Barrier and Surviving Damage

Any unit that has a "when you survive damage" effect will trigger when it has barrier. While that kind of effect is not hugely problematic today, it seems generally unintuitive to me, as the unit hasn't actually taken any damage. Other effects (like the "drain" from Grasp of the Undying) don't treat that as damage.

Has anyone else been surprised by this?

It works the same for Tough.  And I imagine a 0-mana Thermongenic BeamBADCARDNAME.

I can see the logic:  the unit was assigned damage; the amount of damage happened to be 0.  To go back to your example: if I had a Crimson Curator out, you cast Grasp of the Undying on it, and then I burst a Prismatic Barrier, I think the game would assign -0 HP to the Curator, +0 HP to your nexus, and grant me a crimson card.  Similarly, if you Chain Vest instead, I think the game would assign -2 HP to the Curator and +2 HP to your nexus.

The thing that bugs me a little is that frostbite works differently: 0 attack units don't strike, so they never technically deal damage which is apparently different from dealing 0 damage.  It's a bit far out, but that's the reason why brittle steel can stop a Teemo/runecard]vor Ezreal effect.

I can see both sides here, but I agree with meisterz that the barrier negating the damage entirely would be more intuitive (so basically emphasizing a difference between zero damage and no damage). Even though you could argue that an amount of 0 damage is still damage, I don't find that very convincing.

From a design standpoint, I'd say the idea is that Crimson followers trigger an effect when they suffer a wound; when they're hit with a wet noodle and take 0 damage as a result, their ability shouldn't trigger.

I can see why Sanns would be unhappy about the Frostbite situation, but personally, I think that having 0-attack units not strike at all in battle is fine from both a design and mechanical standpoint. It doesn't have anything to do with Frostbite, but is instead a fundamental rule of the game itself.

Yeah, I'd agree that this doesn't feel intuitive. Then again, it's not like Crimson decks are overrunning the meta right now, so stealth-nerfing them is probably unnecessary *_*

Quote From OldManSanns

It works the same for Tough.  And I imagine a 0-mana Thermongenic Beam.

I can see the logic:  the unit was assigned damage; the amount of damage happened to be 0.  To go back to your example: if I had a Crimson Curator out, you cast Grasp of the Undying on it, and then I burst a Prismatic Barrier, I think the game would assign -0 HP to the Curator, +0 HP to your nexus, and grant me a crimson card.  Similarly, if you Chain Vest instead, I think the game would assign -2 HP to the Curator and +2 HP to your nexus.

The thing that bugs me a little is that frostbite works differently: 0 attack units don't strike, so they never technically deal damage which is apparently different from dealing 0 damage.  It's a bit far out, but that's the reason why brittle steel can stop a Teemo/runecard]vor Ezreal effect.

Frostbite makes sense though, because units specify that they must strike in order to deal damage. A unit with 0 attack is unable to strike so it's never classified as "dealing damage"

Just accept that Barrier negates damage after it has been dealt, and everything falls into place for this and many other interactions (such as Overwhelm).

It is also helpful to remember that "negates" only means that the damage (which definitely was dealt and definitely exists) has no effect -- that is to say, it is not subtracted from the protected unit's Health.

Drain damage, however, is apparently not the same as normal damage, it is more of a zero-sum game: The Health you regain has to come from somewhere, so if nothing was actually taken from an enemy, nothing is gained by you. (But the damage is still being "dealt" and negated by Barrier.)

Quote From FortyDust

Just accept that Barrier negates damage after it has been dealt, and everything falls into place for this and many other interactions (such as Overwhelm).

It is also helpful to remember that "negates" only means that the damage (which definitely was dealt and definitely exists) has no effect -- that is to say, it is not subtracted from the protected unit's Health.

Drain damage, however, is apparently not the same as normal damage, it is more of a zero-sum game: The Health you regain has to come from somewhere, so if nothing was actually taken from an enemy, nothing is gained by you. (But the damage is still being "dealt" and negated by Barrier.)

The very fact that you have to special case drain here is my problem with it. I prefer to think that Barrier absorbs all damage directed at a unit, which is fine for effects like drain and overwhelm; barriers don't have HP, so they produce zero drain, and the excess damage was never going at that unit anyway, so it still goes through.

The problem is that the unit isn't taking damage, because any damage the would have taken was absorbed by their barrier, so the absorption model fails for these "survive damage" effects. I know it's nitpicky, but that's how I see it.

Quote From FortyDust

Just accept that Barrier negates damage after it has been dealt, and everything falls into place for this and many other interactions (such as Overwhelm).

To me, this contradicts the meaning of "dealing" damage. If damage is dealt, the target has to lose the corresponding amount of health - that's how I see it. You could talk about the damage being assigned before the barrier negates it and prevents it from being dealt.

Quote From BlueSpark

Quote From FortyDust

Just accept that Barrier negates damage after it has been dealt, and everything falls into place for this and many other interactions (such as Overwhelm).

To me, this contradicts the meaning of "dealing" damage. If damage is dealt, the target has to lose the corresponding amount of health - that's how I see it. You could talk about the damage being assigned before the barrier negates it and prevents it from being dealt.

I suppose what 40D is getting at is that the damage exists, and then is reduced to 0 - rather than in Frostbite's case where the strike never happens and so there's nothing to reduce.

I would maintain that it's not intuitive in the least, but there you are.

Yeah, I gathered that's where Forty was coming from, but thanks for the explanation nonetheless. I just don't see it as plausible that damage would exist in a sort of 'hidden' state without any damage numbers popping up.

I wholly agree. But then, I suppose in any digital card game where you're actively trying to limit card text, you're always going to run into weird interactions that don't really make sense on the face of it.

The alternative, of course, is to start printing rules in-depth on the cards...