[Dumberest]

yes ping plays a huge part.

i play with 450 ping.i can tell you now that it effects every aspect of the game especially when obsitcles are entered into the equation.

incase you havnt noticed yet ping effects everything you do,each time you move your ping gets added to the time it takes to make a normal hit.

heres some of the things i experience when playing that im sure you do not with 200 ping.

1.i will be hit with winter stroke,have barbs surrounding me ready to kick.they can kick or feint me before i can cast an instant spell even when i am spamming it constantly.in some cases locks can cast frozen storm before i can cast sotw.this is because the serves dictate what we can do not my game client.the server tells thier pc's im free to hit long before it tells mine due to distance from server etc.

2.when hunting if i make an ambush attack and then move,my attack speed go's right out the window.my ping get added to the delay between hits and i get less hits in.i must stand still in a fight to maintain my attack/cast speeds.one move and it slows right down.we all know what happens to hunters who stand still right.but i get by,im used to getting killed easily lolz.

3.cast speeds in my locks are very slow compared to everyone else i see around me.ping is added to the time it takes and it dosnt matter if i have the max cast speed,the 450 milliseconds is just too great.

4.high ping also causes more resists.this im sure is a result of when the game was plagued by lag cheats.its ngd's answer to the problem as my resists were never that high.its not uncommon for me to cast 10 dist shots on unsuspecting targets from camou and have 7-8 resisted.ive noticed damage spells dont get resisted as often,but knocks and stuns do.spells like stunning fist are proof to me its a game change.if i use lvl 4 stunning fist with 90% chance to stun,it hits aprox 80% of the time but only stuns maybe 20% yet if i use lvl 5 stunning fist with 100% chance to stun,i get resists aprox 80% of the time.it seems the damage spells will hit but stuns and knocks wont hit as often.nobody else can understand unless they have a ping like mine.i suggest you try playing with a proxy and see the difference first hand before you start saying im making it all up.

5.spells like break apart take aprox 2.7 seconds to cast,the stats say its a 1.5 second spell.even ensnare arrow is close to 1 second to cast.in my marks which relies on spells as i dont have great gear to hit normal hits,winter stroke is so slow to cast i dont use it unless the target is really close.

6.i avoid trees and rocks for the very reasons you describe.i have tried fighting hunters around trees.the ping difference is such an unfair advantage when fighting some people.for instance,morfik or elva can pop around the side of a tree,cast tear apart then pop bk again and ive been sitting spamming ambush and it never even gets to 50% cast lolz.if i dont try to cast spells and only make normal hits they can still cast and hide before my game gets to fire a shot using fast 25 sb.there is just no way to compete with them.

the sad part is,before this game engine we have now,ping never used to be an issue.players with high ping could still compete we attacked what was on our screen not what the servers had,because right now i might see a barb behind a tree but in reality he could be 10m away from it because the servers havnt told my pc yet..ive always wanted some kind of game leveller where it adjusted spell cast speeds and attack speeds according to the players ping.it would be a revolutionary change to mmo's and would make them so even that it would allow games to be more global.

high ping is why i dont hunt alone,im unable to due to resists and latency.im lucky i have friends to play along side.its annoying at times when i catch someone and i know i cant kill them because they have better ping,so i have to let them go.