The delay mechanic can be used to apply a delay not only between ticks, but also inside of the same tick via a delay 0 mechanic.

DISCLAIMER

This is not an intended mechanic. It's just a side-effect that consistently works because of how the plugin's scheduler operates

While i have extensively tested this behavior after discovering it before documenting it, it's still very possible that new applications or game-breaking behaviors are still present. If you have any information useful to further expand this page and, by proxy, the knowledge available to every other MythicMobs user, let me know: Lxlp's Discord Profile

Single Delay

You have to imagine each mechanic as a series of instructions that are executed orderly. In this scenario, using a delay 0 mechanic allows you to "schedule" the subsequent mechanics to be executed after every other non delayed mechanic that tick.

flowchart LR
    A(Mechanic 1) --> B(Mechanic 2)
    B --> C[Delay 0]
    B ---> D(Other mechanics this tick)
    C ----> F(Mechanic 3)

Example

ExampleMechanic:
  Skills:
  - skill{s=Skill1} @self
  - skill{s=Skill2} @self

Skill1:
  Skills:
  - delay 0
  - message{m="<skill.var.test>"}

Skill2:
  Skills:
  - setvariable{var=test;val=1}

Executing the ExampleMechanic will output

• UNDEFINED if no delay 0 is used
• 1 otherwise

Multiple Delays

This behavior works with multiple delays too: each time a new delay 0 is executed, the subsequent mechanics are pushed a the back of the execution line again

flowchart LR
    A(Mechanic 1) --> B(Mechanic 2)
    B --> C[Delay 0]
    B ---> D(Other mechanics this tick)
    C ----> F(Mechanic 3)
    F --> G(Delay 0)
    F ---> H(Other mechanics this tick)
    G ----> L(Mechanic 4)

Example

ExampleMechanic:
  Skills:
  - skill{s=SkillMessage} @self
  - skill{s=Skill1} @self
  - skill{s=Skill2} @self

Skill1:
  Skills:
  - delay 0
  - setvariable{var=test;val=2}

Skill2:
  Skills:
  - setvariable{var=test;val=1}

SkillMessage:
  Skills:
  - delay 0
  - delay 0
  - message{m="<skill.var.test>"}

Executing the ExampleMechanic will output

• UNDEFINED if no delay 0 is used inside of SkillMessage
• 1 if only one delay 0 is used inside of SkillMessage
• 2 if all delays are used inside of SkillMessage

Examples

ExampleSkill:
  Cooldown: 0
  OnCooldownSkill: ExampleSkill-DisplayCooldown
  Skills:
  - delay 0
  - setSkillCooldown{s=ExampleSkill;seconds=<skill.cooldown>/20} @self

In this example if no delay 0 is set then the setSkillCooldown would have run regardless, but the new cooldown value would have been overridden by ExampleSkill's, as the cooldown for the metaskill is set after any non delayed mechanics in the metaskill are executed.
Using a delay 0 allows to apply a delay to the setSkillCooldown mechanic, allowing it to set the cooldown after ExampleSkill's has been set without needing to wait for an extra tick, which could have allowed for possible edge cases to cause a bug

ExampleSkill:
  Skills:
  - delay 0 ?variableisset{var=caster.example}
  - message{m=<caster.var.example>} @self

In this example a delay 0 is used to give a variable enough time to be set before its value is fetched. This has the drawback of making it impossible to exactly know beforehand how many intratick delays will be applied, but if, on the contrary, it's not already know how many intraticks will be needed to set the variable this can be a valuable tradeoff