Dual Crowbars and Panzer-Buster

From the recent Fireside Chat update:

Dual Crowbars works somewhat like Isothermic Transducer. The final damage dealt from the first instance of damage forms the initial amount/type/irreducibility of the second instance of damage. That means you can benefit twice from damage increases.

I'm curious about the irreducibility part of that.  *Usually* irreducibility is granted by the original source of the damage, so inheriting it in the second instance makes sense.  But what if the irreducibility came from somewhere else?

Example: GI Bunker uses his Panzer-Buster power on, say, a Gene-Bound Guard.  Mr. Fixer (with Dual Crowbars out) then uses Strike against that Guard, and the damage becomes irreducible from Panzer-Buster.  Dual Crowbars kicks in, starting a new damage instance, whcih Mr. Fixer aims at Grand Warlord Voss.  Is the damage against Voss irredcucible?

By the ruling above, clearly yes.  But it doesn't seem obvious to me that this wrinkle was considered when making the ruling.  It's not a game-breaker either way, but I thought the issue was worth at least a brief discussion here.

I don't think it's that big of a deal, considering Panzer Buster could just target Voss directly and not even worry about the Guard (or Fixer could just do the irreducible damage directly with his style.  However, according to that ruling, I would agree that the damage to Voss would be irreducible.  

While my gut says that it shouldn't be irreducible, the wording on the card is vague, and actually demands it is. Dual Crowbars does not specify damage type for the second instance, which means that if it is inheriting one quality of the damage (type). If it inherits one quality, it should inherit all qualities, which would include irreducible. While the irreducibility is attached to Panzer-Buster's target, "that damage" is now identified as "damage dealt" rather than the initial damage dealt before bonuses. This means the time to determine the second instance's initial damage is when you apply the first instance damage to the first target.

It seems arbitrary to place the damage amount determination after reduction, and somehow drop the quality irreducible, since the determination of whether the damage is irreducible must be done before the reduction itself is done. In cases where Panzer-Buster is not applied, the damage was deemed reducible before reduction was be applied, and the amount of damage to be dealt is determined after reduction.

I think this needs some further clarifcation.   In the app with Dual Crowbars if I hit Ambuscade who had Panzer Buster applied with the initial strike.  My second hit was on Reactive Plating but the irreducible effect did not apply on that hit and it dealt one less damage.   

I think it's just a missinterpretation of what was initially said. I think it's working as intended.

Alternativly, this could very well be because Panzer Buster acts upon the target specifically instead of the particular insteance of damage. If there was something that gave Fixers next instance of damage Irreducibility, theres a chance that the 2nd hit would gain irreducibility as well.

I suspect no one has ever asked the question before. The Dual Crowbar clarification was recent, and that the damage quality Irreducible might have to go with the damage quality type simply not considered.

If irreducibility is inherited, would damage type be as well?

Ra+Unity+Fixer. If Fixer's first crowbar strike hit the bee bot, which immediately destroyed imbued fire, would the second strike still be fire?

Yeah, probably.

It seems to me that Type kinda *has* to be inherited, because we have no concept of "blank" damage, so the Type has to come from *somewhere*. 

I am less clear about the question of irreducibility which *does* have a clear default.

Our intention was that all of the attributes of the damage would carry over including irredicibility, but that's not happening as per Powerhound's test. However, we'll double check with Christopher before changing it.

Do you want me to send screenshots MigrantP?

No need, it's pretty straightforward. Thanks!

Panzer-Buster's effect modifies the target and not the particular instance of damage that Crowbars is dealing. Does that make any difference? I'd be interested in what you guys come up with for the ruling here.

Definitely different. Consider applying Panzerbuster to Tachyon, and Synaptic Redirection sending it to a new target. The irreducible would not move with the damage stack. And since it's not part of the damage dealt, I don't think crowbars should lift and carry it. It does get the possible benefit of the target having taken more damage (to increase the second attack's damage), and that's enough.

I would tend to agree but we will have clarification on it soon.  

Types do not have to come from the original source of the damage (Ra changes your damage to Fire, for instance), so the fact Irreducibility  comes from the target is actually irrelevant. Irreducibility must be decided before the first damage reduction is applied, and damage reduction can come from the environment, or Argent Adept for that matter. So the source of the irreducible quality is equally irrelevant. The damage has that quality long before the damage finally strikes the HP, and it is the damage dealt to HP that gives the qualities for Dual Crowbars.

[edit to avoid double posting]

I'm a dolt. It's right on Riveting Crane. ", all damage dealt to that target is irreducible until the start of your next turn." This places the quality Irreducible on the damage, not the target. The "target" is not irreducible, it's the "damage" that is irreducible. For the quality to be on the target, it would need to read something like, ", all damage reduction applied to that target is ignored."

I'm not totally convinced just yet that irreducibility is a damage "type", so this is apples vs oranges to me.

But you may be right and it makes no difference about Panzer and Crowbars.

I'm falling down on the side of "not picking things up from your current target"; when you redirect damage you start over from your base damage/type and recalculate everything over again, I can't see anything here that convinces me that this isn't the same thing. Irreducible damage is not (so far) a thing you get 'keep' when you redirect it away from a target.

We could test this in the app by having Mr Fixer hit himself with an infection with Crowbars and Riveting Crane out, and then his play could swap out to Driving Mantis and he could target himself with his strike.

Riveting Crane is slightly different from Panzer though since it directly acts on the damage where Panzer acts on a target. Maybe I'm playing too deeply with semantics here.

It seems cut-and-dried to me. If you hit one target who has been inflicted with the "all damage done to this target is irreducible" with Dual Crowbar, then you go on to do that damage to another target, and that damage is adjudicated as normal unless the second target also has an effect that would render the damage irreducible. In this case, the "Irreducible" effect is a property of the target, and I can't see why it should carry over to a second target that doesn't already have that property, any more than it would if Squall dealt damage to the same targets.

But I've been wrong before trying to rule based on what I thought was common sense, and I am a fan of Mr. Fixer, so I await an official word with baited breath. :)

Even though we both are thinking along the same lines, I gotta say that rarely is anything ever cut-and-dry on these forums. It's what makes it fun.

Yep! There'd be no point in discussing it, otherwise!

What Dual Crowbars does is not "the same thing as" redirection.  It's a new damage instance, based on an old one.  This is a much rarer thing than Redirection (in some aspects, unique to DC), and thus has had many fewer precedents set.

The same thing as "Building from scratch" not the same thing as "redirection"

Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. 

While I believe that is a valid reading of the text on the cards, the actual ruling we have (see top of thread) makes it clear that that isn't what is going on in the case of Dual Crowbars.

Type is a defined term, and I used it in that sentence in its technical term. Irreducible is not one of the 11 Types, and is mentioned separately in the paragraph after Types in the Rulebook. The damage types are Cold, Fire, Toxic, Psychic, Melee, Projectile, Radiant, Infernal, Sonic, Lightning, and Energy. You can deal Irreducible Cold damage. You cannot deal Fire Toxic damage.

This is why I have been using the term Quality, and MigrantP uses the term Attribute for the same purpose. Quality is not a defined Term, but something indicating the various adjectives describing some aspect of the damage. We need a term like this for this discussion, because we have not been given one in the Rules. Type is just a Quality. Irreducible is another Quality. Pickle is also a Quality, though unused in the game (Guise points at his pants and winks). Any adjective that is be used to describe the damage would be a Quality or MigrantP's Attribute.

All damage must be one of the 11 types. Since Dual Crowbars does not give the damage a Type, the only place the Type could come from is the Type of the damage Dual Crowbars is duplicating. Irreducible is a Quality describing the damage, not a Quality describing the defences of the original target. Damage can be Irreducible, and you will find that term described in the Damage section of the rules, and that places the Quality Irreducible on the damage, not on the defences of the target. Since the second instance of damage already must copy the Quality Type, there is no reason it would not copy the Quality Irreducible. It would also copy the Quality Pickle, if it had it. ("Nothing should copy my pickle," mutters a sulking Guise. Legacy does a face slap.*)

Yes, I wish to deal Irreducible Toxic Pickle damage some day.

• If you missed the joke, see I'm That Guy

Maybe there will eventually be an Order of the Stick crossover, and Crystal will have a card dealing "PICKLE DEATH ATTACK!" damage :-)  Though, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that attack would *not* be irreducible...

I've been away from the the forums for a while, but:

Are kidding me?  Doesn't this mean that one-time bonuses like those given by Parse are going to be part of that final damage dealt and roll over into that second hit?  Doesn't this mean that if you strike yourself with bloody knuckles for +4 damage that damage is going to get calculated in to the final damage and let you essenstially get +4 against the next target? Isn't this EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of all the rulings we have had on crow bar questions in the past?

For the first one you wouldn't get Parse's bonus on the second hit but it would add towards the base damage of the second hit.   For the Bloody Knuckles ruling I believe that was in relation to Jack Handle and hitting your yourself for damage from something like Infection.  Instead of dealing five damage to all non hero targets it would only be three.  

Sefirit wasn't talking about Jack Handle, he was talking about Dual Crowbars.  And yes, a bloody knuckles + dual crowbars strike against yourself will deal yourself 6 damage, and then 9 damage to the second target.  Which frequently won't be as good the 4 and 7 you'd get hitting two villain targets, but it is more powerful than before.

Yes, this is definately a change from previous dual crowbars rulings.  Yes, it makes dual crowbars more powerful, especially in conjunction with one shot damage boosts such as Critical Multiplier and PW Haka of Battle.

I mentioned Jack Handle because I don't believe the original ruling had to do with Dual Crowbars.  

No.

Doesn't this mean that one-time bonuses like those given by Parse are going to be part of that final damage dealt and roll over into that second hit? 

Doesn't this mean that if you strike yourself with bloody knuckles for +4 damage that damage is going to get calculated in to the final damage and let you essenstially get +4 against the next target? 

Isn't this EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of all the rulings we have had on crow bar questions in the past?

I played a few games today testing out a modification to Dual Crowbars, dropping the inherent +1 as balance, it worked out that they were still good but no where near the current eclipse-the-other-tools level of goodness, which is what I was looking for.

It's a little ridiculous/awesome when you one-shot both Chairman and Operative with Haka of Battle.

This ruling has turned fixer from being a hero that was versatile, subtle and underrated to the hero who is insane with damage boosts.

Legacy at +2 and Fixer with +3 (barmonkey harmony) gives you a second hit of 11, and 17 damage from a power with no penalty that you can repeat each round.

Expat with hollow point assault rifle and Legacy gives you 18 but burns your ammo, AZ at 3 cards, Shockwave, Isothermic and Apertures can use that +2 to deal 29 at the cost of 14hp, which puts you 15hp ahead.

Omnitron-X with defensive blast and a 4-type plating gives you 12 to each target, with a discard for your third card.

Where this Fixer shines is when a one time boost becomes a double boost as the boosted damage carries over as base damage.  Parse-Fixer is now amazing, and Guise borrowing Crowbars just ridiculous.

I don't like it, not because it is broken, but because Fixer didn't need the boost.

If Taiaha was changed to 3 and 4 damage I wouldn't like it either, but it wouldn't be horrible.

I wouldn't call it ridiculous. Fixer doesn't have great deck search, like AZ, so you can be a while waiting for the Crowbars... and for Legacy's IP to give the +2. It is not an entirely fair comparison to talk about Fixer who is "Cards in play" locked to 3 and discuss sustained round damage dealing, while card locking AZ to the same 3 for the 4th, 5th, and 6th rounds when AZ can be playing more and continue improving over the same sustained rounds. With Impale, etc. in play, AZ has to concern himself with suicide because his Fire feedback from Shockwave gets so high he could kill himself, but the final hit is going up towards 30 damage for total damage dealt that Turn in the low 50's. He can do that every other round, if he can survive the round he has lowered his HP.

Your Omnitron-X comparison skips the Legacy +2 you gave Fixer. 2x(2+2 Irr Fire)+2x(1+2 Lightning)+4x(1+2 two options of 4 types) = 26 as long as the platings for discard hold out (drawing 2 at the start of Turn helps with that a lot). It's 21 with rocket punch. 18 and destroy an environment is also available.

I'm not an Expat fan. She does consistent damage with her Shotgun, and sporadically gets better with Ammo, but Pride and Prejudice underwhelm at base 2 each, when the shottie does 4 on its own. P&P allowing 4 ammo cards is usually an unused capacity. I wouldn't use her as a comparison for significant damage dealing. Her only real strength is she has a base 4 available on Turn 1, and can Unload once in a while.

Not certain how to approach Haka, since you were non-specific in how you were achieving the one-shot kills -- Haka with Haka of Battle (unlikely), HoB+Sudden Mana (done this one), or using PW Haka to bump Fixer with HoB for Fixer to Dual Crowbar them (plausible).

I already popped 79 in one round with Guise. Guise laughs at wimpy crowbars. Then takes them. Oooo... Guise has Crowbars!!! Must... duplicate... to... break.. 79... Guise says, "I'm better at whatever it is Mr. Fixer does."

I was limiting it to 3 cards because that is the amount of cards the Fixer example used.  Fixer can deal to 2 targets what many deal to 3, and almost all of those have a cost or are difficult to repeat.  This is because he doubles the first bonus by incorporating it into the second attack.

AZ Triples universal damage boosts, but takes the second shot himself, which is a pretty cool cost.

O-X was only defensive blast damage, because that is his best 3 card attack.

Expat actually shines a bit brighter because she only needs 2 to do hers.

I didn't explain the Haka of Battle one well, using PW Haka's base power to play Haka of Battle to boost Fixer ridiculously, then hitting Chairman then Operative with enough that they both drop.

Mr. Fixer has a tough time getting everything plus harmony out to rock the full combo.

Odds aren't worse than AZ getting Apertures and Shockwave.

I think we just need to remember that Fixer isn’t about dealing damage and it’s important to get into the zen of playing your hand rather than your deck.

With just a single card in play (Crowbars) Mr Fixer gets a +3 bonus to all his damage dealing. I can't think of another card that gives that kind of advantage consistantly at no cost.

It's only consistent while there are multiple enemy targets in play, or you are willing to have a frindly target take one of the hits.

It is 2 damage to 1 target and 3 to a second.  Less than Taihai.

A plus one to one target and a plus two to another target is far different than a +3 bonus to all of his damage. Previously, if Dual Crowbars was solo, it got a -1 penalty to the first target and a -2 penalty to the second target when blanket DR was on the field because it supposedly was the same damage. That isn’t a mechanic supported in SotM, as no damage is dealt simultaneously.

While I understand people are upset, the previous Dual Crowbars didn’t follow established SotM timing effects and this ruling seems to be from a desire for consistency rather than a perceived “buff”. As some members have stated, with this new understanding of Fixer, he cannot redirect his second instance of damage with Driving Mantis from himself to the same target he dealt his first damage to anymore. While i won’t argue that the damage boost isn’t a significant change, i feel as though it comes with a few asterisks if being perceived as an unfettered buff.

Wait a second? Where does it say you cannot redirect the second instance? As long as the instance is 2 or fewer and it's the frist time, it is still able to redirected. 

It can be redirected, but not to the same target the first hit was against.

Edit:  However, I think this might change as people may try and use Writhe's redirect to hit the same target twice.  Or if it can't be done, you can possibly break the game on Iron Legacy's redirect?

Yeah it can. You just can't pick the same twice, if you pick Mr Fixer and redirect it to Voss you have still picked Mr Fixer as the first target, Voss can still be chosen as your second. It's the pick, not the person you hit that matters.

So it works counter to every other kind of redirection in the game?

I am not liking these exceptions.

Because the text responds to the hp being reduced.  It pays no attention to the targetting, only the target that takes damage.

No, it works like normal.

What's confusing everyone is that when multiple targets are select, like with Taiaha, the second chosen target cannot be the same as the first chosen target.  Dual Crowbars doesn't work like that, because Dual Crowbars doesn't change the damage dealt to select two targets.  (That's how it used to work, more or less, but I digress).  Dual Crowbars is a second instance of damage that triggers off of the first instance of damage being dealt, which means that the target which is excluded is the target that was damaged by the first instance, not the target that was first targeted by the first instance.

So, in summary, in the process of targetting the second instance of damage, Dual Crowbars only sees the final result of the first instance of damage, not the targeting that was done.

I hate to say this, phantaskippy, but it's posts like this that are causing confusion.  Your pronouns are too loose.  "It" in this sentence refers to "The targetting of the second instance of damage", but that's not entirely obvious from your statement, making it easy to think that second instance of damage ignores how you choose its target and only cares about where the final damage is dealt, which is not the case.

Just as a test in the app I had Tachyon play Synaptic Interruption.  Mr Fixer had Dual Crowbars in play and hit Voss first.   For the second attack from Dual Crowbars I hit Tachyon who redirected the damage to Voss.  Voss took 5 total damage.

it worked like I would expect.   Whomever Mr Fixer hits the first time wth Dual Crowbars in play can't be the target for the second strike unless you can redirect the damage.   

It refers to the noun antecedent, in this case in the prior sentence.  It refers to the text of the card, represented by the noun "text".

The targetting is no different than anywhere else.  The timing of the effect is what creates the situation we are talking about.  As a reaction to damage dealt the effect of the card is only concerned with the hp being reduced, as that is when it takes effect, just like Flame Barrier doesn't care if the initial target wasn't Ra, it only cares about whether or not Ra's hp was reduced.  

Looking back over my post, I worded my comment too agressively.  Please accept my apology.

We're on the same page about how the card works.  The point I was trying to make is that I found your statement ambigous to parse, and if I found it ambigous, then other people who are confused about how Dual Crowbars work might also be confused by it.

So you could still hit the same target with the second attack if the damage was redirected to it? Like trying to hit Apostate's other relics in order to damage the Orb multiple times?

Yes, it just can't be the initial target of the second damage.

Okay, so it's the same as any other multi-hit attack then, basically :).

This is not my understanding. Here are some examples. In addition to Fixer, there are targets A and B.

Scenario 1: Fixer attacks A. Then Dual Crowbars lets him attack B. This is fine because B did not take damage from the first attack.

Scenario 2: Fixer attacks A, but the damage gets redirected to B. Then Dual Crowbars lets him attack A. This is fine, because A did not take damage from the first attack, B did.

Scenario 3: Fixer attacks A, but the damage gets redirected to B. Then Dual Crowbars lets him attack B. This is not fine - B took damage from the first attack, so the second attack cannot be aimed at it.

In the most common case (scenario 1), targetting for Dual Crowbars works the same as other multi-hit attacks. But once you throw redirection into the mix (scenarios 2 and 3), the rules are almost the opposite of the normal rules.

Oh yeah, good point...normally you can target the same thing again as long as it didn't get hit before. Hrmm, well, I expect I'll just end up doing whatever seems to make the most sense whenever it actually comes up :D.

The reason is the wording on Dual Crowbars, normally the wording is just hit 2 targets, on Dual Crowbars the second hit isn't triggered until after Mr. Fixer does damage to a target and specifies that it has to be a different target.

Aha, that'll be it then :). I've not played Fixer since this change came in so it hasn't come up for me yet.

So he cannot redirect his second instance of damage to the same target he dealt the first to, then? Is it only if it's something like Synaptic Interruption, or can he use Driving Mantis if he reduces the damage to two or fewer?

Again, whomever ends up being the final target of the first hit with Dual Crowbars in play can't be the target of the second attack unless there is a redirection.  

But can that redirection be from Fixer's own Driving Mantis if he reduces his second instance of damage to two or fewer?

Yes that would be valid.  

We have confirmed with Christopher that irreducibility is inherited for the second instance of damage with Dual Crowbars. It behaves incorrectly in the app right now but that will be fixed in the next update.

And yet it isn’t one of Legacy’s powers.

Thanks for the update.  

They have to develop it first.

Thanks!

Fun fact, hitting Mr. Fixer with the first instance whilst he has Bloody Knuckles out results in the second instance starting at 6/8 damage.

1/3 base damage, +1 from crowbars, +2 damage dealt and +2 damage taken from Bloody Knuckles.