The rush picks a lane and commits to it, and stops on a strike line

"They just overrun you without a chance" — two reasons, and the second one only
existed because of the first.

IT FOLLOWED YOU. The rush tracked your x every frame it was running, so the
sidestep was decoration: it simply came across and took you anyway. The lane is
LOCKED when the rush starts now. You get the whole 2.2 s run-up to leave it, and
what it runs down is that line, not you.

AND IT LANDED ON YOU. A rush that stopped at your feet left the boss standing
there afterwards, and nothing gets you out from under that — dodgeCool is 0.5 s
against a 0.28 s i-frame, so the second contact kills you while the first is
still fading. It stops on a STRIKE LINE 0.4 m short instead, reached on the same
frame the rush timer expires, so it turns and withdraws the instant it arrives.

The version of this that ran the rush THROUGH you and out the far side is why
bossStrike is a short stop and not an overrun: a body past the baseline is
deleted and scores a point, so the boss quietly despawned itself mid-fight and
left the fight running with nothing in it.

Measured, 45 s against the seller, the champion's third phase and the physio:
stand still and the first rush kills you (4.1 s); step out of the lane and you
survive all of it — seven or eight rushes, one sidestep each, the boss on court
the whole time and out at its line between them where you can hit it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

config.js

@@ -152,6 +152,14 @@ export const TUNE = {
                     // from how far away it is (bossAI), so the run-up reads the same every time and
                     // is long enough to see coming. Was 1.5 s at a flat 4.2 m/s, which only reached
                     // you at all because the boss crept nearer every cycle until it was on top of you.
+  bossStrike: 0.4,  // m SHORT of you the rush stops — its STRIKE LINE, reached exactly as the rush
+                    // timer runs out, so the boss turns and withdraws on the same frame it arrives.
+                    // A rush that stopped ON you left it standing there afterwards, and no amount of
+                    // sidestepping gets you out from under that (dodgeCool 0.5 s vs a 0.28 s
+                    // i-frame). It cannot run PAST you either: a body over the baseline is deleted
+                    // and scores a point (see updateZombies), which quietly despawned the boss
+                    // mid-fight the first time this ran through. At 0.4 m the contact test still
+                    // reaches about 0.85 m either side of the lane, and the sidestep covers 1.9.
   bossChargeRest: 2.2, // s of held ground between charges — the window you get to hit it
   bossHopT: 0.55,   // s per mascot hop (it moves in arcs, not in a slide)
   bossHopX: 2.0,    // m of ground one hop covers (the eased arc lands it at about 2/pi of this)