Block Canceling

Block Canceling is the act of quickly tapping block to overwrite the ending animation of a skill, effectively “canceling” the skill early. Skills like Flatten have an ending animation that lasts a long time after its damage has already been dealt. By blocking and unblocking as soon as the damage is dealt, this end animation can be effectively skipped, greatly speeding up our gameplay. Block canceling is an integral part of playing Zank and can be performed after every skill except when chaining.

Example rotation:

Without block cancelling:

With block cancelling:

As seen in the first gif, Punishing Strike cannot start until Flatten fully ends. In the second gif, Punishing strike can be cast much sooner. You shouldn’t actually see much, if any of the animation for Block, just enough for it to overwrite the ending animation of Flatten (or whatever skill you are canceling). You can see the powerlink glyph activate in the second gif, despite only a couple frames of Block even being visible.