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A [VIDEO] Guide to Melee Mechanics
By Dom
A VIDEO guide to melee, melee weapons and how they work mechanically in TF2.
   
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Dom
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Category: Achievements, Characters, Co-op, Gameplay Basics, Loot, Modding or Configuration, Multiplayer, Secrets, Trading, Weapons
Languages: English
Class: Demoman, Engineer, Heavy, Medic, Pyro, Scout, Sniper, Soldier, Spy
Posted
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7 Mar, 2015 @ 12:48pm
14 Mar, 2015 @ 8:51pm
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Note: This is the video's script and may not be formatted well for reading.


INTRO
Hey everybody, Dom here. Today I’d like to talk briefly about a mechanic in Team Fortress 2: Melee


MELEE
First things first: ‘Melee’ is one of those words that everyone pronounces differently. I consider the way the announcer says it in Super Smash bros Melee to be the best way and will continue to pronounce it like that.

Alright with that out of the way let’s move on.


INTRO 2
Hitting players with a melee weapon in Team Fortress 2 can be unreliable. Sometimes it sounds like and looks like a hit should have made contact but didn’t. Sometimes a spy will backstab you wile still in your field of view. There are reasons behind why melee hits act so seemingly unpredictable. Under the surface there is actually a lot of mechanics at play when a player tries to hit someone with a melee weapon.


MELEE MECHANICALLY
On a mechanical level when a player has a melee weapon active and they click to use the weapon an invisible short range instant bullet is sent out. It travels from their camera directly down the crosshairs. There is a 0.25 second delay between when the action starts and when the actual bullet is sent out. Presumably this delay exists to simulate the action of winding up the weapon in hand before moving it forward towards a target. The spy’s knives break this rule. They fire the bullet instantly when the button is press to use the weapons.


NO HITBOX
Despite being classified as hitscan (like the minigun or shotgun) melee doesn’t use hitboxes. Along with some projectiles, instead melee hits use the player’s collision hull. The collision hull is used to determine the space the player occupies in the world, where they can fit, how far they can move before being stopped by colliding with another player. Etc. It’s an invisible rectangle around the entire player. It’s the same size for every class and does not rotate with the player. It only ever changes when the player crouches.

Look at this diagram. The squares represent players from the top view. The lines are melee hits coming from the blue squares. In the first situation the 2 player’s collision hulls are diagonal one another. In the second they are next to eachother. In the first situation only 1 of the 3 hits actually make contact. In the second situation all 3 make contact. The orientation of players and collision hull means that the distance required to make contact can vary.

In practise this information isn’t very helpful. It’s hard to determine what orientation the collision hulls are in on a map vs players and in the heat of battle it’s not likely viable to try and take advantage of a little bit of extra or less melee reach.


BACKING UP
Hitscan weapons determine whether or not an attack hits based on the attacker’s game state, not the server’s. When it comes to fighting one on one in melee combat avoid back pedaling. In a perfect situation where 2 players are moving in one direction the aggressor will have the advantage. Look at this diagram.

Every player is microscopically ahead of where they appear. There’s lag compensation so when it comes to regular combat it doesn’t matter because hitting where they appear to be will deal damage to them regardless. In this specific situation the left player, the red aggressor sees the right player, the blue back peddler slightly behind. Because of this he’s in melee range. From the back peddler’s perspective the red player is slightly behind making him out of melee range. The aggressor can continuously hit the back peddler but the back peddler is out of range and can’t hit back.

Players fire from where they really are but take damage from where others see where they are. Another thing worth noting: back pedaling is 10% slower than running forward. This means in this one on one situation the red aggressor is actually gaining ground as well.

To summarize this is why it seems as though when retreating enemies approaching have bigger melee range.


FACESTABS
Given all information stated so far about where players are and where they see other player consider the following. When in a one-on-one fight versus a spy and they successfully instantly kill the other player it’s usually completely legitimate for the spy but a can be a face-stab for the victim. Imagine this situation: A spy circles around a victim. The victim appears slightly behind where they actually are. They turn to look at the spy but by the spy’s perspective haven’t turned yet. The spy gets in range of the victim’s back. The spy fires and land a backstab. Meanwhile by the victim’s perspective, they were looking directly at the spy the entire time as they turned around with them.

Another thing that’s worth noting is: the way backstabs work, they depend on the camera orientation of the victim. The camera orientation of the victim can be a difficult to tell because the only information given is the orientation of the victim’s player model. The classes leaning slightly left or right in some of their jumping, running or standing animations can throw off a spy player’s perception of where their actual back is. As an example this is where the actual back is versus where it looks like it should be.


TEAMATES
Teamates can sometimes block melee hits. When a teammates stand in front of or inside of another teammate they can block damage from reaching enemies. This is why it’s not advisable to double-team an enemy in a corner while using melee weapons. Every hit will be nullifies by the teammate and the enemy will eventually kill one of the attackers. (This situation occurs frequently on the final point of cp_degrootkeep.) There’s an exception to this. Melee hits from the engineer’s wrench prioritized hitting building over hitting teammates.


GREATER REACH
All melee weapon share the same range other than a few of the demoman’s and the soldier’s Disciplinary Action. They have increased range. The Disciplinary Action actually has a hidden 70% increased range stat on it, making it the melee weapon with the greatest reach at the time or recording this. One reason why this weapon has such as huge reach is because it has to hit teammates. Teammates aren’t prioritized by Team Fortress 2’s lag compensation and hit registration code, since they usually never have to be hit. As a side note the Disciplinary Action has so much reach that it can actually somehow hit enemies directly behind the soldier.


INHERIT CRIT
The last thing to note about melee weapons is that they have an inherent high chance to critically hit. They have a 15 to 60% chance to crit versus the 2 to 12% chance most other weapons have. A player’s critical hit change increases by dealing damage, hitting maximum once 800 damage is dealt within a span of 20 seconds.


OUTTRO
And that just about sums up everything noteworthy about melee, melee weapons and melee hit registration. It can sometimes be difficult, frustrating and unreliable to try and hit an opponent with a melee weapon in Team Fortress 2. Hopefully with a greater knowledge and understanding of the mechanics behind melee weapons it’s possible to better work with the system in place and be more successful with melee.

OUTTRO2
Thanks for watching, like if you enjoyed or learned something new and subscribe for more videos like this one. Au revoir.


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Useful Links
Offical TF2 Wiki page on game mechanics: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mechanics
Offical TF2 Wiki page on hitscan weapons: https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Hitscan
Offical TF2 Wiki page on lots of stuff (specifically my citation link for classes moving 10% slower when backing up): https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Classes#Speed
25 Comments
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Jampolo 2 Sep, 2019 @ 10:05pm 
Honestly, the part about backpedalling is what I found to be most useful in practice
Pathetic One 10 Oct, 2018 @ 1:54am 
The melee hitbox is actually 17 Hammer units larger on every face than the collision hull: https://www.reddit.com/r/truetf2/comments/2t7cvw/how_can_we_viewcompare_the_hurtbox_sizes_for/cnwwnmu/ That probably accounts for many of the weird outcomes that people usually attribute to network/netcode issues.
Bob 23 Jul, 2016 @ 4:49pm 
u r awesome
Masztufa 17 May, 2015 @ 3:58am 
this guide is really good. i've became a LOT better at melee duels
evil_spuds 16 Mar, 2015 @ 8:08pm 
Does anyone know the range of melee weapons? In hammer units particularily. I've heard stuff like five feet, two feet, but never any number in HU nor with any evidence.
happygiggi 16 Mar, 2015 @ 1:28pm 
I don't know if it's me but i feel when i hit 1 time and then holding the melee button, it's like the mele weapon have greater range or still "connected" i don't know how to explain, i'm good at melee because of this felling. :exclamation:
DMontez 15 Mar, 2015 @ 8:51pm 
This guide explains why The Pan, Ubersaw, and Powerjack crit alot. Now i know why.
Sfro 15 Mar, 2015 @ 4:30pm 
This guide is very well done an informative, great job :D
Lord Theodore XIII 15 Mar, 2015 @ 8:08am 
Thanks.
:raptor:
Stormtrooper #547 15 Mar, 2015 @ 5:17am 
finally a good guide on how to hit people with things!