So my ‘go to’ build for a while has been Archproxy Yvendra at the back blowing everything away with Uber Doom Skulls, a tank up front and 2 yellow gem generators in the middle feeding Yvendy mana and giving her stuff to blow up (idk if it’s a good build or not, but she’s my only base mythic so it seems churlish not to use her! 
).
So when I was doing a Dungeon run and saw that the Mega Boss (some dwarf guy) was impervious to skull damage, I thought this build was pretty screwed, since it’s only offense is skull damage (it has zero damaging spells). But I thought ‘what the hell’, and sent them in anyway.
Couple of early regular skull attacks bounced off him as expected, so when the time came for me to drop an Uber Doom Skull board wipe, I was expecting him to laugh in my face. But it dropped him in one. Even stranger, the ‘damage flash’ on his portrait said ‘1’ as he died.
I’ve also seen odd behaviour around ‘Agile’ procs vs UDS board wipes. It appears to proc, damage looks to be avoided, but then right at the end of the move being resolved, they die anyway… I’ve seen it work as expected against smaller UDS matches, like 2 or 3, but against full board wipes they always seem to die
So does anyone know what’s going on? Is it bugged, is UDS damage not ‘skull damage’ for some purposes, or is there some extra rule coming into play I’m not aware of?
Doomskulls still do 5 damage each when exploding and Uber Doomskulls 10 each. This damage is on top of the skull damage and is done even when the troop in your first slot is entangled. Regular skulls also do 1 damage each when exploded.
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Thanks for the info! So the damage from the skulls themselves (as opposed to the troop’s attack value) aren’t ‘skull damage’ for the purpose of defensive skills?
Interesting, I’m sure I’ve seen ‘Agile’ procs stop all damage, whereas if the bonus damage from the skulls / DS /UDS wasn’t stopped I would expect them to always take at least 3 damage from skull matches, even when it procs. Maybe I just haven’t been paying close enough attention to the troop’s health.
When matching 3 skulls that doesn’t add the damage of the skulls that does only the attack damage of the troop and counts as skull damage. If you were to explode a doomskull though that would still do 5 damage even if their agile worked to dodge the skull damage. If Leprechaun were to explode those 3 skulls however it would do the 3 damage from the skulls being destroyed. If you matched 2 skulls with one doomskull and they dodged with agile the 5 damage from the doomskull should still hit them and trigger any “when dealing skulls damage” traits the attacking troop has.
This link has to do with entangled but helps explain it all the same.
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Basically you cant dodge an explosion
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Ah, I think I finally get it now. Matching Skulls != Exploding Skulls. It’s not the type of skull that matters but how it is removed. Since the vast majority of my damage is coming from explosions, not matches, this is why Agile & similar defenses are not effective.
Thanks very much for taking the time to explain it so clearly!
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Right you got it now. Using a troop like leprechaun or thrall to explode/destroy skulls doomskulls or uber doomskulls does 1, 5 or 10 damage each respectively. Matching any types of skulls does the attack damage of the troop (which can be mitigated with dodging or skull reduction traits) and then any doomskulls or uber doomskulls exploding and any other types of skulls they take out with their explosions do their full damage of 1, 5 or 10 damage on top of that. (that damage is not mitigated or dodged)
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