Thanks to this thread, I'll be doing it to piss people off from now on. Didn't know it infuriated so many people.
Prevents them from getting off casts that require them to be facing you, which most offensive spells have.
Stormscale Horde EU | http://lastrogue.com
I do it because it annoys people more than anything. Any good caster won't be tricked by your silliness but there's still plenty of bads out there who it is very effective against. Even if it doesn't give you a meaningful advantage, it still infuriates your opponent. Hell I do it against other melee to keep them on edge as Ret because a lot of my attacks aren't even melee range...so I dart in and out and all around to make them mad. Works great.
Paladin Bash has spoken.
I cant use backstab if I'm not behind them and no player out there turns there back to me. What else am I supposed to do? Ask them nicely to turn around? Also attacks from behind cannot be dodged,blocked or parried, so you are also doing more damage.
As others have said as well against a keyboard or slow mouse turner they won't even be able to hit you.
The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself, "Now what is this thing doing?" -Children of Dune
Last edited by Lulbalance; 2013-07-10 at 10:57 PM.
It's useful to avoid cast-time spells (excluding mind flay/malefic) because you can just run behind/through the caster and they might not get the spell off if they don't turn to face you in time.
Hmm, well..
1.Some attacks require you to be behind the target
2.Most attacks require the target to be infront of you (For Casters)
3.You cannot Dodge/Parry/Block attacks from behind
4.Some attacks have a low range, so continously moving and following the opponent makes it easier to always have a move.
5. It practices your fingers and keeps you 100% focused,and passes time in between GCD (assuming you're using all your abilities PROPERLY.)
6.It does annoy some people.
you don't get behind someone DURING a stun. you get behind them BEFORE the stun. this way your stun has a lower chance of being avoided. you can stand still AFTER you have used your stun from behind, until your stun finishes. then you continue running behind them so that more of your attacks/abilities land on them.
With cheap shot you do it from any angle. Thinking about it, when I cheap someone I walk through them holding right mouse button, spin 180 then hit strafe left/right a few times while I fine-tune the direction, confirm which way I'm facing in case I need to move fast and maybe even move backward/forward a bit if needed. Could people be seeing this and thinking it's mindless strafing?
Stormscale Horde EU | http://lastrogue.com
Windwalkers like to side step with T15 2-piece! Just realized it's in the PvP section. Sorry mates.
Depending on how drastic you are talking about, It gives you the ability to react faster to the movement of the person you are fighting.
In PvE, unless you're dodging a mechanic or there's a MOVE OR THE HODIR DEBUFF WILL GET YOU thing going on, melee should stand the fuck still and slap. They're potentially moving out of their autoattack range and gimping themselves otherwise.
In PvP, I would have thought the importance of being mobile was obvious. You're either trying to get behind people to avoid parries/dodges/being cast at (whilst they are also moving) or they are just trying to keep you off balance.
"Everything always changes. The best plan lasts until the first arrow leaves the bow." - Matrim Cauthon
Well in PVP some people weave in and out of your toon to screw up your facing (which is lame really, makes you wish WoW had hit detection). But I've seen it in PVE too, people just randomly strafing back and forth or spamming jump for no reason at all.
I really started to notice it doing HoT in Cata. Trying to use the melee and tanks to los the silence from the rogue boss... so annoying. STAND STILL YOU HYPERACTIVE JERKS!!!
In some fights there is movement debuff that decreases as you move around, and jumping works also. As a melee I rather spam spacebar to jump with my thumb, so I can focus using my abilities with no problems. If I'd have to use A and D it would not only use up two of my ability using fingers, it would also be a risk of mispositioning. (Nexus last boss, Stormstout brewery last boss etc.)