If you can’t press the next skill until the server confirms the previous one has finished, a round trip gets inserted between every skill in a rotation.
Why The next skill input is accepted only “after the previous skill is confirmed” → Effect A gap as long as your ping opens between every skill → On screen Gaps between skills in a rotation, and the higher the ping, the lower the DPS
Primary owner Game team (Client development) · Also Game team (Server development)
Game team action items
Client: an input buffer window that accepts input within a set time before the cooldown ends (e.g., 0.3–0.4 s) and sends it to the server right away. Server: don’t reject input that arrives slightly early, run it the moment the cooldown ends.
Ballpark numbers
In a rotation with a 1-second cooldown at 150 ms ping, each gap between skills is 0.15 s or more, so you cast over 13% fewer skills in the same time.
On the graph
Always high · Gap between skills, RTT (ping)
Where to look
Server log per character of when a skill cooldown ended, when the next skill request arrived, and when it ran, with the gap compared against the player’s RTT
Confirmed if
There is always a gap of about one RTT between the cooldown ending and the next skill running, and higher-ping players have longer gaps and cast fewer skills in the same time
Ruled out if
The gap is constant regardless of ping: global cooldown or animation length by design. The gap spikes only occasionally: check jitter/loss or tick overrun
Check with
Game server or client logs and metrics
Learn more
World of Warcraft, for example, has an input buffer window that players can adjust in the settings. When the window is longer than the round trip, ping barely shows up between skills in a rotation.