Flux

Why can you stand far back from some bosses and still hit them? Why do people bunny hop in PvP? Why do druids in cat form have trouble with specials? Why can a Tauren tank not get Stomped by Brutallus in the Sunwell raid but every other tank can? It’s all because of hitboxes. Actually, it’s not the only reason people bunny hop in PvP but it does change your hitbox.

What is a hitbox? Hitboxes are an easy way for a game to decide if you can hit a target. For example, in a first person shooter the game doesn’t calculate the trajectory of a bullet though the air and if it would hit the pixels of your target’s leg. It simply determines if you pointed your gun at an imaginary box around the target. Did you aim and hit the box. This is much easier and faster for a game to calculate. Of course there might be a couple different boxes for each target. For example, there might be one for the head, chest, legs, and arms. But they are still boxes or some other shape. WoW has just one.

Let’s take a look at how WoW’s hitbox works and then we’ll offer up some specific tips at the end.

WoW’s Hitbox

How big is a creatures hitbox if you can’t see it? Slowly walk towards the creature and keep melee attacking. When you can hit it, the edge of your hitbox just touched theirs. To make the game feel realistic large creatures have large hitboxes and small creatures have small ones.

If you are melee you have to overlap hitboxes to hit. And if you are ranged then the distance from your hitbox center to the edge of your target’s hitbox must be in range of your ability.

When the difference in creature size is large, like you are gnome fighting a dragon, you can turn this to your advantage. Where can you find large creatures? All hitboxes seem to be cylinders. They seem to be as tall as they are wide. This means elongated or tall creatures like Tauren, cat form druids, dragons, giant robots, and others have larger than expected hitbox. But be careful, the hitbox size is not always strictly based on the creature size. Developers can and have adjusted them without adjusting the size of the creature.

Where the center of the hitbox is located is also important for ranged and some area of effect attacks. For elongated creatures the center is not always where you expect. For example, most player characters with shapeshifting, shamans and druids, have the center shifted to be near the shoulders. This is so that your perception, where your virtual head is, doesn’t feel strange. Since being an animal can already be strange enough for some.

Also hitboxes usually automatically adjust based on creature size. This is probably because by default they are based on the model width and height. This means if you grow or shrink your hitbox will usually grow or shrink which leads to some more advantages.

Range

Because most range abilities except some area of effect is calculated from center to edge, and not edge to edge or center to center, it’s possible for you to be in range of your target while you target is out of range of you. For example, say you are a gnome fighting a dragon. You will always be ‘closer’ to the dragon than it is to you. You only have to hit the edge of its hitbox which is far out from it’s center. While it has to hit the edge of your hitbox which is close in to your center. This gives you extra range and possibly puts you out of their range. There are several boss fights where this is a significant advantage.

Melee

Attacking a large hitbox creature lets melee stand further away and avoid some special attacks. It also makes melee positioning easier. A druid or a rogue does more damage attacking from behind but you can position yourself almost to the side of a creature instead of behind it which let’s you avoid rear attacks from the creature.

Conversely if your hitbox is small compared to theirs it’s harder for them to attack you from behind. This is especially useful in PvP. For example, drink some Noggenfogger or other size reducing items.

Some special abilities, usually area of effect, start from the center of the caster and don’t hit the target unless they pass through it’s center. For these cases range is center to center. If your hitbox is large enough, moving your center further away, it is possible you to be out of range of their special attacks but still in melee range. This is rare but it is the reason Tauren tanks can tank Brutallus and not get Stomped. Or why a Draenei can melee Void Reaver in The Eye but still be outside the Pound Range. Though in the second case, there isn’t a good reason to do it.

Tips

Bosses like Netherspite in Karazhan and Ghaz’an in Underbog have rear and front attacks and large hitboxes. Melee dps should position far out and to the side to avoid them.

Bunny hoping in PvP slightly increases your hitbox size. This can help when you are melee and trying to catch your target. It also could hurt you if you are trying to get away. Keep in mind that bunny hoping also lets you turn in midair which let’s you turn away from someone trying to get a rear attack, so while it might make you closer to your pursuer it also might let your turn away or just confuse them where you are going next. So while it’s one of the more annoying game mechanics, it does have a limited advantage for melee or escaping from melee. [Edit: trying to confirm this, there is some conflicting evidence.]

Using size reducing items can make it harder to be attacked from behind in PvP.

Cat form druids have an elongated hit box that is centered somewhere around their shoulders. In the past this led to some trouble with special attacks and positioning which has been fixed. But the hit box shape is still unusual and sometimes requires you to get closer than you might think, especially if you are used to being a Tauren.

Tauren tanks have a large enough hitbox that they are out of range of Kaz’rogal’s War Stomp, Vashj’s Strider’s Panic Attacks, and Brutallus’ Stomp. They can also hit the Flames of Azzinoth during the Illidan encounter without taking blaze damage.

Warriors using Demoralizing Shout will find that it acts like an area of effect and your center has to be in range of their center. This make using it on large creatures a problem since it only has a a 10 yard range.

Some bosses like Nalorakk and Halazzi in Zul’Aman need two tanks to split damage between them. If the tanks are not right on top of each other the damage will not be split. If your tanks are different sizes or shapes it’s important to have the center of their hitboxes on top of each other. This can happen if one is a tauren, dranei, gnome or even a druid bear. Note that the center of a bear hitbox is just behind their front paws.

Gruul grows in size during the fight, but his hitbox doesn’t. You will have the feeling you are having to stay closer and closer as the fight goes on to hit him. This is important for the offtank so they don’t get tricked into thinking they can drift too far away leaving the Hurtful Strikes on someone else.

If you know other ways to take advantage of hitboxes, let us know.

Tags: raid, skill
Author: aos

This entry was posted by aos on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Games, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.