Stutter Step

[Kitten]

Is it possible to stutter step with ranged units? It seems to me that the time it takes for them to perform the startup animation is too long, but I may be mistaken. To be clear, I am talking about stutter stepping with the purpose being to move without losing dps, like in Starcraft 2 with marines, rather than to increase dps, like in Vainglory with cooldown animation cancels.

[jammyjamjamman]

Hi Kitten. Welcome to megaglest!

Interesting question. Just to clarify what I think kitten means, the question is: The start-attacking animation for a ranged unit is slow. Can another unit escape damage from this attack by moving out of the way of fire during the attack-procedure?

My answer to this is, it actually depends on the Unit, and the situation. let me give some examples:

• An archer attacking a stationary unit. The archers have an average-speed anim. In my experience, if the animation has begun, there is no chance of escaping the attack from the archer.
• An archer attacking a moving unit. if the unit moves away from the archer/ the unit is really fast, then there's a chance it can escape the attack. sometimes the archer will also have to cancel the attack.
• A flying valkyrie attacking a unit running away. I've seen this one numerous times. The flying valkyrie chases the unit, begins the attack anim, then gives up because the unit is too far away, then chases again and the process repeats.
• An elephant-archer attacking a stationary flying unit. The elephant archer has a REALLY slow attack anim, and flying units tend to be fast. If you try to run away from this attack, there's a good chance you'll succeed and the elephant-attack anim will cancel and no attack fired.

Hope this may give some idea of the answer to your question

[Kitten]

It seems I phrased the question poorly. The question is "Can a ranged unit like an archer be give commands to cause it to quickly alternate moving and firing, allowing it to advance on fleeing units or kite chasing units without losing much dps?"

[Ishmaru]

It seems I phrased the question poorly. The question is "Can a ranged unit like an archer be give commands to cause it to quickly alternate moving and firing, allowing it to advance on fleeing units or kite chasing units without losing much dps?"

In the case of ranged units in MG and most mods of MG, no this is not possible. First off MG follows a grid system so a unit moving can only stop when it is fully occupying that space. Secondly, attacks are not instant, usually showing a few animation frames before actually firing a projectile. Lastly the max speed of which a projectile can travel (without problems) is roughly 30 which is slow enough to be avoided by the target, especially if target is moving away.

Stutter steping is only possible if a mod was built with that in mind. Fast moving units, brief attack animations and not using projectiles for ranged attacks are all necessary to create this effect.

[Kitten]

That answers my question. Thanks.