Why archon cannot deal damage to burrowed lurker (or any other burrowed unit) under swarm?

Frequent answers and my contraries:

A: Because archon's attack is ranged
C: Lurkers/tanks have ranged attack too, but they can damage burrowed units under swarm
NOTE: Tanks (both nero and normal) cannot damage 1 burrowed lurker under swarm, if you order to attack exact this lurker, but can damage nearby burrowed lurkers by indirect splash hits.

A: Because archon has splash damage, and can deal it only to "nearby" units, not to direct units. Try to place 1 burrowed zergling in center, and 8 burrowed zerglings near it, and attack central zergling - other 8 will take damage.
C: No, other 8 will not take damage, already tried it.

A: Because archon has 2 parts of attack (direct hit and splash) and swarm has strange mechanic, so it blocks only "direct hit" of archon, but doesnt block "splash" part. Try to place burrowed zergling, and UNburrowed hydra under it, cast swarn on them and attack hydra by archon - zergling will take damage.
C: Tried, hydra was killed (by sphash damage of archon), and zergling was always at 100% hp (didnt take any damage)

P.S. As we see, archon has 2 parts of damage (direct hit and splash) - but what about sarab? Does scarab has 2 parts of damage (direct hit and splash) ?

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Oct 20 2013, 7:57 pm by theleo_ua.

Regular tanks only deal splash damage under swarm, curiously, hero tanks ignore the swarm entirely and deal full damage to their target; comparing the two tanks weapons reveals that there is no real dat-file-based difference.

I believe lurkers deal a long stream of splash damage, like the firebats attack on steroids.

The fact that the two tank weapons behave inconsistently under swarm despite consistent dat-entries suggests some odd hardcoding surrounding swarm mechanics, which would produce this weird behavior with archon attacks, perhaps hero archons would behave differently than normal ones

(I don't have an answer, just more info into the equation)

jjf28

Just tested:

1) It doesnt matter, hero unit or normal
2) Tanks (both nero and normal) cannot damage 1 burrowed lurker under swarm, if you order to attack exact this lurker, but can damage nearby burrowed lurkers by indirect splash hits

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Oct 20 2013, 7:57 pm by theleo_ua.