Damage cancel

Damage Cancel (DMC) is a PSO community term describing the following process:

• You attack an enemy and create any damage #(including 0), MISS, or inflict a Status Effect (including Jellen and Zalure).
• Your game client sends to the server a data packet containing the enemy's current remaining HP.
• The server receives your data packet and beams that info back to all other clients in the game (but not you).
• However, keeping the most recent value received is all it does. It does not check if your total is higher or lower than any other data it's received. Therefore, if two people send HP at roughly the same time, one of the two totals may overwrite the other, effectively negating one of the two players' damage.
• This manifests as an enemy under massive attack from multiple players taking far less damage than expected. As an extreme worst-case example, an enemy being hit by rapid fire weapons (e.g. Last Swan) doing 0 damage per hit can be rendered nigh-invincible to the other players.

Exceptions

• Instant Kills are immune to DMC. Killing an enemy by any means (including Megid, Hell, or a one-shot attack e.g. Dark Flow) sends a data packet that the enemy is Dead, which is not considered 'damage' and cannot be overwritten by incoming damage values.

Mitigation Strategies

• Pay close attention to your damage output vs. your teammates'. If a teammate's DPS on a target vastly exceeds yours, switch target - especially if you are using a high refire rate weapon such as a Mechgun or the Last Swan.
• Keep your ATA as high as you can to avoid MISSing.
• Don't keep attacking if you're doing barely any damage. Find another way to help the party.
• Use Instant Kill weapons and Megid where possible.
• If you're using a Devil's/Demon's weapon, once it's got the target down as far as it can go, stop firing.
• Know Technique strengths/weaknesses, and don't spam AoE techniques e.g. Gifoie if they are ineffective at killing the target.
• Try to cast Jellen and Zalure on a target only once, if possible.