Minefield Support causes mines to be thrown too slowly

Minefield seems to be adding extra animation time to mine throws that causes mine to be thrown slower, even more slowly than the throw speed penalty on the gem would suggest.

I measured the time from which the first mine appears in the upper left corner, to the time the final mine appears in the upper left corner to determine the throw speed. I recorded at 60 FPS and measured the duration frame-by-frame.

Test 1:
Ball Lightning + Blastchain Mine Support (lv1/0q)
+70% Mine Throwing Speed Modifier
16 mines thrown in 2.350s
Mine Throw Duration: 0.146875s
https://gfycat.com/lividellipticalacouchi

Test 2:
Ball Lightning + Blastchain Mine Support (lv1/0q) + Minefield Support (lv1/0q)
-40.5% Mine Throwing Speed Modifier
4 sets of 5 mines thrown in 2.367s
Mine Throw Duration: 0.59175s
https://gfycat.com/plushhalfeyelashpitviper

With a 65% less Mine Throwing Speed modifier of Minefield Support, we would expect to see a mine throwing time of 0.146875 / ( 1 - 0.65 ) = 0.419643s. Instead, we see a throw time that is 41.01% longer.

Edit: I've also tested this with a 19/20 Minefield Support gem, the throw time is approximately 40% longer in that case as well.

Speculation as to what's happening here.

Notably, when Minefield Support is socketed the mines from each throw are thrown in sequence. The interval between each throw in the sequence is equal to 10% of the expected total throw time. This "10% of an animation"'s delay, 4 times, produces a total animation whose duration is 40% longer.

This seems to parallel the unsealing of seals generated via the Unleash Support. When a spell is cast, any seals are consumed by appending a casting animation to the original cast that is 10% of the original animation's duration.

Confusingly, this behavior does not occur when using a skill supported by Swift Assembly support. When a proc occurs, any extra mines are thrown instantly at the same time as the first, seemingly with no difference in animation duration.

Now, its possible that this "extra animation" is an intended mechanic. It makes minefield vs swift assembly an actual competitive decision (assembly gives more mines/sec, but minefield is more consistent) and seems to indicate that the developer's had this "extra animation" mechanic in mind when balancing the gems. The parallel to unleash is also a bit uncanny.

Ultimately, its very unclear whether this is intended or not because I've looked in several places and found no documentation of this mechanic whatsoever. It's not explained in-game, it was not mentioned in the pre-blight game balance announcement, it was not mentioned in the 3.7 patch notes, it was not mentioned in the 3.8 patch notes, it is not mentioned on the wiki, Path of Building has this interaction wrong, and I can't find any discussion of this on these forums or on reddit. You would think that if it was intended it would be explained somewhere.

we need answer :)

You did good work getting the information frame by frame. I hope we get un answer, positively or negatively. But it's a lot of less QoL and dmg we are getting if that is the case.

yes, THIS is why my build is garbage

Here's data from my old reports.

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Minefield support gem at level 20 should be reducing your mine throwing speed by 60% and combined with the four additional mines per throw; give you 100% more mines thrown per second.

Using a macro I time how long it takes to throw 15 mines.
With 0 increased throwing speed It takes 3550ms to throw 15 mines without minefield and 2100ms with. At 100% increased speed 1770ms and 1040ms.

This is only a total increase of 70% instead of the expected 100%.
Video example of testing: https://streamable.com/o2smo.

Ever since they made the change to mines I always call minefield the new multistrike, remember that old multistrike that got you stuck into animations? I feel exactly like that playing with the new mines(minefielded), you can clearly see that you're throwing 1 by 1 in a small delay and it feels awful, maybe you are right and it was intended but fuck that!

Noticed this in my testing of it last season as well. Reported it, didn’t see any action, maybe too many necros playing last season :p

Either way, math points to minefield being around 20% more effective dps wise than swift assembly, but in performance certainly doesnt hold true in that regard as swift assembly always wins out.

Nice, thanks for the reply Mark. Good to hear reminder text is being added, it is quite necessary.

Could you clarify whether that animation turnback applies to extra mines throw by Swift Assembly? It didn't seem like it did in my testing, as the extra mines seem to appear & land simultaneously with the first mine. Its difficult to say for sure, though, because of the random proc aspect and the very short timescale that the turnback would take place in.