The First vs Almuric - winner depends on which attacked. (in General)

If you scroll down a little in my battle logs to around 1:50 pm EDT, you'll see almuric attacked me several times and lost, and at the same time I attacked almuric several times and lost. Surprised? we were too, so we swapped play-by-plays and found that it has to do with amf:

Summary of a battle when The First Attacks Almuric:
Round 1
Yozan Parsa shot The First with Khaos [104689]
The First's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (5227)
Yozan Parsa hit The First with Khaos [94283]
The First's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (5091)
-ow, but The First is still alive.

Round 2
The Last takes damage from his own Magic missile (20549)!
-Not anymore!
The Last's Magic missile hit Frobel Domon [28770]
-And with The First dead by amf, Yozan can start on my other mages.
Yozan Parsa hit The Other Last with Khaos [104788]
The Other Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (5211)
Yozan Parsa skewered The Other Last with Khaos [109596]
The Other Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (4698)
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The Other Last with Khaos [104529]

Round 3
-one more mage to kill
Yozan Parsa hit The Last with Khaos [110555]
The Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (5286)
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The Last with Khaos [99660]
The Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (3158)
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The Last with Khaos [108159]
-It's melee time, and I'm out of mages. Almuric wins.

Summary of a battle when Almuric attacks The First:
Round 1
Yozan Parsa shot The First with Khaos [90238]
Yozan Parsa hit The First with Khaos [75542]
-ow, but The First is still alive.

Round 2
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The First with Khaos [76668]
The First's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (4426)
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The First with Khaos [70819]
-overkill, as shown by the low ga dmg.
The First takes damage from his own Magic missile (21782)!
The First's Magic missile hit Naeve Klotho [46587]

Round 3
The Other Last's Guardian Angel smote Naeve Klotho (265)
Yozan Parsa shot The Other Last with Khaos [88342]
The Other Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (5010)
Yozan Parsa struck deep into The Other Last with Khaos [111105]
The Other Last's Guardian Angel smote Yozan Parsa (4859)
Yozan Parsa skewered The Other Last with Khaos [81891]
-2 mages down, 1 left. But Ranged is over, no more seekers. Yozan now has to get through a toj to get that last mage, The First wins.



So currently, battles go in this order-
Attacker takes amf dmg
Attacker deals dmg
Attacker takes ga/va dmg
Defender takes amf dmg
Defender deals dmg
Defender takes ga/va dmg
But to stop stuff like The First vs. Almuric having the battle depend on which attacks, it should go like this:
Attacker deals dmg
Defender deals dmg
Attacker takes amf/ga/va dmg
Defender takes amf/ga/va dmg

Yes,

For a long time I have noticed, at times, the winner of a battle to be determined by who attacks first. Most of the time, if I attacked first I would lose and vica versa.

Same here.

While that may be the right revised order to win the battle, I would argue that AMF damage should still occur first based on the effect of the enchantment. So it's not a bug that you take AMF damage before you deal any, while taking GA / VA damage after. AMF and EC affect you before you start attacking, and in this case prove that both characters are roughly equal.

Actually, shouldn't it be

Everyone takes AMF
Everyone deals dmg
Everyone takes GA
Everyone gets VA
Everyone with negative HP is officially dead now

to behave "correctly"?

Battle Cries, VA Resurrection, Challenger Loses - these "problems" all revolve around the one fundamental issue of battle event order and evaluation. How the game is "supposed" to function according to Jon may differ from how the players believe it is "supposed" to function. Whether changes to the battle core need to be made or not is strictly up to Jon; the confusion about how it all works is what makes the game so fun!

All that having been said, I welcome June with open arms, another month of the closest thing to stability that exists in CB =)