Let Fly! v2.0. An Updated Knockback Control Guide

Six issues later, I finally got around to updating this guide take into account the comments, observations, and oh-I-wish-I-had-remembered-to-include-thats of the last couple of years.

As before, I’m not writing this guide to tell anyone “play your toon this way or you’re a moron.” I just wanted to pass on some discussion about the effects of knockback and ideas you can try to 1) use it for your own benefit, and 2) make it an effect that helps out a team instead of one the team has to work around. Knockback can be a very effective soft control tool when used with purpose. Plus, it’s pretty friggin’ cool, nailing a bad guy and watching them fly through the air away from you.

While the energy blast powerset attacks are the most notorious for their knockback, powers from a wide variety of powersets in any archetype have a chance for knockback. Wind powers (gale, hurricane), melee attacks (weapon or no), force field and a variety of control powers have knockback as either their primary or secondary effect.

What I mean by “a chance for knockback” is that knockback is not guaranteed. Some attacks, such as force bolt or power push, have a 100% chance of knockback. Some, like energy bolt, have perhaps a 20% chance, meaning knockback will be applied to the target one time in five hits. Whether the knockback occurs depends on whether the magnitude of the knockback applied overcomes the knockback resistance of the target, if any. See the mechanics discussion at the end of this guide for more on this.

That being said, knockback types, and energy/ blasters in particular, have a bad rep for screwing up team synergy. We’re going to work towards remedying this.

Let’s start off with a brief discussion of some generalities, then I’ll discuss synergy with teammates and finish with a few powers in detail. There is also a brief discussion of the game mechanics at the end for those interested. Thanks to Deadboy_Champion for suggesting a more user friendly organization for the guide.

Knockback is actually quite similar to real estate. The three most important factors to consider when dealing with either are:

1) Location
2) Location, and (wait for it…)
3) Location

These are the factors I consider when shooting a target I’m not certain I’m going to kill with that shot. If I’m using power burst on an even level minion with less than half a health bar, I’m not going to worry about it as much.

1) Location, The Target's. Where is the target in the environment? If I want to keep the target available, I’d like him near a wall (good), in a corner (better) or in as small a cul-de-sac as I can find best). This way, if he is knocked away, he bounces off the wall and lands where I want him and in position for the next hit, whether I’m dealing the hit or a team mate is.
On the other hand, if I and/or my team are to get overrun, having the target near a ledge might be handy. I can knock him off the ledge, hopefully imparting some falling damage in the process, and finish off his friends while he’s climbing stairs.

2) Location, Your. Where are you in relation to your target? If he’s standing next to a wall, and you’re standing next to the same wall, he’s not going to bounce off the wall; he’ll just be farther down the wall. Knockback is always away from you, so if you want to bounce a bad guy off a particular wall, you have to first position yourself so that the target is between you and whatever you want the target to hit. Obvious statements, I know, but someone had to say it.
HOweVER, if you happen to be reasonably close to directly above a target, either with a flight power or by shooting off a balcony or ledge, then knockback becomes knockdown, and the target ends up laid out where it had been standing. I’ve used this tactic a lot when teaming with melee types, and it seems to be pretty popular.

3) Location, Your Teammates’. Where are your teammates, and what are they doing. Is the scrapper or tanker handling a particular target? If so, then shooting that target without confidence that you going to kill it with that shot, generally won’t make you popular, as it just means the melee type is going to have to chase that guy down. On the other hand, if a teammate without significant melee attacks (controllers, defenders, */device blasters) is being pestered by a badguy at melee range, they will probably appreciate seeing that particular bad guy be knocked away from them.


Synergies. This part is strictly for teaming purposes. Knockback can be a powerful tool in making some of your teammates’s powers either much more or much less effective.

Focal Point and Trajectory. Any AoE power has a focus point. This can be a player, a bad guy, or a spot on the ground, but it’s going to be one of the three, and I try to make a point of knowing which. If you can knock a target onto an ice slick, onto caltrops, into a radiation field - i.e., think about aiming your knockback toward the focus point - you’ll be much more popular than if you knock a target out of those same areas. Either is just as likely, you just have to play with the three factors above in mind.
If the target is in or near an area you would like them to inhabit, you have an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. If they are on an ice slick and not a concern for the time being, you might want to concentrate on a target that is currently a threat. OR, if the ice slick, etc. is near a backboard, you can position yourself appropriately, bounce them off said backboard, and keep them on said ice slick.
Also, if you shoot the target serving as the anchor for a radiation field and knock it out of the crowd, that crowd is now more dangerous.

Melee players. All I’m going to say about this is that, with a very few exceptions, a tank or scrapper can’t hit someone outside of arm’s reach. Think on this when shooting a target in melee range of a melee toon and consider whether your shot is going to make your team more or less effective. Simple as that. SunSonDesigns made an excellent suggestion for melee types teaming with knockback types: bind "targetenemynear" to a convenient key. If somebody knocks away your playmate, it'll let you pick the nearest alternate target instead of having to chase the first one down. A good way to train a bad knockback artist is to not take the aggro back once he or she does something stupid.


POWERS. There are three basic types of knockback, categorized by how many targets fly in what directions: single-target, cone, and radial. I’m going to talk about each category, with some suggested strategies, rather than discussing particular powers in detail. I’ll include a list of some of the powers with the particular type of knockback. These lists are just examples and are not all-inclusive. Also included are some knockback/knockdown type attacks. See the mechanics discussion to see why I included them.

SINGLE TARGET. These are powers in which only one target is affected. If knockback hits, the target will fly directly away from the attacker. If the attacker is above the target, the target will fly down. Examples of single-target knockback attacks include:
Energy Bolt
Energy Blast
Energy Burst
Crane Kick (Yes, melee types can knock their target away)
Power Push
Force Bolt
Nemesis Staff

CONE ATTACKS. These are Area of Effect attacks, such as Energy Torrent or Gale, that knock a batch of bad guys (up to 10) away from the shooter. While the width (arc) and length of the cone vary, all of these attacks are similar in that the targets fly in more or less the same direction. This direction would directly away from you. For example, if you aimed a cone attack with knockback at the middle of a group of three targets, the middle guy would fly directly away, the guy on the left would fly away and a little left, and the guy on the right would fly away and a little right. Unless you aim this attack into a corner, the targets will land in a wider pattern than they started with.
My absolute favorite trick with ET is to hover in position above the tank or scrapper. Target a goon as close to directly below you as possible, and let fly. With a little luck, everyone around your teammate is now laying comfortably on the floor, in prime position for kicking. Remember, this is a cone attack, so by hovering from close to max range, you’ll cover a wider area.


RADIAL. These are Area of Effect (AoE) attacks in which the targets (up to 16) fly away from the focal point of the attack rather than simply from simply from the attacker. Radial attacks can be grouped into three categories, based on the focal point of the attack:

Point Blank AoE (PBAoE). With these powers, the focal point is the attacker. All knockback is away from the attacker. Examples include:
Nova
Repel
Repulsion Field
Hurricane

A quick discussion: Repel. I just happen to like this power, and not only because it’s a cool-looking effect. If you stand in a doorway, no mobs can get past you. They may be able to get in a shot in before getting knocked away, though, so be careful there. You can use it as a control if you pin a target in a corner. They’ll keep getting knocked into the corner and bouncing back on to you, only to get knocked into the corner again. Be careful with your endurance with this tactic, because it’s going to burn fast.

Targeted AoE. These attacks act like variable width cone attacks, with the cone narrowing as the target gets farther away, and widening until it is essentially radial for a very close target. This a loose similarity, in that the Area of Effect is defined in a radius around the target, as opposed to an area ranging from you to the target and beyond in the case of a cone power. This can make these powers useful in a "get away from me" way, in that if you target someone directly in front of you, you can hit someone behind you as well. Let me try to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
Picture a group of Hellions, with eight standing in a circle around one, the one being your target. If you fire from max range, they'll all be knocked in roughly the same direction - away from you with a small amount of spread to the sides. In this case, the power acts just like a cone (except for the extra 6 targets you can hit). The difference between the two is that a cone attack will also hit a bad guy standing next to you if he's in line with your target. A radial power won't. However, if you stand inside the circle next to the target, they will fly in all directions radially from you. A cone power at this close range would only hit your target and maybe one or two guys on the other side of him, plus any targets outside the circle in line with target and in range. Thus, the area of effect of the cone is defined by your location, while the area of effect for the radial is defined by the target. Some examples of these powers. include:
Explosive Blast
Explosive Arrow
M30 Grenade
Repulsion Bomb (yes, it was recently changed to knockdown, but that is only until it gets slotted with knockback enhancements. More on that below.)
Note: thanks to Wavicle for pointing out the initial inaccuracies in this paragraph.

Anchored. The only power in this group I can think of off the top of my head is Bonfire. Instead of targeting a bad guy, activating this power puts a target reticle on the ground, like a pet summons or teleport, and the power is activated at that spot. Any resultant knockback is from that spot, rather than from the attacker or any mob. This power is particularly useful for blocking a door or giving squishies a safer place to stand.


KNOCKBACK/KNOCKDOWN MECHANICS. Knockback, like holds, stuns and the like, has a magnitude. How much magnitude the target ends up getting hit with determines how far said target will go. (Warning: this is an educated guess as to how this works, so please be kind if I screw something up.) The first myth to dispel is the difference between knockback, knockup, and knockdown. In fact, it’s all knockback. Knockdown and knockup just have magnitudes between 0 and 1.0. A lower value in this range gets knocked down and a higher number gets knocked up. This is why you can slot knockback enhancements into a knockdown power like repulsion bomb to turn the knockdown into knockback intentionally. This is a little known reality, because no one but masochistic energy blasters or repel-happy kinetics generally slot knockback enhances. Magnitudes of 1.0 or better result in knockback, with higher numbers giving longer distances (do a YouTube search of CoH & rocketman to see what slotted up power push will do for you.)

Knockback resistance comes in magnitudes also - thus the big discussion on the nerf to Acrobatics which dropped the resistance magnitude from 100 to 9. As a result, it becomes possible to stack knockback powers on a target with resistance and knock them back anyway. The relative levels of the target and the attacker plays into it as well, but I have even less specific information on that.

Okay, the post is now open for discussion. Please post comments in regards to any particular powers, if you feel the need. If you feel I misstated or missed something, post a comment and I’ll update this guide. Thanks for your time, and please support your local energy blaster.

Damn you! Now I have to update my Force Fielder's Bible to point to this new guide..... grr...

Good stuff as always Mr. Flux.

[ QUOTE ]

Targeted AoE. In this attack, the target is knocked away from the attacker, and all the surrounding bad guys fly away from the target. These attacks can be some of the more annoying if used improperly, because they are not high-damage attacks, so you generally end up with a bunch of scattered, partially damaged, and highly irritated goons. You target one goon, and the blast knocks surrounding mobs on a radial away from him, not you. This is key in that one of the three factors, namely your location, isn’t as big a deal as the other two. This has two implications. 1) If you want to knockback the group in a particular direction, target one on the side of the group away from where you want them to go. 2) Even if you’re above the target, they’ll all still be knocked back from your target. Some examples include:
Explosive Blast
M30 Grenade
Repulsion Bomb (yes, it was recently changed to knockdown, but that is only until it gets slotted with knockback enhancements. More on that below.)
NOTE: Hover does NOT turn knockback into knockdown with these powers.

[/ QUOTE ]




Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Go, test it. Now.

When you use such an attack AT RANGE, all the enemies will be knocked away from YOU, the attacker. It doesn't matter if you target one in front or in back. This INCLUDES use as KnockDOWN from above. Go test it.

If you use these powers in melee range, with mobs on all sides of you, THEN they will be scattered radially, because they are all being knocked Away from YOU. NOT away from your target.


Knockback powers NEVER knock enemies toward the source of the knockback.

See, this is what I get when I'm NOT anal-retentive about searching everything I read for problems.... nice catch.

loved the rocketman videos!

Thanks for the feedback, and I stand corrected. I edited the guide, based on your response and some testing with Repulsion Bomb 2-slotted for knockback. Serves me right for writing a section based on hearsay and little testing. I had Explosive Blast about 2 1/2 years ago for as long as it took be to finish the respec trial and dump it, so I didn't have a whole lot of experience. Does it look better now?

Well, it's not great, because the damage isn't great. But, like all Blaster ranged attacks, it recently got a lot better than it was. The animation is pretty fast, so you can make a decent 1-2 aoe punch with Energy Torrent>Explosive Blast, but I don't take it in my builds.


Edit: lol, you meant the post

actually, I really like the way you put it now, the 'variable cone' explanation is quite useful, and not a way I've heard it explained before.

one more thing you might add though, is a description of the use.

that when used up close it can be a good 'get the hell away from me' power, but when used like that frivolously breaks the rules you set out before regarding location and maximizing aoes

and that used at range it can be as useful as a cone (moreso because of higher target caps) for positioning mobs. packing them tighter rather than spreading them out, by knocking them to a wall or corner as you describe elsewhere

Good idea, thanks and updated again.

Nice guide. I was especially interested in the part about the targeted AoE knocking away from the player, not the target. This is counterintuitive, but more manageable.

A minor quibble on wording. According to the in-game help, the "PB" in PBAOE does not stand for "point blank"; it stands for "player based". I have seen this mistake quite often in many guides and posts. You can see it in menu>help>powers>power descriptions. Of course, no one will be confused by the incorrect terminology, but "player based" and "point blank" are not synonymous. For instance, you would never hear about a person being killed by a gun fired at "player based" range.

I'm sure most people couldn't care less about the terminology, but I do prefer "player based". After all, it is more descriptive. Also, I think that "point blank" is actually incorrect, in this sense: If by "point blank" we mean, "emanating from the player", then a snipe would also be "point blank", since it emanates from the player, but this goes against common usage of "point blank". Basically, I think it comes down to this: "point blank" describes range, which is not what we want for PBAOE. We want to describe the origin of the power; in this case, the player.

Wish I had something useful to say about gameplay. Anyway, again, nice guide. Force bolt FTW!