The use of barrier and some spells

Your 2nd point is interesting: You seem to mistakenly believe that a Barrier'd blocker absorbs a portion of the damage from an Overwhelm attacker. But in fact, the entire Overwhelm damage goes through to the nexus. Personally, I wish the barrier would absorb a portion of the damage - that'd be a nice middle ground.

I can see where you're coming from with your 3rd point; I could go either way on that one.

I disagree with your 4th point, though. Barrier is explicitly designed to prevent damage, not any other effects such as debuffs or direct kills. I think it's fine as it is. If Riot were to decide they want to make Barrier resist direct kill effects, I'm certainly against giving special treatments to some kill spells, but not others. Rules need to be applied consistently.

Regarding the rest of your post, you do not retain priority after playing a fast spell like Vile Feast. If you just play it on your turn, priority passes to your opponent right after it's resolved, just like with slow spells.

Quote From BlueSpark

Your 2nd point is interesting: You seem to mistakenly believe that a Barrier'd blocker absorbs a portion of the damage from an Overwhelm attacker. But in fact, the entire Overwhelm damage goes through to the nexus.

I don't think that's the case. I recently lost a game because I thought it worked the way you are saying, but not all of the Overwhelm damage made it through.

It seems they just want drain to work that way. It deals 3 damage. And also has the effect of healing your nexus for 3. They do not depend on each other.

If I hit a 1/1 with grasp, my nexus heals for 3.

I think a kill card should hit through barrier, we don't need circles of protection.

I agree with your point on overwhelm.

Quote From FortyDust

I don't think that's the case. I recently lost a game because I thought it worked the way you are saying, but not all of the Overwhelm damage made it through.

Really? Such conflicting reports. I honestly have run into very few Overwhelm vs. Barrier scenarios in the actual game and take most of my knowledge from this forum instead. There's been a different thread discussing this very interaction, and the consensus seemed to be that Overwhelm rolls over Barrier completely, just like it does over 'placeholder blockers'. If it indeed only absorbs a portion of the damage equal to the unit's health, I should consider myself lucky - that's the outcome I like the best (and find the most intuitive).

Quote From BlueSpark

 the consensus seemed to be that Overwhelm rolls over Barrier completely, just like it does over 'placeholder blockers'. 

It's wrong: Overwhelm acts just by a mathematic calculation, ignoring whatever happens to the blocking minion. So the Overwhelm attacker will just inflict the excess damage to the Nexus but is mitigated by the blocker's health (regardless of the condition of said minion).

Quote From Mascre

-When you are blocking with a card that has a Barrier to one that has overwhelm, it should absorb ALL the damage and not just the part proportional to life I think it makes no sense since the Barrier what it does is just that, absorb the damage …

It makes sense because there's a lot of historical understanding that this is how it works across similar games. Take MTG, for example. When a creature has indestructible and blocks a creature with trample, the damage that goes through is whatever's above lethal on the creature, despite the fact that the creature will not die to that damage. Divine Shield in Hearthstone behaves in a similar way.

Quote From Mascre

-If you use Grasp of the Undying against the barrier it is logical that the barrier disappears but it does not seem logical for the opponent to heal since he has not really absorbed anything.

This I agree with 100%. No damage is truly dealt, and the barrier doesn't have HP to drain from.

Quote From Mascre

-Another thing that doesn't convince me is that you can kill a barrier card. I mean  with a ruination you can kill her since it is somehow a very expensive card and kill ''everthing'' but with a Culling Strike or Vengeance I think it shouldn't.The barrier is to protect a creature but if there are cards that skip that rule it loses the reason for its use.

This I don't find convincing. Barrier isn't immunity to death, it's a temporary immunity to damage. To go back to MTG, an indestructible creature can be reduced to 0 HP through non-damage effects (e.g. a -X/-X aura), and the result is still the same - the creature dies.

Quote From BlueSpark

I can see where you're coming from with your 3rd point; I could go either way on that one.

I could go either way on this one also. I'll try to explain my reasoning behind it.

The wordings ingame:
Barrier - Negates the next damage the unit would take. Lasts one round.
Drain - Heal our Nexus for the amount of damage dealt

So, first impression of wordings alone, the Nexus should not heal because no damage was done.
But, taking a second look, the attacking unit/spell doesn't care about the defending unit, all it cares about is "swing it's sword" as hard as it can, so, as long as it hits the target, from the unit/spell perspective, the damage was dealt and so the Nexus heals.
Now, from the side of the defending unit with barrier, imagine a person with a big shield, the person did take the damage, but the shield was so strong that the person stayed alive with no bruises, and here we can read again the wording on Barrier - Negates the next damage the unit would take , the unit would take, the unit didn't take damage, but the damage was "swung" from the attacking unit/spell.

Quote From meisterz39

This I don't find convincing. Barrier isn't immunity to death, it's a temporary immunity to damage. To go back to MTG, an indestructible creature can be reduced to 0 HP through non-damage effects (e.g. a -X/-X aura), and the result is still the same - the creature dies.

And here is where Drain could actually make more sense, let's take the wordings again;
from game:
Drain - Heal our Nexus for the amount of damage dealt
from real life dictionary:
to Drain - to deprive of strength or vitality

Here, Drain could make more sense if Riot changed the wording from "damage" to "deprive HP" for example, and it would avoid confusions.
Let's take a 4/4 with barrier for example, we would Drain for 3, the unit would be a 4/1 and still keep it's barrier, altho, of course, if it was a 4/3, it would become a 4/0 and instantly die, despite having barrier.

Just think of it this way:

Overwhelm and Drain both apply their their damage to the target before Barrier is even considered. Extra Overwhelm damage then pushes through, and Drain damage heals the user's nexus.

Only AFTER all of that does Barrier reduce to zero any damage that would have affected the unit.

I'm not saying this is good or bad; it's just an easy way to remember how it works. (And possibly to predict how Barrier will interact with other things.)

Summarising so as to save space:

Quote From Author

Barrier should absorb all Overwhelm damage

Read the wording on Barrier. It specifically states that it prevents the next damage that would be dealt to this minion. That qualifier is in there for a reason. If a 5-attack Overwhelm hits an ally with 3 health, that ally will take 3 damage and the Nexus will take 2. Logically, from the wording of Barrier, the 3 damage will be prevented but not the 2. I must apologise to Riot on this score, as I had previously suggested that the wording should be updated to prevent this confusion, but on checking realised the wording was already correct.

If, on the other hand, you're suggesting that this should be implemented as a balance change rather than a gameplay clarity one, I would disagree. There's nothing to suggest either Keyword needs balancing work right now.

Quote From Author

Drain should not heal if hitting a Barrier

Now this I agree with, as it's consistent with the Overwhelm treatment. The wording states that the damage is negated, and if the damage is negated then it isn't dealt. If damage isn't dealt, no draining is done. It's also consistent with Lifesteal, because a Lifesteal follower hitting a Barrier will not heal the Nexus.

The one caveat I'll say to the above is I don't actually recall seeing this interaction in game yet, so I'm not 100% convinced that actually is how Drain is working right now - it wouldn't be the first time someone posted convinced they saw an interaction they didn't. But assuming it works as posted, that feels inconsistent.

Quote From Author

Killing Barrier cards

I can't really tell what you're trying to say on this point. If you're saying 'this is the incorrect interaction', then no, you're wrong. Barrier wording negates damage, wheras kill effects remove without dealing damage. Rules working perfectly as written.

If you're saying it should be different then all I can really say is I wholly disagree. I'm not seeing any reason right now to wholesale buff Barrier cards without data.

Quote From Bystekhilcar

Quote From Author

Drain should not heal if hitting a Barrier

 

Now this I agree with, as it's consistent with the Overwhelm treatment. The wording states that the damage is negated, and if the damage is negated then it isn't dealt. If damage isn't dealt, no draining is done. It's also consistent with Lifesteal, because a Lifesteal follower hitting a Barrier will not heal the Nexus.

 

Logically, the opposite of the bold part would be true: In order to negate something, that thing has to exist in the first place. "Negate" doesn't mean "erase from existence." It means "cause to be ineffective or invalid." Barrier takes damage that does exist and renders it ineffective -- it makes it so that damage is not subtracted from the unit's health.

If this is inconsistent with Lifesteal, however, that does feel like a bug one way or the other.

Quote From FortyDust

Quote From Bystekhilcar

Quote From Author

Drain should not heal if hitting a Barrier

 

Now this I agree with, as it's consistent with the Overwhelm treatment. The wording states that the damage is negated, and if the damage is negated then it isn't dealt. If damage isn't dealt, no draining is done. It's also consistent with Lifesteal, because a Lifesteal follower hitting a Barrier will not heal the Nexus.

 

Logically, the opposite of the bold part would be true: In order to negate something, that thing has to exist in the first place. "Negate" doesn't mean "erase from existence." It means "cause to be ineffective or invalid." Barrier takes damage that does exist and renders it ineffective -- it makes it so that damage is not subtracted from the unit's health.

If this is inconsistent with Lifesteal, however, that does feel like a bug one way or the other.

I really don't know about that. I don't think the answer to the question lies with drilling down into exact wording definitions (as it might in a physical card game). I think simplifying the question works far better - 'is damage dealt Y/N' - if barrier then N, so no healing.

I would also note that unless I'm wholly incorrect, I'm fairly sure Tough does in fact reduce healing from Drain (pretty sure that came up in an Expedition the other night).