Overwhelm does damage to nexus even if the opponent has a barrier..

Been playing vs friends and found this out when his 18/9 Darius hit on of my minions which had a barrier and still killed my nexus.. I assumed i was able to buy myself another round because barrier negates damage to that unit. In my mind i took this as "if something hits it it deals no damage". This was not the outcome. I lost. And made this to warn others. I lowkey hate that feature.

Yeah, barrier in general is weird.  It's worded like it gives immunity for 1 turn, but it acts like HS divine shield but without preventing "strike" effects. I too wish they were more clear about this. 

Barrier is plenty strong as it is, I disagree with Overwhelm not working because of Barrier. Shen/Fiora decks need no hidden buffs like this.

This is a good thing to bring up because in one of the loading screen tips it specifically mentions that Overwhelm works when the enemy minion actually dies. It begs the question of if it is intended  to operate this way.

Overwhelm also works if they are killed/recalled b4 the attack is finalized. In other words, if that blue placeholder that usually prevents all damage is up, you take full damage anyway. I run a Overwhelm recall deck and its highly effective.

Remember that you can use the eye on the left side of the board to see the outcome of your plays. I admit that I often forget about this feature as well but it is great for situations where you're not exactly sure how a certain interaction works.

Yeah it seems like a bug.. Overwhelm is too strong in my opinion anyway specially Alpha Wildclaw, which is just stronger than Darius (but another region which is normally not paired with noxus outside of the vlad/braum deck).

I am fine if it get nerfed since it doesn't match the expected results. 

The interaction between Overwhelm and Barrier is working as intended: Overwhelm does damage to the Nexus for whatever amount exceed the blocking minion's health. Said minion taking or preventing damage has nothing to do with how Overwhelm works actually. Also, if you Stun or Recall the blocking minion than the attacking Overwhelm one will do full damage to the Nexus because the "placeholder" that stay in place of the blocking is considered has having 0 health.

Using the Oracle's Eye to see the outcome of an attack can be very usefull, expcially now in the beginning when some interaction are not so clear (I myself have lost couple of match because things didn't go as I thinked - and because I forget to check with the blue eye).

I think its working as intended. Barrier is so strong and its objective is to protect the minion.u can already defend urself from giant minions with just a simple 1/1 as long as theres no overwhelm. Imagine barrier also cancelling out the overwhelm mechanic.

Agreed, working as intended given it's established Overwhelm will do its damage so long as the strike happens, irrespective of what happens to the minion in question (killed via spell, recalled, stunned etc.). 

There are always going to be mechanics which don't -quite- work as you expected them to, that's part of playing a card game. Even YGO, which tends towards phenomenal amounts of text on its cards, has extensive errata to cover off various interactions. That doesn't mean the mechanic isn't working as intended, simply that you didn't anticipate it.

It also makes perfect sense to me, rationally. Barrier is a targeted effect, and it protects the minion. You're not giving your Nexus Barrier, after all.

Personally, I do not think this mechanic is working as intended. The comparison to recalled blockers, which Lightspoon brought up, is skewed in my opinion: If there's no blocker at the time damage is dealt, it should effectively be treated as 0 health. Hence all damage goes directly to the nexus.

However, a barrier unit has a set amount of health, which is the exact amount of damage an Overwhelm unit should deal to it before the rest of the damage spills over to the nexus. The barrier then negates the entirety of said damage. I can't access the game right now to check, but unless I'm mistaken, the Barrier description says it prevents the next instance of damage being dealt, not that it makes the unit invulnerable (in which case you could make a case for treating it as a 0-health unit). I think that's a significant difference.

I haven't played with or against enough Barrier cards to make a proper judgment as to which rule interpretation would serve overall game balance better. But I think keeping things as intuitive as possible should always be the prime directive. Buffs and nerfs should take care of balance.

I would have thought it would work differently, but I might just be used to the way [Hearthstone Card (Explosive Ruins) Not Found] works when a Divine Shield minion with 5 or less health is played into it.  In that case, the shield protects them from damage, but if they have 3 health, then the Ruins hits them for 0 and does 3 to the enemy hero.  Divine Shield only stops the splash damage if the Divine Shielded minion would have taken all 6 of the damage from Ruins.

While that is of course an entirely different game, the funny thing about it is I would have always expected Ruins in Hearthstone to act more like what you're seeing in Runeterra with the Overwhelm into Barrier interaction.  In other words, I always wondered why Ruins didn't hit a Divine Shield minion for 1 to pop their bubble, then send 5 to the enemy hero, as that is more accurate in how that interaction actually works.  So really, I guess it's no surprise that the interaction works this way in Runeterra as it seems somewhat more logical... I guess?

I am pretty sure this mechanic is working like the developers want it to. The exact wording in the description of each keyword isn't to be taken for granted. The thing about a digital card game is that regardless of what the card says, it can be programmed to do whatever the programmer wants.

Also, Explosive Runes does the exact same thing when targeting a divine shield minion. First it checks how much health the minion (or unit) has, then based off of that it decides how much damage to do to the enemy hero (or nexus), and then all of that damage is dealt. 

Barrier does say it prevents all damage dealt to a unit, but it doesn't say anything about that extra damage being dealt to the nexus.

Unless a dev has commented, I don't think anyone should be saying "working as intended."

Since the Barrier keyword is supposed to negate the damage, and "negate" means "cause to be ineffective," it makes sense that the damage should not happen at all.

Yes, I'm in the camp that believes there are too few ways to counter Overwhelm as it is.

The point is that Overwhelm doesn't care what happens to the blocking minion: it just calculates the difference between the attack value and the health value and everything exceeding is inflicted as damage to the Nexus.

Barrier protect only the minion with it from the first istance of damage, but that doesn't affect in any way further injuries dealt to other targets. Another example of this is Withering Wail: if one of the enemy minion has Barrier, the damage is prevented only for that single one but not for all the others.

Quote From Lightspoon

The point is that Overwhelm doesn't care what happens to the blocking minion: it just calculates the difference between the attack value and the health value and everything exceeding is inflicted as damage to the Nexus.

Barrier protect only the minion with it from the first istance of damage, but that doesn't affect in any way further injuries dealt to other targets. Another example of this is Withering Wail: if one of the enemy minion has Barrier, the damage is prevented only for that single one but not for all the others.

That's not the point at all, though. Withering Wail states that it damages all enemy units. Overwhelm is not supposed to hit the nexus unless the unit dies (or is removed from combat, which should probably be the actual wording). Barrier does not remove anything from combat.

The definitions of both keywords point to this not working.

Quote From FortyDust

Overwhelm is not supposed to hit the nexus unless the unit dies (or is removed from combat, which should probably be the actual wording).

Not exactly...

It never says anywhere that the target must die or be removed from combat in order to inflict damage to the Nexus. Overwhelm just inflict excess damage to the enemy's Nexus, ignoring whatever is actually happening to the minion that was defending.

The wording on the tooltip is pretty clear in explaining it and that's why I was saying that it's "working as intended".

The comparison with Withering Wail was to explain that Overwhelm act in a similar manner: it consider the Nexus just as another target for the damage, so Barrier has nothing to do with the damage inflicted to the Nexus since it's not affecting it at all but it just protect the minion.

Sorry, I was going off of the keyword list in the forum here, assuming it was taken directly from the game.

At any rate, we get how it works; re-explaining it in different ways doesn't make it more correct. The interactions as you describe them could still be unintended. Or even if they are intended (for now), there's no reason they couldn't be retuned if Overwhelm proves to be overperforming.

Quote From KANSAS

The thing about a digital card game is that regardless of what the card says, it can be programmed to do whatever the programmer wants.

I agree with this. However, this doesn't absolve the developer from having to make sure the text on the cards is accurate - otherwise, things gets unintuitive and confusing, which will inevitably alienate players.

Anyway, we've basically worked out 3 scenarios in this thread:

1. the current interaction in the game, which favors Overwhelm
2. the interaction proposed by FortyDust, which favors Divine Shield
3. the interaction I endorse, which is somewhere in the middle.

I'm curious to see whether Riot addresses the issue in the future, whether for clarity's sake or for balancing reasons.

Quote From BlueSpark

Quote From KANSAS

The thing about a digital card game is that regardless of what the card says, it can be programmed to do whatever the programmer wants.

I agree with this. However, this doesn't absolve the developer from having to make sure the text on the cards is accurate - otherwise, things gets unintuitive and confusing, which will inevitably alienate players.

But what you're not taking into account with that statement is that the developer has competing priorities. They're not just required to make the text accurate, they're also required to make it approachable, consistent with all other instances of similar effects, easily readable from both a grammar and a colloquial standpoint...

The former is, of course, the main point, and the reason (I assume) this entire thread could exist in the first place. When you have to choose between making something clear and easily understood to a new player, and writing text that covers as many possible interactions as possible, you do the former. Both to avoid scaring away new players and because anyone who's going to keep playing only needs to see an interaction like this once to learn how it works. The cost-benefit is heavily in favour of simplified text.

Admittedly, it wouldn't take much to clarify the interaction (simply adding the words 'to me' to Barrier's text would do it), but I'm sure there's plenty of factors in play to get to this point.

I don't understand your logic at all, if you are using the language as it is written in the ability description. 

It very clearly states that "Excess damage I deal to my blocker is dealt to the enemy Nexus".

EXCESS DAMAGE I DEAL.....

Since the damage dealt to the blocker was 0, there is no "excess" damage. Unless you are arguing that 0 has an excess, which is mathematically impossible and defies all logical reasoning, I don't see how you come to your determination.  The excess of 0 will always be 0, there's no way around that fact. 

I'm glad you put the actual text there for all to read. The language is important to see as it doesn't really leave much room for interpretation.  

It states "Excess damage I deal...".

Damage dealt = 0 

0 does not have any "excess", it's 0. 

The excess of 0 will always be 0, there is no way around that without defying the laws of mathematics, language, and logical reasoning. 

Even narratively, it doesn't make sense. Like if I imagine the scenario played with miniatures, or a film . Imagine if the magical "Barriers" cast by the heroes of our fantasy realms only had the amount of effect as the caster's "HP"; suddenly Gandolf's iconic "You shall not pass" moment is relatively ineffective because he does pass, just with slightly less power.  

Okay, I've ranted for long enough, please share your thoughts.  

Since its been ressurected, i have a legit question:

What happens when an Overwhelm unit with lifesteal attacks another with barrier?
Does it Heal for the excess damage, full attack or not at all?

Quote From Hellcopter

Since its been ressurected, i have a legit question:

What happens when an Overwhelm unit with lifesteal attacks another with barrier?
Does it Heal for the excess damage, full attack or not at all?

As luck would have it, I accidentally tested this the other day. The heal is only for the damage that is actually dealt to an enemy. After barrier, my overwhelm unit dealt 3 damage to the enemy nexus, and that's how much I healed for.

Quote From meisterz39

As luck would have it, I accidentally tested this the other day. The heal is only for the damage that is actually dealt to an enemy. After barrier, my overwhelm unit dealt 3 damage to the enemy nexus, and that's how much I healed for.

Yeah, i was expecting it would work exactly like that. Thank You.