j_sat just released this video regarding the mechanics of backstabbing for shades.
It is instructive and interesting, but got me wondering about how it’s coded, and how unintuitive it is.
I believe enemies have body hitboxes and separate head hitboxes for calculating headshots.
This is more addressed to Fatshark than an open discussion subject, but why isn’t there simply a backstab hitbox that would make the backstabbing mechanic intuitive and reliable ?
When I was playing Shade for my 100 mission hat challenge, I noticed I was getting backstab kills when I wasn’t even hitting them in the back.
How did I know this?
Because my Vanish talent would activate and I would go invisible. It occurred very frequently. I reported it and it was acknowledged but the whole backstab mechanic seems very unpolished, to put it politely.
This video visualizes what I expected when I was killing enemies from the side and not from the back and my Vanish talent would activate or when I do think I got a backstab kill but Vanish didn’t activate.
Thank you for posting this video 
The Shade has clearly learned the ways of TF2 Spy’s, famous move: “The trick stab”