Hi,
I’m wondering if this is a bug or I don’t understand the card text properly.
I used piercing shot on a 3/3 divine shield minion, it did 0 (of course) to the divine shield, but then it did only 3 damage to the face.
Piercing shot: “Deal 6 damage to a minion. Excess damage hits the enemy hero.”
Divine Shield: “The first time a Shielded minion takes damage, ignore it.”
The shot dealt 0 damage to the minion (it was ‘ignored’), yet somehow it absorbed 3 of the damage.
Yeah, this was an issue with other mechanics as well, e.g. life steal. I know it’s weird, or at least it feels weird but the idea is, you do the damage to the divine shield, not the minion. The problem with the logic is, how much damage should be dealt to the divine shield? Why the amount of the minion’s HP and not just 1 for instance?
I agree that it is confusing, I will not counter argument that, but at least it is consistent as long as you understand the mechanic.
Yeah I agree that it’s counter intuitive but at least it’s consistent as that’s the choice they made when introducing “explosive ruins” (they did at least explain exactly how that worked before it was released).
Just one you have to learn.
The best way to think about these interactions is that cards such as Explosive Runes, Piercing Shot, Combustion, and Rolling Fireball do not “think” about damage-affecting effects, such as Divine Shield, Mo’arg Artificer, Commanding Shout, or Moonfang. They simply look at the health of the minion and that’s the amount of damage they deal to that minion. Then the rest is the “excess” that they use however their card text specifies.
Maybe that is the correct way to think about it. But that doesn’t mean its a good explanation.
I personally, would think that damage continues to be exerted until the minion is dead. In the case of these spells (I am on here upset about a combustion being cast on a divine shield minion - argent squire - and then having ‘excess’ hitting neighbots).
In the case of combustion, all 4 damage is cast on the argent squire, and as the minion didn’t die, there is no excess.
This is the opposite of Jade’s perspective.
But I would say that the way that it may work based on BigHugger’s explanation is my least favorite in terms of logic and the definition of Divine Shield.
But I appreciate the explanation (however unsatisfying it is).
Yeah there was 3 choices on how the interaction could work (what they did, divine shield absorb all, divine shield absorb none) and no matter which, some people would be unhappy.
I just expect consistency and go with whatever they decide, rather than thinking it’s wrong (even if against my own intuition).
Imo pure bs and flaw of logic. The card reads «deal 6 dmg to a minion. Any excess dmg is done to enemy hero.» If the minion takes NO damage, how in the world is there an excess to begin with? This crappy logic has cost me too many games. It should read like the trampling rhino. If the spell kills the minion, THEN the excess damage goes to face. Copy-paste from the rhino please blizzard.
Well it should have done 6, it did 0, so you could argue that the excess was 6, not that I agree with that or that’s how it works, just that there’s still 3 ways to interpret the logic. Just because it doesn’t act the way you think it should doesn’t make it bad, just a choice.
That said, I’d prefer it if divine shield blocked it completely to give counter play to explosive ruins and like your idea of changing the text > effect.
So if no damage is dealt, and therefore all the damage is excess…
Why when Wildfire Elemental (in Battlegrounds) hit a divine shield minion it does NOT damage adjacent with ‘excess’? I think this is the intuitive way and this is the correct way imo, but this seems to handle excess differently than a Combustion, or other.
Damage is dealt. The Divine Shield prevents the minion from taking damage. The damage can still be dealt, it’s just absorbed.
The name for the effect that prevents dealing damage to a target is immune.
Explained here: