Today, I soloed a Vaporeon with zero seconds left. I launched a solar beam with three seconds on the clock, but I wasn't sure it would hit, because solar beam takes longer than three seconds after being launched to do its damage. After launching the solar beam, I watched the clock tick down to zero, and then the Vaporeon started fainting.
So, does a charge move launched anytime before time expires inflict damage even if the move duration exceeds the time remaining? If I launched, say, an outrage with 1-2 seconds left, would it hit the raid boss?
As for the battle, it was my first Vaporeon solo, although I only tried once before, way back when raids first came out. This time, I beat the raid boss on the first try, and although it was very close, I made a lot of mistakes, and I think there was plenty of room for improvement. I am level 39, and my team consisted of
Exeggutor 2420 BS/SB
Raikou 2577 TS/TB
Exeggutor 2471 BS/SB
Dragonite 3325 DT/O
Exeggutor 2629 ES/SB
Zapdos 2511 CB/TB
The Eggy in the #5 slot had just come into the battle and launched the winning solar beam. I took too long arranging the team, and didn't get them in the order I wanted. There was enough time for numerous more attempts if I failed, so I wasn't too worried about it.
Though Solar Beam lasts 4.9 seconds, it's damage occurs 2.7 seconds after using it, so 2.2s after the damage has been dealt you cannot perform any actions.
If you had 3 seconds then it would have hit before the raid timed out, but there's probably a bit of leeway allowed if lag is taken into account.
Actually, the yellow flash occurs 2.7 seconds after using it, and the damage occurs 0.7 seconds after that. So, it takes 3.4 seconds for the damage to hit. Now, maybe me eyeballing the clock isn't an accurate way to measure how much time was really left, so that's why I'm asking the question. If I had launched the solar beam with only one or two seconds left, would it still have hit?
I remember very fondly of a vaporeon solo that my final exeggutor solar beam landed after the boss started to shrink (so actually the game allowed me to fire the charge move after the boss was actually beaten)
I think it might be the case that you could have already taken it out with your final quick move (ES) but the boss HP bar had not been updated before you launch your SB.
For this lag reason I recommend not putting exeggutor at the end...go with zapdos, jolteon or raikou to put out thunderbolts to more 'reliably' finish the final bit of HP.
