Half-step
A dash cut short, for the distance a full dash would overshoot.
DifficultyA few weeks
What it does
A dash covers a fixed distance, which is often more than you want — it walks you out of your own shotgun range or into an opponent's. Cutting the dash early with another action gives you a shorter reposition that keeps you inside the range you were fighting at.
Why it exists in the code
The dash's travel is driven by its animation, and the animation can be cancelled. Cancel it early and you keep only the distance already covered. There is no separate short-dash move in the game; the short dash is what a cancelled long dash leaves behind.
This behaviour is preserved deliberately. It is not on a list of things to fix.
The mistake everyone makes first
Treating it as a distinct move with its own key. It is not one. It is a dash that you stopped, and the length is set entirely by how quickly you stop it — which means the same input produces different distances until the timing is consistent.