather than letting the game do it for us during the GCD. It's also awesome that we can block and dodge attacks ourselves, rather than letting the game do it for us based on our block/dodge stats.
In sum, please stop suggesting that weaving with light damage attacks is an "exploit." It's something that has existed passively in MMORPGs for many, many, many years.
EDIT: And in case you needed any further proof that light attack weaving is not an exploit and is actually supported by ZOS, three cheers to
@Eremith
It's not an exploit anymore.
![:smile:]( ":smile:")
Official proof:
![iJy2v9G.jpg]()
