Smart idea to create a thread for this, ptarth - this is what, the 3rd time someone got the debate sparked up again in the uberfix thread
re: ooze suicide:
Ptarth just confirmed, that it is not intended as a game mechanic
People will still disagree though. I think Ptarth's logic is sound on this... would could try harassing frogboy to get an official answer (though I'd like to point out that we did that on tb's attack/move bug, gpg told him tb was working as designed... but they fixed his attack move all the same).
Here was my response from the uberfix this...
Ptarth said:
Looking at the Ooze code, it actually possesses the correct code to kick the Unclean Beast out of Ooze when low on life. There are two problems with it though.
- The Ooze exit check takes 1 tick to perform, that means you'll take an extra hit of damage. Combined with taking damage before the last tick, you can then experience the suicide effect.
- Like Mist Form, the ability exit check has a hardcoded cutoffs. Also like Mist Form the cost of the ability was changed, but check was not updated to reflect this change.
On the bright side this clears up any debate about the issue, it is obviously a bug. If you want proof but don't want to look at the code yourself, try committing suicide with Ooze 1 (outside of combat). You can't do it. You'll get down to 100 health. The check will kick in and you will end up with around 64 hp.
so the bottom line is that the code to have it turn off on low health is in there (its clearly designed that way), but it wasn't implemented correctly, so a bugfix was required. If the code to turn off ooze was absent, then it would be a matter of debate as to what the dev's intent was (was it just an oversight or did they mean to allow for ub suicides as an escape). But the code is there, it just doesn't work right without a fix.
From a viable strategy point, using any character, if I go for a kill, say, in a group of enemy towers and pull it off, but then find myself killed by "forces of darkness/light," its not that bad a thing as I got the full money for a kill and the other team got squat (or at best, an assist) as the "forces of darkness/light" got 0 gold for the kill. It's a reasonable strategy (in certain situations) to let a tower kill you to avoid giving someone on the other team a kill. Anyway, this option is available to all dgs.
Onto the beast - as it stands, the UB can take it a step further by trying to use the method I described or simply by engaging in combat with anyone. A ub can run up and engage an opponent with ooze enabled. In order for the ub to suicide, all that needs to happen is for the person that is fighting him is to drop him to around <100 hp or so. There aren't many scenarios where a ub will get dropped right down to that threshold of <100 hp with the exception of intense combat. At which point, I'd argue that because the odds that you'll hit <100 hp on a ub and get the "commit suicide" screen are extremely low, its not a viable strategy at all to be willing to have the ub on your team pull that.
Also, let's talk about committing suicide in dg. The code in the game (not talking about uberfix) does turn off the ooze at <100 hp. In short, if you aren't in combat, its impossible to trigger a suicide with ub (with the 1 exception of the hp flag changing hands). And suicide is the taking of one's own life, yes? So, as the game is coded its impossible to kill yourself without someone/something assisting. I'd argue that the mere fact that ooze turns off should make it clear that it is not designed to kill the UB. Otherwise there would be no point in having that code at all.
edit - and I'd add, its not that game breaking or even much of a nerf. The ub is hardly a weak dg and this simply gave players an extremely low % chance (1-3% I'd guess) of "committing suicide" when in reality, 1 additional auto-attack from any dg would have killed him (as his hp has be below 100). And again, the odds of someone pulling this off as a strategy are extremely low - meaning, its just dumb luck if a player "commits suicide" by taking damage in a fight.