A Guide to Dealing With Desync

This may have been done before, but it can't hurt repeating. This kind of information should be stickied and highly visible to new players, to avoid scaring them off with "warping deaths". I don't see the info in the stickies. This is bad, especially as release approaches.

PoE has monster collision and attacks can miss, so desync is a larger issue than in other ARPGs, but has more tactical combat. Learning how to minimize desync does take some effort on our part, but isn't too hard. The most important thing to know is that clicking on a target and holding will make you run to the enemy, wherever he goes on the server.

So if a Necromancer runs backwards through a pack of mobs, your character (on the server, where it matters), will try to run through there as well, and likely get blocked in and killed in the middle of them. If a champion skeleton walks into the next room to his buddies, you will follow him. Even if on your screen it looks like you're swinging at him safely. Shift-attacking avoids all of this, as you attack in place.

Running through doorways and tight corridors where mobs are, or are close by, means that there's a decent chance the mob was literally in the doorway/hallway on the server, and that you will get blocked in in the previous room/hallway.

Using movement skills (e.g. Leap Slam) through doorways can cause desync. Be especially careful to target straight lines from your line of sight, through the doorway, to a location on the other side.

Targeting invalid locations with movement skills, due to line of sight issues and/or things like obstructing rocks or monsters, can cause desync. For e.g. on the server, monsters may be blocking you in that look like they aren't. You target a location that looks valid on your end and Leap Slam there. On the server, you were actually further back, and therefore your Leap distance was invalid, and it resyncs you back to the monsters. You will warp backwards repeatedly until you target a valid location.

There is even the elusive warping forward desync, but i haven't figured out what that is, yet.

There is a forced resync command that you can use every 10 seconds: /oos. If you suspect you are badly desynced, just type that in and you will immediately be resynced to where you are on the server. Using a resync macro* is ideal. Anytime you want, or when you think you are desynced, you click the key, and you and your party gets resynced. Keep in mind /oos is ignored if it has been less than 10 seconds since the last use.

Knowing all these things allows us to avoid any desync-related death, pretty much ever. It also makes us better players, happier players and less whiny players, making the forums a more positive experience. :)


*Below is a sample resync macro. Put it in a .ahk (AutoHotkey) file of your choice, and make sure the file is running while you're playing PoE:


F5::OosCommand() ; Assign F5 to execute the oos command

OosCommand(){ ; F5
BlockInput On
Send {Enter}
Sleep 2
Send /oos
Send {Enter}
BlockInput Off
return
}

why do you make such a hard macro?

a simple macro:

Enter
Type: /oos
Enter

Assign to any key you want.

also why use a program like autohotkey, you dont need anything for it..

"

Grizze wrote:

why do you make such a hard macro?

BlockInput is to prevent issues with spamming the key, and typing keys while the macro is typing stuff out. There's no downside to having those few extra lines.

The reason it's in a function is so that you can have other stuff in the macro file, should you so choose.

"

Grizze wrote:

also why use a program like autohotkey, you dont need anything for it..

I'm not sure how you're using a macro without a macro program. You'll have to provide more details.