Game Mechanics: Nullify Magic

[Darwoth]

as an aside whether it is true or not now i cant say, however there was a time when dispels were considered friendly, on rallos zek as a newbie there were more than a few times i sat around stripping buffs off of much higher players who were not within pvp range when they were being shitbags.

as others have said this may be a large part of the issue.

[Harrison]

I personally remember resisting dispels, MR based.

The information about it dispelling in order is also true. This is why raid buff orders were very important.

[Palemoon]

Another interesting tid bit from Al'kabor:

Went to Qeynos noob yard with an enchanter and charmed a firebeetle. Came up with 2nd account and used pillage enchantment (wristband of secrets clicky) on the firebeetle.. it took charm off. Did it multiple times to make sure.

This was in total blue mode, no duel or arena or anything.

edit: wow just summoned an animation with the enchanter, buffed it with shade and then tried to dispell it with my other toon... took Shade off first go. So useing dispel to grief in a non pvp enviornment is alive and well on Al'kabor, at least when it comes to summoned and charmed pets.

Tried to do it with a casted dispel (incase there was something strange going on with the wristband of secrets clicky), and it worked that way too.

[nilbog]

Originally Posted by Palemoon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Another interesting tid bit from Al'kabor:

Went to Qeynos noob yard with an enchanter and charmed a firebeetle. Came up with 2nd account and used pillage enchantment (wristband of secrets clicky) on the firebeetle.. it took charm off. Did it multiple times to make sure.

This was in total blue mode, no duel or arena or anything.

While grouped?

[Palemoon]

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

While grouped?

no, not grouped

There is no box to buy and first 30 days free on new accounts on Al'kabor if you ever wanted to hop on for some focused testing or to verify anything ive posted.

[Kringe]

Originally Posted by Palemoon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

no, not grouped

There is no box to buy and first 30 days free on new accounts on Al'kabor if you ever wanted to hop on for some focused testing or to verify anything ive posted.

Glad we are testing.. Palemoon did you test how many times it was resisted on another player? (right now I just resisted Golem wand (effect pillage enchantment) 5 times in a row with 60magic)... Curious how Al'Kabor has its resist factors on the dispell line on players/and pets.

[Kringe]

Originally Posted by Palemoon [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Ok a bit of googleing uncovered some info that matches with my short testing session on Al'Kabor:



7. DISPELLING

Most people are fully aware that both buffs and debuffs stick on you in a top-down order; they find the first empty slot and stuff themselves in it.

What people often do not grasp is how dispels work.

Note: Absor, EQ Developer, has confirmed that there are multiple types of dispels available. The majority of them operate in the manner below; some mobs have special dispels that will remove random buffs. For our purposes, however, we'll examine the case of the majority, to help people understand the basic operation of dispelling.

There are numerous spells that we can use to dispel buffs/debuffs, but the best ones available to each class are as follows:

--Recant Magic (ENC)
--Annul Magic (CLR, RNG, DRU, SHM, NEC, WIZ, MAG, BST)
--Nullify Magic: (PAL/SHD)

--Crystallized Pumice: Available to all classes, sold by Mirao Frostpouch in the building NE of the PoK Soulbinder, as well as any place that sells invis potions. It has 5 charges of Nullify Magic with a 3 second casting time. It is clickable from inventory, but you must target yourself.

I will call this line of spells "dispels" throughout the rest of our discussion.

Let's take my second image from above.

Image

That Malo annoys me. RC didn't cure it. Grrr! I want to dispel it.

If you look at Annul Magic on Lucy, it states this:

Annul Magic
1: Cancel Magic(9)
2: Cancel Magic(9)

Remember how Detrimental worked above? This is similar.

In this case, it tells us that Annul Magic will dispel 2 buff slots, at a strength of 9. Remember, dispels don't care whether something is good or bad; it'll dispel it regardless, even if it's something you like. A quick examination of Lucy shows that Recant Magic can dispel 4 buff slots at a strength of 9, and Nullify Magic 2 buff slots at a strength of 4.

Dispels always land, even if they don't seem to work. Each buff gets a check versus the strength of the dispel. If the buff fails the check, it gets stripped. If that buff passes the check, the dispel moves on to the next buff, and so on. In the case of every buff passing the check, no buffs will be stripped.

This is, of course, the problem with dispels; they're unreliable, and are intended to be that way. Since some dispels strip multiple buffs, the first X buffs that fail their check get dispelled. Thus, to some people dispels seem random; they'll cast it, and say "Wait, I lost buff slots 2 and 5! What gives?" As you see, buff slots 1, 3, and 4 passed their check to remain on you.

We are not sure what the check consists of. Sometimes, spells cast by lower level individuals seem "weaker" against dispel, but that may simply be arbitrary perception. Developers have not confirmed anything that I have seen about the process.

Dispels act differently depending on what you are dispelling. For example, if you dispel a mob, you will not dispel something with counters. When they made the change to put disease counters on slow awhile back, part of the rationale was to prevent griefing by rival guilds dispelling it. I believe it works on the same principle in PvP.

In simple terms of dispelling yourself, however, you can dispel anything that's on you. Therefore, using the graphic above, if I cast Nullify Magic on myself to get rid of Malo, it'll probably chew through my Storm Guard and Form of Defense III first. Thus, presuming I had some dire need to get rid of Malo, I would click those off, and take my chances with it taking Voice of Clairvoyance and hopefully Malo. Clicking off Voice of Clairvoyance wouldn't really net me anything except that I'd lose Steeloak, too.

Thankfully, Malo is largely inconsequential. Application to other detrimental effects, however, can easily be drawn. Also of some interest is that dispels are classified as a Beneficial spell for purposes of spell haste.



So this is why Taper Enchantment seemed to do nothing when I used it on my high level toon with high level buffs, but when I broke out my lowbie with a lower level buff, it finally dispelled it after a few trys.

And remember in my previous post where I said at one point a dispell skipped one of my buffs and dispelled another buff down my list? Matches with the info above, I guess one of my first buffs "resisted" the dispell and the dispell moved into the other buffs to try to kill them.

Very interesting, and it confirms that the number in parenthesis represents the strength of the actual dispel. Very interesting stuff, and its what I suspected.

This information is false as it is clearly going off PoP and further on down the road expansions... Annul Magic wasnt "classic" either.

Boxscar is right as to where the "Strength" of spells were not implemented until much later.

Right now if Al'Kabor is the "testing ground" for Red99 it will have alot of flaws seeing as it resides around the PoP era as Pale stated.

Again,

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but pvp at higher levels literally cant take place without dispells working properly.

[Smedy]

I didn't read shit of this thread, but if some idiot think that dispell should be resistable you're an idiot, period.

Dispell should be / has always been unresistable, end of story

And to end this argument once and for all IT'S CLASSIC

[Palemoon]

Originally Posted by Kringe [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Glad we are testing.. Palemoon did you test how many times it was resisted on another player? (right now I just resisted Golem wand (effect pillage enchantment) 5 times in a row with 60magic)... Curious how Al'Kabor has its resist factors on the dispell line on players/and pets.

I never gotten any sort of "you resisted dispell" or whatever on Dispells on Al'kabor. The dispell is not hitting you "the player" its going straight to your buff list and its your buffs that are trying to "resist" the dispell individually, not you. (so you will never get any sort of resisted message).

Boxscar is right as to where the "Strength" of spells were not implemented until much later.

Where you guys guys getting dispell strenghs were only added much later?

I think the cancel magic lines always had strengths and always acted the way they are on Al'kabor (higher level dispells almost always taking buffs off in order, only skipping a buff once in a blue moon, low level dispells having a much harder time taking off higher level player casted buffs,etc.).

Otherwise, what is the point of Pillage Enchantment, Strip Enchantment, and Recant Magic ?? The devs just felt like increaseing the mana cost of the "same strength" enchanter dispells as they rose in levels?

Its time to think about the "strengths" of these different dispells and how good they should be at dispelling a level X buff casted by a level Y player. That is what needs to be made "classic" at this point, and what may be off.

[Harrison]

http://web.archive.org/web/200105060...llID=87&Page=2

This May Be An Offensive Spell After Patch of 01/20/2000 - Mohil
The patch text for that date says that spells like Nullify Magic will be regarded by mobs as an offensive action from now on. This bears testing in a controlled environment now methinks. (Currently level 21 so I can't test it yet.) Mohil of Innourruk
Does not Remove Tashani? - Aazzan
While waiting for friends, I decided to use my to debuffs on myself. At first I resisted too much so I cast Tashani on myself first. I managed to lower my Strenght to 2 and my Agility to 1. Then I thought I would use this spell to strip the debuffs. It quickly removed all of them except Tashani. I tried 3 times before getting tired of trying. Has anyone had a similar experience? Does Strip Enchantment fail to remove Tashani?

--------------------------

The tashan line is poison based. A cleric or a paladin with cure poision will be able to remove it for you. Note that this is the only spell in your spellbook (might've missed something...don't think so though) that isn't based around magic. Thankfully, it is virtually unresistable, so the fact that it's poison only matters when you're trying to remove it.

This is a bit of information on both tashani and the nature of dispels.

Dispel was made detrimental in January of 2000. This would suggest it would also be given a resist check.