Is there a place for this in OW?
If it does, why do some heroes are allowed to have multiple animation cancels and some are allowed none?
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they’re working on that
Well, I am inclined to believe that animation cancels goes against Blizzard philosophy of “polish”, but yeah we got some of these in the game. The ones that come to mind are Tracers melee + recall, Genji cancelling the animation of deflect or dragonblade with a wallclimb, Reaper with the reload + melee…
It’s really not an intended or overpowered thing, don’t know if Blizzard cares enough to remove them. The only OP animation cancel I saw was the Brigitte one, and they patched it.
Most of the “animation cancels” in overwatch aren’t actually animation cancels any. For instance, reapers melee + reload isn’t. You’re not really cancelling anything because you still can’t shoot till the animation would have been over. It just gives you something to do during it.
By the large though, as pointed out, they have been slowly vanishing as Blizzard addresses them.
Genji’s deflect animation cancel is actually a bit op, as you don’t know when you can shoot him again after he uses it. It gives him a bit too much edge on fights when he can just decide when ever he wants to dash after deflect.
Never had a problem with that. Genji is a very ability-dependant hero, so if your team can keep and eye at them you’re golden.
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An animation cancel is an ability that terminates another ability/action earlier than intended. It either has to be faster than the combined time of those two abilities, or it has to give the player control again earlier than if the first action just played out by itself.
Anything involving Quick Melee is not an animation cancel. Nothing is not being terminated early, and you aren’t saving time by doing it.
Most of the movement abilities are also not animation cancels because movement abilities are typically activate-able at any time during unobstructed movement.
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Tracer’s Melee > Recall isn’t an animation cancel. It doesn’t shave off any time from the melee, and recall can be activated at any time as long as she isn’t under the effects of crowd control.
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Reaper’s reload > melee does not shave off any additional time. This was confirmed a long time ago by a dev, and then doubly confirmed with an Overwatch Mythbusters video test with timestamps. The melee is a free action that always deals 30 damage if you time it right, so there’s no reason not to do it, but it’s not saving time/regaining control faster, so it’s not an animation cancel.
The only real animation cancels in this game are either
- Reinhardt’s Hammer > Barrier, terminating the swing early so he gets control of his character faster
- Genji’s Deflect > SS/Wall Climb (he can terminate Deflect early)
- Genji’s Dragonblade Sheath > SS/Wall Climb (he can skip the period of vulnerability he’s supposed to get when he sheathes his sword)
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I think if it adds to the fluidity of the character without purely adding dps, sure. Things like melee into swiftstrike needed to be removed, as did Brigitte’s thing. However, like, right now Orisa can supercharger+fortify+deploy barrier+ melee all at once with the same hand, and I dont necessarily think that needs removing even if it does look silly.
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I see, thanks for the information! Also, even to this day every single Reaper I came across still does the reload + melee thing. Well, goes to stylish points I suppose lol
Meleeing during reload is basically a free action. It’s a habit all players should do for all heroes.
All quick melee timers are the exact same across all characters (if they have one), and ammo counters are all timed to match the quick melee timer exactly. After the ammo counter updates onscreen, the amount of time it takes for you to do a melee, and you to complete the reload animation, are the same.
Basically, doing it means you always have a melee hitbox in front of you, and not doing it means you’re missing out on potential damage if someone’s right in your face.
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Very good and productive discussion. Thanks 
Tracer’s blink-melee-recall should be added to the list of cancels. Even though it does minimal damage, you don’t even see the melee animation during this combo.
Every hero has animation cancels. No hero has to wait until their recoil or reload are done to use an ability. Imagine Reaper having to wait for a reload before he can Wraith Form, or Winston needing to land from Leap before he can put down a shield, or Ana needing to pull the handle on her rifle between shots before throwing a nade. These are animation cancels. They belong in the game.
Melee > Recall is not an animation cancel.
Animation cancels have nothing to do with the actual animations you see, and everything to do with the active effects of an action and the amount of time to complete an action.
An animation cancel will either let you regain control of your character faster, or allow you to perform moves faster than the timers of each of those moves performed.
Genji’s Deflect > Swift Strike is an animation cancel;
- Deflect lasts 2.0 seconds
- Swift Strike lasts 0.4 seconds
At any point during the 2 seconds of Deflect uptime, you can Swift Strike. You can perform Deflect and Swift Strike in 0.416 seconds (Deflect lasting for 1 tick on the server before being interrupted and Swift Strike activating). Deflect is supposed to last 2 seconds, but by having Swift Strike be performable at any time during Deflect’s timer, you are “cancelling” the timer for Deflect. It ends early, and you regain control of your character as soon as Swift Strike ends. You regain control of your character up-to 1.584 seconds faster.
Reinhardt’s Hammer Swing > Barrier is an animation cancel;
- Hammer Swing takes 0.9 seconds, the hitbox is a moving hitbox that is active during the swing, and the next hammer swing.
- Barrier takes ~0.1 seconds to activate
At any point during the 0.9 second hammer swing, you can activate Barrier to terminate the attack. Instead of waiting for the full 0.9 seconds to pass, you can force the hammer swing animation to end early to bring up the Barrier.
By bringing up the barrier, you can regain partial control of your character up to 0.784 seconds faster (you can use Firestrike in that time).
However, Rein’s next hammer swing is still dependent on that original 0.9s timer. The hammer timer continues to process in the background, so you can’t Swing > Barrier > Swing > Barrier in order to swing faster than just holding down LMB. This part is NOT an animation cancel, only bringing up the Barrier is.
Tracer’s Quick Melee > Recall, isn’t doing anything faster.
- Quick Melee has a 1.0 second timer, and the hitbox is a single action on/off switch that always activates within ~0.1 second of pressing the button, the remaining part of it is a cooldown timer.
- Recall takes 1.25 seconds, and is able to be activated through ANY action as long as Tracer isn’t being CC’d
Because Recall itself has unique properties unlike any other movement ability, it’s not actually canceling any actions to make it faster. It can interrupt, but it’s not faster to interrupt.
The Quick Melee cooldown timer is going on in the background.
Because Recall is longer than the duration of a melee, by the time Recall ends, the melee timer has already ended.
Cooldown overlap isn’t an animation cancel… there are tons of abilities that continue to tick down their cooldown timers.
This one in particular isn’t true.
If you build the firing logic, automatic fire is the exact same as semi-auto fire. It’s a flow loop that, at the end of the firing, cycles into the beginning of another firing. If you’re mid-magazine with Soldier spraying down full auto, the instance of firing a shot is so brief that you won’t notice the wait time in order to use an ability.
If you look at Zenyatta’s right-click animation, which is a manual charge-up move, you actually CAN’T use abilities. The only moves you can do to cancel out of it are;
- Quick Melee, which is supposed to cancel Primary and Secondary Fire abilities.
- Ultimates, which are supposed to be activate-able through anything as long as you aren’t CC’d.
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The logic of “not shaving off additional time” is flawed.
The thing is that even if you dont cut the time, you gain an extra action in the same time window.
For example, reaper reload without melee and reload canceling with melee hasthe exact same duration, BUT in close range you will get that extra melee action (and potential 30dmg)off…in tracer’s case if she activates recall after melee goes off and before the animation finishes she has LESS time to be punished…
So yeah, you CANCEL the reload animation to get an extra action on with a potential game impact (melee) in the same time window, or, in tracer’s case, you CANCEL melee to get recall off…in soldier 76’s case its even worse because he will fire faster after a correct timed melee…
Those are still animation cancels.
No, it isn’t. It’s literally part of the exact definition of an animation cancel.
Every single action in the game has 3 major elements. In Fighting Games, it’s usually measured in frames.
- Startup (beginning)
- Active (middle)
- Recovery (end)
Each of these elements has a timer. With an animation cancel, you’re either skipping over Recovery frames entirely to do another action, or interrupting Active Frames so that the Active portion terminates earlier than expected so you can do another action.
Animation cancels, by definition, are intrinsically linked to time and the next action. You have to “cancel into” another action in order for it to be a valid animation cancel (a trick that people can use to gain the advantage over an enemy). If you have nothing to cancel into, it’s not an animation cancel, but a free action.
And the effects of those “cancels” are only evident through the interruption of animations in a game.
You’re not canceling the timers by doing a melee, you’re doing a free action.
- Reloading is basically 50% startup frames, 1% active frame, and 49% recovery frames.
- If you melee during reload, you’re either interrupting the startup for reload (for which, you don’t get the ammo counter to update), or completing the reload (when the ammo counter updates, cutting into recovery).
When you Melee, you’re doing it after that 1% of an active frame has already passed. All of the recovery frames are just downtime until you can resume firing again.
If you melee during those recovery frames, you get a free melee hitbox in front of you. It costs you no additional time to do, and takes the exact same amount of time to resume firing. You aren’t “canceling into firing”, you’re simply just doing a free action.
In Tracer’s case, Melee > Recall isn’t cutting into the startup or active frames, and the recovery frames are still ticking during Recall’s active frames. It’s not an animation cancel, it’s an overlapped recovery (cooldown). Another free action that costs nothing.
In context, I’m referring to your statement which said;
No hero has to wait until their recoil or reload are done to use an ability.
This is factually incorrect.
Zenyatta actually does have to wait until he’s done charging his RMB and fired the full volley of orbs, in order to use an ability.
He can’t use Primary Fire/Shift/E during Secondary Fire.
Global animation cancels, like melee or ultimates, are the only abilities that Zen can use to interrupt Secondary Fire.
I consider ultimates to be an ability (they’re labelled as Ability 3), but I get what you’re saying.
My point was just to answer OPs question, “Is there a place for this in OW?” There absolutely is.
I also wanted to point out that there are a lot more animation cancels than it seems most people think. It’s not just Genji primary into SS. The game would feel a lot more stiff without them.
That is the problem, cutting the reload animation (since reload itselfs happens mid animation) into a melee is, in fact, cancelling the reload recovery into a free 30dmg and potential advantage. This “free” action overlaps the reload recovery animation.
And again, in Soldiers case you actually fire faster if you cancel it.
Edit: But I like it this way. 