Perfect Dodging

Overview

A perfect dodge occurs when two conditions are met simultaneously:

1. Player side: The player is in the first 0.2 seconds (0.13s Substantial+) of a dodge animation (the perfectDodgeDuration window)

2. Attacker side: The incoming attack has canTriggerPerfectDodge = True in its damage settings

If both conditions are true when the attack connects, the game registers a perfect dodge; grants a gunstrike mark on the enemy, triggers slow-motion, engagement rewards, and any equipped perk effects.

Perfect Dodges always grant a gunstrike mark on the enemy.

Dodge Timing

Base Timing Values

Every dodge type (Dash, Roll, Dodge, SecondRoll) across all presets shares identical base values:

Difficulty Scaling

All PvE difficulties from Substantial onward use the same -35% modifier; the perfect dodge window shrinks from 200ms to 130ms. Assault's passive +50% perk brings this back up to 195ms, making Assault the most forgiving class for perfect dodges at high difficulty. Invulnerability also drops from ~0.5s to ~0.3s for all classes, meaning mistimed dodges leave you exposed sooner.

Minimal/Average

Every dodge (perfect or not) grants 0.495s of invulnerability during which all damage is ignored (except dmg_type_redirect and dmg_type_player_perk). The perfect dodge window is at the beginning of the dodge. You need the attack to land within the first 200ms after pressing dodge. The remaining 295ms of the dodge is still invulnerable but won't register as "perfect."

Substantial/Ruthless/Lethal/Absolute

Every dodge (perfect or not) grants 0.322s of invulnerability during which all damage is ignored (except dmg_type_redirect and dmg_type_player_perk). The perfect dodge window is at the beginning of the dodge. You need the attack to land within the first 0.130s after pressing dodge. The remaining 0.192s of the dodge is still invulnerable but won't register as "perfect."

Both values are subject to PERFECT_DODGE_WINDOW and DODGE_INVULNERABILITY_WINDOW modifiers from perks and difficulty settings.

Startup Delay (Vulnerability Window)

There is a brief startup delay at the beginning of every dodge where iframes are NOT yet active. Attacks landing in this startup window deal damage and can knock the player out of the dodge animation, despite the player having already pressed the dodge input and entered DODGE body state.

This corresponds roughly to 1-2 animation frames at 60fps before the invulnerability layer activates.

Attack Triggers

Every attack has a canTriggerPerfectDodge flag in its damage settings. If False, the attack cannot trigger a perfect dodge regardless of player timing.

Attacks that CAN trigger perfect dodge include:

• Standard melee attacks from most enemies

• Zoanthrope Beam Attack

• Neurothrope Beam Attack

• Ravener Unburrow AoE

Attacks that CANNOT trigger perfect dodge include:

• Helbrute shock wave AoE

• Trygon boss body slam AoE and ground burst AoE

• Hormagaunt and Tzaangor melee strikes

Grab Attack Perfect Dodge Whitelist

Grab attacks have a separate whitelist of enemy archetypes whose grabs CAN trigger perfect dodge:

Only these grabs can be perfect-dodged. All other grabs (Hormagaunt pounce, Hive Tyrant whip grab, etc.) cannot trigger a perfect dodge.

Perfect Dodge Rewards

Gunstrike

A successful perfect dodge always triggers a gunstrike mark on the enemy.

Slow-Motion (Time Warp)

A successful perfect dodge triggers the PerfectDodge time warping preset:

• Time slows to 0.3x speed (30% of normal) almost immediately

• Slow-motion lasts approximately 0.25 seconds

• Then ramps back to 1.0x normal speed

Engagement Token Activation

Perfect dodges activate the SkillfulEngagementReward system for 1.5 seconds (same as Perfect Parry and Gunstrike). This temporarily modifies enemy attack token distribution, affecting how aggressively enemies attack during the window. Repeated perfect dodges restart the 1.5s duration.

Wings of Flame

The Wings of Flame class perk on assault sets the jetpack-specific perfect dodge window to 999 seconds, but is still capped by the jumppack dodge animation. This alters the perfect dodge logic for jumppack dashes to:

A perfect dodge occurs when two conditions are met simultaneously:

1. Player side: The player is in the jumppack dash animation

2. Attacker side: The incoming attack has canTriggerPerfectDodge = True in its damage settings

If both conditions are true when the attack connects, the game registers a perfect dodge and grants a gunstrike mark on the enemy.

Players will want to control the timing and direction of their jumppack dash such that the enemy attack connects with their hitbox during the dash animation. Dashing through enemy attacks is generally advised.

Class Perks That Interact with Perfect Dodge

Weapon Perks Triggered by Perfect Dodge

Non-Melee Attacks That CAN Be Perfect Dodged

Most ranged/ability damagers do not set canTriggerPerfectDodge and therefore cannot be perfect dodged. The following non-melee damagers explicitly opt in:

These are the only non-melee attacks in the game that can trigger a perfect dodge.

Attacks That Cannot Be Perfect Dodged

Every melee strike defaults to canTriggerPerfectDodge = True (from melee_damage_settings.sso). The following attacks explicitly set it to False - you cannot perfect dodge these regardless of timing.

Fodder Enemies (ALL strikes disabled)

Hormagaunt - every strike: BasicAttack, Combo1, Combo2, Heavy, SprintHeavy

Tzaangor - every strike: Light1, Light2, Light3, Light3fromidle

No fodder melee attacks can be perfect dodged. This is a deliberate design choice - swarm enemies are meant to be dealt with through parrying or AoE, not perfect dodge farming.

Boss/Elite Strikes

Hive Tyrant:

Tyranid Prime:

Carnifex:

Lictor:

Helbrute:

Ravener:

Trygon:

Game Files

• Dodge presets: ssl/locomotion/dodge/dodge_presets_library.sso

• Character dodge: ssl/locomotion/character_dodge.sso, character_dodge_sequence.sso

• Marine base server: ssl/characters/player/marine/pc_marine_base_server.cls

• Marine PvE server: ssl/characters/player/marine/pc_marine_pve_server.cls

• Marine base authority (client): ssl/characters/player/marine/pc_marine_base_authority.cls

• Perk factory: ssl/player/perks/perk_server_factory.sso

• Difficulty presets: ssl/game_mode/difficulty_system/difficulty_presets_library.sso

• Time warping: ssl/common/time_warping/time_warping_system.sso

• Attack tokens: ssl/ai/enemy_selection/attack_token_settings_library.sso

• Grab attack constrainer: ssl/smarts/local_animated_constraint/grab_attack_constrainer.sso

• Melee damage settings: ssl/melee/settings/melee_damage_settings.sso