Was just doing a GR with my WW REND Barb and got told by another player to turn off my AD as I was causing the massive amounts of lag.
Is it true AD causes massive amounts of lag?
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At high GR levels, with lots of mobs gathered, yes.
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AD can indeed cause lag but in the case of WhirlRend build the Rend itself propably causes more lag by being a DoT effect.
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Not quite true. Firstly, whirlwind rends can’t proc area damage, only manually cast rends can.
Next, in response to the OP, area damage is a source of server lag in high density due to the quadratic scaling of calculations needed. If the number of monsters in a clump double, then the number of calculations needed grows by roughly four times.
These calculations are also rather complicated since there needs to be a search algorithm (or loop over all monsters) to locate which monsters are in range if area damage procs.
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Yes, Area Damage in a group in a large density of mobs will cause lag. Would be great if they upgraded the D3 servers or recode Area Damage to have a smoother gameplay. Current solution is to not have AD on your gear and paragon.
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Thank you all for your reply’s advising AD probably causes the lag. Unfortunately I don’t want to upset others so this prevents me from playing in groups as one can not simply remove AD.
All the best from a disappointed dragon.
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Yes, removing AD reduces some builds damage and main trash clearing ability to nothing. I use my WD or hydra wizard when I run with clan mates or buds in groups, my WD literally has 0% AD even when I run solo.
So for now and maybe for ever, you’ll have to creat a different build that can be viable with AD lacking for when you want to group up higher GR’s…I honestly don’t remember this being an issue not too long ago though so not sure why it is now or if it’s just more noticeable because of all the GoD builds running amuck which utilize AD a lot.
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Mass calculations desynchronize with the server traffic due to position check for area damage procs.
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You know, I used to believe this. I don’t get how I can run a 120 with 2 DH, a WD, my WW Rend Barb, and we’re absolutely fine. Not one bit of lag happens.
Then, I can run a 105 with the same character types, with new different players, and lag all GR. Doesn’t make any sense!
Until… I got a brand new PC weeks ago. I fully believe AD has nothing to do with it. I’m starting to be more convinced that it’s more hardware related than anything.
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I was in a high level GR using an 90 Savages set barb with a group of Valor 'saders. Major lag. One of them told me the same, to disable the AD. I’m glad they humoured me long enough to finish the GR. After that I simply left.
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Not sure why you think removing AD “breaks” your build. I am guessing you do not apply rend manually so AD does nothing for you. I have never seen a pub apply rend manually and most people who do are only doing it during high gr (130+) pushes. Which I am sure you are not doing in pub games. Also you do not have to remove all your AD. You only have to remove AD from paragon. That is the only AD that lags the game.
And another tip. reverse your swords. You should always have your higher DPS weapon in your main hand… not your off hand.
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How does the source of the AD matter with respect to lagging? Doesn’t it all just get summed up into a single stat that either requres quadratic processing or not?
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Incorrect, if your total area damage is more than zero, the calculations will occur. The source of the area damage on your equipment or paragon does not matter.
I’ll clarify a little here. Yes, you want the higher damage weapon on your main hand but this is only for manually cast rends as it scales off your main hand weapon. Whirlwind-applied rends alternate between both hands so it doesn’t matter for that.
If your framerate is struggling, then that is a client side hardware issue (try turning down settings). Server lag (caused by area damage) is completely independent of your own computer’s hardware.
When the server is lagging due to area damage, you will typically notice short bursts of activity between periods of time where no one is moving or attacking. Your framerate won’t be affected at all as you will still show 60 frames per second (or w/e your system can handle), just those frames will be idle animation frames for everything.
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Unfortunately I am no expert player and am new to 100+ GR. As a result my understanding and technique may help to produce AD lag in the 105 to 115 pub games I have been playing.
If Manually adding rend includes clicking the rend button on individual mobs to reduce my insanity cool down then I use it quite often. I’d say 1 to 4 times each time I pop insanity.
I will give this a shot. Anything that helps me solo higher. Thank you.
You can do it in a rhythm. When pushing last season, I used a Rend, Rend, Whirlwind pattern. I have a video from my best clear from last season that could be helpful:
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I don’t believe it to be a hardware issue. The group wipes due to lag and then complain I am the cause.
This is an accurate description. while it is occurring the group will complain in chat. After about 10 to 15 seconds it will go back to normal but the group is all dead.
Nice vid, wish i could get this high. But it does represent pretty much what i do. I get a large pack and hit rend manually a few times.
I have tested and played a lot of 4 man games… like over 15k and I have never seen area damage on gear lag the game. It is always the area damage in paragon that causes it. If you check around with any of the top guys they will all tell you that area damage in paragon is the issue.
I’m sorry but that isn’t correct. The game checks if the character has any area damage (as in greater than 0%). If so, then the game needs to do all the extra calculations required.
The reason paragon area damage is often cited is that it’s often overlooked when swapping sets in the armory. Support “zdps” characters run with zero area damage, but if you swap between your solo build to a support build, you must manually remove your paragon points in area damage.
Many players will remind support players to remove paragon area damage because they know that they should have no area damage on gear anyways. Also, the amount of area damage doesn’t matter, it’s either 0% or more than 0% with regards to calculating effort.
Ask those top players if they agree with me.
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AD is AD, as in area damage. It’s not PAD (Paragon area damage) versus AD (area damage), game doesn’t care where the AD is located, it’s going to calculate it the same way.
If paragon AD was the only issue, then this would mean blizz put in a different calculation method for paragon AD only…and it’s not the case. I don’t put any AD points in my WD nor on items to reduce his AD to 0%. This was done for solo as well as I followed the advice of big daddy who I’m guessing knows a little about WD’s.
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These calculations are also rather complicated since there needs to be a search algorithm (or loop over all monsters) to locate which monsters are in range if area damage procs.
If they calculate it in this way it is really crasy and dev bug 
Calculation is really simple as every mob and player have position X,Y or X,Y,Z (do not know if they operate in 3D or 2D).
And simple index on mobs distance between 4 players atack target is enough. Even loop on it is not costly. They can simplify it also with permanent index on polar position.
How many mobs you have 30? Sorry but even loop over 30 items and calculate distance is really no cost at all for CPU.
They probably must check if enemy is not behind some wall. But this is also really easy in game like Diablo and not complicated maps