Fix Vanish Now!

Q u o t e:
A blue post has confirmed that the vanish "bug" is working as intended. Cease your futile complaining please.

Actually Vanish is working as intended. What many see as the Vanish bug is in fact a latency issue between your computer(client), the realm(server) and the computers(clients) of other players.

Here is an example of what can sometimes happen, which leads to the perception of Vanish being bugged: If an enemy rogue attacks you using Eviscerate, a command is sent to the realm telling it that Eviscerate is being used by that enemy Rogue. If you then use Vanish right after the enemy rogue uses Eviscerate, the realm is in the process of acknowledging his Eviscerate command while your Vanish command is still being sent to the realm. The acknowledgement of the enemy rogue's Eviscerate command is then being sent to your computer, and at the same time the realm is registering that you used the Vanish command. The result of this is that your client can take you out of stealth because you were hit by damage, even though you used vanish, because there is latency somewhere between you, the realm and the enemy player.

Such latency issues cannot be corrected with a simple patch or hotfix due to the very nature of how data is being sent and received with the current Internet infrastructure, however the developers are aware of this issue and they will come up with a proper solution if/when one is found, or if one presents itself.

Q u o t e:
a logical explanation indeed...but what about a pet chasing you long after you vanished, and technically got out of combat?

That is a variation of the same Latency issue between the realm and the clients of different players. On one client(Rogue) Vanish has been used and registered by the realm, but on the other client(Hunter) it is still in the process of receiving the acknowledgement that Vanish has in fact been used, but since it has not been registered by the client yet, the pet is continuing its attack as commanded by the Hunter, which results in it following and attacking the rogue despite the fact that it shouldn't because Vanish has been used.

Latency, however small it may be, can unfortunately have a bad influence on certain abilities such as Vanish, since the delay of commends transmitted between clients and the realm can pretty much result in such abilities being cancelled before they are set in motion.

Q u o t e:


If u ever have a lan with a friend. when u and ur friend are together in WoW look how long it takes u to see
ur friend move in ur monitor and hes. there is a small delay as for the reason above.

Another great example of how latency can influence the game.

Q u o t e:


Anyway there is a solution, and it's to give Vanish a 1 second aura of immunity, that DO NOT dispel anything, but just really drop aggro and avoid non AOE and non DOT damage caused to put you out of vanish...that I must remember you it's "an improved stealth mode".

I have seen this suggestion before, in fact I have seen many good suggestions for how to circumvent the latency element that can influence the workings of Vanish. It is indeed possible that a redesign of Vanish, like this suggestion you mentioned above, is good solution to this.

This and other ideas have been forwarded to the developers, and if/when they find a solution they like that won't create any unwanted side effects, then we will see such a solution implemented. This unfortunately means that you will have to play the patience game for now, which I most surely can agree is annoying :-)

Q u o t e:
Another thing, is Shattered Halls working as inteded?

Please create a new thread about this so that we do not take this thread off-topic :-)

Q u o t e:


Uh-huh. Ok then, try and use latency to explain away hunter pets chasing you from MILES AWAY after you vanish. Oh wait, nope, you can't.

I believe I did explain that very thing in my second reply of this post, which is post number 20.

Q u o t e:
Nice effort though. Its incredibly easy to say ZOMG ITS LAG WORKING AS INTENDED KK??!

The fact remains that that is simply not true.

It is in fact true, no matter how much you do not want it to be true. But I will not try to stop you pointing your fingers at us, because I know how uncomfortable it can be when you know that something is wrong, but you can't find anyone to blame.

But the fact is that Latency is to blame, because if there is an issue somewhere that is causing a delay in data being transmitted/received thus causing latency, then it is impossible to point your finger at any one person:

Who is to blame if you don't exactly know if there is a temporary or continuing latency creating problem with your network card, your network card drivers, your software firewall, your router, your Internet connection, your ISP, the routers/servers owned by other ISPs between your ISP and our ISP, our routers and realms, the ISPs owning the routers/servers between our ISP and the ISP of the enemy player, the ISP of the enemy player, the enemy players firewall, then enemy players network card and related software, a world wide DoS attack resulting in a slowdown of the Internet, Trojans, Virusses, P2P, IM and VoIP software, etc.? Many things can or are causing latency, and not everything is within our control and influence.

Q u o t e:
Well, if you're looking for a solution other than the immunity, why not just increase the rogues chance to dodge/resist spells for the first 1/2 seconds of vanish by 90% or so? Would be more "roguelike" than becoming immune, and as dodged/resisted abilities dont (or atleast shouldnt :/) take you out of stealth now, it would give a solution I suppose.

An interesting suggestion for sure :-)

Q u o t e:


The whole latency thing is just a lazy,BS excuse.
If that's in fact what's causing it,and it's not just a side effect from code changes in an earlier patch,
then there are about a million ways they could reduce how annoying it is.

It is not an excuse; it is an explanation of what is causing the issue. But nothing I can say or do will make you take off your tinfoil hat, so I will not go any further trying to convince you that latency being the culprit is in fact the truth.

Q u o t e:
The fact that they go to such lengths to deny there's a problem,the way they ignore and brush aside reports,
all leads me to believe they just don't want to fix it,or at the very least that it keeps being shoved to the bottom of the pile.
And seeing as it's one of our main defensive abilities,it's a 5 minute cooldown,AND requires a reagent,that's kinda @*@%ty.

We are not denying anything. The very fact that we have explained what is causing the issue is an acknowledgement that Vanish at times is not always working as it should, despite the fact that Vanish is in fact working as intended.

You can believe what you wish, however I will repeat that if/when a proper solution to this has been found, it will get implemented.

It is clear that you are one of those who are affected by this issue and that it is extremely annoying. It is also clear that you do not like our explanation of what is causing the issue, because it undermines your foundation of blaming us and us alone, but please try not to twist our words into something that is just untrue, because that is not benefiting anyone.

Q u o t e:
Its the same with gouging a Mage as they blink, you spam gouge after your cheapshot and 80% of the time they will blink and be gouged at the other end... latency is your friend if you use it right :)

Yet another "good" example on how latency can have a negative impact on game-play

Q u o t e:
Edit: Blues?! In ROGUE forums?!

Miracles do happen :-)

Q u o t e:


vanish isnt bugged but it doesnt work very well either :)

That was a very nice, easy and short way of saying it, In retrospect I should maybe have said it like that right from the start :-)

Q u o t e:
couldnt you programme vanish so that whenever its broken within 1 second or something of casting it, the cooldown on vanish instantly refreshes itself?
I think thats a fair thing to do, as other suggestions like giving 1 second of invulnerability is a bit unfair.

Another good suggestion as well :-)

The many suggestions and ideas for possible solutions to fix the latency related Vanish issue has been forwarded and if/when we get some feedback from the developers about this, then we will of course let you know.

Q u o t e:
The blue replies in this thread regarding pets are an embarassment.

It is NOT a latency issue when a pet follows you round for 20 seconds after vanishing.

Unless you're suggesting we all have 20 second lag?

Latency can influence game-play in many ways, and not just in ways of lag-spikes and occasional network hiccups. Latency most commonly causes delays and small interruptions, but latency can also result in data loss when a delay is so severe that it times out. This happens all the time in various ways on the Internet and on local area networks, and in WoW in can for an example result in a command issued on one client is never received by another client due to for an example a time-out somewhere along the many hops and routes a data packet must travel from one computer to another.

I will not make any further attempts to convince you that the explanations I have provided in this thread are true, because honestly I do not care if you believe me or not since that is not my job. I provided the information I have and answered some of the questions that people had, and that is it. If you choose to ignore or discard that, then that is your business.

I will of course make sure to reinvestigate that particular issue regarding pets, because if I have made some mistakes in the explanations I have provided in this thread, then I will of course make sure to correct those mistakes.

Q u o t e:
Do us a favour, don't post again, and send a representative who knows what they're talking about

I do not respond well to ridicule and insults, so I will kindly ask you to show some manners by keeping a civil tone when you post on these forums. Even if you disagree with the things I or anyone else have to say. I will ask you this only once, so do not be surprised if you find yourself unable to log in to these forums if you keep the confrontational tone.

Q u o t e:
same with intercept/feral charge, can be affected by latency by either you or said enemies problems.

Very true unfortunately.

Q u o t e:


sorry to quote you, but please can you give any kind of feedback on my example of what i experience. it is one or two posts up.

I have not experienced that particular example myself, so I cannot provide you with any information of what exactly happened during that encounter. To me it sounds like a communication breakdown somewhere between the two clients, but that is just my personal theory.

I have noted down your example and we will try to get some more information about what exactly happens in such a situation, and again as always, we will let you know if/when we get some feedback on this :-)

Q u o t e:
I did some testing with this and vanish dosent turn off pets auto attack.

Simple as that no data loss.

Noted. If this indeed happens all the time and you can reproduce this with a 100% success rate, then it doesn't seem likely that it is a data loss or latency related issue.

I will try see if I can get some more information about this particular issue regarding the hunter pets :-)

Q u o t e:
The bug lies in the fact if a hunter/warlock has a pet attacking you and you de- click the target to restealth WITHOUT using vanish then the pet will always continue to follow you....

if you actually use vanish when the pet is after you it will de aggro....

there is no grey area in how this works its very simple ..... stealth and vanish are two different things.

This is very true and if people believe that stealth and Vanish work the same way, then I can more easily understand some of the confusion in this heated debate. Vanish and stealth is most certainly not the same thing. Re-stealthing to get away from pets will not have the same result as using Vanish.

The pet will keep following you if you re-stealth, but if you use Vanish it should return to its owner... If the pet doesn't return to its owner after using vanish, then it is usually a problem caused by latency.

But some of you claim that pets keeps following you despite using Vanish and that this happens every time after using Vanish when fighting against pet classes, and if that is true and you can reproduce this with a 100% success rate, then something indeed doesn't look right, and it is that thing we will try to get clarification on.

Q u o t e:
With regards to vanishing and being hit by a late ice bolt or melee hit and it knocking you out of stealth, that is in fact due to latency (lag) at the moment it is unavoidable. It happens so frequently in arenas that it is a massive disadvantage when u need to get back into the fight.

That is correct. Vanish is working as intended when looking from a pure programming and gameplay point of view, but the influence of the latency variable (Which is outside of our control) can result in Vanish failing, where it in fact shouldn't have failed. In order to have this problem resolved, Vanish would need to be changed in a way so that the influence of latency would be removed or minimized. This may sound very easy, but I can assure you that it's not and if/when the developers find a proper working solution without unwanted side effects, then that solution will be implemented.

Q u o t e:


To address the first point: Vanish has always had the element of 'failure' about it, even in beta. There were no cross realms and pvp was cumbersome world pvp with half of the skills and situations in todays battlegrounds. The game was less memory and internet speed intensive. And of course, everything was better in the old days wasn't it ?...... So long as you didn't have to walk fifty miles in the snow. barefoot. in the middle of winter. with a sack of logs :)

I don't know how many times this has to be said for you guys to actually believe this, so i'm gonna go out on a limb and write it in bold font and caps to emphasise it:

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VANISH IS NOT BUGGED. ALL PROBLEMS STEMMING FROM VANISH 'FAILING' ARE LATENCY RELATED, AND THUS CANNOT BE FIXED ON BLIZZARDS SIDE.

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This is especially true in cross realm battlegrounds where there is an even wider range of latencies and computer speeds. The fact that the cross realms rely on intercommunication between servers is enough to suggest that like Vaneras says, command A will not always be registered as having actually taken place.

The fact is this, Vanish has been tested under normal playing conditions, i.e. regular latency or no latency at all to see if it actually works. Now, the testing done by the bug team has clearly shown that under these conditions, vanish does work as intended. However, if you introduce the element of high latency into the equation, the following happens:

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Hunter: Spots a rogue.
Hunter: Sends pet into attack.
Rogue: Vanish.
Hunter: Pet continues to attack.

The rogue has sent the server the command 'I want to vanish'. The server notes this. The hunter sends the message 'I want my pet to attack this rogue'. The server notes this. However, let's say our hunter has a 200-300 ms latency. There is a delay in him sending the information to attack the rogue to the server, and since the command cannot be removed or nullified from the hunter in any way, it is still carried out. Technically you have vanished already, but the delay means that the pet skips out on it and starts attacking after the vanish, as far as the pet is concerned, you are still in a regular state. In low latency circumstances this very rarely happens at all.

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The current solution to you in cross realm battlegrounds is this: Vanish later to compensate for the other players lag.

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Just gonna throw in a nice QFT on this one as it explains things pretty well :-)

I strongly suggest some of the people participating in this thread take a deep breath or five and consider the words "constructive" - which is a good word - and "confrontational" - which is a bad word.

Once having done that, I think you'll be much more suited for posting on these forums.

Thank you for your attention.