"How to Not Suck at Knockback," or, "MondoCool Imposes His Opinions On You Again"

(WORK IN PROGRESS)

Knockback. The very idea of it promotes thoughts of hatred and anger in the minds of most players. That terrible, terrible combat mechanic that, though entertaining to watch, breaks apart tight groupings of enemies and prevents melee powers from being as effective. "How dare they knock my enemies back," thinks the player, "and ruin the good time I'm having!"

But does the player truly know why knockback is a bad thing? Do they look upon it with disgust in belief that it is purely an annoyance, or is it, in reality, because the many many people who attempt to use it fail at doing so?

This guide will offer a crash course on how to effectively utilize knockback and reduce the irritation and loss of effectiveness that it provides in the wrong hands.


STEP 1: Understand and knowing if your character uses knockback

This is very simple. Knockback is the game mechanic by which, upon the activation or toggling on of a power, one entity forces another entity a distance across the game world.

When a power with knockback is activated and hits, it will physically move the entity subjected to it provided that entity does not have protection against knockback. This can be something as simple as being knocked to the ground (in cases of powers that have less than 1 or so magnitude knockback) or being violently propelled halfway across the overworld (in cases of a Power Boosted level 50 Energy Blaster utilizing a knockback-slotted Power Thrust against a level 1 underling.) While the "knockdown" submechanic is not necessarily a hindrance to others, anything above 1 magnitude of knockback will, most likely, physically move an even-level enemy a certain distance.


Above: The player uses Energy Torrent, a cone with knockback, against a group of enemies.

The question to ask is: Do you have knockback? This is easy to find out. Enter any area with enemies, and attack them. If they are propelled away from you, then yes, your powers do have knockback. If not, then attempt again until you have found your knockback power. If considerable time passes and you do not knock back any enemies, you do not have knockback, and thus have little use for this guide.


STEP 2: Understanding the applications of knockback

These next illustrations will help you understand different types of knockback and how they are best applied in certain scenarios.









More to come.

You seem unfamiliar with Targetted AoE knockback and its mechanics. Knockback is always applied with relation to the caster, not the center of the AoE.

Though you seem to be using walls and corners with your knockback illustrations, someone unfamiliar with knockback use may not find it obvious -- the walls you depict could also be interpreted as dividing lines between illustrations.

You need some elementary description of how to use knockback. For example, "Use walls and corners to reduce the distance targets are knocked back. Knockback can actually make dispersed groups smaller and tighter by knocking them into walls and corners."

Also, it bears mentioning that hovering above mobs knocks mobs down and can reduce or eliminate scatter. This is important in open maps where there are no walls.

It might be worth turning the purple lines into arrows, to show which way things are going in the illustrations.

It can also be handy to knock enemies to over by a tanks aggro aura, they tend to get picked up by the aura while picking themselves up. This works especially well when its one mob that comes over to hit you, and you have a ST knockback.

I know, like I said it's a WIP and I'll get around to fixing it when I can.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison You seem unfamiliar with Targetted AoE knockback and its mechanics. Knockback is always applied with relation to the caster, not the center of the AoE.

That's weird. Every time I've used a targeted AoE with knockback, e.g. M30 grenade, it's propelled from the source of the knockback. I'll have to look at it.

One other point to add to the "win" scenario:

KB from directly above = Knockdown (in place).

This is a technique that I use on my Peacebringers (and other flying
KB toons) very effectively -- Hover Blasting ftw


Regards,
4

I even use KB Cone Into Ground on my Ice/Ice/Arctic tanker. I call it the Hop'n'Pop, since it turns a pie slice in 2D to one side, it becomes a "poor man's PBAoE" that hits everyone clustered up around where you'd been standing. All you have to do is jump and key your cone attack at the top of your jump.

It's the end. But the moment has been prepared for ...