Length of Spells

[snowwhite]

Hi. How long do spells like aura and armour break last? I am now just missing defeating the zombie dragon. It feels like I get to just about almost my last move and I die. I can't afford the turn to cast aura again if I still have it.

Thanks

Snow

[aislingyngaio]

I think it lasts until the opponent use a skill to negate it.

[snowwhite]

Thanks. Is there a list of what negates what, by any chance?

I love this game. I am not a great strategist. Some of the smaller battles are knocking me around where some of the bigger are easy (so I guess I am lucky a lot of the time). So, am trying to learn some of the tools.

Snow

[DJC]

The best way to tell is by looking at the icons in the skill name or description. With enemy attacks you can only see the name, and unfortunately I cannot change the display time that it's on screen or I would make it longer.

Hopefully the elemental icons are recognizable for what they mean: fire, ice, bolt, wind, earth, water, shadow, holy. If you see an arrow pointing down next to the elemental icon that means it lowers that elemental resistance. You'll see an upwards arrow for your White Wizard's shell spells or Drakeor's Aura because they increase your resistance.

Every character is by default at normal 100% damage/healing by spells and skills. This can change when you equip stuff or spells are cast on them. There is a limit to the change amount. Equipment example: you wear a Fire Ring accessory. This will increase your fire resistance so you take 50% damage from these kinds of attacks. What if you then equip a Fire Shield? Nothing more happens, the effects do not stack. But if you equip an Ice Shield instead you then have 50% to both elements.

Now how about a battle example with spells. You cast Bolt Shell on a character. Now they only take 50% damage from Bolt attacks. What if they had a Bolt Ring equipped too? Then they absorb 100% of the damage as healing. This is a big deal in strategy, turning damage into healing can really help make battles easier. This is a very easy tactic to do with Drakeor because his Aura spell increases resistance to ALL elements. Combine that with the late-game items Elementalist Cape or Mirror Shield and cast Aura at the beginning of every battle and suddenly all elemental damage heals him.

What about reduction? Enemy spells can only reduce you to one level of resistance below what you entered battle with. So if you enter battle with no equipment element protection, and Maelstrom is cast on you, your resistance goes from 100% damage to 150%. If you were wearing a Water Ring, your resistance would drop from from 50% to 100% damage. If you cast a spell to boost your resistance, such as Water Shell, the enemy can use Maelstrom to negate that increase AND cast it again to reduce your resistance one more time making you one below what you entered battle with.

I know it's confusing and I never got around to rewriting the helper room dialog so it's still not in the game. That's also not a high priority for me in the current revision work. Really I'd like to make some sort of helper manual available from the main menu, but as long as I'm using the rm2k3 engine I want to stay away from doing any more changes that include massive dialog/word display but using static pictures.