"Guaranteed crits" vs. "Cannot be critical"

Hey folks, I wanted to highlight some of the trickiness that can occur when champion abilities clash with each other. For example, all of Bullseye's hits are "guaranteed crits" according to his description. But when we look at Warlock's description, it says that as long as he has his armor up, enemy specials "cannot be critical".

I believe, in this case, Warlock wins, i.e. I don't think Bullseye crits on Warlock during his specials. But I'm actually not 100% sure. More to the point: how would you figure out which way this would work via the description? Do you think this should be clarified (e.g. adding to Warlock's description that guaranteed crits are disabled)? Or is this one of those situations where you think we just need to get the answer experimentally rather than having a clear answer in the descriptions?

Comments

Pikolu

We already know that guaranteed crits can't crit warlock during specials thanks to the EoP Warlock.

PT_99

Cannot always is CANNOT in MCOC.

jdschw

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?

jdschw

Cannot always is CANNOT in MCOC.

Okay, so "guaranteed" is not always GUARANTEED?

Rohtaga

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Kabam, I don’t work as a game designer, I don’t know what their code looks like under the hood.

The way I would assume it works (because it’s the only logical way to do it imo) is that before any hit lands, the relevant information for that hit is determined based on the attacker’s stats and abilities. Attack, crit rate, crit damage, guaranteed crit, etc. Once the base damage and crit rate of the hit is calculated, the resistances of the defender are taken into account. Armor, crit resist, physical/energy resist, etc. Then the final calculation takes place. Did the hit crit, what’s the modified value of the damage, etc. If we accept this as true, then the step checking the defender’s values/abilities would check for a flag to see if a crit is even possible (warlock ability, nodes, etc). If the flag is raised and a crit isn’t possible, then the very concept of the hit being critical is removed. Because this step takes place after the game checks to see if a hit is a guaranteed crit, it overrides that ability and prevents a crit from happening.

Anyway, that’s my guess as to how it works.

Magrailothos

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?

It was confirmed by the mods many years ago that Never beats Always in this game.

Ruwqiersa

Some "guaranteed" crits doesnt even crit against some crit resist champs. Ghost for example doesnt always crit against doom with her mediums

jdschw

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?
It was confirmed by the mods many years ago that Never beats Always in this game.

Okay, cool, that's great to know! Thanks!

Vanitelia

Would be nice to have an order of operations for reference. I believe it is node, defender, attacker or at least that makes the most sense to me anyway. Node is designed, defender is placed on node, then we bring in the attacker. Don't believe it's that simple though.

GroundedWisdom

You can't guarantee against what can't.

Milan1405

There was a big discussion on this a long time ago when corvus was introduced to the game and his attacks could be glanced. Basically if a hit glances then it cannot be critical, regardless of whatever abilities the other champion has.

xLunatiXx

Yeah corvus and Ghost back in 2018 and glancing vs Ant-Man.

Pikolu

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?
It was confirmed by the mods many years ago that Never beats Always in this game.

Except in the crit neta when using someone like iron doom. You'd get a crit every so often with him when he can't crit 🤣

Toyota_2015

I try to think of it like applying a bleed to a bleed immune champ. Even if the bleed has a 100% chance to proc, it still won't work because they're immune to it

I do think it would make it a little easier to understand though if they changed it to "Critical Hit Immunity," as everyone knows it's impossible to bypass an immunity, so they wouldn't have to go through mental gymnastics to figure out which ability takes precedence

Sw0rdMaster

Cannot always is CANNOT in MCOC.
Okay, so "guaranteed" is not always GUARANTEED?

Guarantees always has a fine print to void it 😁

Java_Junkie

I try to think of it like applying a bleed to a bleed immune champ. Even if the bleed has a 100% chance to proc, it still won't work because they're immune to it

I do think it would make it a little easier to understand though if they changed it to "Critical Hit Immunity," as everyone knows it's impossible to bypass an immunity, so they wouldn't have to go through mental gymnastics to figure out which ability takes precedence

PLEASE gimme another immunity for Clair to exploit. love gaining power off of AA and Longshot parries; "AAR immune? cool, I get a charge!".

GroundedWisdom

Loose example, but I'll give it a go. "Guaranteed" operates based on a certain percentage of chance, as in 100% chance to occur.
Cannot means 0% chance. You can multiply 0% by 100%, but it's still 0%.

DNA3000

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?
It was confirmed by the mods many years ago that Never beats Always in this game.

That was a rule of thumb, not an actual game guarantee.

The reason why it generally works is, I believe, that when the game says something always happens, it almost always refers to the act and not the result. But when the game says something never happens, it almost always refers to the result and not the act.

To explain, consider the case of an attacker with guaranteed crits facing something that is essentially immune to crits. An attack can be a critical or not critical. Guaranteed crits means the attack is always considered a critical attack. But when the target is said to be impossible to crit, that does not mean that all attackers magically lose the ability to generate critical attacks. It means that even if an attack would have been a critical hit, that critical hit fails to deal critical effects when it hits the target.

So when Bullseye attacks Warlock (with armor) his attacks are all treated as criticals by the game. And then those criticals fail to generate critical damage when they strike Warlock, because Warlock. It is not a case of "who wins" both things happen.

An analogous thing happens with regard to buff immunity. Buff immunity says the target is unaffected by buffs. But if they have a buff ability, it can still be triggered. It triggers, and then the buff fails. Immunity does not prevent buffs from being triggered by the champion, it just prevents them from sticking.

Every action has an initiator and a target. Something tries to do something to something else. Bullseye tries to crit. Those tries always succeed. Warlock cannot be crit when he has armor. Inbound attacks that are critical fail to land as critical hits when they arrive at Warlock.

"Bullseye always crits" is a simplification, as is "Warlock cannot be crit (with armor)." The longer wordy but precise thing to say, I believe, that is unlikely to propagate everywhere in the game, is "All of Bullseyes attacks are automatically considered critical strikes" and "Warlock prevents critical strikes from causing any critical effects on Warlock when they land, and those attacks are not considered critical hits for the purposes of any node or other effect."

Teleus

How does bullseye interact with maw? Does his never miss mean he gets his guaranteed crits through ?

Milan1405

Ah, thanks, that's good to confirm. I wasn't here for EoP, so it's news to me!

Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?
It was confirmed by the mods many years ago that Never beats Always in this game.
That was a rule of thumb, not an actual game guarantee.

The reason why it generally works is, I believe, that when the game says something always happens, it almost always refers to the act and not the result. But when the game says something never happens, it almost always refers to the result and not the act.

To explain, consider the case of an attacker with guaranteed crits facing something that is essentially immune to crits. An attack can be a critical or not critical. Guaranteed crits means the attack is always considered a critical attack. But when the target is said to be impossible to crit, that does not mean that all attackers magically lose the ability to generate critical attacks. It means that even if an attack would have been a critical hit, that critical hit fails to deal critical effects when it hits the target.

So when Bullseye attacks Warlock (with armor) his attacks are all treated as criticals by the game. And then those criticals fail to generate critical damage when they strike Warlock, because Warlock. It is not a case of "who wins" both things happen.

An analogous thing happens with regard to buff immunity. Buff immunity says the target is unaffected by buffs. But if they have a buff ability, it can still be triggered. It triggers, and then the buff fails. Immunity does not prevent buffs from being triggered by the champion, it just prevents them from sticking.

Every action has an initiator and a target. Something tries to do something to something else. Bullseye tries to crit. Those tries always succeed. Warlock cannot be crit when he has armor. Inbound attacks that are critical fail to land as critical hits when they arrive at Warlock.

"Bullseye always crits" is a simplification, as is "Warlock cannot be crit (with armor)." The longer wordy but precise thing to say, I believe, that is unlikely to propagate everywhere in the game, is "All of Bullseyes attacks are automatically considered critical strikes" and "Warlock prevents critical strikes from causing any critical effects on Warlock when they land, and those attacks are not considered critical hits for the purposes of any node or other effect."

I thought I understood what was happening, but now I'm just confused.

xNig

Generally what happens is First In First Out.

Bullseye guarantees the crit when he attacks Warlock. So over here, Bullseye is the initiator (first action).

Upon Warlock getting hit, the game reads that it cannot be crit (second action).

So the net effect is that the action isn't a crit.

Darkness275

Simplest way I've come to think of it is: "Defender always wins."

Not in the sense of "which character is the attacker and which character is the defender" but more in the sense of: active action vs passive effect.

Active action: "Always Crits", "Causes Bleed", "Applies poison", etc...

Passive effect: "Cannot crit", "Bleed Immune", "Poison immune", etc.

The active actions are something that the "attacker" does. The passive effects are just, intrinsic things that simply are. Attacks against them cannot be critical hits. They're bleed immune. They're poison immune. Etc... You can't do something to someone if they're immune to it.

The defender always wins.

jcphillips7

How does bullseye interact with maw? Does his never miss mean he gets his guaranteed crits through ?

After reading this thread, I tried mine against my Maw today. Bullseye works just fine.

Wolf911

Simplest way I've come to think of it is: "Defender always wins."

Not in the sense of "which character is the attacker and which character is the defender" but more in the sense of: active action vs passive effect.

Active action: "Always Crits", "Causes Bleed", "Applies poison", etc...

Passive effect: "Cannot crit", "Bleed Immune", "Poison immune", etc.

The active actions are something that the "attacker" does. The passive effects are just, intrinsic things that simply are. Attacks against them cannot be critical hits. They're bleed immune. They're poison immune. Etc... You can't do something to someone if they're immune to it.

The defender always wins.

what about "neutralize" and "buff immune"?

where will you put those two

let's say there's a node combat Déjà vu prowess

defender is a buff immune champ

and you have wiccan

he still incinerates the defender

and even if the attacker and defender are changed on some different node and when you dex with neutralize on attacker you'll get incinerated by wiccan

I know the interaction ( they try to trigger a buff and immunity kicks in after and neutralize prevents the buff from triggering so the incinerates and other things )

just tell me your thoughts on how you'd categorise those effects