Guide walkingAngleVariation, and Why the Direction You Strafe Matters

Strafing is a core part of Wynncraft's gameplay, but something not many players may know is that the direction you strafe can have a major impact in dodging enemy attacks.

The vast majority of enemies in Wynncraft have something called walkingAngleVariation. If this is set to true, then enemies will face away from the player up to a max of ~30 degrees. This tag is intended to prevent groups of mobs from clumping together too much by altering their pathing, but it also has a massive impact on combat, and taking advantage of this can make fights much easier.

Spoiler: Example of walkingAngleVariation

Note how Corkus Accipientis is facing left of me, rather than directly at me. This isn't a bug, but the effect that walkingAngleVariation has on how mobs face the player.
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There are multiple ways in which this can be used, the most notable being dodging spells, but it's also useful for kiting melee mobs and possibly even dodging basic mob projectiles. To start, we'll go over various spells that are affected by walkingAngleVariation.


Part 1: Mob Spells

While many spells simply damage in a radius or track the player's location, a decent amount of spells are instead casted directly towards the way the mob faces. Arrow Storm, Teleport, Multihit, Charge, and Wave all behave in this way. Due to walkingAngleVariation, a mob may face off to your side rather than directly at you, which results in the spell being cast off to the side as well. Depending on the way you strafe, this could mean the difference between perfectly dodging every single projectile from Arrow Storm, or getting clipped and stunlocked.

Spoiler: Example

Strafing the wrong direction versus an Arrow Storm affected by walkingAngleVariation is essentially throwing yourself right into the thick of the arrows.​

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One example of a fight where this can be easily showcased is Virus Doctor, as it's a relatively low pressure fight with a well-telegraphed Arrow Storm, and it also just so happens to have walkingAngleVariation.

A very precise and specific case this could be used is versus Orange Cybel. One of the most common ways to get hit by its Heavy Charge is by standing too close to the wall, with Cybel overshooting the player and getting stopped by the wall, resulting in the player being hit by the AoE. By taking advantage of walkingAngleVariation, you can manipulate Cybel to charge off to the side more towards the center of the arena, more parallel to the wall rather than having it hit the wall and as a result, you.
(of course it'd be a lot easier to just stay away from the wall, but this thread isn't about that)

In extreme cases of walkingAngleVariation, Multihit can actually completely miss the player even if they're within range of the attack, simply because the mob is looking so far off to the side that it doesn't land. This has happened to me in a fight versus Robob's Assassin form, where it whiffed 7 Multihits in a row simply because he was looking too far off to the side.

It's important to keep in mind that walkingAngleVariation isn't something everything has, however. It can be enabled or disabled on specific mobs.


Part 2: Melee Mobs

An obvious part of walkingAngleVariation is that it will cause melee mobs to approach the player at an angle. In many cases, taking advantage of this can make it easier to kite a difficult boss such as Panic Zealot, who has a small arena that prevents constant, straight-backwards strafing. In such a situation, strafing around the arena in a way that causes walkingAngleVariation to make it look more towards the outside of the arena can prevent it from cutting a path across the arena to take a more direct path towards you, making it much easier to keep a safe distance from the enemy.

Spoiler: Example

A visualization of how walkingAngleVariation can alter the effectiveness of strafing in a scenario where the mob is looking to the right of the player, modeled after my experiences with Panic Zealot.
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Of course, not every melee enemy has walkingAngleVariation. Charge AI mobs will always face directly towards the player every 1.5s, and thus don't have or aren't affected by it. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, walkingAngleVariation can be disabled for certain mobs. A very current and very relevant example of this would the boss of The Nameless Anomaly, likely lacking it due to its Leap spell which is dependent on the direction it faces.


Part 3: Theoretically, Basic Ranged Mob Projectiles

This is difficult to test, but can be observed through simple gameplay, and inferences can be made based on the predicted behavior of ranged mob projectiles.

Rather than originating exactly from the mob's position, projectiles will originate slightly in front of the mob. This is likely to prevent ranged mobs from hitting and killing themselves with their own projectiles (something they could do prior to 2.0).
If you have a good grasp on how walkingAngleVariation works by now, you may have a guess as to what this means for ranged mobs:

walkingAngleVariation can affect the point at which mob projectiles originate, and by extension, their trajectory to a minor degree.

Spoiler: Example

Although it's not a huge difference, it's enough to make or break a fight when in very close range, especially for glassy builds. However, it likely won't make much of a difference, if at all for mid-long range fights.
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If you've ever used glass cannon Assassin or any other short ranged and glassy playstyle, you may know that it's fairly easy to get clipped by projectiles simply due to the lack of distance you have from the enemy. However, due to walkingAngleVariation affecting the origin point of the projectiles, circlestrafing towards the direction the mob is looking towards the side may result in getting hit by more projectiles than circlestrafing in the other direction. Because walkingAngleVariation essentially shifts the origin point of the projectiles to the side, circlestrafing in the wrong direction can essentially have you moving directly towards where the projectiles are coming from, rather than away.

This interaction is just something that I've personally experienced and observed a lot. If you'd like to test it yourself, it's easiest to test and observe against Rapid Ranged bosses, such as Mummyboard (Phase 2), Robob's Mage phase, or Doctor Legendary (Phase 3).


tl;dr
something something walkingAngleVariation. it makes mobs look off to your side instead of directly at you. strafing towards the side they dont look towards is cool and good and will make it easier to dodge stuff.

thanks

 

that is crazy how will this affect le brons legacy however

 

Very cool to see this written up. I've always noticed and adapted to mob AI and breezed through boss fights without really acknowledging it like you now have

 

It should be mentioned how much this helps early game. You can solo Witherhead naked at level by just strafing properly.

 

IVE NOTICED THIS

on the last day of beta i was trying to kite my boy Charlie The Pig to the Pigman ravines; to his BROTHERS, and i noticed that he was always looking slightly away from me when he ran at me

 

Accurate for me

 

Post actively references Le Bron. Bad.

 

this post has pleased my base level neuron activation that occurs anytime I see something referencing game design/functionality.