I would make a bug post about this but I really have no clue what's going on. I got hit by Ventani's slow in ST, and I had already burned my pumice stone dispelling Nexona's AE. No problem, I thought. I had cleverly left a slot open near the top for it (2nd slot IIRC) and I could dispel it with my Staff of Null. I was slowly dispelling and redoing my clickies and getting nowhere: [Wed Mar 21 20:30:44 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:30:44 2018] The maelstrom fades away. [Wed Mar 21 20:30:54 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:30:54 2018] Your shielding fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:13 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:13 2018] The maelstrom fades away. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:23 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:23 2018] Your shielding fades. So at this point I stopped even trying to use clickies and just see if I could dispel it. Keep in mind Freezing Breath was above ALL of this stuff: [Wed Mar 21 20:31:34 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:34 2018] You have stopped regenerating. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:45 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:45 2018] Your shielding fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:57 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:31:57 2018] The maelstrom fades away. [Wed Mar 21 20:32:07 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:32:07 2018] Your shielding fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:33:54 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:33:56 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:33:56 2018] The predator's spirit departs. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:05 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:05 2018] The soft breeze fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:06 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:06 2018] Your summer haze clears. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:14 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:14 2018] Your aegolism fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:22 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:22 2018] The aura of purity fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:29 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:29 2018] Your visions fade. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:37 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:46 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:46 2018] Your divine strength fades. [Wed Mar 21 20:34:53 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:35:01 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:35:08 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:35:16 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. [Wed Mar 21 20:35:24 2018] You feel a bit dispelled. So at this point it had survived 18 cancel magic attempts. I gave up and went back to business and just ignored the AE because w/e: [Wed Mar 21 20:35:30 2018] An icy cold shoots through your body, slowing your movements. You have taken 750 points of damage. [Wed Mar 21 20:36:38 2018] You feel annulled. No message in the log (seems correct, for w/e reason Verant didn't add one) but this took it off. My understanding is that there is some sort of counter system where Annul (9 counters) is more powerful than Cancel Magic (1 counter) but I would think that 20 casts would be sufficient to make something happen. It was certainly enough to dispel every other buff on my bar.
I think the server and client sometimes have different ideas of where bard songs fall in your buff order. I've occasionally had a buff or debuff appear (client-side) to fill a top slot that was recently vacated by a fading bard song, then not get dispelled (server-side) until I got to the very bottom of my buff stack. Were there bard songs at play for you guys?
Oh, rereading Raev's example, it looks like that wasn't the issue. Something about the 'strength' of Cancel Magic being too weak compared to the 'strength' (in spdat) of Ventani's AE? I feel like Haynar wrote this mechanic up in detail somewhere.
I believe this is the thread for reference, "https://www.takproject.net/forums/index.php?threads/dispel-functionality.6859/" Maybe I just need to re-read it in order to understand the mechanic better.
Well, can you explain what is going on a bit more detail? What is confusing me is that I thought each cast of cancel magic would remove 1 counter worst case. Since no debuffs have more than 9 counters, in my mental model it should take 1-9 casts to remove, so something is not what I expected.
There are no counters. But its a chance to remove a buff. I will pull the equations from code and post in more detail.
Remember it does not matter the order of buffs. If a spell is new or useful dispel skips all junk buffs and goes straight for them.
Our code is based off work Kayen did on EQEmu with a few changes, and adding taper enchantment support. It starts at top. And will do its % chance on each spell til one is removed. Base chance is 50%. Each level diff, caster vs level of npc/pc who cast buff is +/-5%. Taper Enchantment Cancel Magic(0) - instead of removing buff, it cuts remaining duration in half on success. Cancel Magic(1) = +5% Cance Magic(4) = +20% Cancel Magic(9) = +45% Chance caps at 5% min and 95% max.
OK, so Ventani has 10 levels on me, which nullifies the base chance and gives me a 0% chance to land. Then I get 5% per counter, so 5% for Cancel Magic to land and 45% for Annul. And the pumice needs 5 tries on average. Sucks to be us PCs I guess. Thanks Haynar.
It sounds like casting Annul Magic and reapplying clickies after the debuff but before buffs and rinse/repeat might work.
If it fails to remove the first buff it goes on two second buff and tries to remove it. A single cast will go thru all buffs until one is removed. Yes. This approach will have a better chance at removing the debuff if its first. However. Annul magic does effect x2. So you need 2 junk buffs after the debuff. And they need recast between attempts.
The level difference is less punishing (though Pearl Destroyers still really suck if you're using Nullify instead of Annul), but knights have to do this basically all the time in ToV because of Thunderblast. Empty, empty, junk, junk junk, cheap buffs, expensive buffs! I can't wait for Luclin.
Yes - many of our tanks have complained that dispells didn't purge their top-slot Thunderblasts for months, and after seeing this post, we surmised that the ones who were having issues were using Cancel Magic, and the ones that had no problems dispelling it were using Annul Magic.
My math was off because I wasn't counting the extra casts. So: vs Ventani (+10 levels): Cancel magic 5%, Nullify Magic 20%x2 = 36%, Annul = 45%x2 = 70% vs Sky Drake (+3 levels): Cancel Magic 40%, Nullify Magic 55%x2 = 80%, Annul = 80%x2 = 95% So Cancel Magic should be working just enough vs Thunder Blast to keep them frustrated.
