Game Mechanics: Nullify Magic

[Cwall]

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

Copied from my other thread:

I tried testing this out. I levelled an enchanter to 12 and played around casting taper enchantment, and cancel magic onto my 50 troll shaman, and casting nullify magic from my shaman onto my enchanter. Even buffed with resist magic to 65 MR I did not get a single resist with either spell on my shaman or the reverse. Can someone who is getting resists confirm any level difference and possibly what MR was in effect on the person you were casting on?

Earlier today, I was level 46 with 106 MR and Darwoth was level 50. He tried golem wanding me 3 times and I resisted the pillage enchantment every time. I had a DoT on me so I tried to dispel it using nullify magic(still with 106 MR) and I resisted the cast on myself.

[Cwall]

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

Good info. It's still a little conflicting, but we're getting somewhere.

Question: if that's how dispels worked, why was two insta-clickies such a staple in PvP and basically required in order to compete at the top? And why the seemingly universal belief that dispels always targeted the first buffs?

My memory tells me that's how it was, but it's very possible that I just can't remember what the hell was going on ten years ago. Anyone feel like digging through patch notes? I don't have time right now, might do it tomorrow if nobody has by then.

As far as I can remember dispels never removed random slotted buffs, but I started playing shortly after kunark released. It was always top-down order. I never in my life saw a dispel spell/song being resisted either.

[Bockscar]

That's what I remember too, along with seemingly just about everyone in this thread. It's odd, then, that a few sources indicate otherwise. I suppose everything has to be taken with a grain of salt, because they could be wrong just as much as us.

[Cwall]

Well that thread I linked to was about EQ Myths and then it came into a debate about how it worked.

[Palemoon]

One thing we all agree on, the dispel line should not be getting "you resisted cancel magic" type resist messages. The line just did not work that way.

The thing there is disagreement on is how the dispel line interacted with buffs and debuffs.

A) On one side we have the "memory crew" who say without fail the dispel line removed any and all buffs/debuffs in a top down order.

B) On the other side is the belief that the various dispel line spells had certain strengths attached to them, and the stronger the dispel the greater chance it would work on the first buff/debuff it came in contact with (once again top down order). BUT the first buff/debuff the dispell came in contanct with could survive the power of the dispel, and if it did, the dispel would try to remove the next slotted buff/debuff, and so on until it either successfully dispelled the number of slots it possessed in its spell description, or reached the end of the buff/dispel list.

Opinion B is supported by "memory" as stated by a few in this thread, and other points:

-the behavior of dispels on Al'kabor (2002 EQ code) matches up with Opinion B
-no record in patch notes or otherwise of dispels being changed between 1999 and 2002
-the fact that multiple dispel lines exist, of varying strengths, which would serve zero purpose if those strengths did not mean anything.
-strengths (the number in parenthesis in spell description of dispels) assigned to the various dispels as far back as we have spell data for.
-3rd party internet posts describing the behavior of dispels matching up with opinion B (linked in this thread)

All evidence points to a certain randomness when removing buffs/debuffs and its success rate. I will agree with most others in saying that the HIGHER level (strong) dispels were VERY good at killing off the first buffs/debuffs they came in contact with (top down order). And one could expect the strong (9) dispels to almost always work that way.

I will NOT agree that enchanters could run around with taper enchantment (0) and chain strip buffs and debufs in order all day long. Nor could others with cancel magic (1), or strip enchantment (1) expect flawless dispels in buff order.

Nullify Magic (4) and Pillage Enchantment (4) get a lot more reliable, but still occasionally rare failures will be seen.

When you get into the domain of Recant Magic (9), the high level enchanter spell, you will see buffs and debuffs melt away like butter, with only once in a freakish blue moon some high level buff resisting it.

And that is how it should be, and that is how it was. The EQ spell developers were not dumb.

Those of you arguing Taper Enchantment (0) can machine gun a line of raid buffs off flawlessly are delusional. Use a strong dispel, Recant Magic (9) if you want that effect.

[jilena]

Palemoon, the only defense I would use against the "random" removal of buffs by skipping over "harder to remove" buffs are the 1000 PvP guides out there outlining the importance of laying out your buff stack a certain way.

Also, from my experience playing on live for PVE I remember people having to use multiple casts of xxxx magic to remove damage shield etc on mobs. As they were not getting resist messages I would think that perhaps it had an implementation similar to disease/poison counters. I.e. Resolution being a level 44 spell might take 3 casts of cancel magic or 1 cast of nullify to remove.

[Harrison]

Dispels always removed buffs in order, in varying amounts.

Strengths of spells were added later(with "counters" like poison and disease debuffs and dots)

Aegolism was very difficult to strip, took multiple casts of most dispels.

This is how I remember it as a pvper and as a raider too. AE dispels as a raider were very common and buff orders were very important.

[jilena]

Yeah I guess I didn't make what I was saying that clear. The dispell would keep trying to remove the same buff until it was removed, with the overflow of "strength" then being applied to the next buff in the chain. If that makes better sense.

[Harrison]

That makes sense and is how I remember it clearly.

[Palemoon]

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

Strengths of spells were added later(with "counters" like poison and disease debuffs and dots)

Aegolism was very difficult to strip, took multiple casts of most dispels.

This is how I remember it as a pvper and as a raider too. AE dispels as a raider were very common and buff orders were very important.

When do you think the Cancel Magic (1) <---- strength (or number of counter remover if you will?) was added to the dispel lines? And what was the point of different dispels spells before the above strength/counter remover system was added?