One damage instance

1. 500.1-1If the recipient is a Tool or a Hub, the damage is discarded.
2. 500.1-2If the recipient is Dormant, the damage is discarded unless the source explicitly allows it.
3. 500.1-3If the recipient is already dead, or the amount is 0 or less, nothing happens.
4. 500.1-4A damage-ignore charge, if the recipient has one, is spent and the instance is discarded.
5. 500.1-5Armor's percentage reduction is applied, unless the instance ignores Armor.
6. 500.1-6Armor's flat reduction is applied, unless the instance ignores Armor.
7. 500.1-7A post-Armor incoming-damage cap, if the recipient's card prints one, truncates what is left to that ceiling. Everything above the cap is simply gone; it is not moved to Shield.
8. 500.1-8Subrogated Insurance points absorb up to 25 each from what is left, and the source loses Vitality equal to what they absorbed.
9. 500.1-9Plain Insurance points absorb up to 25 each from whatever the Subrogated points did not.
10. 500.1-10Shield absorbs what remains, up to the Shield pool. A source whose card prints a Shield damage multiplier drains the Shield by that multiple, so the same remaining damage is paid off with fewer points of the attacker's budget.
11. 500.1-11An ally redirect cap, if one is active, moves part of the remaining damage to the redirector.
12. 500.1-12If the remainder would be lethal, a defy-death rune may reduce it.
13. 500.1-13Vitality is reduced. The unit dies if Vitality reaches 0.

1. 500.1aInsurance sits between the incoming-damage cap and Shield, so Armor is applied first and the points are spent on what Armor left. Each point absorbs up to 25 of that remainder, a point is spent whole even against a smaller instance, and one instance may spend several points. Anything the available points cannot cover carries on into Shield and then Vitality.
2. 500.1bDamage Insurance absorbs is credited to nobody. It scores the attacker nothing and produces no Feast, while the defender counts it as damage reduced.
3. 500.1cAn instance Insurance swallows outright still fires Thorns and Riposte, because neither reads the damage value. Nothing else in the on-damage-taken fanout fires, because no Vitality was lost. See 500.6. Two lanes are the exception: a boss Reflect starts no damage reactions at all, and an instance with no actor behind it — an overtime tick — has nobody to answer.
4. 500.1dBurn and Venom set the ignore-Armor flag, so neither the percentage nor the flat reduction applies to them. They are still met by Insurance and absorbed by Shield.
5. 500.1eShield is consumed before Vitality within the same instance. An instance fully absorbed by Shield deals no Vitality damage and therefore produces no Feast.
6. 500.1fA lethal-damage redirect, if one is active, moves the entire hit to the interceptor before mitigation, and suppresses any ordinary redirect for that hit.
7. 500.1gDamage moved to a redirect receiver lands as that unit's own instance and meets its own Armor, Insurance, and Shield. Every consequence of that spend follows on the receiver: the absorb cue, the insured-stat resync, the Insurance-prevented channel, its Shield triggers, and its own on-damage-taken fanout.
8. 500.1hBurn and Venom ticks are adjusted before they enter this pipeline, in this order: Prismbreak amplifies the tick by 50%, rounded up; rune tick reduction is subtracted; then Forge Core tick reduction is subtracted. A tick reduced to 0 that way never enters the pipeline at all, so it spends no Insurance point and breaks no Shield.
9. 500.1iA damage-over-time tick reaches a Dormant recipient. Dormancy stops new effects, not the ticks already running.
10. 500.1jRetaliation — Thorns, Riposte, Retort, and Subrogated Insurance — never enters this pipeline at all. It is a Vitality cost, covered in 500.6 and 500.8. The boss Reflect rune is the exception: it comes back as a real damage instance and runs this pipeline, though it enters below the Armor steps. See 500.7.

In 500 Damage, Mitigation, and Death