what cures what type of spellsFollow

I was wondering if there was a place to find out what type of spells are and what is best to cure them. Ie:spell type - detrimental

Would be nice to find a complete guide of some sort to reference.

Edited, Jan 12th 2007 2:47pm by dreamermmm

Look at the description provided in the Spells Section.

This is for Howl of Tashan a level 61 Enchanter spell:
Description:
1: Increase Poison Counter by 1
2: Decrease Magic Resist by 48 (L61) to 50 (L64)

Indicates it is cured by cure poison. Also included are which base is needed to resist a spell. Slows are Magic Based usually, and high MR will help resist those. As said to cure them however you need to cure disease.

Spell description will also tell you if a spell us unresistable (like the Tash line of spells)

notinterested, Todem did not include the entire spell description and mentioned parts of the spell description that were not included, perhaps making you think they provided incorrect information.

Tashan line of enchanter spells are indeed magic based as far as the resist check goes, but cannot be resisted, and they add poison counters allowing you to cure it with cure poison.

All enchanter and beastlord slows check your Magic Resist, but if it lands it adds disease counters. One Shaman slow checks disease resist to see if it lands and also adds disease counters.

I think SoE made Tash and Slow add the disease and poison counters to these Magic Resist based spells so that you could strip buffs from mobs without the chance of removing the slow or Tash spells that you've already cast on it.

High poison resist won't help you resist any spell mentioned here, disease resist will only help resist that one shaman slow that they only use against highly Magic Resistant mobs.

Originally posted May 2006 so it hasn't been updated for TSS (shamelessly ripped from eqcleric.com)

0. Lists of Cures:

Disease Cures : Single
Purify Soul (CLR-AA) -- 72 disease counters (36/36).
Abolish Disease (SHM/48 BST/63) -- 36 disease counters. 6 sec, 100 mana
Crusader's Purity (PAL/67) -- 32 disease counters. 5 sec, 234 mana.
Crusader's Touch (PAL/63)-- 20 disease counters. 5 sec. 180 mana.
Pure Blood (CLR/51 DRU/52) -- 18 disease counters. 2.5 sec. 100 mana.
Aria of Asceticism (BRD/45) -- 11 to 33 disease counters base
Counteract Disease (CLR/28 PAL/56 RNG/61 DRU/28 SHM/22 NEC/36 BST/45)-- 8 disease counters. 4 sec. 50 mana.
Disinfecting Aura (SHM/52) - 10 disease counters

Disease Cures: Group
Resplendent Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 19, 22, 25 disease counters
Word of Vivification (CLR/69) -- 21 disease counters. 4.5sec, 1357 mana.
Blood of Nadox (SHM/52) -- 18 disease counters. 7.5sec, 300 mana
Word of Replenishmen t (CLR/64) -- 14 disease counters. 4.5sec, 1100 mana.
Radiant Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/PAL/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 9, 12, 16 disease counters. 3.5 sec.


Poison Cures: Single Purify Soul (CLR-AA) -- 72 poison counters (36/36).
Antidote (CLR/5 -- 64 poison counters. 3sec. 100 mana
Crusader's Purity (PAL/67) -- 32 poison counters. 5sec. 234 mana
Crusader's Touch (PAL/63)-- 20 poison counters. 5 sec. 180 mana.
Pure Blood (CLR/51 DRU/52) -- 18 poison counters. 2.5 sec. 100 mana.
Aria of Asceticism (BRD/45) – 11-33 poison counters base. 3 sec.
Counteract Poison (CLR/22 PAL/34 RNG/61 DRU/28 SHM/26 BST/61) -- 8 poison counters. 4sec. 50 mana
Disinfecting Aura (Shm/52) - 10 Poison Counters

Poison Cures: Group
Resplendent Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/PAL/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 19, 22, 25 counters. 3.5 sec.
Word of Vivification (CLR/69)-- 21 poison counters. 4.5sec, 1357 mana.
Blood of Nadox (SHM/52)-- 18 poison counters (9,9) 7.5sec, 300 mana
Word of Replenishment (CLR/64) -- 14 poison counters. 4.5sec, 1100 mana.
Radiant Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/PAL/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 9, 12, 16 poison counters. 3.5 sec.

Curse Cures : Single
Purify Soul (CLR-AA) -- 72 curse counters (36/36).
Remove Greater Curse (CLR/54 PAL/60 DRU/54 SHM/54) - 45 counters. 6sec. 100
Crusader's Purity (PAL/67) -- 16 curse counters. 5 sec. 234 mana.
Remove Curse (CLR/38 PAL/45 DRU/38 SHM/3 -- 8 counters. 5 sec. 75 mana.
Crusader's Touch (PAL/63) -- 5 curse counters. 5 sec. 180 mana.
Aria of Innocence (BRD/52) -- 4 -12 curse counters base
Curse Cures: Group
Resplendent Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/PAL/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 19, 22, 25 counters. 3.5 sec.
Word of Vivification (CLR/69) -- 14 curse counters. 4.5sec, 1357 mana.
Radiant Cure 1, 2, 3 (CLR/PAL/SHM/DRU-AA) -- 9, 12, 16 curse counters. 3.5 sec.
Word of Replenishment (CLR/64) -- 7 curse counters. 4.5sec, 1100 mana.

Detrimental Cures: Single
Pure Spirit (SHM/69)
Cleric Epic 1.5
Cleric Epic 2.0

1. Basics:

Buffs are spells that are cast on you by other players, by yourself or through a proc from a weapon that raise your statistics in any number of ways. Buffs often will block other buffs from being cast on you, knowledge of what buffs do not play together well is paramount to understanding your class. In some advanced UI’s buffs are colored blue to reflect their good or beneficial nature. Typically buffs will last for a certain amount of time and you can determine the time left until they fade by using a mouse click. Buffs can be dropped at any time by simply right clicking on them. In addition with the POR expansion you are able to block buffs from landing on yourself that are cast by others.

Debuffs are negative spells/effects that are cast by a mob and negatively impact you during a raid. Typically in advanced UI’s the debuffs will be red. Often a debuff will interact with one of your current buffs and cause it to fade. Debuffs also have a timer but you are unable to get rid of the debuff through a simple click, instead you have to cure the debuff or wait for the effect to cease.

Short Term Buff/Debuff: There is a special window for short term buff-debuffs. This window is also called the bard song window as almost all bard songs go into. It works similiary to the buff/debuff window however it is limited to 6 slots and buffs in that window fade quickly.

Buff Bar: The buff bar is a list of the buffs and debuffs that have been cast on you. This list is listed a numberical with the first buff-debuffs on the top and the most recent cast buffs-debuffs on the bottom. Again I recommend a buff bar that uses text to list the buffs, and color codes them based off beneficial and negative determinations.

Buff Order: While it’s not always possible order of your buffs is important. In may cases we will be dealing with mobs that will cast a spell that will remove one or more of your buffs. In these cases the spells remove starting from slot one and then moving down to later slots. Also when we are looking to cure a debuff, the cure will work on the first debuff you have available. For this reason its important that we have our self click buffs in the first slot, or two. These buffs can be renewed quickly and allows us to move our buffs around as needed.

2. BASIC DEBUFF CURING -- DEBUFFS WITH COUNTERS

If you look at a typical debuff (often in red) : Wind of Tashanian. We're all familiar with this debuff; it reduces our Magic Resist. A lot of people know you can cure it , however, they don't necessarily know the process behind it.

In Lucy, "Wind of Tashanian" comes up as follows:

Wind of Tashanian
1: Increase Poison Counter by 1
2: Decrease Magic Resist by 40

This tells us what the debuff does, and what counters, if any, cause the effect. Wind of Tashanian has 1 poison counter. Ergo, in order to cure it, we need to use anything that cures poison counters.

There are a host of spells at the top of this docutment that will cure this debuff. For instance you can use Counteract Poison to cure this:

Counteract Poison
1: Decrease Poison Counter by 8

Obviously, since it's removing 8 poison counters, and Wind of Tashanian is 1, Counteract Poison will cure you in one cast since 8 is > 1.

If you look up another common cure, Remove Greater Curse, it has this listed:

Remove Greater Curse
1: Decrease Curse Counter by 9
2: Decrease Curse Counter by 9
3: Decrease Curse Counter by 9
4: Decrease Curse Counter by 9
5: Decrease Curse Counter by 9

These are cumulative; RGC therefore cures 45 curse counters per cast.

Thus, in regards to Wind of Tashanian, Counteract Poison works, but Remove Greater Curse (RGC) does not, nor will it ever.

3. BASIC DEBUFF CURING -- DETRIMENTAL

Here is another common debuff: Malo

If you look up Malo in Lucy, you see this:

Malo
2: Decrease Cold Resist by 45
3: Decrease Magic Resist by 45
4: Decrease Poison Resist by 45
5: Decrease Fire Resist by 45

The absence of a "slot 1:" has to do with the logic the game uses to determine what spells of ours are overwritten. We'll discuss that later. For now, what we are concerned about is that there are no counters listed. When a debuff has no counters, it is classified simply as "Detrimental" .

This means if you cast RGC or Abolish Disease or Abolish Poison to try and cure Malo, no matter how hard you try, it won't work The only cures for Detrimental effects are:

A. Cleric 1.5/2.0 clicky
B. Radiant/Resplendent Cure (Priest AA)
C. Pureblood (Cleric AA)
D. Pure Spirit (SHM spell)
E. Dispels, such as Cancel/Nullify/Annul Magic. We'll discuss dispels separately.

Let's examine Radiant Cure 3.

Radiant Cure 3
1: Decrease Curse Counter by 16
2: Decrease Poison Counter by 16
3: Decrease Disease Counter by 16
4: Remove Detrimental(6)

Obviously, the fact that it can cure all debuff types is one reason it is such a valuable tool for healers. If you look at the fourth line, it says Remove Detrimental (6).

What does this mean?

The number of times "Remove Detrimental" is listed refers to the number of effects it can remove.

The number in the ()'s refers to the strength of the removal effect. The game makes some sort of unknown comparison between the strength rating and the debuff. Therefore, when someone casts Radiant Cure 3, they have one chance to remove a detrimental effect, at a strength of 6.

Oftentimes, it succeeds; the strength of 6 is sufficient to remove the effect. Sometimes, it fails, and the debuff remains. This sometimes confuses people. Detrimental spells have a chance to "resist". Debuffs with counters, however, always apply the curative portions. They cannot resist. This explains why we can sometimes cure an effect (like the VISH AOE) and sometimes we can’t.

4. ADVANCED DEBUFF CURING

Sometimes, we engage in fights that have multiple debuffs. Sony likes to play tricks on us so that events aren't overly straightforward. Let's take a common example: Arch Magus Vangl.

He has three AE's.

1. Mark of Death -- 14 disease counters
2. Touch of Anguish -- 30 poison counters
3. Gaze of Anguish -- 30 disease counters

These AEs are cast concurrently, so that we may have more than one on us at a time. Let's observe two scenarios.

4a. MARK OF DEATH FIRST

If Mark of Death appears higher on your buff list than Gaze of Anguish your safe, and easy to cure; why?

The order in which buffs appear on your buff bar determine the order in they are cured. The game proceeds in a linear, top-down fashion.

In this case, we can see that the order for cure checks will be this:

1. Mark of Death -- 14 disease counters
2. Gaze of Anguish -- 30 disease counters

Let's pretend you are assigned to cure someone, and you use Pure Blood. Once again, by looking at the top of this page, we see Pure Blood cures 18 disease counters and 18 poison counters on two lines.

Pure Blood
1: Decrease Poison Counter by 9
2: Decrease Poison Counter by 9
3: Decrease Disease Counter by 9
4: Decrease Disease Counter by 9

When Mark of Death is first in order, the effect is that Mark of Death is cured. The Gaze effect remains.

4b. MARK OF DEATH SECOND

Now, we've established that it checks in top-down order for curing. Lets pretend Gaze is up ahead of Mark.

This time, the order for cure checks will be this:

1. Gaze of Anguish -- 30 disease counters
2. Mark of Death -- 14 disease counters

So, what happens when you cast that Pure Blood, which cures 18 counters?

Even after two casts of Pureblood you will still have mark of Death up, and 14 counters to cure. So when your Debuffs are in the wrong order your cure personal will need THREE casts of pureblood to cure.

A simple solution so you don’t get into this situation is when gaze lands on you you click off your first buff that is in slot one, this allows the next AOE that lands on you to land in slot and be cures easily via ONE cast of pureblood.

Now, with that in mind, who remembers Uqua where no buffs could be cures, and not knowing why?

Take a peek at that nasty AOE from uqua Aura of Destruction:

Aura of Destruction
10: Increase Poison Counter by 99
11: Increase Poison Counter by 99
12: Increase Poison Counter by 99

If your debuff lands somewhere AFTER Aura of Destruction, , you would have to cure the preceding 297 poison counters on Aura of Destruction in order to cure Tash.

Mystery solved. If you wanted to be able to cure things in Uqua you needed to go in prebuffed and click off those buffs to give room for the detrimental effect to land.

One last note is that extra cure counters within a single line do nothing. Again using an example that you have Wind of Tashania cast on you plus a second poison counter that has 12 poison counters. In this instance one cast of Pureblood will not cure both buffs as purebood is listed as

Pure Blood
1: Decrease Poison Counter by 9
2: Decrease Poison Counter by 9
3: Decrease Disease Counter by 9
4: Decrease Disease Counter by 9

The first decrease poison counter will cure Tash, the extra counters are lost. The second poison counter will work agains the second debuff and if the second debuff has more than 9 counters will note cure it.


5. Resists and Debuffs:
Most AOES have a check against a specific resists. Most in the ggame are familiar with Magic, Poison, Disease, Fire, and Cold. The two that aren't always so clear are Chromatic , which checks against your LOWEST resist; and Prismatic , which checks against the AVERAGE of your resists.

Let's suppose your resists were:

415 Disease
415 Poison
428 Magic
396 Fire
390 Cold

A Chromatic resist would therefore resist against Cold, or 390.
A Prismatic resist would resist against (415 + 415 + 428 + 396 + 390)/5, or 409.

Most Debuff AOES have a check against one of these AOE, as well as a modifier to your AOE. For example, Magic-350. This means it resists against Magic, with a -350 resist modifier. Now, we do not know exactly how that corresponds to our resists. It isn't simply a matter of positive/negative, because you can resist things even when the modifier would make you "negative". Despite that, you can use the resist modifier plus your resists a a relative gauge on if you will resist a debuff. To feel relatively confident you can resist the net between your resist and the engative factor should be >150, to resist occasionally or get partial resists you should be >100. <100 and you will rarely if ever get full resists.

The most resist modifiers seem to be -150, -350, -450, and -1000. What, you say? 1000? Well, the -1000 indicates that it's essentially unresistable, so treat it as such anytime you see it. We don't know why they code some things with -1000, and some things as actually Unresistable, when they have the same net effect.

The second piece of information provided by our spell databases are how many counters the debuff has, or whether it is Detrimental. This refers to the section above and how we cure the debuff.

Let's take some examples of debuffs. If it's easier to follow, look up the name of the debuff in Lucy in another window, and walk with me through these three AE's.

RAID AE #1 : Keldovan

Packmaster's Curse
Chromatic-350
NPC Hatelist
Recast Time 30
1: Decrease Spell Damage by 20%
2: Decrease HP when cast by 800
3: Set Healing Effectiveness to -80%
4: Decrease AC by 180
5: Increase Curse Counter by 16
6: Decrease Hitpoints by 100 per tick
7: Limit: Combat Skills Not Allowed

When describing this to the raid, you might see me say the following:

Cures on Packmasters Curse: Need RGC or Crusaders on MT/SA and Healers
Buff Lowest Resists
No Hiding, Hate list only

The information the raid needs is all right there. Chromatic is lowest resist; thus, get all resists so that your lowest is as high as it can be. Since it has 16 curse counters, we know it can be cured generally with Crusader's Purity (16 counters) or Remove Greater Curse (45 counters), depending on who the dedicated curer is. If we need a specific class, it will be said.

Additionally, we know it's Hatelist-based, which means if Keldovan has aggro on you, the AE can reach you. It does not matter how far away you are; Hatelist doesn't have a range. You can be anywhere in the zone and get hit by the AOE if you get on the hate list. Alternatively you can be off to the side and NEVER get on the hate list, and therefore never get hit by the AOE. This is why sometimes the pit group on this fight never gets the AOE, because they never get on the hate list.

On a normal AOE that is not hate bissed we can use walls to hide from the AOE. In INDOOR ZONES ONLY an AOE can not go through walls, or barriers. This means we can hide behind things like ramps in the Emperor fight, or walls and do whatever we want and Never get hit by the AOE. In outdoor zones the AOE goes through everything and hiding is useless.

In addition we can look at the recast time. A recast time allows us to time some AE's. By using the timing we can start cures, we can have people hide who are low on health. Not all timers are equivalent and sometimes the AOE is proc based which means it goes off randomly and can can chain-cast, double up casting, or have varying intervals. As such, a lot of times the raid leaders will examine logs to time the recast and see whether or not we can reliably time it--and whether there's any advantage to doing so.

RAID AE #2 : MPG-Specialization

Curse of Misfortune
Magic-1000
PBAE Range 500'
Recast Time 30
1: Increase Spell Resist Rate by 100%
2: Limit: Resist(Magic allowed)
4: Decrease 1H Slashing Damage Modifier by 50%
5: Increase 1H Slashing Minimum Damage Modifier by 50%
6: Decrease 2H Slashing Damage Modifier by 50%
7: Decrease Movement by 1%
8: Decrease 7 Cap by 200
9: Increase Curse Counter by 10
10: Increase 1H Blunt Minimum Damage Modifier by 50%

Let's break this down step by step. We know that the debuff checks against Magic-1000, which at todays level of resistance is unresistable.

We see that it's a PBAE (Point Blank Area Effect), meaning it radiates out from the mob, at a range of 500'. I haven't measured, but I'll lay you odds that the entire chamber of the MPG Trials is less than 500'--which means we aren't going to be able to avoid it or run out of range.

The first two lines make it so that the mob resists all of our Magic-based spells.

Next, you see it affects slashing damage, which limits the amount of damage we do. Where it says "Decrease 7 Cap", this is why we cannot use Talisman of Fortitude in that raid—as 7 cap overwrite Fortitude's cap-raising effect. I'll let you look up Fortitude yourself. =).

We can cure this AE using RGC, due to the 10 curse counters. We can also use Resplendent Cure, or Word of Vivification. However, given how quickly the next spell is cast the cure is not worth our time.

Specialization's gimmick is that the Master of Specialization casts different debuffs that we, as a raid, are forced to react to. Thus, Curse of Misfortune is merely one of the possible debuffs we will see. That is why we have hotkeys that announce critical information for each. As another sidenote Specialization debuffs go in a specific order.

6a. BUFF STACKING - Beneficial

Buffs stack according to Slot. Damage shields are one of the easiest to decipher. There's a lot of damage shield effects, but each of them is assigned to a certain slot. Look up Storm Guard, and you will see:

Storm Guard
4: Increase Damage Shield by 27

Another Clicky may give: Shield of the Eighth
Shield of the Eighth
2: Increase Damage Shield by 8

As you see, the two of them do not have competing slots. As a result, they stack, and the damage shield would be 35.

However, the ranger spell, Guard of the Earth, reads as follows:

Guard of the Earth
2: Increase Damage Shield by 13
3: Increase AC by 49

In this case, the slot 2 from Guard of the Earth and Shield of the Eighth conflict; they will not stack, because they are both trying to fit in the same hole. Guard of the Earth, being a greater effect, will overwrite Shield of the Eighth because there is nothing in Shield of the Eighth preventing it from being overwritten.

Sometimes, spells get very complex, such as the SK self-buff, Cloak of Discord.

Cloak of Discord
1: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 3 is effect 'AC' and < 1080
2: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 6 is effect 'Damage Shield' and < 1012
3: Increase AC by 49
4: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 10 is effect 'Max Hitpoints' and < 1350
6: Increase Damage Shield by 13
10: Increase Max Hitpoints by 350

Good lord. So, I can't have any slot 6 damage shields or slot 3 AC effects--such as Guard of the Earth. However, note that it will block other spells from overwriting it. Instead of being overwritten as Shield of the Eighth was, Cloak of Discord will simply bounce Guard of the Earth. When spells have competing effects the first spell cast bounces the other.

Another easy example is the cleric and druid HP buff conflict. When clerics are alone, they run around with Conviction and Armor of the Pious. Steelcloak hates both of them.

Conviction:
1: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 3 is effect 'Max Hitpoints' and < 2787
2: Increase Max Hitpoints by 1787
3: Increase HP when cast by 1787
4: Increase AC by 94
5: Stacking: Overwrite existing spell if slot 3 is effect 'Max Hitpoints' and < 2787

Armor of the Pious
1: Increase Max Hitpoints by 563
2: Increase AC by 46
3: Increase HP when cast by 563
4: Increase Mana by 9 per tick
5: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 1 is effect 'Max Hitpoints' and < 1563

Blessing of Steeloak:
1: Increase AC by 43
2: Increase Max Hitpoints by 772
3: Increase HP when cast by 772
4: Increase Mana by 9 per tick
5: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 1 is effect 'AC' and < 1146
6: Stacking: Block new spell if slot 2 is effect 'Max Hitpoints' and < 2773

As you see, it becomes fairly complex. Steeloak conflicts with Conviction's Max Hitpoints increase in slot 2, and Conviction's greater effect means Steeloak cannot overwrite it.

Conversely, Steeloak has a specific entry so that Conviction's greater effect *won't* overwrite it and **** off druids everywhere. Likewise, Armor of the Pious and Steeloak bounce because they share the same Mana Regen in slot 4. This is the way Sony makes everyone happy, because there's nothing people hate worse than casting a buff, and having someone overwrite it. It also irritates people, such as when someone slips something like Strength of the Hunter on me and blocks me from receiving Brell's Brawny Bulwark. However, the system won't ever be perfect.

You can tell that two of the popular clicky effects don't stack, and will bounce:

Maelin's Methodical Mind
8: Increase Mana by 8 per tick
10: Increase Hitpoints by 5 per tick

Aura of Taelosia
8: Increase Mana by 7 per tick
10: Increase Hitpoints by 7 per tick

Even though both stack with the similar effect of the beastlord mana regen line.

Spiritual Dominion
5: Increase Mana by 9 per tick
8: Increase Hitpoints by 9 per tick

Epic 1.0 wizards were annoyed to find that their epic effect, Barrier of Force, did not stack with the beastlords, however.

6b. BUFF STACKING - Detrimental

Most times, it is easy to understand beneficial buff stacking. Likewise, when detrimental buff overwrite ours, they largely follow the same rules. For example, if you look up Malo on Lucy, you see this:

Malo
2: Decrease Cold Resist by 45
3: Decrease Magic Resist by 45
4: Decrease Poison Resist by 45
5: Decrease Fire Resist by 45

For beneficial buffs, it's largely dependent on an exact slot correlation. Detrimental operates that way for some buffs; for example, Protection of Seasons says this:

Protection of Seasons
1: Increase Fire Resist by 72
2: Increase Cold Resist by 72

If you look, you'll see that slot 2 for both spells have contrary agendas. Therefore, Malo overwrites Protection of Seasons.


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.



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.

CONCLUSION

Thanks for reading, and I hope this helped illuminate some of the common misconceptions about buffs, debuffs and cures.

Edited, Jan 13th 2007 2:06pm by Ailwenek