Animation Canceling & Orb Attacking/Walking

[[E]Marach]

Animation Canceling

We can say there are three types of animation canceling and I'll label them like this:

• Auto-attack Backswing Canceling
• Spell Canceling
• Spell Backswing Canceling

Auto-attack Backswing Canceling

When you issue an auto attack order, your hero must go through the attack animation. We can say that this animation consists of two parts: preswing animation (required to make an attack) and backswing animation (optional). After preswing animation finishes, the projectile will fly out of your hero (for a ranged hero) or the damage will be dealt (for a melee hero). After this point, your attack has been made and the backswing animation plays. If you issue another command while your preswing animation is playing (you're canceling preswing animation), you'll effectively canceling your attack. So you should do it after preswing animation is finished.

Backswing animation can be longer or shorter, depending on the hero, but the important thing is that it can be canceled and the attack is still made. You do that by immediately issuing another command after actually making your attack (projectile flies out for ranged hero or you dealt damage for melee hero). Usually, you do this type of animation canceling to use that backswing animation time for something useful, like moving. So instead of you hero being stationary and doing the backswing animation, your hero could be running after the enemy or away from him. When chasing someone, this will allow you to chase better and make more attacks on the enemy.

Note that canceling the backswing animation won't make you attack faster, it just allows you to move your hero instead of standing and doing the backswing animation after your attack. Generally, it's harder to do this type of animation canceling on melee heroes than on ranged heroes. and it's harder to do it on some melee heroes than other melee heroes.

Auto-attack Backswing Canceling Summary: Right-click an enemy to attack him. When your auto-attack projectile starts flying away (ranged hero) or you deal damage (melee hero), promptly right-click the ground to issue a move command. Your hero will move instead of doing the backswing animation.

Spell Canceling

Spell casting animation also consists of preswing and backswing parts (not technically, there is something called 'casttime' and 'castactiontime' defined for each spell, but let's keep it simple). For the spell to be actually casted, it has to go through the preswing animation. Note that some spells don't have this preswing part (it's zero in duration in fact), which makes those spell cast instantly when you click them. But to really cast spells that have preswing part, this preswing animation has to be played. So if you cancel your spell while preswing animation is playing by pressing the 'STOP' key, you're effectively canceling your spell and it won't cast.

E.g.: you click to perform a Pyromancer's stun ('Dragonfire' spell). Pyro goes through the preswing animation where he jumps up and then he casts the spell. If you click the 'STOP' key while Pyro is jumping, you'll cancel the spell and no 'Dragonfire' will be casted.

This type of animation canceling is useful if you determine that you're gonna miss the spell, usually with AoE (Area of Effect) spells and skill-shots. Or if you decide not to cast the spell after all. If you click the 'STOP' key while in the preswing animation part, you'll successfully cancel the spell. This type of animation canceling is also used to trick the enemy into thinking you're gonna cast the spell for the purpose of seeing how they would react.

E.g.: you cast Valkyrie's 'Javelin of Light' and cancel it to see if the enemy would react at all or to try to make him change the running direction.

You can also use spell canceling to look cool or to irritate enemies with the produced visuals and sounds. Some of the spells create very distinct visual effects and sounds when repeatedly canceled. If you are interested in learning more about such (ab)use of spell canceling, there is an extensive guide related to that subject:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=46736

Spell Canceling Summary: Click to cast your spell and press the 'STOP' key (check your key-bindings) while the preswing animation is still running. You have canceled your spell and no mana is wasted.

Spell Backswing Canceling

So we mentioned that spells also have preswing and backswing animations. After the spell have been cast (preswing animation is over), backswing animation plays and this is the part that can be canceled without canceling the spell.

This is similar to auto-attack canceling in sense that you use the backswing time to do something else with your hero (move). And it is done in the same way as auto-attack canceling, you just issue another command to your hero after the spell is casted (preswing animation finished). Usually you use it to move somewhere instead of letting your hero stand and play the backswing animation. The other use of spell backswing animation canceling is to give less visual cues to the enemy that you casted a spell.

For example: as Deadwood you can cast your 'Rotten Grasp' AoE spell on area and after 2 seconds that area will be affected by the spell. 'Rotten Grasp' has quite a long and recognizable backswing animation that is easily perceived by enemy players. If you cancel this backswing part, maybe your enemies won't notice that you casted the spell (and even if they do, you can use backswing animation this time to move). Of course, another good indication that deadwood has casted this spell is his mana dropping so observant enemies will notice it anyway.

Spell Backswing Canceling Summary: Cast the spell and issue a move or attack command as soon as your hero casts the spell. Your hero will perform the requested command instead of doing the spell backswing animation.

Orb Attacking and Orb Walking

When you perform orb walking, you usually perform animation canceling as well so I guess that is the reason many people confuse those two terms. Let's explain and make sure you're not one of those people . As one of their abilities, certain heroes have attack modifiers that can be toggled on or off. Attack modifiers are called orbs also.

For example: Arachna has 'Webbed Shot', Vindicator has 'Master's Incantation'.

Orbs (attack modifiers) modify and boost your attack in a certain way, obviously. Attack modifiers can be set to be always on (right-click the ability icon with your mouse) so each auto-attack you make, when right-clicking the enemy, will have the orb effect applied to it. But you can also leave them off and manually use them when you want. You do this by clicking the ability shortcut key or left-clicking the ability icon, just as you would do when casting a normal spell. This activates the ability and changes mouse pointer to a crosshair pointer. Then you left-click the enemy to attack.

There is a difference in having the attack modifier (orb) always on or manually using it. If you're manually using it, it is considered to be a spell. If you're having it always on, then it is considered to be a normal auto-attack (a modified and boosted one, but still an auto-attack).

This makes a big difference as enemy creeps will only aggro you while you're auto-attacking an enemy hero. If you're manually using the orb, it's like you're casting a spell and that won't draw enemy creep aggro. The same applies to enemy towers - if you orb attack an enemy hero, the enemy tower won't start hitting you if it's hitting something else. As you can see, you can use this technique of manually using your orb to attack an enemy hero in the presence of enemy tower/creeps without drawing the enemy tower/creep aggro.

So that was orb attacking. Orb walking is nothing more than orb attacking while also animation canceling your auto-attack to chase and better keep up with your enemy.

Orb Attacking Summary: Keep your auto-attack modifier off and manually cast it on the enemy. Use this technique to harass enemies as it doesn't draw enemy creep/tower aggro.

Orb Walking Summary: Orb attack the enemy. As soon as your auto-attack projectile is flying away, issue a move command towards the enemy. Your hero will move instead of doing the backswing auto-attack animation.

Putting it all together

Here is a short demo video of auto-attack animation canceling and orb walking (not done by me):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEjF9eBfhSw

Pay attention to the mouse clicks - after attacking the target, the guy playing Arachna immediately issues a move command to cancel auto-attack backswing animation and better chase the enemy. Also, notice how he manually clicks the Arachna's 'Webbed Shot' skill and then attacks the enemy (orb attacking).

Although you wouldn't benefit from orb attacking in this situation (as there are no enemy creeps/towers that could aggro you) and you could just have 'webbed shot' toggled on, orb attacking technique is nicely demonstrated in the video.

As a sidenote: although in the video Arachna comes very close to Electrician when chasing, that might not be so smart to do. When you are chasing an enemy, think about the distance you want to keep so you don't put yourself in a dangerous position.

[[E]Marach]

reserved

[[S2]ElementUser]

Note that it doesn't actually have to be a move command for backswing cancels, you can also cancel by casting another spell/issuing any other command.

Also note the function "Order Hold and Cancel" works just as well as "S" for spell canceling.

Proper capitalization please

[much2much]

The damage being dealt or projectile being launched isn't actually the point where you can cancel the attack and it still deals damage/succeeds. The best way to develop this skill is when you are jungling or just autoattacking creeps. Attack something and issue a move command:
1) If you issue the move command too early you won't damage your target.
3) If you issue the move command too late you won't be as good at chasing as you could be.

So you want to find the 2) in there: where you are dealing the damage but moving as soon as is possible so you are an efficient chaser or retreater:

Animation cancelling is a tool you can use while jungling to not have to take a lot of the damage from creeps who have to chase you and then run back to their spawns. Not to mention in team fights etc.

I believe jungling the best environment to get aquainted with all this stuff.

[[S2]ElementUser]

The damage being dealt or projectile being launched isn't actually the point where you can cancel the attack and it still deals damage/succeeds.

Actually it is in most cases (for melee/ranged units, respectively).

[[E]Marach]

added a small section at the end with the demo video

[[NuRA]DainZ]

I would like to suggest this Guide for the Premium Guide Section!

You managed to describe the way canceling/orbwalking works, without using lots of images, and still make it clear what to do, and when to. So its a must read for every player who has never heard of animation canceling.

Hope to read more Guides like this!

[[HCTc]Dragnmn]

Premium quality: probably yes, from what i read before my eyes started hurting from the lack of capitals. Get the formatting correct and I think it might be a candidate.

[[S2]ElementUser]

Yeah my eyes still hurt from reading it

[[E]Marach]

I would like to suggest this Guide for the Premium Guide Section!

You managed to describe the way canceling/orbwalking works, without using lots of images, and still make it clear what to do, and when to. So its a must read for every player who has never heard of animation canceling.

Hope to read more Guides like this!

thank you, I'm glad to hear that I managed to explain it well enough as english is not my mother language and I often struggle to express myself. I still think that the text could be much better so if any native english speaker wants to ameliorate the text, feel free to PM me.

regarding the nomination of the guide for the premium section, I honestly think the overall quality would have to be much higher for something like that. I didn't write the guide with that in mind anyway.

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Premium quality: probably yes, from what i read before my eyes started hurting from the lack of capitals. Get the formatting correct and I think it might be a candidate.

thanks to you too, but like I mentioned the guide was written impromptu and can hardly be qualified as a premium guide material.

so I see the lack of capitals make it harder to read for some (all?) people. I will probably edit the text then.

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Proper capitalization please

Yeah my eyes still hurt from reading it

what, no one here values the esthetics of lowercase text? okay, I have edited the text so you can have your proper capitalization now.

btw you just mad cause you couldn't spec that IH game, admit it! and the game was HUGE! :P

[[S2]ElementUser]

Well at least it has some spacing now, my eyes are now better

[yoonie]

Small suggestion- the choice of the term backswing is confusing. In all the sports I can think of, the back swing is "preswing" as you call it (tennis, golf). Why not make the preswing the back swing, the back swing the followthrough?

[[E]Marach]

Small suggestion- the choice of the term backswing is confusing. In all the sports I can think of, the back swing is "preswing" as you call it (tennis, golf). Why not make the preswing the back swing, the back swing the followthrough?

dunno, I guess those are the terms I've seen around the forum so I've just used them. but when I think of it now, maybe I should have used 'pre-swing' and 'post-swing' as better terms. 'pre-' and 'back-' don't sound as logical, right?

[Savaii64]

His use of the word backswing made total sense to me. Probably because I read it in the same type of context in this very forum. Very nice guide.

[[HCTc]Dragnmn]

It really does look much better now. Great work. I also think the word "backswing" is perfectly fine here.

[[babe]Vantec]

wow this guide is freaking amazing!

Thanks bro

[[E]Marach]

I have again reworded parts of the guide and significantly changed the formating (spacing, colors, font size, etc.). any valuable feedback to improve the guide further is welcomed. as I'm quite satisfied with it now, I have considered the suggestions and decided to nominate it for a premium guide in hope to expose it to more people.

[[E]Marach]

bump hoping for more feedback to improve the guide

[Boltzen]

I like your changes, especially your Short Summary on them.
I love spell cancelling the blink on Magebane. It pisses people off.

[Jezu]

Indent the body text please =)