Just posted about this in the Tauren Hunter range topic but I think it merits its own thread.



Leeway is when the game extends the melee range of two players that are moving by quite a bit. The effect is magnified for Tauren. This kind of behavior could often be seen in old PvP videos but people have been chalking it up to lag. The current phenomenon has been confirmed as deliberate design by Blizzard to recreate that laggy, slippery feel in melee combat during good connections.

This has obvious implications for dead-zoning, not just with hunters but also warriors where avoiding both melee and charge to leave combat is a common strategy. It's also great for melee classes being kited in general.

Assuming the players are attacking each other vs. one trying to get away, would a non-tauren be able to hit a tauren with melee attacks from an equal distance?

If I'm attacking a tauren as said bovine is running away, will I be able to hit from a greater distance than if I were attacking other races?

This is interesting... thanks for posting.

ejangle wrote: ↑

5 years ago

If I'm attacking a tauren as said bovine is running away, will I be able to hit from a greater distance than if I were attacking other races?

Perplexity didn't demonstrate that but said it was the case. It's pretty much a death sentence for anyone rolling Tauren hunter.

This is awesome! A tauren warriors range would be absolutely nutty... I wonder if this would be enough justification for any min/max pvpers to roll tauren instead of Orc? It will be interesting to see how this develops.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

This is awesome! A tauren warriors range would be absolutely nutty... I wonder if this would be enough justification for any min/max pvpers to roll tauren instead of Orc?

As i understand it works both ways. If you both move and you can hit the target from bigger range, the target can hit you too.

Skye wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

This is awesome! A tauren warriors range would be absolutely nutty... I wonder if this would be enough justification for any min/max pvpers to roll tauren instead of Orc?

As i understand it works both ways. If you both move and you can hit the target from bigger range, the target can hit you too.

Yes, this is the way tauren range has always worked. Though, this is advantageous for classes like warrior because in most circumstances, the extra edge their range will give will allow them to land a vital hamstring etc. For other classes like hunter, this will almost always be a net loss.

In fact the tauren racial wasnt acknowledged or dealt with by Blizzard until arenas during Burning Crusade when tauren warriors were able to hit players through the pillars to land hamstrings while they attempted to pillar hump.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

This is awesome! A tauren warriors range would be absolutely nutty... I wonder if this would be enough justification for any min/max pvpers to roll tauren instead of Orc? It will be interesting to see how this develops.

/u/Beanna did some pixel counting and made out the total range for moving Tauren vs moving regulars to be 9.61 yards. So leeway is giving a 37% increase in melee range. If that ratio holds up then regular vs regular + leeway would be ~7 yards and Tauren vs Tauren + leeway would be 13 yards.

I don't want to imply this is all about Tauren though. Anyone kiting a non-cow is going to feel that 7 yard reach.

This is insane. Would work great for Enhancement Shaman, but the looks of Tauren are just not my cup of tea.

Rejoice my Ret paladin and melee brothers! We can now dodge bullshit aoes again!

Nenski wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Rejoice my Ret paladin and melee brothers! We can now dodge bullshit aoes again!

To be clear, leeway is not isolated to melee classes. This will also increase the AoE range of caster spells by 2 yards. I believe this is by design.

https://streamable.com/sovds
Mage in the video is able to trigger the additional 2yard range by jumping in place.

Leeway will effect everyone, but not quite equally. Certain Classes get more out of this mechanic.

Some examples:
Hunters in general find themselves mobile almost all of the time. This essentially makes leeway active for hunters as they are running and kiting which makes them very susceptible to being clipped and deadzoned.

Consider yourself a tauren druid. You are carrying the flag is WSG. You have a rogue JUST out of range behind you spamming his kidney. You shift out of cat to roll some HoTs to counter the bleeds on you, enlarging your hitbox as a tauren WHILE leeway is active due to your movement. He catches you, he lands the kidney, he gets the flag and his team wins the game. This will effect you worse than a Night Elf druid in the same circumstance due to the inherent extra size of a taurens hitbox.

Where a tauren warrior could gain an advantage by violating leeway in conjunction with his extra range to hit you with a hamstring and gap close, the tauren druid who finds himself fleeing and kiting will typically be on the negative end of this same mechanic. When the feral is offensive, he typically finds himself in a shifted form and doesnt gain the advantage of his extra tauren range. When he is most vulnerable out of form, being a tauren increases his vulnerable state and makes him more susceptible to being caught. Combine this with leeway in its current state and I think Taurens will have the most amplified version of the leeway mechanic, for better or worse.

Hunters have a ton of issues right now in the beta. Leeway has a lot of implications... Depending on what version of a hunter we see closer to launch, I could find myself switching to a different class until some of these things are addressed. I dont hate leeway and I am not opposed to it. Leeway DEFINITELY will impact the meta though, and by a large margin, unless they tone it down quite a bit. The curious part of me hopes they tone it down by a little, but that it is still impactful enough to shuffle things up a bit!

I don't like this, at all.

This is definitely something to be considered, for both melee and casters. Although it doesn't even look like a melee range anymore, tbh.

Is it confirmed that this reach for Taurens is not the right one from vanilla? Afaik Blizzard stated that it was, right?

I saw talk in the warlock discord that leeway have been removed from spells now but we had no firm confirmation on that being true. If it is just on melee and not on spells that is kinda stupid also, but all of this looks stupid.

@daisyKutter The non-leeway Tauren range is supposed to be correct.

daisyKutter wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Is it confirmed that this reach for Taurens is not the right one from vanilla? Afaik Blizzard stated that it was, right?

The Tauren range you see right now is the one you are getting. Leeway will likely be tuned. Regardless, Taurens will have the most magnified range for both hitting others and being hit. In its current state, leeway is magnifying Tauren range to an unreasonable range.

Blue post update:

 Blizzard Entertainment

---

“Melee leeway” is working as intended.

After careful study and testing, we’ve found that for players with low latency, the state of melee leeway is how they would have experienced the game in 2006.

There are more people with low latency now than there were in 2006, so we expect for some it might feel different, but it is working as expected.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Blue post update:

 Blizzard Entertainment

---

“Melee leeway” is working as intended.

After careful study and testing, we’ve found that for players with low latency, the state of melee leeway is how they would have experienced the game in 2006.

There are more people with low latency now than there were in 2006, so we expect for some it might feel different, but it is working as expected.

So people with low latency can emulate having high latency and people with high latency will emulate complete and utter trash. Makes sense. Working as intended. Hahahahhaha! I really hope leeway shuffles up the meta though. This may end up ruining hunter for me but if it simultaneously shakes things up it may be worth it. I'm willing to change my class.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

This is awesome! A tauren warriors range would be absolutely nutty... I wonder if this would be enough justification for any min/max pvpers to roll tauren instead of Orc? It will be interesting to see how this develops.

/u/Beanna did some pixel counting and made out the total range for moving Tauren vs moving regulars to be 9.61 yards. So leeway is giving a 37% increase in melee range. If that ratio holds up then regular vs regular + leeway would be ~7 yards and Tauren vs Tauren + leeway would be 13 yards.

I don't want to imply this is all about Tauren though. Anyone kiting a non-cow is going to feel that 7 yard reach.

This is how it was back in Vanilla, correct? I played a Tauren Druid and now that I think about it, he had way more melee range than any of my other characters. This is when he wasn't in animal form, of course.

@snickerwicket Yes, but leeway is distinct from the increased Tauren range. Leeway is a 2.66 yard melee range increase for everyone when both characters are moving and neither is snared more than 30%. We're just referencing Tauren because leeway + Tauren's base range has the most apparent effect.

Looks like it’s time to roll cow, they’re basically a ranged melee character :P

Lendryn wrote: ↑

4 years ago

@snickerwicket Yes, but leeway is distinct from the increased Tauren range. Leeway is a 2.66 yard melee range increase for everyone when both characters are moving and neither is snared more than 30%. We're just referencing Tauren because leeway + Tauren's base range has the most apparent effect.

Oh so leeway is just how you can hit shit that's kind of far away? That was super useful when everything was laggy on my old potato pc. That's definitely a big part of classic to me! It made BG's easier as a melee class.

Seems like a lot of players, especially hunters, are really concerned about the melee leeway for a couple reasons;

Melee attackers who you should kite aren't really kitable which is the most important thing hunters can possibly do to counter melees who does great damage up close, like rogues and warriors, without even getting off traps or being able to melee or shoot at them.

If the hunter tries to melee without a melee spec and PvP gear (I believe) he's at a huge disadvantage because he isn't meant to be a melee fighter like other classes, and deals negligible damage compared to say warrior, rets and rogues.

If the hunter goes in for a trap, well, there isn't going to be any trapping happening because the melee is so far away because of leeway that the melee can walk around it and resume hitting. And then there is Scatter-Trap DR which is also gamebreaking.

And if the hunter tries to kite, well, the melee is in his deadzone (5-7, or 7-9 yards for Tauren) and the hunter can't shoot so he's just gonna get smacked and killed without getting a single shot off.

Which apparently is all adding to a huge debate if the class is doomed or not, some even saying they won’t play unless it’s fixed or just completely rerolling and some even saying hunters lost their farming skill, is melee leeway having such a huge impact or is this a community overreaction beyond the sky? I know too little to make my mind up but it’s sound really bad.

Tec wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Seems like a lot of players, especially hunters, are really concerned about the melee leeway for a couple reasons;

Which apparently is all adding to a huge debate if the class is doomed or not, some even saying they won’t play unless it’s fixed or just completely rerolling and some even saying hunters lost their farming skill, is melee leeway having such a huge impact or is this a community overreaction beyond the sky? I know too little to make my mind up but it’s sound really bad.

Yes. So many concerns. Playing a hunter correctly at a high level gives a VERY small tolerance for making errors. Positioning is everything. The difference of 1 yard is the difference of kiting a player to death or being deadzoned. Having a 2.66 yard leeway + the potential for player connection to further affect this, is concerning to say the least. Leeway is imitating poor connections to a server, but there is no system in place to check an individual players latency and then to apply leeway to equalize the effects of connection that both players would be experiencing. Not that I am saying that this would be the appropriate way to go either... Leeway offers a HUGE unknown. Races like tauren will see the most magnified version of this for better or worse... Race/Class combos like tauren druids will be caught out of form while trying to roll hots FAR easier than night elf druids. Classes like hunters will lose fights based on 1 yard of range, so 2.66 is very concerning. I play hunter because I enjoy it. I enjoy it because it performs well. If the class doesn't perform well, I would simply play a different class.

Again, we have no idea how this will impact the meta of PvP, but as anxious as I am to see how this will impact hunters, I am also excited for the potential this will have to shake things up. My personal loss of playing a hunter is far outweighed by the benifits of a new meta in PvP! I typically switch to warlock/mage after tier 2 when hunters begin to fade and turn my hunter into a BG baddie. In Classic I may just end up abandoning the hunter right out of the gate, and that is super exciting.

In the level 19 twinking bracket, even with laggy "leeway" back in the day, hunters were still really hard to take on. As a rogue I wouldn't engage unless they were distracted or I had the upper hand for some reason. Those pig charges and stuns were vicious at that early level.