xyz that's some good literature, thank you. I'll pore over it when I have time.
Though to wit - my bar was not updated because I forgot to drop in StyleBoxes. 🤣
For the fix though, I passed the value as you said, since I am sure someone will need it:
var _damagePool : int = 0
then I passed the value to the damage pool before using it. That worked a treat, thanks.