Splinterlands: The Snare ability explained

kalkulus(69)

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This post seeks to explain how the Snare ability works in detail.

The Splinterlands help text for snare is: "When attacking enemies with Flying, removes the Flying ability and cannot miss". The help text can easily be misunderstood, because it states that the Flying ability is removed. What this means for further hits with Snare is not well defined. In this post I will describe what this means, and how it interacts with other abilities.

The most obvious use of Snare is in Earthquake matches. A snared Flying unit will take earthquake damage. But snare also provides additional utility versus Flying units, as demonstrated below.

Context

This was posted in the Tavern channel in the Splinterlands discord server:

The attack in question was the Hardy Stonefish attacking the Pelacor Bandit. With 8 speed difference and Flying, the Pelacor Bandit should have 100% chance to dodge the attack. But because it is snared, the hit chance is actually 20%.

After this was cleared up, the discussion evolved into a question of how Snare works after the Flying ability is removed (as stated in the Splinterlands help text). Below I will show examples of how this works.

Multiple hits from a unit with snare:

Snare battle

Multiple hits from a unit with snare will continue to hit regardless of the speed difference between the monsters. In the battle above, the Void Dragon has a speed advantage of 3 over Merdhampir. Normally, this gives 30% miss chance for Merdhampir. But Snare overrides this. In the battle, both hits from Merdhampir are listed in the battle log as

{'type': 'ranged attack', 'result': 'hit', 'hit_chance': 1, ...}

So it has a hit chance of 1 for both hits. This means it can never miss.

What about the other units that do not have snare?

After the Void Dragon was snared in the battle above, the Wave Brood attacks it. The battle log entry for this attack is:

{'type': 'ranged attack', 'result': 'hit', 'hit_chance': 0.5,

It has a 50% hit chance. 50% corresponds to the Speed difference between the units, but notice that the Flying ability no longer adds any miss chance. This is because Snare removes the Flying ability. This is similar to the attack by the Hardy Stonefish in the image posted in the discord server.

What about other skills that affect hit chance?

Snare and Dodge

Snare and Dodge battle

In this match, the Pelacor Deceiver has a speed advantage of 1, and it has dodge. Normally, this would indicate a 35% miss chance for the Lava Spider. However, every hit the Lava Spider does is listed in the battle log as:

{'type': 'ranged attack', 'result': 'hit', 'hit_chance': 1, ...}

With a hit chance of 1, it will never miss. This demonstrates that Snare overrides Dodge (if the unit is a Flying monster). Dodge will work against other units even after the unit is snared, similar to how speed difference still provides miss chance when the unit is snared.

Snare and Blind

Snare and Blind battle

Here, the Lava Spider is Blinded. One could assume that Blind would still make the Lava Spider be able to miss. This is not the case. Every hit from the Lava Spider is listed in the battle log as:

{'type': 'ranged attack', 'result': 'hit', 'hit_chance': 1, ...}

So it still has 100% hit chance versus the Void Dragon, even when it is blinded.

Summary

An attack from a unit with snare will always hit a unit that has the Flying ability, even if the unit is already snared, and even if it has other abilities that provides miss chance (Dodge, Blind).
A Snared Flying unit can be hit by Earthquake.
A Snared Flying unit no longer gets the 25% miss chance Flying provides.

Final remarks

I hope you found this post interesting. If you did, you might find my other post interesting:

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Best of luck in Splinterlands!
Kalkulus