Talk:Attribute

Max Health
The Notes section currently says about max health, "The limit is therefore speculated to be lower than 231-1 (2,147,483,648)." 231-1 is the value 2,147,483,647 (not 2,147,483,648, as currently provided) and is the max value of a signed 32-bit integer, thus very likely to be the max possible health value. The text should be changed to say either, "...speculated to be lower than 231 (2,147,483,648)" or "...speculated to be 231-1 (2,147,483,647)." I prefer the latter, but if the extra weaselly wording was intentional, the former would at least provide the correct formula. 98.247.228.193 20:22, 29 April 2015 (UTC)


 * It should be pretty easy to setup a game with a friend with Lorewalker Cho to test what the HP limit is. --Xinhuan (talk) 07:23, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Exploding minions
In response to User:Jerodast's request for references: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOD7Ni_3NIc&t=8m15s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTpwHdCEcM0&t=9m20s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUxvAXkYhXc&t=23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2XT6rhwc_o&t=13m44s Most of these are old, but the final one is post-release and seems to verify the results.

The following video shows what happens with maximum Attack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBQVHWIY-js&t=7m

-- Taohinton (talk) 01:18, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Perfect, thank you! I was not doubting that the minions exploded, it was the statement that overflow would occur when exceeding 2 billion by "only a few points" that threw me. If minions truly exploded at, say, 2,000,010,152 health, then that would not be consistent with the 32-bit integer assumption. However, all of the examples ARE consistent with the 2,147,483,647 limit - I suppose with numbers so big, 147 million counts as "only a few" haha.


 * The Attack value overflow is extremely instructive as well. Note that the players are unable to increase the attack again after it goes to "0". This is likely because the actual attribute is still an extremely low negative, and is merely DISPLAYED as 0. So they weren't adding 4 to 0 and failing, they were adding 4 to -427,819,008 and succeeding...it just didn't get them very far :) I really wish they had cast Templar's Verdict one more time, because if my tracking of the bit values is correct, that would've actually overflowed them again and brought them back to positives, allowing us to verify the exact values that must've been stored. (For the record, I calculate the initial overflow takes them to -427,819,008, +4 = -427,819,004, +4 = -427,819,000, x2 = -855,638,000, x2 = -1,711,276,000, at which point another x2 would've overflowed to 872,415,296, but instead they just set it to 1.)


 * Anyway, that also would corroborate why the health examples show 0 after the overflow instead of a very low negative: It was MAX health that overflowed, and max health, like attack, cannot be negative - Current Health can be negative when minions get overkilled, but apparently not Max Health. So the display function brings it up to 0, but likely does not change the underlying variable.&#32;- jerodast (talk) 06:32, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Here is another video showing the overflow of the signed integer. Deducting from a very negative health (between -2^30 and -2^31) that causes the number to exceed -2^31 will overflow (in the negative direction) back to become a positive number. Since the Max HP of a hero is 30, the resulting new HP is capped at 30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7qgGwmYvZo. Notice also that Blizzard actually put in a terminating condition after 61 triggers of Mistress of Pain, but I haven't found the opportunity to test if this is true by trying it out the Auchenai/1-atk Mistress combo on a Warrior with more than 60 Armor and HP combined. Mainly, the test will require a bit of RNG as you need cards from 3 classes. -- Xinhuan (talk) 08:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Haha, nice find. Great idea for a test. Would Mage vs. Priest, Lorewalker Cho + Duplicate + Recombobulator be the best way to "search" for the requisite 3rd-class card (Mistress of Pain)? Or is there a way for non-mages to produce infinite copies of dudes that I don't know about. I suppose chain Mind Vision would work somewhat less reliably, but Mage still seems best, since Cho + Ice Armor could be used for armor generation fairly easily.


 * Personally, I'm still trying to figure out why Mistress + Soulpriest always kills people at -3. I could've sworn Brode said something about it once but now I can't find it and it wasn't a satisfying explanation anyway haha.&#32;- jerodast (talk) 07:13, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * It doesn't. It kills players and terminates the infinite loop when the player enters and stays at negative health 3 times in a row (not including 0). For example, -1, -2, -3, dies. Or -3, -6, -9, dies. Or -1, -3, -5, dies. Recombobulator and Shredders are probably the lowest RNG (1 in 63 chance of a 2-cost minion). -- Xinhuan (talk) 09:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah, did not know about the "non -3" versions. I any case, that STILL seems arbitrary - I guess three strikes and you're out? :)

Stats vs statistics
Eh, well, fair enough, especially when "statistics" may imply another meaning. But it still feels a little...dumb, like someone that knows "AFK" is the thing you say when you go to the bathroom but doesn't know it means "away from keyboard". I don't think we need to act like the abbreviation is somehow more meaningful than the word it stands for in this formal encyclopedic context, even if it is more convenient to say casually. But like I said, it's fine, fair compromise. &#32;- jerodast (talk) 03:14, 17 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I appreciate you being flexible :) I've written the following in response to the points you've raised, but only for discussion's sake.


 * While the wiki is encyclopaedic, I don't think we need to strike a 100% formal tone. We use a lot of slang like drop, lethal, burst, removal, buff, nerf, etc... The reality is people who play the games use these terms, and I don't think we really help anyone by stiffly using only the full technical definitions - "damage required to defeat the player this turn" or "cards which act to remove minions from the board". Explaining these definitions is a fair goal of an article, but I don't think changing every instance of stat on the wiki to statistics would be better, in fact I think it would be worse, and make the wiki feel very oddly out of touch with the game and its players. Obviously I'm not saying you're suggesting we do that; but my point is since stat is the form that's normally used (included multiple times on this page and throughout the wiki) it feels weird to focus on the word that is technically its root, over the one that's actually used.


 * I do agree we generally want to title articles after the full form of words, rather than shortened ones. I guess the thing that sways it for me is that while the word stat comes from statistic, I never hear statistic used with this meaning within Hearthstone. If the cards themselves used the word statistic in card text, or it was in the game's tooltips, or people commonly said "Eerie Statue has decent statistics for its cost" or "I'll play Crazed Alchemist to swap the statistics of his Doomsayer", I would agree, but I just don't hear it. In fact the only use of attribute, stat or statistic on a card is stats on Darkspeaker. In terms of the wiki we have 255 pages containing stat, and only 5 pages using statistic (with this meaning), most of which I think you typed yourself! So while grammatically that is its origin, it doesn't feel particularly relevant to the wiki. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I totally agree with where you're coming from, but the massive point not present there which I'm sure you already know is that drop, lethal, burst, removal, buff, and nerf are all actual words. Yes, they have different meaning in this game context, but they are not simply abbreviations for other words. Saying "statistic" instead of "stat" is obviously not the equivalent of saying "damage required to defeat the player this turn" instead of "lethal". A word is just a word, not a definition, even if it's a slightly longer word.


 * I also totally agree that most of the prose on this wiki can be somewhat informal; I have no problem with using abbreviations like stat to improve readability. In fact, I think we could stand to be even less formal in some regards, such as the ridiculous of amounts of words we "have to" capitalize (like "Power") because they're that way in card text. But when we're giving the page title/top-line-definition of a term, my personal inclination would be to use the most formal, complete version of the term, even if people choose to use abbreviations (like afk) in nearly all other places.&#32;- jerodast (talk) 20:15, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Oops, one more thing: The fact that a card uses "stats" does do a LOT to legitimize the abbreviation as "the official term". Not a blanket rule, it's only one card, and of course devs are fallible and cards have inconsistencies and informalisms, etc, but yes, this is a strong point.&#32;- jerodast (talk) 20:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I've now forgotten what I was going to say in response to your main reply (lol), but thought I should mention that looking through Enchantment list for the hundredth time reminded me that 'stats' is also used repeatedly in enchantment text. So arguably it's quite a few mentions, although I'd argue enchantment text is somewhat weaker as a basis. -- Taohinton (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Is mana a stat?
We've never had it listed on this page, but it's a major numerical card element, with behaviour just like any other stat. I did a very small and random poll on Twitter and found more people saying yes than no, which isn't proof of anything except that it's probably not as black and white as this page currently has it.

Does a 1 mana 2/1 have the same stats as a 3 mana 2/1, or different? The only in-game evidence we have is that Darkspeaker doesn't copy the mana cost of its target minion (I assume?). It seems we should at least mention mana on this page, or possibly include it. Thoughts? -- Taohinton (talk) 20:25, 13 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I'm with Twitter. It is a less relevant statISTIC (kidding :P) once the minion is in play, so I would probably say Different to your question talking about cards in hand but Same talking about minions in play, but the latter would be an informal interpretation of your meaning. This seems a perfectly good thing to include on the page.


 * Side note: I don't follow you on Twitter so I have not taken your polls, but you've mentioned a couple now, which gives me the idea: It might be pretty cool (to me, really really cool) to have ongoing polls on pages like this, in noticeable but not disruptive sideboxes, to get answers to questions like these. Obviously don't want to overdo it, just use them in places where definitions seem fuzzy. In addition to getting the info and documenting the info for editor purposes, it would also increase the community feel of the wiki and give don't-want-to-editors a place to make their opinions known. No idea if this is worth the extension trouble.&#32;- jerodast (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * As mentioned in the above topic, Enchantment list suggests that mana is not a stat. Notably Darkspeaker, Faceless Shambler and Keeper of Uldaman all use "stats" to mean "Attack and Health", quite clearly ignoring mana cost, which is not copied or altered by any of these cards. I'm in favour of mentioning the variation in player usage, though.


 * A different idea occurs to me: the debate is whether mana is a stat; I think defining mana as some kind of attribute is perfectly reasonable. This would make sense in terms of how it feels odd not to list mana here (at least, now that the thought occurs to me!), and yet I still don't really think of it as a stat (likewise with Armor, really). Since attribute is an unofficial wiki term, it feels reasonable for us to define its meaning as feels right to us. I've changed the page accordingly, adding mana cost as an attribute but explaining that stats has a more limited meaning, at least for game purposes. I'm a bit fuzzy at the moment, but hopefully it's an improvement :)


 * Re: side note, I'm cautiously open to the idea of polls, although you'd have to do the proposing :P I say cautiously because encouraging/giving a mouthpiece to people to disagree with what's written on the wiki is a slightly risky path, as regards vandalism and even just edit warring. There's also a balance between popular opinion and what's 'correct'; prescriptive vs descriptive. If 75% of readers start telling us Choose One cards should work with Brann Bronzebeard, we might have a rebellion on our hands ;) I share your interest regarding what people think on points like this, but I'd want to be careful about what we ask, and monitor it closely. In terms of tech stuff you'd have to ask oOeyes, which you're welcome to do. -- Taohinton (talk) 17:06, 19 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Sure, good solution.


 * I definitely didn't mean polls should be used for people to chime in on how the game "should" work - that's a strictly evidence based matter. Brann clearly does not work with Choose One, so suck it up, potential voters :P Only on the informal/community-derived terms, or terms where the official use is not comprehensive or clear. I also doubt it's worth the trouble until we have less other stuff on our plates - just a "throwin it out there" thought. &#32;- jerodast (talk) 21:11, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

Rent
Ha, I probably knew that at one point. We could also just say "broken", "damaged", "cloven", or "split". But "rended" has a certain poetic-and-ungrammatical ring to it :) &#32;- jerodast (talk) 21:16, 24 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Heh, yeah for some reason it makes me think of warriors, despite the WoW warrior ability "Rend" being a bleed effect ;) In this case "Rent" is more "Sunder Armor". -- Taohinton (talk) 11:35, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Weapon being "discarded" and not "destroyed"
Article text in reference:

"Durability determines the number of times a weapon can be used before being discarded"

The word "discarded" may change to "destroyed" at a later date. If ever a spell is created which "resummoned" weapons which have only been used/destroyed/discarded in a supposed game, the wording might need to change. Just keep this in mind guys. :) Aegonostic (talk) 12:32, 2 September 2016 (UTC)


 * You're right, this is ambiguous. The problem is one mentioned on Talk:Destroy: 'destroy' is not the same as 'death'. Technically, the weapon 'dies', or is 'killed', but that's quite wrong in the English language. There simply isn't a correct game term which also works for an inanimate object. The weapon is neither destroyed, nor discarded, and is removed from play but not in the same way as other effects which directly remove cards from play (for example, Deathrattles are activated). This is an ongoing conundrum for us.


 * In the absence of a perfect solution I think it's reasonable to err on the side of 'destroy': there is currently no functional difference between the consequences of killing a weapon and destroying it; and the Destroy page (however imperfectly) is currently home to the main discussion of minion/hero/weapon death. For now I've therefore changed the word in the lead section to 'destroyed', and changed the later section's text to this:

"It reflects the number of attacks the weapon is capable of making before it is used up. ... When a weapon reaches 0 Durability, it will be destroyed."


 * -- Taohinton (talk) 22:02, 2 September 2016 (UTC)