"Guaranteed crits" vs. "Cannot be critical"
jdschw
Member Posts: 475 ★★★
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?
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?
9
Comments
Still, do you think that's clear from the description? Or is it just "tribal knowledge" that you only gain from experience?
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.
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
Cannot means 0% chance. You can multiply 0% by 100%, but it's still 0%.
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."
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.
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.
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