If the troop’s attack isn’t really zero but only temporarily so, why not allow one to steal from their true attack value? It seems very bizarre to penalize attack-stealers when a debuff is on the enemy.
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You can always steal from an untangled enemy in the meantime.
So don’t run Entangle and attack steal on the same team. Problem solved.
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This would require some significant change to their code and would have far more implications. For instance, if your argument is that Entangle is merely a placeholder for their real attack value, then surely High King Irongut’s chance to devour should also depend on his real attack value, even if it’s 0 because of entanglement, right?
What about Web? That temporarily sets your Magic to 0. Should things that steal magic still work off the real value?
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HKI is a good example for a counter-argument, I think.
I don’t think the OP is completely invalid, though. In a sense, being Entangled offers you temporary immunity to Attack steal, and you can quickly bounce back to full Attack after being cleansed.
I was surprised when I first realised that I couldn’t gain “true” Attack whilst Entangled and using Mang. I don’t think OP’s thoughts are unintuitive or illogical, necessarily. It’s not how the game currently works, and would definitely need to be considered in light of all troop examples, though.
(I think the other suggestions given here – target someone else, don’t run Entangle at the same time – are workarounds, rather than solutions, to OP’s perceived issue. I guess it could potentially be pretty powerful, though, if you could just Entangle everyone and then steal Attack at the same time.)
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It’s just the way it is. Besides if you could steal from entangle you would probably waste extra time by having to press RB plus X, Y, B and A to remind yourself of the untangled damage and whether or not you had anything left to steal. Entangle is protection fundmentally but I see the conflict in spells because barriered troops can still have their armour stripped and converted into attack by mang which is stealing in a slightly different way. It just seems awkward in terms of decks that employ heavy entanglement but yes, coding wise there is no reason why attack can’t be stolen from the non entangled value. I don’t really use attack thieves per se and the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Ocularen Leech (I am sure there are others) so it’s not really an issue I’ve considered. Using Eg Lechy would mean lots of clicking unless the entanglement spell visual of the attack value remains on screen. That shouldn’t be an issue because we all learn pretty quickly what entangle and other status effects do. Good luck with this one.
Well, if we’re gonna go there, if a troop is entangled, how are they still able to dodge and evade skull dmg?
It sounds like checking stats is a bigger hassle on console than on mobile or PC.
While I’m now used to it and can think of several reasons to keep it that way, I also found the effect OP describes horribly strange at first.
The same goes for silence and mana gaining (or stealing), or web and magic stat. Frozen also tripped me up several times, I was quite surprised to learn that matches of 5 skulls do not grant an extra turn when the first troop is frozen.
High King Irongut’s chance to devour should also depend on his real attack value, even if it’s 0 because of entanglement, right?
What about Web? That temporarily sets your Magic to 0. Should things that steal magic still work off the real value?
Intuitively I would say yes. (To be specific, entangle is described as disabling (skull) attacks, so that would not alter the real attack stat. Web is described as setting magic to 0, so that one currently makes more sense although I could argue that you should still be able to gain it, ‘hidden’ or directly.)
Considering all the balance issues and teams and troops that have been built around the current mechanics I’m uncertain how strongly I would advocate changing things.
@Yano. Dodge is a different game mechanic; either a troop trait or a hero tree perk. These remain unaffected by most status effects including entangle unless the troop is also stunned in which case the traits are nullified as long as stun is active.
You’re absolutely right. I just meant it from a roleplay perspective lol
If you were entangled, you wouldn’t be very nimble
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