pull forward push back

[talino7]

I read about people using skills that are able to pull enemy forward or push them back in the line. I rarely use these skills in combat am I missing something?

[Gilmoy]

They exist. They're usually a secondary benefit of a skill that you use for other reasons.
Trust your own judgment.

Some other effects are more vicious, and thus tend to give you more of a winning edge.
Stun is probably the #1 effect, because it strictly reduces enemy actions.
Damage and damage-over-time are always good.
We usually rely on these to seize control of most fights.

Push/pull is rarely good on its own. Usually, your heroes have better things to do.
Sometimes it's useful. Many enemies lose their best attacks when out of position.

Assess all parts of a skill, e.g. its damage, range, and all of its special effects.
You'll occasionally end up with a couple of push/pull skills anyways.

[talino7]

thanks!

[dem22]

movement skills like push and pull are another great tool to help you! for example, you can pull stress attackers from the back to the front to allow front line melee heroes a chance to attack them, this also works with the gun-toting bandit, he cant shoot the entire party from the front row. Another helpful example is the Collector battle. Depending on your party configuration, it can be helpful to pull him to the front or push his minions back so additional team members can attack him. Push and pull are another great way to help control battles.

[RopeDrink]

Push and pull are another great way to help control battles.

Killing a target is the ultimate CC. The best alternative is to stun it. Moving them around in any way is (typically) a wasted turn for the most part and the weakest form of CC in the game with only a few exceptions.

movement skills like push and pull are another great tool to help you! for example, you can pull stress attackers from the back to the front to allow front line melee heroes a chance to attack them

That is turn-inefficient and generally a huge waste seeing as you're using two turns (all with their own stat-checks) to do what a lot of heroes can achieve by themselves on their own (with less checks), hence heroes who can attack multiple ranks from many different positions are generally always welcome, whereas Joe Soap Leper who can't hit priority targets relying on Joe Soap OCC/BH to pull stuff for him are doing double-duty and rolling more dice to achieve it.

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A half-decent exception is using a move-capable stun to stun one target while the knockback/shuffle causes another enemy to be pushed out-of-position so that they lose access to their most threatening skill.

For example, Bone Arbalests in the ruins cannot shoot you if they're in position 1 or 2, so you can use an MAA or BH to Rampart/Uppercut an R2 target (stunning them and pushing them backward), which also causes the Arbalest to be moved forward. As a result, you've basically stunned a target and forcing the other to use a weak skill, with bonus points if the stunned target also also has to waste turns using movement skills to get back into favoured ranks later, like Cultists Brawlers (which have to use Stumbling Scratch, which has low damage, low crit, and doesn't bleed).

However - movement as a strategy in itself? No. Just kill/stun the target with better comps/heroes and stop wasting turns.

[Original Gengar]

I think the only point in the game where movement skills are a genuine tactic is the Croc.

[RopeDrink]

I generally don't bother with move skills versus the Croc, but you certainly can do so to make life easier. There was also a time when bosses like the Crew could be pulled in front of the anchorman so that their gimmick became pointless (IIRC) - and there's probably other examples as well, past and present, but not that many of real worth.

Some will also recommend moves like Come Hither to move + mark a target at the same time, but you'd only really consider that for mark-based comps - and even then, I'd recommend just hitting the target x2 seeing as most backline priorities are squish anyway.

For the most part, raw movement skills in either direction generally aren't favorable compared to alternatives, unless they just happen to be tied to a more useful skill or side-effect. After all, most enemies will be moved back into their favorable positions eventually, and the vast majority don't really care what position they're in anyway.

Rampart (stun+knockback x1), Uppercut (stun+knockback x2), Disorienting Blast (stun+shuffle+corpse clear) and Flashbang (stun+shuffle) can be situationally beneficial beyond the stun itself, but the stun is always the most valuable component.

On the flip side, heroes being shuffled (such as surprise encounters) can be a real comp killer, and some enemies will eventually get off a move-related skill eventually, which is why I try to avoid making extremely static comps.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

I generally don't bother with move skills versus the Croc, but you certainly can do so to make life easier. There was also a time when bosses like the Crew could be pulled in front of the anchorman so that their gimmick became pointless (IIRC) - and there's probably other examples as well, past and present, but not that many of real worth.

I've had pretty good luck with move teams against the Croc. The only problem is it means you're bringing a seriously sub-optimal team to the Court which isn't going to do well against everything else there. So I just usually use the generic CC team of VES-JES-FLA-HEL and suck it up when I have to deal with the Croc. It isn't the best team against the Croc itself, but it is for everything else in the Court.

[RopeDrink]

Same here. The only saving grace is that you can leave and re-enter on a whim if you have invitations to burn - but I'd rather just truck on with the above comp instead of leaving/entering for the sake of a dedicated mover.