extend range of AoE spells (including fears)

[heartilly]

You can extend the range of effect for PBAoE spells by casting them in the air (from jumping) while you are moving forward. This includes non-damaging PBAoE spells such as howl or terror and psychic scream (not ground-aoes such as desecration), but this obviously only applies to instant-cast spells, as you must cast them while moving. So if you want to "spread" fear to 2 players, for example, you'd want to cast it in the air when you are approximately between the two of them.


Here is my poorly drawn attempting to depict this.



Here is a screenshot of this being done (with holy nova) on the target dummies in Ironforge. Holy nova has only a 10 yard range (or well... It's supposed to ).

Edit: Including some stuff that I posted below in this first post.

Here is a screenshot of me attempting to hit the target dummies with arcane explosion (the same range of holy nova, I just don't want to log onto my priest because I'll get guilt tripped into heroics or something) while not moving+jumping.


I tried to position myself evenly between them as best I could (excuse the white box, twas from removing the name of a dead horde). I did not his either dummy.


And please note that even at this range, I was not even in range of the left target dummy.


A picture of me successfully hitting 1 target dummy. I stood in the same place as the first picture (of the priest), just so people don't think there's just 1 weird buggy spot with target dummies or something.

[ChildeRoland]

Very nice, but write PBAoE (centered on top of the caster) as long as you haven't tested with AoE spells like DnD and others.

[lewis10123]

Maybe a SS of Holy Nova not hitting two targets when you are on the ground will give confirmation and my +Rep as this could be useful on my warlock.

[Parog]

Here's a constructive quote for you guys to prove that this indeed works, screenshots and all.

So, blizzard noted a gem of a piece of information in the 2.3 PTR patch notes:

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> Error

Q u o t e:
- Players no longer gain the moving AOE radius bonus if they are
jumping.

News to many of us, it seems. What this means is that in the current game it *DOES* receive such a bonus. I enlisted the aid of my pseudo-fiancée Lir to help me test this in Ironforge. I chose IF for the test bed because the floor tiles are 5 yards square, an easy way to confirm this yourself is to go stand on an intersection of tiles, align yourself with the lines, and blink. You will move four floor tiles.

Here are three reference shots from above to show the scale of the tiles vs two common AoE targets and one not as common one:

Crystal Charge from Ungoro, tooltip radius of 3 Yards:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/nkthrasher/aoetest/aoe_ref_crystal.jpg

Flamestrike, no posted radius:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...aoe_ref_fs.jpg

Blizzard, no posted radius:
http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r..._ref_blizz.jpg



Now, the fun testing. I had Lir stand on line, and walk into range slowly, then back just barely out of range where standing still I did not hit her with the Arcane Explosion. I then jumped, and AE'ed, and was able to hit her:

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r120/nkthrasher/aoetest/aoe_10_yard_jumphit.jpg

She's standing just barely outside of 10 yards, showing the range of AE to be 10 yards while stationary. Jumping and AEing hit her though, showing that jumping does extend the range. I then had her back out until she was barely outside of AE range while jumping:

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...jump_nohit.jpg

It shows her at what I estimate to be 13 yards, based on being two floor tiles, and about the width of the crystal charge target. This indicates that you get an approximate 30% (or 3 yard, since all instacast AoEs we have are a 10 yard range untalented I havent been able to check with talented CoC if its percentage or static) increase while jumping. I also confirmed that while moving you can strike targets outside the normal 10 yard range:

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r...unning_hit.jpg


So, what this means, is that in the current game the behavior of jumping around while AEing is justified (ZOMG proof!), and that after the 2.3 patch it will no longer be justified to just jump, but jumping while moving is primo. Special thanks to Lir for helping out and playing Night-Elvish Guinea Pig.



TLR / Big Crayon Crowd: If you jump/move while casting AE you get a 3 yard bonus to the range of the spell.

+Rep x7 for this one.

[heartilly]

Very nice, but write PBAoE (centered on top of the caster) as long as you haven't tested with AoE spells like DnD and others.

Edited, thank you.

Maybe a SS of Holy Nova not hitting two targets when you are on the ground will give confirmation and my +Rep as this could be useful on my warlock.

I will edit with a screenshot when I'm done raiding this evening

[frank123321]

I thought this was as old as the game o.O in other words, common sense of game mechanics failure.

Dno about other spells than Arcane Explosion but most mages i've known since retail was using this back in vanilla.

[petermueller]

I'm pretty sure it worked in vanilla but was fixed at some point before or during BC.

[Parog]

I'm pretty sure it worked in vanilla but was fixed at some point before or during BC.

It's back again, see my post.

[heartilly]

I thought this was as old as the game o.O in other words, common sense of game mechanics failure.

Dno about other spells than Arcane Explosion but most mages i've known since retail was using this back in vanilla.

It was fixed during BC at some point (or at least partially fixed? I don't recall exactly what was done), but has since returned.

And as promised, here is a screenshot of me attempting to hit the target dummies with arcane explosion (the same range of holy nova, I just don't want to log onto my priest because I'll get guilt tripped into heroics or something) while not moving+jumping.


I tried to position myself evenly between them as best I could (excuse the white box, twas from removing the name of a dead horde). I did not his either dummy.


And please note that even at this range, I was not even in range of the left target dummy.


A picture of me successfully hitting 1 target dummy. I stood in the same place as the first picture (of the priest), just so people don't think there's just 1 weird buggy spot with target dummies or something.

[MasterGold]

Thanks for this awesome tip!

[Lexodia]

indeed, this is actually worth repping
+rep to both parog for awesome in-depth proving, and to heartilly, who introduced this exploit

[aspra]

Hm, reminds me off some ironic sayin ".. if you want to look cool in pvp, just jump while using instant casts!"

I use to jump while I use Holy Nova, Fear and such stuff... didn't knew that. Very nice!

[heartilly]

Hm, reminds me off some ironic sayin ".. if you want to look cool in pvp, just jump while using instant casts!"

I use to jump while I use Holy Nova, Fear and such stuff... didn't knew that. Very nice!

It's pretty much the only way I can actually achieve anywhere near a 10y range on howl/psychic scream, as my latency is very high