The "Cannot" beats "Always" concept is fundamentally flawed and dangerous
This sets a dangerous precedent for the game and I would like by this thread for the game team to clarify their intentions going forward. Ideally, this should not be the reasoning employed to explain the recent change to the interaction between guaranteed critical hits and glancing.
By way of background, corvus used to always be able to crit on opponents even if they had the ability to glance. The result was that corvus would register a critical hit, since he has a guaranteed crit when using his glaive, but that hit would have a chance to glance and have reduced damage. The interaction has been changed in the latest update so that corvus will not crit when the opponent procs glance.
The official explanation for this is that the game team made a decision that an ability like glancing, against which you "cannot" crit, will henceforth take precedence over abilities, like corvus' landing critical hits, which are expressed as "always" going to happen.
But if one thinks further about this, this is fundamentally flawed and is simply a matter of semantics. Any ability or mechanic in the game can be expressed in both - "always" or "cannot". For example:
- Corvus' ability to crit on every hit can be expressed as (1) "always" land a crit when using his glaive; or (2) "cannot" land a non-crit when using his glaive
- Iceman's coldsnap can be expressed as (1) "always" prevent enemy from evading when attacking; or (2) enemy "cannot" evade when iceman is attacking
- Spider Gwen's ability to evade unblockable special attacks can be expressed as (1) "always" evade unblockable special attacks; or (2) enemy unblockable special attacks "cannot" hit her
- Even glancing abilities can be expressed both ways: (1) enemy attacks that glance "always" do not crit and suffer ability accuracy reduction; or (2) enemy attacks that glance "cannot" crit and suffer ability accuracy reduction.
The list goes on and on. The distinction between "cannot" and "always" is not a principled way for the game to decide how mechanics interact. My view is that the glancing/guaranteed crit interaction should just be called what it is - the game team made a decision to change the interaction.
If the game team decides to stick to its position that "always" trumps "cannot", then these terms must be made clear in every single champ description.
Thoughts?
