Mystic Hitbox Manipulation

What is Hitbox Manipulation and How Does It Work?

Hitbox Manipulation is the hidden Mystic art of using animation skills which puts you in a fixed position in order to freely move your hitbox without visually moving from your original position. Essentially, while stuck in place during the skill animation, your hitbox continues to move in the direction that is pressed and warps back to where you visually are after the casting is finished...

The ability to do this has been around for quite some time. However, there doesn’t seem to be any Mystics aware of it's potential use. My first experience with it was back around SSHM patch days, but many others unknowingly have had their first experiences with it in VSNM during the transition from normal to soul world whilst trying to use Regression against Lakan...

Most Mystics likely saw this as a nuisance. I, on the other hand, saw it as an opportunity to potentially conserve a Mystic's single iframe. There are several skills in a Mystic's arsenal that can be used for manipulation, but the one that has the best animation pause with lowest cool down time would be Thrall of Protection. The following section explains the history and technique of using Thralls to manipulate a Mystic's hitbox, a term I coined Thrall Displacement or "TD" for short...

Melancholic's Thrall Displacement Explained

Let's start with a history lesson in order to better understand how summoning thralls currently works and why it displaces hitboxes. Back in May 27, 2016, Mystics received a small revamp with some of the skills going through drastic changes. One of the changes was how summoning thralls worked…

The above is a small section taken from Patch 42.06 notes about Thrall changes. Not only are Mystics now able to move while summoning thralls, but the actual animation of summoning had changed as well…

Thrall Casting Animation (Old)

This video clip, which was taken back in November 11th, 2015, shows how summoning animations looked long ago. Mystics couldn't move at any point during the casting animation...

Thrall Casting Animation (New)

And here we have what the casting animation looks like as of December 2017. Mystics are able to move at the start of casting, but appear stationary towards the final moments of the animation...

Did you ever notice how thralls such as Protection and Wraith can spawn away from a Mystic's position at times? This is not simply the thrall being thrown as these thralls are codded to spawn directly next to the Mystic, facing the same direction as the summoner. By continuously pressing in a general direction, even during the moments of what appears to be an animation lock, your hitbox continues to travel. Once the animation is finished and the thrall spawns in, your hitbox synchronizes or realigns back to your body...

So why does it continue to move though, even when a Mystic is clearly stuck in animation? This is just my theory, but I believe Bluehole Studios overlooked some flaws when it came to changing the skill's animation in compliance with the patch notes or game code...

The development team was rather lazy when it came to adjusting skill animations, as shown from Bluehydra's forum post about Mystic issues. Besides some of the racial summoning animations looking rather odd, I believe the animations overall were not meant to have any pauses whatsoever as the patch notes indicated that Mystics could now move while summoning thralls. Perhaps this is the reasoning behind hitboxes continuously moving in the direction that is held down, only to snap back in place where you visually are since it wasn't lining up with where the developers originally intended you to be...

Using Thrall Displacement for Hitbox Manipulation

In order to throw your hitbox outside of your body using Thrall Displacement, you must hold down the direction you wish to move your hitbox. This can be in any direction, including diagonally. However, you must start holding down the inputs you wish to go before you reach the animation lock state. If you start holding down the input after animation lock, you will be going nowhere and fail the TD...

Sounds, easy right? It can be, but requires lots of practice when using it on boss mechanics. There are various factors you need to determine when it comes to successfully executing a perfect TD such as timing, distance, attack speed, and movement speed. Also, things like a Lancer's Adrenaline Rush, boss being enraged, as well as being in combat will short live your TD's distance, so be aware of your buffs, stance and any status effects the boss may have that increases its attack speed...

Here I use the boss's enraged attack speed to my advantage. The double "S" AoE slam attack from Nightmare RK-9 duration is shorter while he is under the effects of enrage, making the probability of a TD being able to successfully last through the entire mechanic significantly higher...

This clip demonstrates what I like to call an Inverse TD. By switching directions right before the animation freeze at the last possible frame, I am able to backtrack or throw my hitbox behind the direction I am currently facing while being in an animation locked state...

Race and gender may also play a factor when it comes to distance as each has its own type of animation. The only other race I tested besides Elin is Castanic Female, which felt like the pausing animation was just a tad bit shorter. Regardless of the race or class you choose to be, the summoning animation can be canceled with Teleport Jaunt near the end of the animation freeze. This will allow you to spam the technique multiple times without having to wait for your Thrall of Protection to go off cooldown or can be used to abort the TD early in case of a miscalculation...

Currently, I use this technique on several dungeon boss mechanics as seen on my montage video. One of the more interesting and useful aspects of this ability is moving enemy AoE lockons safely away from your position...

UPDATE: Awakening Patch

On April 17th, 2018, the North American version of Tera received the Awakening Update which has several impacts towards not only how Mystics are played, but Thrall Displacement as well. It is still feasible to manipulate your hitbox so long as you understand how these updates affect it...

Thrall Augmentation is a trogglable skill that speeds up the casting process of summoning thralls to near instant levels. It is still possible to TD with this skill activated, but it is not recommended due to the extremely short casting duration. Always be aware of when Thrall Augmentation is active and to deactivate the skill when ready to perform a TD on a mechanic...
In order to keep from having a continuous 30k shield buff applied to parties, Thrall of Protection now has a longer cooldown. This means that TD can no longer be spammed with just this skill within a short period of time. Use care when planning what exactly you are saving your Thrall of Protection for. Do remember that thrall casting can be canceled with Metamorphic Blast or Teleport Jaunt towards the end of the animation freeze, so there is always an option to TD while still saving your thrall's cooldown...
Mystics now have Mass Teleport as an additional iframe at their disposal, so conserving iframes is not very relevant. However, TD was never about convenience, but more about complexity and enhancing gameplay to leave one with a satisfying experience...

Update on Thrall Displacement Cancellation (6/19/18)

Information posted on the Mystic/Priest Discord by Tech (which passed on by Yoopi) indicates that Metamorphic Blast can now be used to cancel animations for almost any Mystic skill. I have tested this myself and noticed it can also be applied to my Thrall Displacement technique. I'm not certain when exactly Metamorphic Blast became something that is able to cancel other skills as the change was never mentioned in any patch notes I saw. The last time I rechecked for possible skills that canceled TD animations was during the first week of the Awakening Update...

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Hitbox Manipulation is meant to be a new way in experiencing the joys of being a Mystic as well as open up new possibilities on how to handle future dungeon mechanics in a rather unique way. Though simple to perform, it requires a great deal of accuracy in predicting boss attack mechanics along with estimation of timing and distance in order to successfully use this technique on the field. Thrall Displacement is not an iframe, but can be used to replace one if the Mystic is skilled enough...

I wouldn't consider this glitch an exploit as it is more trouble to pull off than worth, particularly now with the Awakening Patch having additional features. For me however, Tera has and always will be ultimately about the challenge. With Bluehole making classes easier for a causal audience to pick up on faster and third party software cheating tools being developed/used by the community, I am left constantly looking for new ways to push myself to the limit. This technique I have created is just that; an additional way to enjoy the thrill of being a Mystic and create a better understanding of how dungeon and skill mechanics work, all while running with friends dear to me...

Thank you so much for taking the time to go through this information. I worked really hard putting it all together and hope that it was worth a read. In the future, I would like to develop this site further with even more information, some of which not normally found on your typical Mystic class guide...

Links and Sources

Melancholic's Youtube Page

Melancholic's Twitch Page

Artist RECCU's Blog

Mystic Priest Discord Server

Google Sites

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