Brutal Strike is ...weird

Bug Reports
1

Platform: Have witnessed this on Switch (but is likely platform-irrelevant).

Screenshot or video capture:

Description:
In some cases, the Slayer class’s 3rd trait (Brutal Strike) can cause a chain reaction where one enemy Troop dies from bleed damage, causing another enemy to receive (and die from) increased Bleed damage, causing another enemy to also receive (and die from) increased Bleed damage, etc., all in the same turn.

How often does this happen:
It depends specifically on the enemy team’s formation, remaining Life, and active DOT effects (Bleed, Poison, and/or Burn).

As a minimal example, imagine the following enemy team:
1: Troop with 4 HP and Lv.3 Bleed
2: Troop with 1 HP
3: Troop with 3 HP
4: Troop with 6 HP

At the start of their turn, the entire team dies simultaneously.

But if you invert their formation:
1: Troop with 6 HP
2: Troop with 3 HP
3: Troop with 1 HP
4: Troop with 4 HP and Lv.3 Bleed

Then at the start of the turn, the last Troop is the only one who dies, and the remaining Troops all receive Lv.1 Bleed (via Brutal Strike). If this continues without recovery than they will eventually all die but at a rate of one per turn (troop #3 then troop #2 then troop #1).

Hypothesis: This looks like a cascading-event scenario. Using the first team as an example, it occurs far too quickly to review manually (even with video capture!) but I suspect how it is processed internally is:

1 - Start of opponent’s turn = check for DOT.
2 - Troop #1 has Bleed status = inflict true damage.
2a - Troop #1 dies = activate Brutal Strike, all remaining enemy Troops (#2 - #4) receive +1 Bleed status.
3 - Troop #2 has (at least Lv.1) Bleed = inflict true damage.
3b - Troop #2 dies = activate Brutal Strike again, all remaining troops (#3 and #4) receive +1 Bleed status.
4 - Troop #3 has (at least Lv.2) Bleed = inflict true damage.
4b - Troop #3 dies = Brutal Strike inflicts +1 Bleed to all remaining troops (#4).
5 - Troop #4 has (at least Lv.3) Bleed = inflict true damage.
5b - Troop #4 dies from Bleed damage.

The way Brutal Strike influences DOT from the top down and not from the bottom up is what makes this feel like a bug. But is it fixable?

A better (i.e. non-formation-dependent) approach could be something like:
1 - Process all DOT effects on the enemy team (in whatever order) as a group without checking for / triggering any deaths.
2 - Once all the DOT is resolved, now check for deaths and process them accordingly.

1 Like
2

Second example of how Brutal Strike only applies from the top down:

0 - Note the Lv.1 Bleed stacks shown on all opponents.
1 - This is sufficient to kill the enemy troop in slot #3.
2 - Upon the enemy turn:
2a - Sea Troll receives Lv.1 bleed damage (1 point)
2b - Anointed One receives Lv.1 bleed damage (1 point) and dies
2c - Brutal Strike triggers, applying Lv.2 Bleed to survivors
2d - Cursed Effigy receives Lv.2 bleed damage (3 points)

The surviving troops clearly received inconsistent amounts of Bleed damage despite how (even on a freeze-frame basis) they appear to all have the same Bleed levels as each other at all times.

To be fair, this is a rare event under normal circumstances – I was specifically trying to fish this out for reporting purposes (which took much longer than it sounds).