Knockback

Overview
is a special type of combat effect caused by a large number of events on the battlefield from damage type to combat abilities to environmental occurrences. It affects all forces: Monsters, players, and friendly NPCs.

In short, knockback causes affected targets to fly away from the source of the damage to varying degrees and may stun them for several seconds.

Environment
The most common environmental source of knockback is mortar shells. Some battlefields contain areas where mortars drop randomly. Being anywhere close to a mortar strike can throw one back a bit, and a direct hit will send you flying and leave you stunned for several seconds.

Sonic Damage
Any weapon with sonic damage has a chance of knocking back its target on contact. Few enemy NPCs will do so, but a select few will. Howlers are probably the most common culprit.

Enemy Abilities
Several enemy abilities can cause knockback including:
 * Thrax Soldier's Kick
 * Juggernaut's Mortar/Rocket
 * Strider's Slam
 * Stalker's Energy Bomb
 * Kael's Pound

Player Abilities

 * Recruit Firearms training
 * At pump three and higher, shotguns gain an increasing chance to cause knockback.


 * Recruit Hand to Hand Combat training
 * At pump three and higher, melee attacks gain an increasing chance to cause knockback.


 * Commando's Rushing Blow
 * The amount of knockback increases per pump maxing out at 15 meters.


 * Grenadier's Concussive Wave
 * This move knocks back all enemies in a large radius and stuns them for a long time.


 * Grenadier's Tectonic Strike
 * This move has a very high chance of knockback.


 * Demolitionist's Explosive Wave
 * Similar to Concussive Wave


 * EMP Bombs
 * Very high chance to cause knockback.

Mitigation
At the moment, only the Commando tier and its sub-classes, via the use of Graviton Body Armor training, can mitigate knockback. At pump two and up, each armor piece will grant an amount of stun and knockback resistance. At pump five with full graviton armor, resistance is 75%.

Several enemy types are immune to knockback. The general rule is size. Large or otherwise bulky units will not be affected by knockback.