Distract in PVP?Follow

Does it do anything? Some posts I've read after doing a google search say it does. It's rather vague though.

I didn't know there was a forum search. I'll see what I can find. Been doing a lot of PVP and am getting my glyphs set up.

The fact that every single of my posts in that old topic was downrated lead me to test this extensively. After a huge discussion in the shaman forums I'm getting used to being downrated, but it's getting downright retarded. I'm also used to people picking Theo's findings above mine (or above anyones, anyway), but honestly; I did tests back there in that posts. Aside from disagreeing with Theo, what did I get downrated for?



Either way, here's my 'test':

(You can probably ignore this bit, this is purely my observation and experiences. I'll write down a summary at the end.)

Attempts with me being unstealthed and the target being unmounted:
Target using auto-walk (num lock)
-Side: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Front: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Behind: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement

Target pushing and HOLDING the W key until ~3 seconds after Distract was thrown
-Side: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Front: NO STOP at all, target just kept moving
-Behind: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement


Attempts with me being stealthed and the target being unmounted:
Target using auto-walk (num lock)
-Side: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Front: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Behind: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement

Target pushing and HOLDING the W key until ~3 seconds after Distract was thrown
-Side: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Front: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Behind: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement


Attempts with me being stealthed and the target being mounted:
Target using auto-walk (num lock)
-Side: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Front: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Behind: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement

Target pushing and HOLDING the W key until ~3 seconds after Distract was thrown
-Side: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Front: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Behind: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement


Attempts with me being unstealthed and the target being mounted:
Target using auto-walk (num lock)
-Side: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Front: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement
-Behind: FULL STOP on the target, no more movement

Target pushing and HOLDING the W key until ~3 seconds after Distract was thrown
-Side: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Front: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement
-Behind: One second stop, the target then automatically continued its movement

This lead me to think that neither stealthing nor your target being mounted has any impact on the effect of your distract in PvP. Throwing a distract on somebody's side always seems to have exactly the same impact as throwing it from behind. Also, having your target targeted while throwing the distract doesn't seem to have any impact.

What did strike me as rather odd was that when holding the W button when I distracted from the front, my test subject at random did full stops or kept moving. I tried having him run using W and me throwing the distract in front of him about 5 times in a row. 2 of those times his character just kept on running, while the other 3 times the character stopped dead in it's tracks. I then tried to see if the range at which the distract is thrown from the subject matters, but this seemed not to be the case. I got stops/moves at random, and 'lag' seemed to be the biggest cause for this.

Last but not least, we tried what happened when my partner walked using both the mouse buttons when I threw distracts in front and behind him. We got the same results as pressing and holding W here.

In the end
I think I've pretty much caught how Distract works. When your target is moving using auto-walk, (s)he will ALWAYS stop moving and turn in the direction of your distract when it's thrown. If your target is using W (or the arrow keys), distract will turn them around and stop them for a split second before movement returns. This effect can be however negated if the target strafes just after your distract hits; he will still turn but keep moving without any delay. Furthermore, as the only useful thing to come out of this 'research', distracts thrown in front of a person using the WASD (or arrow) keys to move will ocassionally 'bug' and be completely ignored by the target.

So there you have it. Now I'd like my 65 minutes back.

Its ok for stopping someone on their mount for a split second so you can get a sap off.

Then you've been throwing distracts at people using the W to walk, that's fairly possible. Depending on the situation, both W and num lock are both used in equal amounts.

Feel free to try it yourself... That's what I did.

That's why I rate down for kicks and giggles and to push people's buttons. I'm an irresponsible ***.

I tried that too, I just didn't mention it since it gave me exactly the same results as movement with the ASWD keys. It's a little more prone to bringing you right back on course though, since one small mouse slide while holding both buttons immediatly sends your character back to moving.