Combat Movement Tip

[Passerbye.6291]

So, over the time I played this game (a few years), I've occasionally noticed that quite a few people are missing some key and mostly simple information when it comes to combat movement.
The first one that almost everyone knows, circle strafing around your target will often let you mitigate damage received by avoiding most frontal cone attacks, the closer you are, the easier they are to dodge, in fact this one is an entire role in Kaineng Overlook Strike, The mech in the second split of the fight rains down aoes unless someone gets in front of it to aggro it, in which case it cycles through 3 frontal cone attacks in between scripted mechanics, allowing you to comfortably dodge them while making room for your squad to comfortably move in. Barring difficulties in simultaneous key presses, there is little reason to stand still in this game, this is especially true when you are soloing champions-legendaries (Note: In the case of endgame group content, you are more mindful of your position so you limit unnecessary movement to a minimum to make sure you get all the boons and to not confuse people with overlapping aoes in content that they spawn).

The second one, which is surprisingly unknown to more people than I'd have expected, is avoiding projectile attacks. Targeted projectile attacks account for your movement speed and direction at the time they are fired in this game and using WASD movement, there is no graduation in movement speed in this game, so you either aren't moving, or are moving at the max speed you currently have with the buffs/debuffs on you. What this means is that, if you happen to be moving right when a projectile is shot at you and you stop immediately after, the projectile will be shot at exactly where you would be if you had not stopped, making it miss entirely without the need for a dodge. Ofc, this is a bit difficult to pull of consciously in combat, especially if you don't know the movements of the enemy you are facing, luckily, by wiggling left and right in quick succession, you can avoid this problem almost entirely. When you wiggle left and right, you continue to occupy roughly the same spot, but whenever an enemy is attacking you with projectiles they either shoot far left or far right of you due to the mechanic I explained. When doing this, don't forget to account for the speed of the projectiles, fast projectiles require more distance between you and the target to reliably benefit from this. (Note: this works in PvP as well and I assume almost anyone who does PvP knows this. You can easily test this with a staff mirage, the staff auto attack projectile is very slow, so makes it easier to test and witness.)

Another quick tip, that isn't entirely movement based is that, if your class has pets, summons etc., you can often use them to block projectiles for you by hiding behind them, quite a lot of enemy projectiles are single target only and will dissipate the moment they hit anything. So if you are a mesmer, you can hide behind illusions, a renegade, behind your kalla summons etc.

Edited October 9, 2023 by Passerbye.6291
Added notes

[Crystal Paladin.3871]

I have mixed opinions on projectiles... slow and unidirectional projectiles are easily avoided... homing projectiles force u to use a dodge(if projectile is deadly) or facetank it and save teh dodge for something else.. even sometimes slow moving projectiles are homing projectiles.. example champion openworld  bosses in POF and onwards have target lockon mechanic and release a white big orb that moves toward u.. either waste a block or dodge or face tank it... and lot of core tyria open world monsters have homing fast multiple projectiles with slow intervals(meaning ur dodge invulnerability frames will not be enough to evade all projectile impacts) but then again core tyria monsters die quickly so it doesnt matter... but some boss monsters like zhaitan eye in orr map will attack with beams that passthru walls X) and some classes like dare devils, mirage can use lengthy evades, invulnerabilities and players who roam open world with raid builds wont have much defense utilities(blocks,condicleanses) to begin with and get either 2 shotted or hunted down by mobs who apply 15 seconds of cripple, slow, chill and whatnots...

some enemies that come to mind are young karka that spews continuous barbs,karka hatchlings that cling to u until u waste 2  dodges(one for cripple and one for blind-karka on face)

 

if we convince ourselves to use meta survival,defense,cleanse builds from a website, we are missing out on the core aspect the fun part of playing what u like or whatever...

 

my tip to combat movement is... if using raid builds on open world, if u feel like enemy might overwhelm u and u either dont have defensive capabilities in ur build or everything on cooldown, run away from teh area b4 ur health drops to 50%... the time u think u can take on teh mob when all your skills on cooldowns, thats when u made a big mistake, u get stun locked knockdown, crippled, chilled, slowed and hug teh ground until u pay 2 silver for Waypoint X)

Edited October 9, 2023 by Crystal Paladin.3871

[Passerbye.6291]

1 hour ago, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

I have mixed opinions on projectiles... slow and unidirectional projectiles are easily avoided... homing projectiles force u to use a dodge

I mean if something is homing in on you, the wiggling will definitely not help ^^. Cheers for the info.

If you wish to solo champions or legendaries, you'd usually need either high enough damage to burst them down (often unrealistic) or proper ways of mitigation and sustain to live through unavoidable damage. I don't think anyone expects to murder legendaries solo with pure glass cannon builds.
Though, that said, I killed both champion and legendary bounties completely naked, using a single level 4 white staff on mirage before, so some classes are definitely better geared towards soloing things without additional survival via gear.

[Cyninja.2954]

On 10/9/2023 at 7:22 AM, Crystal Paladin.3871 said:

if we convince ourselves to use meta survival,defense,cleanse builds from a website, we are missing out on the core aspect the fun part of playing what u like or whatever...

This statement was made in reference to content played and not builds. It refered to for example not having to run 1 and the same dungeon for that exact 1 piece of gear one might desire.

It was not meant to mean: you will be able to overcome every challenge without adapting to it.

You absolutely are not required to use "meta" builds from websites. These are there for sharing and convenience and most often somewhat designed/optimised by players with experience.

You are free to use your own custom build and adapt it as needed if you are able enough to do so.

Meanwhile most open world content is designed very lenient in that regard most often not requiring huge changes or none at all.

Edited October 10, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Cuks.8241]

On 10/9/2023 at 6:09 AM, Passerbye.6291 said:

(Note: In the case of endgame group content, you are more mindful of your position so you limit unnecessary movement to a minimum to make sure you get all the boons and to not confuse people with overlapping aoes in content that they spawn).

While all you said is true, this is very important. I see this in many games in all modes. When players get attacked they run around like headless chicken - unpredictable, sporadic movement, panic. While often just a simple sidestep is enough. If there is a spread mechanic just calmly pick a direction and keep it and move minimum that you have to. Dont dodge or get yourself animation locked unless have to. If another player is with you just side step a little or if hes acting crazy just stop.

Its similar in pvp. When players get attacked they panic and start to move and dodge like crazy. This will not help you. Calm play even if at 1% hp has a chance to win. Crazy play never.