Systems and methods related to corneal ablation for treatment of one or more high-order optical aberrations are provided. A method includes providing a defect-correcting prescription (92, 132), determining an ablation profile (98, 138) to impose the prescription on the cornea, and determining a sequence of laser-energy ablations (106, 146) to impose the ablation profile (98, 138) on the cornea. The prescription comprises a high-order optical correction. The ablation profile (98, 138) comprises a first-segment profile and a second-segment profile. The second-segment profile corresponds to at least one high-order optical correction. The ablation sequence (106, 146) comprises applying ablations corresponding to the first-segment profile prior to applying ablations corresponding to the second-segment profile.
