This is the second in a series of posts on hunter abilities that commonly aren’t used to their potential in PVE. Last time we looked at Tranquilizing Shot and this time it is Disengage‘s turn.
The tooltip reads:
Disengage
Unlimited range
25 sec cooldown
You attempt to disengage from combat, leaping backwards. Can only be used while in combat.
Disengage is part of a family of abilities including Blink, Charge and Leap of Faith that allow for rapid movement across a moderate distance. Unlike Sprint or Nitro Boosts, it is a linear move that doesn’t permit a manual change of direction once engaged. It is perhaps most like a self-induced knockback; the hunter flings herself backward rapidly and lands where her declining trajectory intersects with something solid.
Its only requirement for use is that the hunter be in combat. It can be activated when there’s no enemy in melee range. It can be used in mid-air. A hunter can Disengage when his back is to a wall or a cliff edge. The ability is free to use it in any combat situation, regardless of purpose or result.
Designers can get away with ignoring pathing issues like this because Disengage launches the hunter but, unlike Heroic Leap, it doesn’t land her. It’s like a pitching machine: the ability throws the hunter with remarkable regularity, but where the hunter lands depends upon where Disengage was activated, what the terrain is like and how the game simulates the laws of physics. Disengage doesn’t care if it’s possible to path to the ultimate landing point or whether the hunter feels like dying; it just puts a body into motion. Fortunately or unfortunately, this motion is subject to simulated gravity. Again like a thrown baseball, a hunter who launches himself off a cliff will travel more horizontally than vertically until game physics deplete the lateral force relative to the fake gravity and the leap declines into a full-on plummet.
Disengaging doesn’t make the hunter a mere helpless dot on a parabolla, though. While in the air, he can still execute just about any command that can be performed while moving. This includes turning, shooting instants, switching aspects, activating Trap Launcher and even firing Steady and Cobra Shots so long as the hunter is in Aspect of the Fox. A crafty MM hunter can actually chain a second Disengage onto the first if she pops Readiness. It’s also worth noting that slow-fall abilities can be used with Disengage’s momentum in-flight to preserve a decent ratio of horizontal movement to vertical movement.
Traps, too, can be dropped midair, but they curiously appear at the point the hunter Disengaged from. Here’s why: as a hunter travels from point A to B with Disengage, the game doesn’t believe the hunter has left A until she reaches B. That is, the game treats the hunter as still being at point A the whole time she’s in the air and only registers her as being in a new location when she lands. In many occassions this detail does not matter at all; however, as Kruf from Paragon pointed out a while ago, it does matter when something bad is happening at point A. If a hunter is Disengaging out of fire, he’ll continue to take fire damage during his entire jump because the game reads him as still being at point A. Likewise, any trap dropped mid-Disengage appears at point A because, to the game, that is where the hunter is standing.
Disengage calculates fall damage based on where Disengage was activated. This is much like Charge in that the ability appears to override any existing movement when used and sends the hunter flying backward the activation point. I believe Disengage itself can be overwritten by other game mechanics, though. I once Disengaged at the beginning of one of Maloriak‘s green phases and his knockback sent me flying much farther (and I believe in a different direction) than Disengage would have.
Tips
The preceding explanations translate easily into advice:
- Use Disengage for moving around. The ability doesn’t care if you’re actually disengaging from something; again, it just puts a body into motion. If you look at Kriparrian’s fight videos over at his YouTube channel, you’ll see him using Disengage as a means for getting around. The trick to this is aiming your back in the direction that you want to travel and turning in midair so that by the time you land you’re facing in the desired direction again. Keyboard turning is too slow for this tactic and so mouse turning is recommended.
- If you’ve been curious why raiding hunters take the Glyph of Disengage, this is why. They use Disengage often enough while raiding to make the glyph more appealing than other options.
- You can increase the distance you travel with Disengage by jumping first. Just like a baseball you throw from your roof will travel further along the same arc than if you threw it from your front door, Disengage will carry you farther if you jump first. Frostheim has an excellent tutorial for combining jumping with the previous tip for moving forward with Disengage.
- Because of the way that Disengage resets the calculation of fall damage, a hunter can fall from an otherwise lethal height, Disengage at the last second, and not die. Check out this video for an example. I’ve found this tactic useful for avoiding fall damage during the Temple Guardian Anhuur encounter in the Halls of Origination.
- Don’t Disengage out of fire unless running out of it would take longer than the flight time. Because the game reads you as still being in the fire the whole time you’re airborne, you usually take less damage if you simply sidestep out of the fire.
- At least in casual testing, it also appears as if mobs can continue meleeing you during a Disengage. On the plus side, this means that they stay at ‘point A‘ while you’re flying, buying you extra time and even letting you trap them at point A while you’re in the air.
- Don’t just Disengage. It’s possible to turn and use instant abilities during the flight time. With the 4.0.6 change to auto shots I imagine it may even be possible to fire auto shots while Disengaging, making turning (toward the boss) during Disengages all the more important.
- Be careful where you Disengage. The ability only cares if you’re in combat, not where you might end up.
- For a sense of some of the amazing stunts you can pull (or what a ****ing menace you can be) with Disengage, check out these old world-pvp videos by Danaik: 1, 2, 3, 4.
If you have any additional insights or unanswered questions, please leave them in a comment below.
Previous Ability Spotlight Topics:
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this second installment of Ability Spotlight, and it was well worth it. Another awesome post, thank you! The simple fact that all those “how-to” vids are in one neat place is fantastic, and the additional info is icing on the cake. Can’t wait to test Slow Fall + Disengage, lol.
I wonder if Levitate works the same way when in conjunction with this ability?
Only hunters get an entire post dedicated to single abilities. :P ./cheers Eidotrope
I personally have a love-hate relationship with Jump-Disengage. I love it because of the coolness it brings, “elite-blinking” FTW (we haz style Mages). I even use if when not needed, it’s just that awesome. But I hate it, because I occasionally fail with timing the Jump-Turn-Disengage-Turn-Leap and then it’s just seeing a hunter doing huntard things and everyone laughs :( I don’t really know what’s going on then, because I turn 180, press (and ofcourse release, because the game only recognize an activated ability on release) Disengage, turn 180…to only see myself going sidewards. Does this have something to do with latency or am I just failing horribly? :P
Disengaging in Wrath off the LK’s platform into oblivion was priceless.
Disengage was always a ho hum ability really only useful in PvP for the longest time. Wrath made it far more useful in PvE, and its even more so in Cata.
The biggest issue is the very fact that the engine registers it like a jump. So damage dealing mechanics continue to dmg you while in mid air as Eido points out. Its annoying as hell, but easily the most important thing to consider when considering using it.
I am fond of stringing a few together.
Deterrence, Disengage, Feign Death, Trap(s), Distracting Shot, Concussive Shot, bam bam bam
It also could be pointed out for our horde inclined brethren that the goblin rocket jump is similar to a forwards facing disengage. There are some differences however, such as I don’t think it resets your falling distance to where it was activated.
Still, you can do many similar tricks with it.
If the game thinks you’re still at Point A until you reach Point B, why do you stop taking melee dmg when you hit disengage? Or does the game think you are in different places for different calculations (e.g. location for placement of traps is not calculated in real time but location for combat is calculated in real time)?
Technically, you still take melee damage mid-Disengage. However, melee opponents aren’t attacking non-stop; they have a swing timer. If a normal Disengage keeps me in the air for 0.5 seconds and a melee attacker has a 2.5-second swing timer and I get hit 0.25 seconds into my Disengage, my attacker won’t hit me again until after I land. At that point, I’ll be out of his range and thus I won’t take damage.
To be honest, the location delay is not a huge concern for most things. Disengaging out of bad as soon as bad appears under you is better than not moving at all.
The avoid-fall-damage aspect of Disengage cannot be overvalued. The faceless mobs in Throne of Tides that bounce you around? Disengage as you fall to avoid damage. Knocked off a ledge by a shaman or druid (see: lumber mill)? Disengage a second before you hit to avoid damage.
My favorite use of Disengage: if I’m downwind of Altrius (second boss in VP) and it’s gonna be more than 5 seconds to walk to the other side, I’ll hit a cyclone then Disengage to the other side while in mid-air.
Ah, of course – I don’t know why I didn’t see the logic there and/or viewed melee as continuous (might as well be for damn rogues & their ability to chain 345987345 moves together!:p)! Taking a slightly extreme (and highly improbable) example, though – say you were at the lumber mill and a warlock starts doing his drain soul on you from the edge of the spell’s 40yd range. Being a quick thinker, you disengage off the cliff and get your priestly friend who is sitting next to you to levitate you. The moment you disengage, you’d be more than 40yds from the warlock but the spell would keep on hurting you for a few seconds until it ended.
This could mean the difference between life or death (I’d say it could be the difference between winning and losing the BG, but that would be more likely to do with everyone running around like headless chickens and/or mounting a 14-man defence of the stables)!;) Interesting point, though, and one I hadn’t considered before.
The fall-prevention damage thing is interesting too – assuming falling works the same way (you’re at the top until you hit the bottom), then I’m assuming once you hit disengage, your current position then gets changed to that point until you finally land. That would mean that in the above situation, it would be better to run & jump off the cliff, spin, and disengage before you go splat… all this time spent getting killed atop cliffs and I could have been escaping!;)
I believe Lyraat’s right; it does come down to the swing timer. In preparing for this post, I spent some time pestering the level 3 Goblin Assassins near the Echo Ridge Mine. I’d end up with some combat logs of the span of a Disengage that looked like this:
19:03:03> Eidotrope casts Disengage.
19:03:04> Goblin Assassin’s attack was parried by Eidotrope.
19:03:04> Goblin Assassin’s attack was dodged by Eidorope.
19:03:04> Eidotrope’s Sniper Training is refreshed on Eidotrope.
10:03:06> Eidotrope falls and loses 6903 health.
Other times, there’d be nothing but “Eidotrope casts Disengage” and some fall damge (I’d jump off hills for longer Disengages) because the goblin’s swing was on cooldown.
I tired playing with this on magmaw last night and my only issue is I can’t seem to figure out how I want to bind my keys to make it easy to hit during the jump. I keep my main dps stuff on 1-5 of my keyboard but can’t seem to find a really good place to bind some other more movement related stuff that will be easy to use in the heat if moment without fumbling for it. Anyone got any suggestions on good keybind locations.
I personally key bind the number row. And I do so to the button location! So on a normal tank and spank, I have..
Slot 1 – Kill Shot (key bound to 1)
Slot 2 – Cobra Shot (key bound to 2)
Slot 3 – Explosive Shot (key bound to 3)
Slot 4 – Multi-Shot (key bound to 4)
During a fight where I may need to disengage frequently and quickly, I will swap Kill Shot’s clickable icon with Disengage. I may also swap in an icon for a particular macro.
So on Magmaw, my #1 Slot is a macro for targeting the Parasite.
I stand alone on the outside…pillar incoming, I strafe out of it, pop the “1″ key which auto targets the closest parasite, then I turn/jump shot and hit “4″ for a multi.
I find it easy to be flexible on what my top 4 or 5 priority items are, and adjust the content of the keybind, as opposed to trying to memorize all of the keybinds.
my 2c fwiw
@Randle – I highly suggest the use of a gamepad for WoW. I’ve even converted others of my raid team to using them. I personally use a Belkin Nostromo n52; however, there are many options. Once the gamepad is mapped to your liking, you keep your left hand over the gamepad and right hand over the mouse, with no need to fumble with the keyboard during COMBAT. Once you try this method you will never go back. It will enhance many of your tricky Hunter abilities, such as the many jump-disengage combos. I would be happy to cover more details if needed.
I personally use a different set.
I moved from wasd to esdf because I couldn’t use my ring finger for anything other than “q”, “1″ and “2″ keys. Now my ring finger is using everything as it should: q, a, z, x, 1, 2. I can even reach to h with my index finger (as well as 5 and 6) during moving in combat.
Also I suggest you don’t change you key binds ever. If you made a macro you could use in one type of situations, just make a new key bind for it. With your hand on esdf instead of wasd you have vastly more keys to poke around.
I tend to use w and r and for the main abilities. It would be cobra shot for w and explosive shot for r. For the second mostly used – arcane shot I reserve the 3 key which is pressed by middle finger. This allows me to have my fingers ready over next shots or press e to move around.
If you run out of keys, remember about your mouse. You usually have mouse3 button (the sroll wheel) and mouse4 and mouse5 which you press with your thumb. I use mouse4 for kill shout and mouse5 for black arrow. Ctrl-mouse4 for pet interrupt ability, shift-mouse4 for traq shot and shift-mouse5 for disengage. Middle mouse button is “/assist tank” and shift mouse3 is deterrence.
I should also point out that you can bind ctrl-e and shift-e if ever feel like it.
And maybe unbind “f”. I heard backpedaling is bad.
You know , I have a razor fang and I’m considering breaking it out again. I’m also going out tonight to get the steelseries cata mouse that came out recently. It has software you run outside of wow with what seems to be very in depth binding options.
I love disengaging with a parachute in wrath :D