Havok question: what constitutes “armor”?
Hammerbro_64
Member Posts: 7,463 ★★★★★
His buildup mechanic doesn’t work on armor buff champs, so two questions
Does Iceman work for this with his ice armor?
Do passive armors like IMIW work?
No speculation I’ve already read my fair share of that (@ DNA lol), if someone has tested it or a mod could confirm or deny, that would be great. Thanks ahead of time!
Does Iceman work for this with his ice armor?
Do passive armors like IMIW work?
No speculation I’ve already read my fair share of that (@ DNA lol), if someone has tested it or a mod could confirm or deny, that would be great. Thanks ahead of time!
1
Comments
No speculation or user-interpreting pls I’ve already read ur discussion with DNA about it. Prefer only tested or mod answers, thanks
Ice armor is not an armor up buff.
IW IM passive armor's are not buffs.
As the previous member said, Killmonger's passive armor is not a buff as well, so it doesn't work (same passive armor as IW IM).
Some champions with Armor up buffs are: Colossus, Angela, Vulture, Iron Patriot, Hulkbuster, Iron Man, Ultron, Howard the Duck, Red Skull.
A lot of tech champions have these armor up buffs, and some cosmic champions (which are known for having buffs) can also proc armor up buffs.
And why doesn’t IMIW’s armor work? Just because it’s passive? It’s still an armor buff that increases armor just like OG IM’s.
Passive ability =/= buff
They can't be buffs and passive at the same time. It's a passive ability that increases his armor. Or in other words, a passive armor.
Notice in his description that the word Buff doesn't appear anywhere
Actually I did some research on this (meaning, I asked someone with knowledge) and the game itself classifies passive effects as either passive buffs, passive debuffs, or generic passives. The notion that "there is no such thing as a passive buff" is incorrect. "Passive buff" is literally a thing that the game engine itself understands.
That doesn't mean that's what the ability text description writer meant: he or she still could have meant "active buff" when they wrote "armor up buff." Also I don't specifically know if IMIW's armor ups are passive armor up generic effects or passive armor up buffs. But there is such a thing as a passive armor up buff in theory because that distinction is programmed (or rather content developed) into the game.
In any case the theory that passive != buff is incorrect in the general case. Passive effects can be buffs. They can also be "not buffs" (and not debuffs either).
A buff in this game is described as an active ability. Meaning it is not passive. Meaning that "passive buffs" can't be a thing, at least according to the wording used ingame.
I had no issues with champion's abilities since I know the difference between buffs and passives, as well as the interactions that each one have with some nodes or abilities.
I don’t understand why you say there’s no thing as a passive buff. That doesn’t make any sense. Of course you can have active and passive buffs. OG Iron Man has an active armor buff and IMIW has a passive armor buff. A buff is a term used to describe an ability that provides a beneficial effect such as increased attack or armor. Passive just means it can’t be interacted with by normal means (ie you can’t nullify or stagger it). The only interaction that affects IMIW’s is armor break because it’s specificaly designed that way. Like I said I don’t understand where the notion of there’s no such thing as passive buffs came from.
For example, nullify abilities.
Champions like Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, Doctor Voodoo and etc can nullify buffs. ANY buff can be nullified by this ability.
Now, add champion with those so called "passive buffs". If they have "buffs" then why can't they be nullified? Is not because they are passive since these nullify abilities only work on buffs. It's because "passive buffs" are not buffs, they are just passive abilities.
If we went to word every passive ability on the game as a "passive buff", everything would just be more confused to the game content. Things like sentinel charges, hulk dup ability to gain attack the lower his HP is, BP CW reflective charge, evade's from spider-verse champions, magik's limbo and a lot more passive abilities in the game (which there are way more than buffs). They are all what some players call "passive buffs", even though they aren't buffs and don't act like buffs. They can't be nullified, they don't interact with Mystic Dispersion or Buffet and Masoquism, they don't ful power on enemies on a Spite node and etc. These abilities, nodes and some masteries don't say anything about active buffs or debuffs, because the word "active" doesn't need to be there (it would be a duplicated word).
These were just some examples of what I'm trying to say here. I don't mind what players call these, but will in fact lead to a misunderstanding of how some interactions between abilties will work, and consequently threads asking "hey why is this not working? BUG! NERF! Rank Down Tickets!".
He can steal armor buffs when he attacks. Mine regularly steals Iceman's Ice armor, but does not steal IWIM.
Where things get complicated is when Medusa's armor break/shatter come into play. She can break Killmongers "passive" armor to disable Reverberation. However, she cannot break IWIM's armor to prevent Autoblock (unless this has recently changed).
I've never tried Yondu vs Killmonger tho...
Passive buffs can’t be nullified. Also the game and the developers disagree with you. That normally would be enough to outvote a player’s opinion.
The problem with trying to create expediency with language manipulation is that the game cannot be argued against. If the game says there is such a thing as a passive buff, that means one day some developer will leverage that and make a distinction between, say, passive buffs and passive debuffs. And then this house of cards collapses.
This same attempt to impose player expectations on the game is responsible for the problem with archangel, or at least one component of it. Many players assumed that since archangel’s stun came from neurotoxin, and neurotoxin was described as a passive, that the stun should also be passive. But knowing what we now know about passive effects in general, that’s very obviously a bug. Because there’s no reason to assume effects triggered by a passive are also passive, and every reason to believe that Boolean status effects should never be passive.
In theory, armor breaks shouldn't disable Killmonger's armor or be able to break a passive armor from IW IM.
The reason it works is because in their abilities, it specifies that these armors will be disabled if under an armor break effect. If that ability wasn't there, then armor breaks wouldn't counter these champions.
It works because the champions have a hidden ability that triggers when an armor break lands, and that ability is capable of nullifying passive armor buffs for champions that work that way. In fact that’s how armor break reduces armor stacks in general. The game isnt hard coded to understand that armor break reduces armor stacks, instead that game mechanic is “assembled” from simpler abilities we don’t see. We saw this same kind of thing with Dr Voodoo’s power burn: debuff immune targets were blocking power burn because under the hood an invisble debuff was being used to trigger the power burn buff stacks on Voodoo to turn on the effect.
I sorta see where you’re coming from but there’s still a distinct difference between say IMIW and Magik’s Limbo. IMIW is granting him increased armor and crit resistance. Limbo is not providing any additional benefit, it just deals DOT and heals back damage taken. In this sense IMIW can still be considered a passive buff and limbo is a passive effect. Just like Dorm deals a passive debuff with his signature ability. Kabam unfortunately has always been terrible with their vernacular and classification of abilities and mechanics so that’s why debates like these are constantly ongoing. Their consistently with labeling is anything but. At least we have an answer to the actual topic though.
Yes, the word "buff" is strictly applied to positive effects that are removable by nullify or can be repressed by fate seal. Then there are visible and invisible effects. IMIW has a visible armor up passive that can be removed by AB. Hulkbuster's Iron Rage is an invisible armor gain passive. This can't be 'removed' by AB, AB merely works as an attribute modifier. Same is true for Sentinel charges. Both will not be considered to be an armor up.
Killmonger has no armor up but an armor gain ability, meaning unless specified, it isn't removable by AB but only lowered. However Kabam chose that his armor gain can be removed. IMIW molecular armor is considered to be armor up, so can be removed by Medusa's AB.
Is not really an hidden ability. Its right there on their abilities that armor breaks will turn them off.
Some examples of passive armors that can't be broken: Sentinel's charges and armor after using special 3, pessimist/optimist nodes, hulkbuster iron rage, oscilate.
I think you're conflating the text that some person wrote in the ability description, from the description of what's actually happening in the game. The text says armor breaks "turn off" armor stacks. But the text also says Yondu steals armor and sells it. The text is partially descriptive, and partially evocative.
The text for Dr. Voodoo's SP2 says that on even combo it will convert Loas into a buff on himself. The text implies this should work against debuff immune targets because it doesn't debuff the target. However, originally it did not work because that's not what the ability actually does. The ability applies an invisible debuff on the target that then converts the Loas and sends a reciprocal buff back to Voodoo. This originally didn't work on debuff immune targets, so the devs had to modify the invisible debuff to make it work. Actually, they changed the invisible debuff so that it wouldn't trigger Willpower (which it was also doing), which simultaneously fixed this issue. See: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/321535/#Comment_321535
Also, while I still cannot think of anywhere in the text of the game that a passive buff is called a buff, there is a place in the game where a passive debuff is called a debuff. This happens when you look at the explanatory text for Brother Daniel's effects on opponents (odd combo). If you pause the game to look at the live ability descriptions, the game describes the Brother Daniel "thing" as "debuffs."
If that's true, then it most likely is just a description error, since that mark (the one who switches from green to red, and vice-versa) is not a debuff. Those texts displayed on the pause screen have their own flaws since that function was released.
Brother Daniel is called a debuff when placed on an opponent because it debuffs the opponent: it reduces ability accuracy and increases debuff duration.
In fact, when I decided to duel Voodoo with Voodoo to cap this I noticed that Brother Daniel is desscribed as a buff when on the attacker and a debuff when on the target, which means the game refers to both passive buffs and passive debuffs in the text within the game. This now means we have developer release notes that refer to passive buffs and debuffs, we have knowledgebase articles that predate player conversations that refer to passive debuffs, the game itself implements a thing called passive buffs and passive debuffs internally, and the display text within the game also refers to passive buffs and passive debuffs. No one thing is definitive, and any one thing could be a mistake. But you're attempting to assert that all of them are completely mistaken simply by fiat.
I consider this overwhelming proof that passive buffs and passive debuffs are a thing, and the game simply handles passive effects with special rules, which is why the passive distinction exists. It does mean that most places in the game that refer to "buffs" actually refer to "active buffs" (which ironically *is* a player invented term: passive buff isn't) but it is better to choose to resolve that discrepancy in favor of accuracy rather than expediency, because if we lie to players about the existence of passive buffs and debuffs just to make the descriptions less confusing, that could be invalided tomorrow if the devs introduce abilities that strongly distinguish between passive buffs and debuffs and their non-passive counterparts.
"Brother Daniel" is a passive ability, and since it has 2x modes it really can't be described as something else. Unless someone says that one mode is a "passive buff" while the other is a "passive debuff". But then there are passive abilities like Limbo, which heals Magik (what player's describe as "passive buff") and deals damage to the opponent (what players describe as "passive debuff"). An ability that can be both, and none at the same time. Is just a "passive ability", like passive armor's, passive furies, and etc.
Limbo doesn't heal the player. Limbo triggers a heal when it expires.
The term "Brother Daniel" refers to two different effects: the one that is a buff on self, and the one that is a debuff on target. These are different abilities with different effects, not a single ability with different effects, even though it is described that way in the signature ability text.
I thought perhaps you were arguing in favor of text description efficiency but you at least understood how these abilities actually worked. I'm convinced now you don't understand how the abilities work, you believe the text descriptions don't just describe colloquially how the abilities work but the game somehow actually directly implements the text descriptions. Since I'm trying to describe what the game actually does accurately, and you seem to be trying to explain what the text descriptions are attempting to colloquially depict, we aren't even really talking about the same thing. It is like I'm talking about how a movie was shot cinematically, and you're talking about how the novelization was punctuated.
I suspect if I were to show you the source code of the engine and the Excel spreadsheets of the abilities, you'd simply state that those were wrong. I guess in a way, given what you're talking about, they could be. But since I'm trying to explain what those things actually do, by definition they cannot be wrong.
Limbo is not a buff, neither is the heal that comes after it. It’s also not a passive debuff as there’s no icon in the HUD to distinguish it as one. Limbo is a passive effect. Just as Rogue’s L1 lifesteal and Blade’s block regen are also not buffs, but simply effects.
It was just an example. They are all passive abilities, but someone who classifies passive abilities as "passive buffs" and "passive debuffs" would have an hard time to classify limbo as either one or the other, since it offers both. (the regen is passive, but the player would see it as a "passive buff". The damage is also passive, but the player would see it as a "passive debuff").