Variance in ping time is probably the cause of this. It doesn't show on the connection bars, probably because they use some kind of smoothing. I know sometimes connection drops to 1 bar briefly but that's not the same thing. I get 4 bars consistently but still have to deal with jitter which is only really detectable during timing critical events like in your example, or when healing up on a pad you can see the rate of healing is very irregular.

I'm guessing this is Contri playing Hydro in US server so I doubt his connection would provide very stable ping times.

You can't really judge Hydro's ping by looking at Contri's footage. I'd try to understand what you mean here because I don't really see anything out of order but the imgur link isn't working for me so I can't do that right now.

Brandishes and Flourishes are kind of weird like that. From the victim's perspective, toothpicks can even hit before the animation has started. Brandishes evidently appear to hit mid-animation, but before they would hit if you'd use them. This happens even on really low ping. Since the packets for the animation should be sent even before the servers have registered the hit, they should always come first but that's not the case. My guess is therefore that OOO has made swords hit faster than their animation in LD (maybe even in PvE, but what do I know) to compensate for the inevitable latency found in online games.

As for your thoughts on Feyi, you couldn't possibly have expected him to like you when you chose your name :P

btw, here's the link you should use, since it goes directly to the moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-AlpFgaRvo#t=3m18s

I was confused at first because I thought the screenshots were taken from a 3rd party (server view, as you propose), not from one of the fighters' screens.

I also think it would be cool to have a match where all 3 POV (fighter 1, fighter 2, spectator) are available, so all players can see the results of a battle. I was really happy to finally have some enemy footage of the same encounter with myself so I could see how much my view differed, but again, we lacked the 3rd POV.

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Anyway, here's how I see it...

In that encounter, there were 3 hits:
1- Contri hits Hydro with GF.
2- Contri takes damage from Hydro's Brandish.
3- Contri kills Hydro with GF.

Keep in mind that Contri's screen isn't just seeing Hydro's actions later than they're really happening, but also seeing his own position/actions ahead of where it is on the server as well.

1- The attack you saw Hydro swing "simultaneously" actually happened BEFORE Contri moved into range (because remember, Contri was stepping forward into it), so according to the server, it missed due to mistiming.

On the server, Hydro took damage because he was still mid swing/trying to move away when Contri attacked northwest.

2- Contri takes damage from a brandish hit that looked like it 'missed' behind him. It makes sense because if you move Contri back by about half a second, he would have been perfectly at the position for the brandish to hit since he had been standing still, swinging left with flourish and just started to boost right.

On the server, Contri had just started to move right but Hydro boosted above him and hit him downwards with brandish.

3- Contri boosts to the side and gets a kill hit with GF as Hydro runs out of boost and misses with brandish. It's a matter of brandish's range and hitbox: it's horizontally thin and Hydro aimed more vertical while Contri's movements were off to the side horizontally. It was a pure miss, probably because he ran out of boost at that last moment (if he had had more boost, he probably would have blocked Contri's attack because his swing was timed right - he just lacked placement).

On the server, Hydro ran out of boost and hit too far to the left while Contri had successfully boosted to the side and counter-killed with GF.

As far as I'm aware, your actions are shown as soon as you click but does not necessarily reach the server and actually damage anything until it's been sent all the way. Think of being dc'ed where the entire world freezes except for some animations. You can swing your sword and there's a breeze blowing the trees but the wolvers don't move nor take damage and the treasure boxes don't open. Your movements are client side. Therefore the spectator should see things server side and each player will see things differently. Although brandish charges tho if you know what I mean...

Also, I propose that to test this all three recorders show their whole screen with a constant ping to the SK servers running next to the SK client to show the comparison more accurately. If you can get the IP address then "ping -t" should do the job unless that's too slow.

'The actual hit explosion appears to be delayed, but the damage is actually ahead. It's inconsistent, which is why there's no reasonable explanation for it.'

Has to do with SK's netcode I believe. Something about how it all the data for one action isn't necessarily sent in one packet.
The AoE strike and damage, and the animation could be two separate things like that.
I might be off as I found it a bit confusing when it was explained to me, but that's what I believe you're seeing.

Serian, I assume you are saying Hydro is the one with better ping.

No, wasn't talking about who had better ping or who's better, at all. I'm saying how I interpreted the attacks happening from the recorder (Contri's) perspective, and I interpreted it incorrectly.

For the most part though, Contri does take damage before
1) his UI shows the reaction
2) the attack animation plays.

The rest is just so convoluted thanks to the weirdness of having 2 bars ping that I'm not gonna bother to reanalyze it lol.