Frontal Backstabs- Mq2melee

[Excellent1]

Hi guys, I've been searching for something about this, and I'm not entirely sure what the best way to go about getting backstab to fire if I'm attacking from the front.

Right now I'm soloing with my rogue, and I'd like to have backstab firing automatically, both for the damage, and for the skillups. Is there a way to do this using the backstabif function, or am I going about it the wrong way?

I've never used the holyshit/downshit commands for melee, so I'm pretty uninformed about some of this stuff. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[burntbulb]

i dont have a rogue but i have heard others say you can move forward , behind the mob, then quickly back and you will temporally be behind the mob to use backstab. if you could get the timing down you could set a holyshit to: if backstab is ready and your not behind target to keypress forward, keypress back. just an idea...

 

[Drowfire]

if you have the frontal stab AA melee normaly ever fires bs.

 

[William12]

You need the frontal BS AAs to do it from the front. Once you have them it should use backstab no matter where you are. (keep in mine it does only a fraction of the damage compared to being behind the mob)

 

[hankdean]

works every time w/ a holyflag.


i added a holyshit in

/holyshit1=/doability Backstab


works flawless...very easy to setup a holyflag...look it up on the wiki

 

[Excellent1]

Thanks all for the replies.

I have the aa that allows frontal backstabs (chaotic stab), but melee would not fire backstab. If the mob was running away on low health it would go off, so I know it was related to the ${melee.backangle} tlo.

Hankdean--I'll add that to the ini and see how it goes. I've never used the holy/downshits, so I've been reading up on how to set them up.

 

[Excellent1]

works every time w/ a holyflag.


i added a holyshit in

/holyshit1=/doability Backstab


works flawless...very easy to setup a holyflag...look it up on the wiki

Working like a charm. Thank you

 

[htw]

This commonly happens because mq2melee calcs the angle based on the reported AA level. Likely it's not quite up to date for what all those levels are, so then it will default to the "normal" angle (regular backstab only).

If we can get those values, it is easily updated and fixed to use it built-in without working with holyshits.

up to you guys!!

htw

 

[Excellent1]

This commonly happens because mq2melee calcs the angle based on the reported AA level. Likely it's not quite up to date for what all those levels are, so then it will default to the "normal" angle (regular backstab only).

If we can get those values, it is easily updated and fixed to use it built-in without working with holyshits.

up to you guys!!

htw

I can tell you that the AA "Chaotic Stab" (single level AA) is the one that allows frontal backstabs. From what I read during my searches on this issue before posting, when Sorcier modified backstab to no longer use the angle requirement set by the user, but rather by the tlo, he later adapted it to fire based on the AA ability Seized Opportunity.

Seized Opportunity allows critical backstabs from the front, but it's not the actual AA that switches on the ability to backstab from the front. That's Chaotic Stab. The increasing levels of Seized Opportunity just make frontal backstabs more effective.

I'm not sure if this is the info you are wanting, or not, but that's my (obviously limited) understanding of it.

 

[htw]

I can tell you that the AA "Chaotic Stab" (single level AA) is the one that allows frontal backstabs. From what I read during my searches on this issue before posting, when Sorcier modified backstab to no longer use the angle requirement set by the user, but rather by the tlo, he later adapted it to fire based on the AA ability Seized Opportunity.

Seized Opportunity allows critical backstabs from the front, but it's not the actual AA that switches on the ability to backstab from the front. That's Chaotic Stab. The increasing levels of Seized Opportunity just make frontal backstabs more effective.

I'm not sure if this is the info you are wanting, or not, but that's my (obviously limited) understanding of it.

The basic checks are:

Angular view to target < 60 (your heading vs target location)
Angular view to target view (orientation) < XXX (your target heading vs your heading)
Distance < kill distance ZZZ (from you to target)
backstab = ready
proper weapon equipped
melee mode on

Now, XXX, is calculated on the spent points of Seized Opportunity. When the calc'd difference in angle vs being directly behind the mob is less than the set value, then condition is true. If you have the points, XXX is set to 512, so you can see it would always be true (any angle). With lower values, it tightens the arc you can be at a difference from directly behind the mob, i.e., 256, 128, 64 (64 is the default btw).

I just now changed the values from a switch check, to >= instead, so that does not ever catch us (however, see below, my comment on proper operation of it).

Backstab does not "go by" the BackAngle member of the Melee TLO, that is just a member to give you the actual angular distance YYY (as in YYY < XXX above).

Kill distance ZZZ is calculated as target avatar height + 12.

All that, is how it has been for long long time. Like... years (other than adding additional checks for more points spent in Seized Opportunity).

Now, if all this is incorrect, I am willing to change it of course (I do not play a high level rogue or have access to one, so the information from you guys is critical to things working correctly).

Hopefully that made some sense.

htw

 

[Excellent1]

The basic checks are:

Angular view to target < 60 (your heading vs target location)
Angular view to target view (orientation) < XXX (your target heading vs your heading)
Distance < kill distance ZZZ (from you to target)
backstab = ready
proper weapon equipped
melee mode on

Now, XXX, is calculated on the spent points of Seized Opportunity. When the calc'd difference in angle vs being directly behind the mob is less than the set value, then condition is true. If you have the points, XXX is set to 512, so you can see it would always be true (any angle). With lower values, it tightens the arc you can be at a difference from directly behind the mob, i.e., 256, 128, 64 (64 is the default btw).

I just now changed the values from a switch check, to >= instead, so that does not ever catch us (however, see below, my comment on proper operation of it).

Backstab does not "go by" the BackAngle member of the Melee TLO, that is just a member to give you the actual angular distance YYY (as in YYY < XXX above).

Kill distance ZZZ is calculated as target avatar height + 12.

All that, is how it has been for long long time. Like... years (other than adding additional checks for more points spent in Seized Opportunity).

Now, if all this is incorrect, I am willing to change it of course (I do not play a high level rogue or have access to one, so the information from you guys is critical to things working correctly).

Hopefully that made some sense.

htw

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, htw. Made perfect sense. My comment about sorcier changing the ability to reference the backangle tlo was regarding the prior ability to set the backstab arc manually. I recall reading (and doing so years ago) simply putting /melee backstab=360 in the ini to allow backstabs from any angle.

The fuzzy part for me is why the number of AA's in Seized Opportunity would have any impact on the angle, in terms of the plugin. The more AA's spent in that category, the greater the chance of a max level backstab, but even at max level it's no where near the dps of having the mobs back. From what I've always read and understood, the only utility this AA has is soloing and for those raids where you can't get the mobs ass, for whatever reason.

The way AA's currently affect backstab and positioning are: 1) Chaotic stab turns the ability "on" to backstab from the front, with the penalty of being a minimum calculated backstab. 2) Seized Opportunity gives a chance to backstab from the front for normally calculated damage. At maxed level, this increased chance is still not equal to being truly behind the mob.

All that said, there is never a time you'd want melee to fire backstab automatically from the front, if you have the possibility of having the mob's back for guaranteed normal backstabs; even if you have maxed SO.

I'd guess this hasn't been an issue because people using rogues as bots have them attacking from behind anyway, and players raiding with melee, automatically get in optimal position. For soloing, however, or for those raid which do not allow being behind the mob, I think the plugin should only check for Chaotic Stab before firing backstabs outside of the optimal arc.

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on it. Logically, it doesn't make sense for the angle calculation to widen based on SO, however, as increasing levels of SO do nothing to change the positioning requirement penalties for the rogue. You're either in normal backstab position and damage is calculated normally, or you're outside of the arc, and SO gives you a chance to have a normal backstab damage calculation. That said, there is never a breakpoint where any given level of SO overcomes the penalty applied by positioning (even maxed out). If that were the case, I'd see how the current setup came about. I guess at some point the feedback was that people were willing to live with the penalty after a certain level of SO.