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TLDR: I tested all abilities that simultaneously deal damage and can hard cc scuttle crab, and out of ~144 abilities just over 2/3 of them properly deal their damage to scuttle through shield, while 44 are seemingly affected by a bug where their damage is absorbed by the shield first! I am hoping this issue receives some attention from riot for consistency's sake, and that all abilities that reasonable can be changed to deal their damage properly to scuttle do see that change in a future patch!
This is an issue I personally care about as an off-meta jungler. This will be a slightly long post, but I put a lot of time into researching and organizing this so please take the time to read it. I want to get as much attention as possible to this post because it is an issue I seriously want to see fixed and should be a relatively simple fix at that. This issue obviously doesn't often affect gameplay, but for consistency's sake I would really love to see it fixed in a future patch :)
EDIT: Glad to see this getting so much attention! Thank you all for helping raise awareness for the scuttle issue in this game and for bringing up things I missed in the comments!
If you have ever played a champ with hard cc you know that hitting scuttle crab with her shield up will remove the shield. Most of the time, the actual damage of your ability (if it deals damage) also goes through on crab's main health bar, but I noticed that this is not true across the board. I set out to test every single hard cc ability in the game that also deals damage and collect data on whether or not it dealt damage through scuttle's shield or not, as well as organized it by what type of cc it was. In total I tested 144 abilities, and I will display the results below.
Before getting into the results, here are a couple of notes about the data:
- HUGE EDIT: Some people have been asking if this interaction happens with Evenshroud passive. I have tested a few champions, and it looks like it works the exact same way. This could actually be a big deal for some champs, like I know some Pyke's are building Evenshroud in testing these days, but their Q will not benefit from the bonus damage! Luckily fixing the scuttle issue should also fix this item interaction.
- These interactions have been this way possibly for as long as scuttle shield was a thing. I can't know because I did not take data when the cc interaction was added, but I know many of these interactions were like this for the past 10 patches or so, so a long time has gone without any attention given to this issue.
- I am specifically testing abilities that simultaneously deal damage and cc, for example Blitz Hook. I did leave out some abilities where there is a clear distinction between when the cc occurs and when the damage hits, EX Yone ult clearly pulls enemies before damaging them making it obvious that the damage will go through scuttle shield. EDIT: Some abilities I left on the list I probably should have taken off, like Jarvan's EQ knockup which obviously deals damage with Q before knocking up, so no damage is dealt to scuttle. (EDIT: Someone mentioned J4 EQ flash combo, but in all my testing it looks like the target, even champs, are only knocked up, no damage).
- A champ you play may have a CC ability that does not deal damage to scuttle crab but DOES remove the shield. I did not include these in the data because that would make no sense. EX Soraka silence or Pyke stun hit champions only. WW E fear does no damage at all, but does remove the shield.
- The Auto-Activated column is purely to see data about CC's activated by autos, which are repeats from the data above. 144 total abilities were tested. As for other categories, I grouped certain similar ccs to save space, and I counted pulls and other similar displacements as knockups.
- Finally, some abilities deal damage before dealing damage a second time when CC occurs, like Aatrox W or Karma W. These abilities were marked YES if the damage that comes with the CC went through, since obviously the first half does not.
With that, lets look at the data: (See below for the full list of champ abilities and if they do damage)
Out of the 144 damaging CC abilities tested, 100 of them properly deal damage through scuttle shield, while 44 of them have their damage absorbed by scuttle shield despite the damage occurring at the exact same time as the CC. A prime example of this is Pyke hook compared to other hooks in the game. You can look at the full data below, but Pyke's hook form of Q does not deal damage through scuttle shield despite removing it, while every single other hook ability in the game (Nautilus, Thresh, and Blitzcrank) perfectly deals damage to scuttle after removing the shield. There is no explainable reason for this interaction to take place the way it does. All damaging cc abilities should deal their damage to scuttle after removing the shield, considering over 2/3 of abilities interact this way with scuttle crab.
I could see if Riot gave an explanation for certain abilities not dealing their damage to scuttle that this was a legitimate mechanic in the game. Take Volibear and Evelynn for example. Voli stun and Eve Charm do not deal their respective damages to scuttle crab after removing shield. This can slow down their scuttle clear time as junglers significantly if they don't have smite (They can lose something like 100-500 damage depending on the time in the game), and if done intentionally this is actually a decent nerf to their champions. This however was never explicitly said to be done on purpose, and when you compare it against champions like Zac and Rammus who can freely clear scuttle shield quickly with their E and Q respectively, it makes almost no sense.
Now on to what I want Riot to do about this. Just make the interactions consistent across all abilities. If an ability does damage at the same time it applies CC, I fully expect it to deal the damage to scuttle crab. There should be really no downsides to this balance wise, and it should be done in a patch as a large scale bugfix. Ideally as simple as just changing the order in which damage and cc is applied in the way these abilities are coded, although I can't say for certain that that is the reason why these interactions happen. But seriously I am fed up with this inconsistency it really hurts when I play my off meta champions jungle and even otherwise it just generally feels bad and unfair to see a champion performing differently from others for seemingly no reason.
Some final notes:
- I did not realize how many knockups there were in the game lol. Exactly half of these damaging cc abilities were knockups, and I expect a roughly similar proportion to all CC abilities in the game. Weird.
- Certain abilities were tough calls on exactly whether or not they were a YES or NO for me, like Cassiopeia W. Feel free to debate my calls, but enough abilities were clear cut enough that it should not affect the total results.
- If I did forget any abilities lmk. I tried to incorporate as many abilities as possible, even abilities that don't directly target scuttle crab and hit her by collateral like Vi ult and Lee ult.
The following are mistakes or champs I forgot, which may adjust the numbers by 1-2 here or there, but the overall ratio should stay around 1/3 of abilities not working properly:
- EDIT: Fiddlesticks's Q fear is actually meant to be a NO. I don't want to bother updating the picture lol.
- EDIT: I completely forgot Tahm Kench W! The answer is YES though, add one to the amount of knockups in the game.
- EDIT: I forgot to include Everfrost as well, but it actually is a YES too. +1 for the root counter.
- EDIT: Many people asked about walls, like Anivia, Trundle, and Yorick. As far as I know these count as hits and do remove the shield, but their damage is coded as 0 (even against target dummies) so it is impossible to tell for sure if they do or don't deal damage to scuttle.
- EDIT: Rell Q breaks shields, and for the case of scuttle crab it is a YES on if it deals damage through sheild. This is probably because there aren't many shield break abilities and if there were, you would obviously want to deal damage through the shield so they made sure it worked that way.
- EDIT: Forgot Poppy W deals damage. The answer is YES!
Here is the full list of champion abilities, thank you so much for reading all the way through.
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