How to do the "shambler dance"

[gibbitudinous]

So I finally went and made an account specifically because I am continually mystified by the shambler dance, that supposedly never-fail technique which so many mappers evidently design their maps around, between how big the hitboxes on the shamblers' melee attacks are, how quickly they switch to their hitscan lightning if you actually back up far enough to avoid said hitboxes, and most importantly, how you will never find information on the "proper" way to do it thanks to every search engine result instead being about that one achievement in the Nightdive rerelease and how to most easily get it (i.e. with some other, more straight-forward cheese method like gunning the shambler down ASAP with the super nailgun and quad damage).

 

[Mopey bloke]

Well, shamblers will switch very quickly to lightning in Nightmare difficulty. They'll also do it eventually if you're playing something with the Copper mod. However, if executed correctly, in vanilla Quake, shamblers will never use their lightning attack after you start dancing. It's a matter of learning their reach and being quick to change your pacing if they flinch from your attacks.

If you wish to watch, I recorded a demo of me performing it. Just, extract it, place it on your id1 folder [if you're on Steam, that's quake\rereleases\id1] and while in game type "playdemo dance" on the console. Edit: apparently this isn't compatible with the re-release. Oh well.