Artificing/Theory/Timing and Interference

Description
"How tileset building, timing, and interference work, is a very special and complicated chaos." ~ Scott

To figure out how to make the best tilesets, you need to understand first how the system works. The following chapters will explain how tilesets are procced, what is causing interference and how interference is determined. This will be explained together with some examples.

Proccing tilesets
A tileset is procced by letting the tiles you have on your tileset trigger in the correct order. Lets say you have the following tileset "ᛟ ᚨ ᚢ". How will this tileset be procced? As mage you simply do "affliction (ᛟ)", "frost (ᚨ)", "fire (ᚢ)" and the tileset procs. This will give you a dps boost for a few seconds and a specific amount (see next chapters).

How long is the tileset boosting my damage and healing?
A tileset stays up for X amount of time depending on how long the tileset is:
 * 3 tiles tileset = 4 seconds
 * 4 tiles tileset = 6 seconds
 * 5 tiles tileset = 8 seconds

So how much does the tileset boost?
Well it depends. Without interference the boost is around 10% for damage and is 5% for more healing. I am saying 'about' because there is a system in place where there are tiles in the game that are worth more damage boosting then others. These are so rare though, and no-one figured them all out that in 99% of the cases without interference you will have a 10% damage boost and 5% healing boost. A longer tileset only makes the uptime of the tileset longer, and does not make it stronger.

How many tilesets can I have up at once?
You will be able to get 3 tilesets up at once, giving a max damage boost of about 30%. The beautiful part is that 1 tileset can be procced multiple times. Thus in theory you only need 1 tileset to have the max 3 tileset uptime. When you proc a 4th tileset it will override the first tileset you procced.

Okay so what is this interference you are talking about?
Now we get to the complicated part xD. Interference is lowering your damage when there are tiles in-between your tileset being procced. I think an example is needed to understand this. Lets say:
 * Your tileset is "ᛟ ᚨ ᚢ" again.
 * When you attack an enemy, you are getting the following tiles procced on the background (SO NOT YOUR TILESET): "ᚦ ᛟ ᛁ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * I marked the tiles in your tileset as green while the others aren't part of the tileset: "ᚦ ᛟ ᛁ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ "
 * But there is an "ᛁ" tile and a "Ƶ" tile in between. Which will mean there is 2% interference. because 2 tiles are in-between.
 * The ᚦ tile is before your tileset starts, so that one doesn't matter for your tileset.
 * So what happens with your damage and healing? Your 10% damage boost goes down to 8%. And your 5% healing boost goes down to 3% (Even though a mage can not heal, it is just an example)

Extra example 1:
 * Tileset: "ᚦ ᛟ ᛁ"
 * Triggered tiles: " ᚦ ᚨ ᛟ ᛁ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Interference: 1%

Extra example 2:
 * Tileset: "ᚦ ᛟ Ƶ"
 * Triggered tiles: " ᚦ Ƶ ᛟ ᚨ ᚨ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Interference: 4%

So is that all about interference?
I wish. Sadly there is more, and this is very important for making the best tilesets. Let me give you this example:
 * Tileset: "ᚢ ᚨ Ƶ"
 * Triggered Tiles: "ᚦ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Interference: 1% right? Because you have " ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ " NO NO NO NO, it is 9%

So what the actual frick just happened? Well The system does not work from right to left. It works from left to right. Which means it finds the first fireball (ᚢ) tile it can find and use that as the start of the tileset. So what actually got used is: ""ᚦ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"" The best tip I can give any tileset maker, is make a tileset where the first tile of the tileset is not happening that often. Or it happens only a very few times before the tileset triggers. Why? Well lets go to the next example:
 * Tileset: "ᚢ ᚨ Ƶ"
 * Triggered Tiles: "ᚦ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Mmmmmh, this example seems to have the same tileset happen twice? Yup you get the tileset to trigger the first time with ""ᚦ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ " Then again with " ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ".
 * Both of the triggers only having 1% interference, because the second time it triggers it can not look further in the back then relative to the end of the first trigger of that tileset. If the tileset didn't trigger the first time then the second one would have been alot of interference grabbing the "ᚢ" very early on instead. Make use of that fact in your tilesets!

So how much time I got to trigger my tileset?
6 seconds. Yup 6 seconds. After the first tile triggers, you have 6 seconds to let the last tile trigger of your tileset. If not, then the tileset does not trigger at all.

So that is everything about interference right? RIGHT?
Muahahahaha, no :P Well actually kinda. There is one more rule that would not influence much of your tileset building if you are building the good tilesets. But when you are making a bad tileset it might be fun to understand what the frick is going on. But things are not getting easier here so you don't have to understand this part. You remembered the left to right rule? And the tileset can be maximum 6 seconds long rule? Wellll I got you another fun one. Lets get you the following two situation: Situation 1:
 * Tileset: "ᚢ ᚨ Ƶ"
 * Tiles: "ᚢ ᚦ ᚢ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Interference: 0%

Situation 2:
 * Tileset: "ᚢ ᚨ Ƶ"
 * Tiles: " ᚢ ᛥ ᚢ Ƶ ᚨ Ƶ ᚢ"
 * Interference: Tileset will not proc!

Okay what just happened? The "ᚦ" tile stands for 6 seconds or longer not fighting, or restart combat. Lets assume this as 6+ seconds not fighting because otherwise this scenario wasn't true. So what happened was the system grabs the first tile 'ᚢ' and if it does not find the second tile within 6 seconds it will reset for checking for tileset interference. So it grabs the second 'ᚢ' and has 0% interference. It does not need to be 6+ seconds silence. Other stuff can happen in between.

What about situation 2, it did not trigger at all. Why? Well 'ᛥ' stands for between 4 and 5 seconds not attacking. So what happened it grabbed the 'ᚢ' tile, found the 'ᚨ' tile within 6 seconds, but when it reached the 'Ƶ' tile 6 seconds have passed and nothing happens at all. The tileset just does not proc. It could not use the second 'ᚢ' tile because it was still trying to proc it with the first 'ᚢ' before the 6 seconds were passed.

Interference between tile types
This is its own category, but I want to note one more type of 'interference' in the way the tiles themselves trigger. The "Hits Per Second" tiles have a relation with the "Attack Multiple Target" tiles. What type? Well if more than 1 target is hit, that means a "Attack Multiple Target" is going to trigger within 2 seconds. But that also means that hitting a single target X amount of times within 1 second will not trigger any "Hits Per Second" tiles anymore. So note, when more than 1 target is being hit, all "Hits Per Second" tiles will not trigger anymore.

Any general tips with this information how to make my own unique tilesets?
Yes from the above information I can have the following general tips:
 * You only need 3 procced tilesets at a time, and you can have the same tileset proc again, so having more tilesets then needed with more interference is actually bad! Try to keep 3 tilesets up 24/7 with the least amount of tilesets that have the least amount of interference0.
 * Try to find a tile in your procced tiles that is unique but still happens often enough to use as the first tile. I often use the delay tiles like Ƶ, ᛁ or hit per second tiles like ᛗ, ᚾ, ᛈ, ᛢ as the start of my tileset.
 * Having only a tileset of 3 tiles would be the best, because the chance of having interference would be lower with a less long tileset. Having a 5 tile tileset you might have more interference in between of like a healer healing you or you might even pass the 6 second timer!

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