Hearthpwn

So if explosive runes triggers on a minion with divine shield even though it does no damage it still subtracts the minions health from the damage before hit face with the rest. Why? surely the damage just bounces of the sheild?

This has been asked and answered many many times. That's how it works because that's how it works. Google or search hearthpwn for more info.

It works correctly. Explosive runes does damage to the minion, and then the rest to the face. So on a 3 health-minion it does 3 damage, get destroyed, and then do 3 damage to the face.

On Divine Shield it does exactly the same: if the Divine Shield minion has 3 Health, it does 3 damage to the minion, then 3 to the face. Only that then, Divine Shield effect triggers, negate all damage on the minion and disappear. Working as intended.

because divine shield kick in after the secret activate. That is all.

Like when you activate the secret that copy a minion. If it copy a divine shield minion, it copy, then it gain divine shield.

Because its looking at the minion and its health. The game has to calculate damage it will take to kill the minion by its health, apply that damage, and then whats is left over to apply to the hero. Divine shield has no health stats, it just absorbs damage regardless of the amount for one hit.

If you attack a minion with Divine Shield with a minion with Lifesteal the damage is prevented and there's no place else it can be dealt. Therefore, since the minion dealt no damage, you get no heal.

When Explosive Runes triggers it hits a minion for X damage and the minion's owner for 6-X damage, where X is that minion's Health. X damage is prevented, it isn't dealt anywhere, while 6-X damage is dealt to the minion's owner. So let's say you got Hallazeal the Ascended on your board somehow, and Explosive Runes triggers, then you get healed for 6-X Health, because that's the damage the spell dealt. So, as you can see, there's no inconsistency with how Lifesteal works.

Should it work like this? Well, short answer is 'Yes, it works as intended'.

If you think about it, though, maybe that's not the most logical way to do it, and it probably wouldn't have been done like this in a real card game (by real I just mean with cardboard cards), where players' intuition of card mechanics matter more, because there's no automatic resolution of card effects.
But I think that in a game like MtG or Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, wording of that card would have been much clearer than 'any excess to their Hero'. 'Excess', in this context, means pretty much nothing, bringing us back to the first answer: 'Yes, it works as intended'.

Quote from MrPrep >>

 it probably wouldn't have been done like this in a real card game (by real I just mean with cardboard cards), where players' intuition of card mechanics matter more, because there's no automatic resolution of card effects.

It may work as intended, but it doesn't work correctly. In every other way, a divine shield can absorb any amount of damage. There is no excess damage after the secret breaks the shield. 

Quote from EmoGit >>

It doesn't make sense since if you attack a minion with divine shield with a minion with lifesteal, you don't get any health from it because the shield absorbs all damage so then why the hell does it do 6 to face? It's just a terribly cancerous card developed by complete morons who thought it would be a great idea to give mages a secret that removes any defensive minion you play and also a secret that negates boardclear spells. Brilliant minds, no wonder they still work at a small indie company

Quote from WhatAChamp >>

 

Quote from EmoGit >>

It doesn't make sense since if you attack a minion with divine shield with a minion with lifesteal, you don't get any health from it because the shield absorbs all damage so then why the hell does it do 6 to face? It's just a terribly cancerous card developed by complete morons who thought it would be a great idea to give mages a secret that removes any defensive minion you play and also a secret that negates boardclear spells. Brilliant minds, no wonder they still work at a small indie company

This is priceless. A pally player bitching about how one interaction in the game isn’t completing screwed over by divine shield. There’s so many bullshit things that divine shield lets you do (requires multiple aoes to clear board, prevents lifesteal, no imps from implosion) and paladin already has like a 60% win rate with the most braindead deck ever because of this mechanic. It’s completely fair. Sick of bullshit 1/1’s with taunt and divine shield protecting all the other minions as pallies spam face and continually fill the board. 

 

Quote from MrPrep >>

If you attack a minion with Divine Shield with a minion with Lifesteal the damage is prevented and there's no place else it can be dealt. Therefore, since the minion dealt no damage, you get no heal.

When Explosive Runes triggers it hits a minion for X damage and the minion's owner for 6-X damage, where X is that minion's Health. X damage is prevented, it isn't dealt anywhere, while 6-X damage is dealt to the minion's owner. So let's say you got Hallazeal the Ascended on your board somehow, and Explosive Runes triggers, then you get healed for 6-X Health, because that's the damage the spell dealt. So, as you can see, there's no inconsistency with how Lifesteal works.

Should it work like this? Well, short answer is 'Yes, it works as intended'.

If you think about it, though, maybe that's not the most logical way to do it, and it probably wouldn't have been done like this in a real card game (by real I just mean with cardboard cards), where players' intuition of card mechanics matter more, because there's no automatic resolution of card effects.
But I think that in a game like MtG or Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, wording of that card would have been much clearer than 'any excess to their Hero'. 'Excess', in this context, means pretty much nothing, bringing us back to the first answer: 'Yes, it works as intended'.

Quote from Nuldaan >>

 

Quote from MrPrep >>

If you attack a minion with Divine Shield with a minion with Lifesteal the damage is prevented and there's no place else it can be dealt. Therefore, since the minion dealt no damage, you get no heal.

When Explosive Runes triggers it hits a minion for X damage and the minion's owner for 6-X damage, where X is that minion's Health. X damage is prevented, it isn't dealt anywhere, while 6-X damage is dealt to the minion's owner. So let's say you got Hallazeal the Ascended on your board somehow, and Explosive Runes triggers, then you get healed for 6-X Health, because that's the damage the spell dealt. So, as you can see, there's no inconsistency with how Lifesteal works.

Should it work like this? Well, short answer is 'Yes, it works as intended'.

If you think about it, though, maybe that's not the most logical way to do it, and it probably wouldn't have been done like this in a real card game (by real I just mean with cardboard cards), where players' intuition of card mechanics matter more, because there's no automatic resolution of card effects.
But I think that in a game like MtG or Yu-Gi-Oh, for example, wording of that card would have been much clearer than 'any excess to their Hero'. 'Excess', in this context, means pretty much nothing, bringing us back to the first answer: 'Yes, it works as intended'.

The issue is that Explosive Runes is a poorly designed card. By all appearances, the interaction with Divine Shield is by design but it is not intuitive at all. At the very least, it appears to be inconsistent with the rest of the game.

As a general design principle, when you introduce a new idea/concept to an application and it appears to "break the rules", the concept is flawed in some way and needs refining. 

A second (related) principle is that you don't introduce complexity if that complexity doesn't enhance the user experience. Complexity isn't necessarily bad as well-designed complex interactions are the foundations of a rich experience. This is especially true when the complexity is intuitively understandable. However, complexity that introduces confusion is a cardinal sin. 

Explosive Runes breaks both principles and does so in a way that seems to contradict the in-game definition of Divine Shield. For reference, Divine Shield in game is defined as "The first time a Shield minion takes damage, ignore it". Explosive Runes states "After your opponent plays a minion, deal 6 damage to it <snip>..." Most people reading that definition and the card text of Explosive Runes would understand that to mean Divine Shield would ignore all damage from Explosive Runes so there is no excess. It's the most straight-forward interpretation and doesn't require introducing any additional assumptions or logical leaps. That interpretation evens passes the sniff test as it means that there is some potential for counterplay against the secret. 

Instead we have an interpretation of Divine Shield that limits strategic depth by removing counterplay and does so in a way that makes the game less intuitive. All in all, it SHOULD be considered a bug and fixed but I suspect the reality is that it's just a poorly thought out card that is "working as designed".

Quote from Ganashal >>

 The only problem left is what the user then does with the knowledge. They can choose to 1) complain that Blizzard are 'wrong' or 2) they can play around the card knowing how it works. Spoiler alert: one of these choices is the smart one, and it's not option 1). 

I would have expected the card to always deal 5 damage to face vs divine shield.

(1 damage is enough to break shield and so the rest is excess and should go face)

But I guess the developers were to lazy to code a special interaction for divine shield.

It should work like lifesteal however life steal is also a bit broke because if a 4 attack with life steal hits a divine sheild it steals no life... which I understand but if a 4 attack life steal hits a 1 health minion is steals 4 life even though it only actually stole one life, were did the other 3 life points come from?

Quote from Ganashal >>

 That could be a way of reading it, and, as stated earlier, if it was a paper card game they would have needed to make cards more wordy to ensure that people played them as intended. Here they DON'T need to do that. You have your own built in rules checker to sort all of that out. It has told you (and you have clearly understood) the way the interaction works. 

The only problem left is what the user then does with the knowledge. They can choose to 1) complain that Blizzard are 'wrong' or 2) they can play around the card knowing how it works. Spoiler alert: one of these choices is the smart one, and it's not option 1). 

Git

Gets it