Are you sure this wasn't an issue with hitboxes?

It may have been 10 yards from the center of one player to the center of the other, but it was 8 yards from the edge of the shaman's hitbox to the edge of the other guy's hitbox. This explains why chain seems to bounce at a 10 yard range.

As for why it doesn't bounce up to 2 yards farther on PTR, it's just blizzard adding it to patch notes without making sure it was actually happening first.

I am pretty sure if you watched the videos, your question would have been answered.

In the case you are at work and can't watch the videos, no, it is not hitboxes. It is the same range everytime no matter whether I am orc or gnome or it is an AoE spell or a targetable spell.


Let me pose a question to you. If it is a hitbox issue, then why can paladins judge and HoJ farther than ten yards but Earthbind and sap is right at ten yards. All their tool tips say 10 yard range. Cmon, given the hitbox, sap whould be greater than ten yards like judge and HoJ... ...or 8 yards in your example.

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I suggest 2 locks, same race and gender, and instead of something like the flare use environmental landmarks like a floor texture. Do the exact same test in the exact same place on live and ptr.

Testing for a simple thing, is the jump distance higher on PTR than on live. If it's not, no range increase has happened. Determining if there is a range change is more important that trying to reverse engineer the range calculation used for different spells.

That's my suggestion. I am going to attempt do this over the weekend as well.

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Relative range testing has already been done. I'm not sure why Noklar didn't use a similar method, but I appreciate that he took the time to confirm the range bug (for lack of proof otherwise). Thanks a lot!

Most of what we've been doing has used the shaman as the main target of the spell, however, so a test that used an external primary target could potentially expose more about the bug though, so I'd be grateful if you'd go ahead with it. You don't need warlocks to do any sort of testing, by the way. The health deficit that can be achieved by any class removing and reapplying a piece of gear with stamina on it is enough. Thanks for taking such interest! I'm looking forward to seeing what you find! It'd be great if it really was only an issue with the spell when the shaman is the target.


Edit for Etsuko: bug report up on the PTR, btw :P

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I am pretty sure if you watched the videos, your question would have been answered.

In the case you are at work and can't watch the videos, no, it is not hitboxes.

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Actually I'm at work but watched the videos anyway :)

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Q u o t e:
It is the same range everytime no matter whether I am orc or gnome or it is an AoE spell or a targetable spell.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought player hitboxes were normalized, so your race (or costume) shouldn't matter. Tauren now have the same hitbox as a gnome.

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Q u o t e:

Let me pose a question to you. If it is a hitbox issue, then why can paladins judge and HoJ farther than ten yards but Earthbind and sap is right at ten yards. All their tool tips say 10 yard range. Cmon, given the hitbox, sap whould be greater than ten yards like judge and HoJ... ...or 8 yards in your example.

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I am suggesting that the range of a spell is from edge of hitbox to edge of hitbox. So lets imagine that the hitbox is a 1 yard radius circle. Then sap, judge, etc will actually work when the center point of each hitbox is as far as 12 yards apart.

You can judge or sap or hammer outside of earthbind range because earthbind totem is not a player, therefore it does not have a normalized hitbox. The hitbox of a totem is much smaller than a player, for example lets say 0.5 yard radius. So a player standing on his earthbind is still able to be by 10 yard attacks becasue his hitbox sticks out a half yard farther.

Similarly, flare does not have a hitbox at all, and simply works at a 10 yard range from a single point (imagine a hitbox of radius 0).

Of course, take my explanation with a grain of salt, I don't fully understand hitboxes, and they may not function exactly like I am suggesting. All I was doing was suggesting why chain heal didn't seem to get a range increase on the PTR.

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Q u o t e:
I am suggesting that the range of a spell is from edge of hitbox to edge of hitbox. So lets imagine that the hitbox is a 1 yard radius circle. Then sap, judge, etc will actually work when the center point of each hitbox is as far as 12 yards apart.

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Try sapping a hunter that is standing in the exact center of flare. If you can sap him and not get brought out of stealth by the flare debuff, then you are right. If you get brought out by the flare debuff, then I am right.

FYI, in the second video, I show Sap has a smaller range than judge and HoJ. Sap is the same range as CH. Sap, CH, Judge and HoJ are all supposed to be the same distance.

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I don't get it.

So basically, you are saying that you don't care whether CH is 8, 10 or 12 yards, or that the range hasn't changed on the PTR, but that's the second or third thread you guys make only to PROVE that CH is already 10 yards, and that it hasn't changed on the PTR.

I'm sorry, call me stupid, but I don't see anything in your original post saying that you'd prefer other spells to get some loving. The only thing I saw is you arguing yet again about the range of CH with some tests, and that it is still the same on the PTR:

So my answer will be the same:
1. As far as CH range is concerned, make a bug report in the PTR forums if you truly believe that CH is 10 yards, both on the PTR and on live, and it'll probably be looked at, at some point.
2. Post healing concerns in the healing forums. Post and argue about why increasing CH by 2 yards is not enough, or why it is not the good solution to help SHaman healing.

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You asked me to call you stupid, I can't argue with stupid, but I will try:

I said "Maybe it is time you chose other avenues for us since this one has shown to be ineffective on live."

I care that CH is 10 yards on live. Why? Because it means this big fix the devs have in store for us is complete ###@ and has already been proven so due to the issues of shamans AoE healing. This is why I say pursue other avenues. I am sorry if you can't comprehend my posts. It is all there if you read and comprehend them.

I have stated over and over on these very forums (you can check my post history, it's currently maxed out) CH is not a fix for our problems. The fact their fix was to bump it to ten yards only to find out it was already ten yards completely nullifies their supposed fix. For once, we get to tell the devs with proof they are making a mistake in thinking this buff could work. Not only has it been tested in WotLK, but it was this way in Sunwell also. That is what I call extensive live testing of a buff that will not do any good, and in turn, it is not a buff and they should pursue other avenues (read that as change our other spells or give us a new one).

Now, since you are only in reg mode ulduar, I wouldn't expect any of this to make sense to you since the issues with shaman are not in Reg mode raids. I had 0 issues in regular mode Ulduar. To put it simply, there just is not enough damage going around to notice it. Issues stem from hard modes. Do them and you might understand why I am passionate about this topic.


And since this is the World of Instantcraft, I would liek one that is actually good. Please buff riptide to be worthy of the 51 pt talent spot or at the very least balance out the mana cost of the spell. TW is not a cost of riptide, TW is 5 talent points for a bonus on the spell.

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For someone who likes to tell others they cannot understand what you're saying, you are yourself not reading what others are saying. It'll make it simple so you get it:

1. Whether CH is 8 or 10 yards on live does not matter.
2. Ghostcrawler said they are increasing CH bounces by 2 yards, on the Public Test Realm.
3. If there is no change on the PTR, then fill in a bug report.

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I posted it in the OP!

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Chain Heal jump is 8 yards in 3.1 and 10 yards in 3.2.

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He doesn't say they are increasing the range by two yards, he says the exact range it will be. The PTR range is exactly what they said, 10 yards. That is not a bug, that is exactly what they said it would be. It just so happens CH is 10 on Live, so we already know the outcome of the buff through extensive testing. Because of this, they need to look at other options since it is proven to not be a fix, or rather, buff.

I doubt there is any way to explain this thread better than ^ that paragraph. All of that is in my OP, I guess I just had to dumb it down for the stupids.

*edit*
Also, had he said it was buffed two yards, don't you think the actual range wouldn't matter and I would be posting about the fact it wasn't buffed the two yards instead of exact distances?

@OP: Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate in vivid, video detail that CH range has not been buffed.

/salute

PS I'm also amused by the other range checks that seem to be incorrect. How far out of range can a paladin actually heal from, anyways?

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Q u o t e:
We changed the number 8 on the Chain Heal spell to a 10. I am pretty sure whatever bugs WoW might have would not make these two numbers the same. So however you are measuring the range on live, it is 2 yards higher on the PTR.

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Yes, but I've been telling them that their point is that a 10 yard range isn't a big enough increase for it to make a difference in actual gameplay. :)

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Q u o t e:
We changed the number 8 on the Chain Heal spell to a 10. I am pretty sure whatever bugs WoW might have would not make these two numbers the same. So however you are measuring the range on live, it is 2 yards higher on the PTR.

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and yet that video proves you wrong GC.....hmmm

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and yet that video proves you wrong GC.....hmmm

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or maybe the video proves that the engine wow uses to draw the AoE circle provides only a rough estimate of range. Or that because you are using 2 clients communicating with the server the two players aren't exactly where they appear on eachother's screens

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Q u o t e:
We changed the number 8 on the Chain Heal spell to a 10. I am pretty sure whatever bugs WoW might have would not make these two numbers the same. So however you are measuring the range on live, it is 2 yards higher on the PTR.

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Sigh~ Direct quote from meka:

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My first impression is, they want us to use Healing Wave now instead of LHW and they still want Chain Heal to SUCK. I mean if that is really all they can muster then it's clear they havn't been watching how Shamans perform against Priests and Druids in high end raiding. The change is not enough, it needed a cast time reduce or to be affected by Tidal Waves (ideally imo). It needed 4-5 Jumps, the initial hit reduced and the extra hits increased significantly (this 50%->40% crap is not enough to make it good). I also think that 10 yards is not going to cut it either, sooooo many fights are built around spreading out and that often means players can be more than 10 yards appart. Priest and Druid heals have huge ranges, if you want it to be bring the player not the class this stuff needs to be evened out.

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That's ensidia's top resto shaman, and while I hate linking other peoples arguments, this guy is pretty hard to ignore. Any sort of response to his concerns?

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Q u o t e:
We changed the number 8 on the Chain Heal spell to a 10. I am pretty sure whatever bugs WoW might have would not make these two numbers the same. So however you are measuring the range on live, it is 2 yards higher on the PTR.

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Earth to GC, Earth to GC :

Watch the Video's

If it was bugged on live and you are now fixing say so but do not say you are improving it by making it chain at longer distances...........

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What you are discussing is latency. And if you are standing still, you are EXACTLY where you are on the other players screen. There is SOME lag... but placement is always corrected once the player stops. Good try though.

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So I see you're a wow developer.

The only possible explanation for this is that live server spell range works in yards and PTR spell range works in "yurds", which are 8/10ths the size of the yards used on live.