Press guard (LB) during sword attack combos to cancel the animation and raise your shield. Skills already cancel attacks in Crimson Desert — this mod extends that to guard.
What It Does
When you’re mid-combo and press LB, your character transitions to guard stance instead of waiting for the attack animation to finish. This gives you a defensive option during aggressive play, similar to how many action games handle guard cancels.
From idle, LB works exactly like vanilla — clean guard, no changes.
How It Works
The mod hooks the game’s transition evaluator using SafetyHook. It activates only when all three conditions are met:
1. You recently pressed an attack button (RB or RT)
2. The attack animation is actively playing
3. You released the attack button before pressing LB
So the flow is: attack, release, press LB within 350ms. This prevents interference with non-combat actions like flash, fire lighting, shops, and flying.
From idle with no recent attacks, LB works exactly like vanilla — clean guard.
Known Limitations
– Dodge may trigger alongside guard during attack cancels. The game’s evaluator system shares the same mechanism for guard and dodge transitions. Separating them cleanly requires deeper engine work. See the “Help Improve This Mod” section below.
– From idle, guard works perfectly with no side effects.
– The mod only activates within a configurable window after your last attack (default 2 seconds). Outside that window, all inputs are vanilla.
Installation
Option A — CDUMM (recommended)
Drag the zip onto CDUMM’s ASI tab. Done.
Option B — Manual
1. You need an ASI Loader in your bin64 folder. If you already have one from another mod (like winmm.dll or version.dll from Ultimate ASI Loader), skip this step.
2. Extract CDAnimCancel.asi and CDAnimCancel.ini into:
…Crimson Desertbin64
3. Launch the game. No setup needed — just play.
Configuration
Edit CDGuardCancel.ini — changes take effect within 3 seconds, no restart needed.
[General]
Enabled=1
; Window after your last attack where guard cancel is active (milliseconds)
; Default: 350. Increase if guard cancel doesn’t trigger reliably.
; Lower if it interferes with non-combat actions.
CombatTimeoutMs=350
[Debug]
LogEnabled=0
Uninstall
Delete CDAnimCancel.asi and CDAnimCancel.ini from your bin64 folder. Or disable it in CDUMM’s ASI tab. No game files are modified.
Compatibility
– Works with CDUMM, Ultimate ASI Loader, and other ASI mods
– Uses SafetyHook (included) — no MinHook dependency
– AOB pattern scanning adapts to minor game updates
– Steam Input must be disabled for controller input detection
Help Improve This Mod — Open Source
This mod is fully open source and I’m actively looking for contributors to make it better. The guard cancel works, but the dodge side effect during attack cancels is an open problem that needs someone with deeper BlackSpace Engine knowledge to solve.
GitHub: https://github.com/faisalkindi/CDAnimCancel
The repo contains:
– Full source code (C++, CMake, SafetyHook)
– A complete research document covering a week of reverse engineering
– Decompiled Ghidra output for the three evaluator function layers
– 40+ Python diagnostic and analysis scripts
– Detailed documentation of all 35+ approaches tried
– Condition graph analysis, button-to-evaluator mapping data, and probe test logs
The main open problem: Guard and dodge transitions share identical evaluator types, condition structures, and fingerprint data at every level we’ve checked. The game distinguishes them somewhere above the evaluator hook — likely in the action chart’s input routing layer. If you can find what differentiates them, the dodge side effect can be eliminated and this mod becomes perfect.
If you have experience with Pearl Abyss’s BlackSpace Engine, BDO’s action chart system, Cheat Engine reverse engineering, or SafetyHook/mid-function hooking — check out the repo and see if you can crack the last piece. PRs welcome, full credit given.
