As promised, here’s a cookie gif for the work.
Unfortunately, 115 x 2.6 is only 299 damage, which still leaves us one short. Unless we’re now going to try to take damage away from the skull matches and instead award it to whatever caused the armor loss.
munches on cookie, then gestures with another You know, since we’re all agreed that it’s broken chews and that due to the 2.6 multiplier the only options are whole numbers 115 or 116 (i.e. 299 or 301.6), I chock that up to another bit of error.
There’s only on little issue: From the single match video, it did 153 damage. Which comes from
153 / 2.6 = 58.8 = 59
59 - 54 (LoS attack) = 5 (single doomskull matched)
The earlier calculations to reach 214 did not take into account any of the doomskulls. The issue being that 214 is the minimum damage that LoS should have dealt to life based on the calculations.
eyes platter of cookies, then returns it
What we know:
I’m sure y’all have considered this, but the damage shown is only ever as much as required to reduce the armour/life down to zero, never extra.
i.e.
The fact that it shows 300 doesn’t exclude the possibility that 1,000 damage was dealt to armour. Don’t focus on the 300 as an exact figure.
I’m curious - how do you know which gem Lightning Strike exploded? And does it actually resolve after the match or before, because the text is shown after Critical Strike/Extra Turn.
In the screenshot here you see that the yellow is brighter, and that it is exploding the green to the right of it. Walking through frame by frame, you’ll also see the gems around it exploded, which could only happen if it was a gem exploded through lightning strike.
As for when each is resolved, that is the conundrum.
Great discussion thus far…
If I may interject, it has been my experience in the past (no screenshots to back this up, sorry) that when an explosion happens, there is no skull match…Again, I’m just going by a failed Warren’s pure faction run where a skull match cascade that would’ve kill a troop instead got ruined because Luna exploded a yellow gem adjacent to the skull match. Wish I had a screen grab.
Also, this past weekly event I had an instance where latest Mythic cast and despite having 1 badge and 1 medal (200% skull dmg) appeared to do no dmg. But when Last Harbor cast, it did 39 dmg and killed the troop (it showed 200+ combined life and armor). Next battle, Mythic did similar dmg but it showed. Visual Bug, known issue, so I deleted the replay. The only consistency is the inconsistency.
I tried to start with basics and build up to some consistent formulas, but gave up after a few data points (including these below). All Explore 12, no skull reduction.
Talent: Lightning Strike
Trait: Chaotic (Sin’s Harvest)
Exhibit A:
Simple 4-match with 1 doomskull.
Attack 59, damage done 64.
Question 1: should this have been 65 (59 base, +1 for 4-match, +5 for doom), or does critical hit only start from 5+?
Exhibit B:
No lightning strike, -2 skill points (life) already taken into account.
Total damage done = 79
I expected 76 (59 base, +10 for 2 skulls, +7 from match explosion)
Exhibit C (immediately following from the above after explosions cleared):
Lightning strike at row 3 column 2
Total damage done = 101
I expected 82 (59 base, +10 for 2 doomskulls, +2 from 5-match, +5 from match explosion, +6 from lightning strike explosion)
Exhibit D:
No lightning strike, -2 skill points (life) already taken into account.
Total damage done = 112
I expected 102 (59 base, +15 for 2 doomskulls, +2 from 5-match, +26 from match explosion)
To my untrained eyes, it looks like there is some code that causes skulls/doomskulls to be counted multiple times. With enough data, one might work it out (there might be a difference between L-shaped 5 match and straight 5-match?, there might be a difference between where the skulls are placed in a 4/5-match?). But I’ve already sunk too much time into this.
(I do have videos recorded with GoW at 0.5x, but just trust me on the data above)
Wish I had more time to invest and help with this. But in case it wasnt covered I want to point out that when explosions are involved its very common that the visually shown Hp remaining on a troop is not correct. Something to take into account for if possible.
Could your care to:
count doomskulls twice if they are a part of match → one time adding their damage to skull damage given, second time counting their damage as part of explosion, but only if they are:
a) a part of match5
b) next to a doomskull
I’m to lazy to do it myself 
Just a little update, our team will look into this when they can.