Colossus' Immovable Object vs. Strange [Solved]

fnedude

So I was playing Deadpool vs. MPQ and saw this in the first node:

Colossus got his Yellow out, Immovable Object, Strange's Yellow activated (well technically 5* Stranges, but I think the premiss will be the same with 3*Strange), and the Yellow attacked the 2nd character (Wolverine in this case), and not Colossus. Wolverine then died from the attack.

So something's not resolving properly between Strange's Yellow and Colossus.

firethorne

While it feels a bit off, I think this is technically the correct behavior. Two things are at play.

1. The AI doesn't play by the same rules as the player. The AI doesn't move to the front when casting a skill. So, if you have Wolverine targeted when Colossus does something, Wolverine stays in front. This is good so you don't have to cycle through your targets at the start of every turn to get back to who you were attacking at the end of the last turn. It also has the effect that Strange's Flames will hit your current target rather than the AI character that used a skill, which is also nice, even if thematically dubious.

2. Colossus and Immovable Object: The description of this skill says that when the countdown is out, he moves to the front at the end of the turn. I think that's the kicker. If they're still on the using skills portion of their turn, that hasn't happened. If Wolverine was in front, Wolverine is still in front, and is still taking the hits until the end of the turn, which would trigger when they move a tile. That is when the Colossus countdown would process.

So, thematically, the skill could probably be changed a bit to make it more relevant against passives like Strange's. But, it isn't quite a bug based on the description of what the skill does.

Jaedenkaal

Yeah but characters also move to the front when they use their powers. How would Colossus not be in front to take the Flames of the Faltine hit that triggers on a Colossus power? (Unless he was invisible)

firethorne

Jaedenkaal wrote:

Yeah but characters also move to the front when they use their powers. How would Colossus not be in front to take the Flames of the Faltine hit that triggers on a Colossus power? (Unless he was invisible)

As I said, the AI does not move to the front when they use a power. Only player characters do that. I just tested this in the lightning rounds to confirm. I had the enemy Silver Surfer in front, their Rags used Lightning Rod, and Silver Surfer stayed in front, taking the hit. And I think this is intended behavior. If enemies moved their position, you'd have to reset your target at the beginning of each turn.

Dayv

Firethorne's explanations here seem spot-on to me.

It may be counter-intuitive that player and AI skill use affect targeting differently, but how annoying would it be if you had to reselect your primary target every turn, or if you carefully lined up a countdown to hit a specific enemy and that got overridden by which of them used skills?