for example, can you use the following in the same spell and have it actually increase the damage of the initial spell?

Shock Damage 25 pts for 1 sec on target
Weakness to Shock 100% for 1 sec on target

I have tried making the spell above, but i don't really see much of a difference from my 25 pt shock damage spell that doesn't include the weakness effect. Anyone have any ideas? This is with the latest patched game.

You can't increase the damage of the initial spell casting, but you can progressively increase the damage of subsequent castings this way:

Shock Damage 25 pts 1 sec
Weakness to Shock 100% for 4 secs
Weakness to Magic 100% for 4 secs

This will actually do more and more damage each time you hit something with it, as long as you hit again before the weakness from the last hit wears off.

Well, it won't do progressively more and more damage, per se. It'll do more damage the second consecutive time you cast it and it will continue to do that same bonus damage of the second hit (as compared to the first cast in the combo) every consecutive time afterward that you cast the spell.

On the other hand, if you made two identical spells (using those stats) with different names and alternated casting them, they would exponentially add damage with each consecutive cast. See spell stacking on the wiki for more information.

No, Sorry; You're Wrong.

This would be correct IF there was no Weakness to Magic in the spell. If you remove weakness to magic in that spell then it would do the same amount starting with the second cast.

However with Weakness to Magic Uncle Pain's spell will do progressively more damage. Because each hit will magnify the weakness to magic with in turn magnifies the shock and weakness to shock. So yes it will do progressively more damage.

Which means that you'd want to have the Weakness spell last much longer than just 1 sec.

Longer, though not necessarily much longer. Each successive cast of the spell replaces the previous one, so all you need is enough time to get off another cast. If you fail to get off another cast before the weakness from the previous one runs out, then the cycle breaks and you have to start over.

I like about 3 seconds myself.....

Yeah, I find that there's a pretty substantial delay - maybe a second or thereabouts - until your casting key will function again. You can't just spam the key repeatedly; you have to wait until the previous spell animation finishes.

Blocking while casting brings in a faster cast animation, and improves cast rate. Not much, though.

I see; thanks for correcting me without being smug about it. So, any previously cast weakness to magic effect is not replaced by subsequent casts of weakness to magic then? One could cast weakness to magic 100% twice and then cast another spell for 200% bonus effect as long as the effect of the second casting was still active?

(I'm guessing it stacks additively with itself for these questions; 100% being equal to 1 threw me off as I thought the effect was multiplicative of the effects of separate spells)

I guess I still don't get it.

No. The the second cast of weakness to magic completely replaces the first. However it is magnified first.

So if you have a 100% weakness to magic spell:

After the first cast the target has a 100% weakness to magic

After the second cast, the second cast is magnified by 100% and then replaces the first cast. So you get nothing from the first cast but 200% weakness from the second cast.

After a third cast of the same spell, the 200% from the first cast magnifies the third cast from 100 to 300%. Then the third cast replaces the second. So at the edn of the third cast you get nothing from the first and second casts but 300% from the third.

****

However if you create two different spells lets call them A and B, each with 100% weakness to magic

After casting spell A the opponent has 100% weakness to magic

Then casting spell B gives the opponent 100% weakness to magic from the Spell A and 200% from spell B (because it was magnified by spell A) and both are still in effect so your target has a total of 100+200=300% weakness to magic.

Then if you cast spell A again the second cast is magnified by 300% to 400% and then replaces the first cast of spell A. The 300% from Spell B is still in effect. So now the target has 400% from the second cast of spell A and 300% from spell B for a total of 700% weakness to magic.

So if I were to try and tell you what I got from this: weakness to magic is purely additive and multiple uses are therefore at maximized efficacy using two (and no more) separate spells?

By the way, thanks, Savlian. You've always given me good information (any input on the absorb glitch that I posted http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1182704-permanently-increase-your-intelligence-1000/?).

No sorry. I know its a bit confusing to understand. It's not really additive. Because the second cast of the same spell always replaces the first. But weakness to magic is special, because a weakness to magic spell is itself magic, and so can amplify itself before replacing. So if you have 100% weakness to shock and cast it twice the first replace the second and you end up with 100% weakness to shock. But with 100% weakness to magic on the second cast the first magnifies the second to 200 and then replaces the first. So it ends up with 200. But it's really not 100 (first cast) +100 (second cast); it more like 0 (first cast) + 2x100 (second cast). Again sorry if this is confusing.

More than two separate spells can help. If you have spells named A, B, and C each with 100% weakness to magic, and you cast A, B, C (all within the time limit) then you get

100 from spell A
200 from spell B
600 from spell C (magnified to 200 by spell A then again by 200% TO 600 by spell B)

For a total of 900% weakness to magic.

If that's confusing just look at it this way: weakness to magic is expensive but very powerful if casts repeatedly and casting different spells is often better than casting the same one repeatedly.



I didn't really look at that thread yet. I usually stay away from glitches. I don't even use the telekinesis glitch on Atronach characters.

No, I get that the effect is replaced. I'm speaking specifically about the effect being additive by magnitude, not the spell. I guess the term is confusing. What I mean by additive is that the magnitude is not multiplied, it's added.

I.e. +100% of 600% is 1200% or 6 + (1 x 6) = 12, but as you describe the game would add +100% to 600% which is 700% or 6 + 1 = 7. It's either additive or perhaps it's multiplicative of the base effect [ 6 + (1x1) = 7 ] and not the sum total effect. This is confusing because the total adjusted magnitude then multiplies the magnitude of other subsequent spells (+400% of 15 damage = 15 + 60 damage, right?).

Or maybe I'm understanding this all wrong. I've gone back to the wiki and looked at the spell stacking page and found some testing in the discussion page about single spell weakness to magic stacking and it seems to convey the idea that the effect magnitude is additive for weakness to magic stacking.

If the effect magnitude were multiplicative of the sum total it should look like this when chained:

Spell: weakness to magic 100%, 4 sec

Cast 1: 100%
Cast 2: 200% = 100% + (100% of 100%)
Cast 3: 400% = 200% + (100% of 200%)

If the effect is additive, cast 3 is actually only 300% and cast 4 would be 400% (not 800%). What's confusing me right now is the addition: what gets added?

You said above that:



But there wasn't 300% from spell B in effect; it was 200% wasn't it? Shouldn't it be:

Cast 1 ( spell A ) - A 100%
Cast 2 ( spell B ) - B 200%; A 100% = 300%
Cast 3 ( spell A ) - A 400%; B 200% = 600%
Cast 4 ( spell B ) - B 700%; A 400% = 1100%

...or am I missing something here?



Now that's confusing, too. I don't understand the 600% from spell C.

Cast A total 100% = A 100%
Cast B total 300% = B 200%; A 100%
Cast C total 700% = C 400%; B 200%; A 100%

Isn't C equal to 400% because of adding the previous two effects collectively into the C effect: i.e C+( A+B ) = 400%? Or is it done separately: i.e. ( C+A ) + ( C+B ) = 500%?

In any case, I'd think that there would be a point of diminishing returns as more and more spells were used, because the magicka cost needed for the duration necessary in order to cast multiple spells would become inefficient (despite the casting of all of these separate spells being unwieldy).

Just so you know this is probably the most confusing thing I've written, as I'm not exactly knowledgeable about number jargon. So I apologize for both the length and the complexity (but I've looked it over several times).



The glitch isn't really the point of that thread. The point was to make absorb spells more useful in spite of their inefficient magicka cost. My intention was to create an incredibly high magicka pool that could last, at the point of restoration skill mastery, for the longest duration (120 sec) of the absorb spell by having a summons act as a tethered magicka (by way of intelligence) battery. There were obvious limitations associated with the absorb tether, so it worked best as an immobile way of casting several powerful buff spells. The glitch was an unfortunate by-product. However, this glitch now seems not as permanent as I originally thought as the effects disappeared from my test save and further testing shows that the permanent effects do not always occur. I think I misled people with the wording of the original post (from the excitement that came with the proof of concept - in spite of the problematic glitch).

Sorry for my smugness - I was ticked off about something here in meatspace, and I shouldn't have broadcast the negativity. Sorry also for not offering any explanation of why; Weakness to Magic's self stacking property is the key to making a self amplifying spell, though it looks like that's been very well explained by other members.



It's... a pretty good casting speed increase, actually. Normal casting speed is just about 2 seconds, but block-casting reduces that to about 1 second. Makes sneak-killing with spells a lot easier, if your target requires more than 1 hit.

I like to enchant a dagger with like 100% magic resist reduction for like two secons. By the time you cast one spell you hit 3-4 times with the dagger. Knock them down for just one sec with paralyze or sneak up with invis/camo. Slash, slash, slash, nuke 50 fire/frost/shock touch spell = close to a thousand damage in about 2 seconds.

No worries, we all have our moments. For what it's worth, thanks for the humility.