They made the animation faster yet it still takes the exact same time to apply damage. It’s just clunky as hell and was a terrible change having to sit there that extra second after animation is done.
It doesn’t feel like it was an intended change. They updated the client animation without updating the server cast time.
You “see” it with a faster animation, but it’s not actually faster. It’s still same speed as it was before.
The correct patch that updates both client and server cast times is yet to come.
Right now it’s just buggy.