Can I Skip the Shift and Slide from Luring Strike's Hit?

Question

Luring Strike is a swordmage melee at-will attack power found in Arcane Power. It's Hit line reads:

1[W] damage. You shift 1 square and slide the target 1 square into the space you occupied.

It also has an effect line:

Before or after the attack, you can shift 1 square.

I'm wondering if I could use this power to shift to an enemy and attack them, but not move them if I like their current position. I'm aware that normally with forced movement the number is a maximum, but I also thought that when a specific destination is listed you have to put them right there. So, I'm confused by this Hit line having both a distance for the slide as well as a specific destination.

Answer 1

I ended up answering my own question when I looked up some rules references to add to my question above. It took me a while and I looked at a couple of books before I found it though, so I figured I'd ask it anyway in case anybody else wondered about this, or in case someone has a different interpretation:

Eventually, I found this in the Rules Compendium on page 212, in a subsection entitled "Distance, Specific Destination, or Both" (emphasis added):

... When a distance is specified, it is a maximum... When a destination is specified it is absolute ... move that target to that destination or not move it at all ...

and, a little further on (emphasis added):

For instance, a character's power might say, "You slide the target up to 5 squares to a square adjacent to you (or "5 squares to a square adjacent to you)," both of which mean the character can move the target up to 5 squares, but only if the move ends in a square adjacent to that character.

So, I would say yes. I can shift to the enemy, attack them, hit, decide to shift only zero squares, and then decide not to slide the enemy at all.

Furthermore, if I had a feat that let me force additional movement, like Battering Shield (assuming my swordmage wanted to use a heavy shield for some reason...), then although I could technically slide the target up to two squares, the slide would have to end in the square I had occupied, which would be adjacent to the enemy's starting position.

Similarly, if I had a feat that let me shift more, like the Mark of Passage, I could shift 2 to the enemy, attack, hit, and then shift up to 2 away. So I could choose to be adjacent to the enemy after moving them, or not.