Spells: Reoccurring Amnesia Broken

[cubiczar]

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

I've been busy lately and I'm just recalling from memory, perhaps I'm wrong. But to say the spell description alone is evidence is not solid proof (the spell 'memory blur' is only a chance to succeed, doesn't mention that in the spell title), and that comment about constantly seems like just speculation on how it should work without in field control tests.

I agree though that unless evidence is found it stops after a successful blur it should have a chance to blur 4 out of 4 ticks (even after successful blur).

Really? You should really read the whole thing first then comment.

THE PLANE BUSTER SPELL, By Carbon puppetmaster - rodcet nife (1/28/2001)

Since Verrant has fixed this spell, it is one of the best spells enchanters posses. It makes crowd control a breeze. In the past, most enchanters had to lead with tash on high level mobs to make an alluire or dazzle stick. This of course agros the hell out of the mob and we spend the next 10 seconds or so hoping that someone taunts the mob off us or getting lucky and get a dazzle or allure off; otherwise we are dead (even with good clerics in ones group). This spell buys us the time to get our dazzle or allure off. Lead wtih RA, then tash, mob agros, hits you once or twice, mezzes, and you hit with allure or dazzle. Get resisted, no biggy, take another one or two hits, and try again (repeat until the allure or charm sticks). I have utilized this technique in HATE with amazing results. Puller snags two clerics and a golem usua;;y means trouble! Not in this case, just apply above mentioned to clerics while tanks deal with golem and you will have to clerics staring out into space! The best part is the little damage we take! I suggest my fellow enchanters give it a try. Going to use in a fear breakin latter this weekend, should make for interesting results.

Again take note of the bold section. Not sure why you are set on this spell not ever working as written in the spell description but the in era evidence suggests that at some point it worked as described. The evidence is not just the spell description but someone talking about a very specific situation (and zone) in which they have used it in a very specific manner with multiple blurs happening on one cast.

[Rygar]

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

Again take note of the bold section. Not sure why you are set on this spell not ever working as written in the spell description but the in era evidence suggests that at some point it worked as described. The evidence is not just the spell description but someone talking about a very specific situation (and zone) in which they have used it in a very specific manner with multiple blurs happening on one cast.

Listen, I don't like your tone. I'm trying to be civil here and admitted that I am recalling from memory and if I'm wrong I'll admit that and in absence of evidence allow multiple successful blurs.

That guy is making it seem like the blur has a 100% chance per tick to wipe, it is why I said lack of a controlled test by seeing multiple successful blurs on an orc pawn or something to that effect, not in a chaotic raid scene where all kinds of crazy are happening.

[Rygar]

So I took a quick look at one of my resources and thus far only found this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc25.shtml
1/29/2001

Reoccurring Amnesia: The reports are pretty overwhelming, this spell does not reoccur.

Seems to contradict earlier comments which claim they were reoccurring, which was commented on 1/28/2001.

Not sure exactly when that post was made (EQVault posted it, not sure if it was a few days later or anything).

Will try and look into it more tonight.

[Para99]

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

So I took a quick look at one of my resources and thus far only found this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20010822...ve/arc25.shtml
1/29/2001


Seems to contradict earlier comments which claim they were reoccurring, which was commented on 1/28/2001.

Not sure exactly when that post was made (EQVault posted it, not sure if it was a few days later or anything).

Will try and look into it more tonight.

July is quite a while after January 29th

A FEW THINGS..., By Vokos (7/22/2001)

First off, Carbon obviously has no idea what he's talking about... with duration and recast both 24 seconds, you cannot keep this on multiple mobs.
Second, note it says 'will cast a memory blur'. Not 'will memory blur.' So, it's essentially like casting the same old crippled Memory Blur on the target every six seconds.

I would also say that's secondhand information, while the Casters Realm posts are first hand. We have no way to know if that guys "reports" were from 2 hours before he posted it or 2 years. There is no dispute it wasn't reoccurring at one point before January 2001.

[cubiczar]

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

Listen, I don't like your tone. I'm trying to be civil here and admitted that I am recalling from memory and if I'm wrong I'll admit that and in absence of evidence allow multiple successful blurs.

That guy is making it seem like the blur has a 100% chance per tick to wipe, it is why I said lack of a controlled test by seeing multiple successful blurs on an orc pawn or something to that effect, not in a chaotic raid scene where all kinds of crazy are happening.

Ok point taken, reading that last post back sounds more snarky than it did in my head. Sorry about that, just seems to me though with multiple posts claiming it works and then just memory of something saying it doesn't work you should default to the evidence in hand. The real question is there any patch notes about it? Seems like maybe it would be around the January 2001 mark given the statement that they "fixed it".

[Rygar]

So I'm digging into this further, the main comment that is convincing everyone here is this one:

THE PLANE BUSTER SPELL, By Carbon puppetmaster - rodcet nife (1/28/2001)

Since Verrant has fixed this spell, it is one of the best spells enchanters posses. It makes crowd control a breeze. In the past, most enchanters had to lead with tash on high level mobs to make an alluire or dazzle stick. This of course agros the hell out of the mob and we spend the next 10 seconds or so hoping that someone taunts the mob off us or getting lucky and get a dazzle or allure off; otherwise we are dead (even with good clerics in ones group). This spell buys us the time to get our dazzle or allure off. Lead wtih RA, then tash, mob agros, hits you once or twice, mezzes, and you hit with allure or dazzle. Get resisted, no biggy, take another one or two hits, and try again (repeat until the allure or charm sticks). I have utilized this technique in HATE with amazing results. Puller snags two clerics and a golem usua;;y means trouble! Not in this case, just apply above mentioned to clerics while tanks deal with golem and you will have to clerics staring out into space! The best part is the little damage we take! I suggest my fellow enchanters give it a try. Going to use in a fear breakin latter this weekend, should make for interesting results.

The legitimacy of this post is really called into question because of Dev interview comments on 1/29/01:

Reoccurring Amnesia: The reports are pretty overwhelming, this spell does not reoccur.

Later poster calls him out on the recast timer not being able to sustain on 2 mobs as he claimed to do:

A FEW THINGS..., By Vokos (7/22/2001)

First off, Carbon obviously has no idea what he's talking about... with duration and recast both 24 seconds, you cannot keep this on multiple mobs.
Second, note it says 'will cast a memory blur'. Not 'will memory blur.' So, it's essentially like casting the same old crippled Memory Blur on the target every six seconds.

Some very late commentary I found seems to imply this is still broken in 2006 and a sucky spell:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=194

Jan 12 2006
This spell memblurrs 25% initially, and does nothing for the remaining time it is on the creature. The spell description shows it only memblurrs 25%, it does not reoccur, like the title suggests. This spell has never worked as intended, and most likely never will.

In regards to the 25% memblur (which the wiki page lists and most likely is not accurate), this Carbon makes it seems like every tick is going to work and you only re-aggro with spells. However, old Lucy history shows this used to be a terrible 1% mem blur chance in the old spdat.
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhist...94&source=Live

2002-03-19 05:50 Changed Slot 1 from "Memblur(1%)" to "Memblur(25%)"

This 1% value was referenced in my other links previous in the page, which by Dec 2002 had the higher values mentioned as well on the page:

Reoccurring Amnesia - Reoccurring mem blur, like a mem blur dot. Very odd hatelist behaviour when it suddenly works late in the fight. Medium odds of it working (maybe 50%), for 100 mana.

Note that the percent chance of it working I gave is -not- counting resists. If the spell lands at all, it still frequently doesn't do a damn thing. I've actually had
nearly as good luck clearing aggro with mez as any blur line spell. They give percentages on lucy, with mezzes varying from 1-2% and mem blurs varying from 10-30

At the time of that post the SPDAT was a 25% per pulse, and often (assuming it was pulsing) would not work at all. If our in era SPDAT is 1-2%, it would certainly explain why it would hardly be working even if it pulses 4 ticks. I'll try and obtain a legit copy of the SPDAT for the value (I'm assuming the dev team has one anyways).

In other words, this Carbon guy seems like he read up on the spell and made himself out to be this amazing plane buster enchanter but was called out on a lot of falsehoods in his story.

Even so, other commentary implies it 'works on seafury cyclops' but 'doesn't work in hate' (if true, another strike against Carbon the Plane buster), other people saying around 1/28/01 that it now works, yet documentation that it was still broken after this or a terrible success rate. Perhaps it was buggy, perhaps it worked for a short time but got broke again, not absolutely sure.

All I know is I'm not seeing a lot of praise for this spell even out of era after the 25% chance to blur, so even if fixed to allow multiple successful blurs (I couldn't find that interview), the odds would be so low I can't imagine you'd want it in your spell line up.

[Para99]

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

So I'm digging into this further, the main comment that is convincing everyone here is this one:


The legitimacy of this post is really called into question because of Dev interview comments on 1/29/01:


Later poster calls him out on the recast timer not being able to sustain on 2 mobs as he claimed to do:


Some very late commentary I found seems to imply this is still broken in 2006 and a sucky spell:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/spell.html?spell=194


In regards to the 25% memblur (which the wiki page lists and most likely is not accurate), this Carbon makes it seems like every tick is going to work and you only re-aggro with spells. However, old Lucy history shows this used to be a terrible 1% mem blur chance in the old spdat.
http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spellhist...94&source=Live


This 1% value was referenced in my other links previous in the page, which by Dec 2002 had the higher values mentioned as well on the page:


At the time of that post the SPDAT was a 25% per pulse, and often (assuming it was pulsing) would not work at all. If our in era SPDAT is 1-2%, it would certainly explain why it would hardly be working even if it pulses 4 ticks. I'll try and obtain a legit copy of the SPDAT for the value (I'm assuming the dev team has one anyways).

In other words, this Carbon guy seems like he read up on the spell and made himself out to be this amazing plane buster enchanter but was called out on a lot of falsehoods in his story.

Even so, other commentary implies it 'works on seafury cyclops' but 'doesn't work in hate' (if true, another strike against Carbon the Plane buster), other people saying around 1/28/01 that it now works, yet documentation that it was still broken after this or a terrible success rate. Perhaps it was buggy, perhaps it worked for a short time but got broke again, not absolutely sure.

All I know is I'm not seeing a lot of praise for this spell even out of era after the 25% chance to blur, so even if fixed to allow multiple successful blurs (I couldn't find that interview), the odds would be so low I can't imagine you'd want it in your spell line up.

That post you linked says he wrote it the day before, so it was written on 1/28/01 at the latest. We can say with certainty the reports he was basing that comment off of were from no later than 1/28/01, but again we have no idea if he was talking about it being broken 2 hours before he typed that up or 2 years. There is no possible way to know.

That's not the main comment that convinces me, four different people saying it was fixed is what convinces me. Two different people specifically say "Verant has fixed this spell". I could get the argument for one person, not four.

Seafuries have a small aggro range compared to planar mobs. If you are standing near a mob when it blurs it immediately reaggros and breaks the blur. That is likely what was happening to the second guy.

A person saying 6 months later it was casting "4 crippled memory blurs" solidifies that it wasn't broken again. If you read the comments for any memory blur people mostly thought they sucked because they thought it was dumb they didn't always work, there was no message that said if they were "resisted"(didn't work), and they didn't really get the usefulness of them.

What we have:
4 first hand comments from 1/28/01 or later saying it was fixed and worked
1 dev comment based on second hand information from 1/28/01 or before saying it was broken with no idea what time frame he was referencing.

Lucy data isn't full proof. There is probably 20 comments from Casters Realm forums saying Glamour of Kintaz was able to mez level 56/57 mobs in 2001, specifically Seb Juggs and the higher level Myconid but Lucy data doesn't have it being able to mez mobs over 55 until 7/24/2002. I would make a bug report about GoK but I haven't got around to spawning Undertaker Lord to make sure it's broken on P99 based on that wrong spell data since I found those comments, though I'm pretty sure it is.

[Rygar]

I keep searching for the smoking gun, curious how every comment was around 1/28/01. Perhaps there was a dev comment about 'oh by the way we fixed this last patch, forgot to mention it'. There are no patch notes about a fix before then. Initially people sing high praises, but then later people say the spell is unreliable and sucks.

5/14/01:

Mem Blur doesn't. Well, not always. In fact, it fails way too often (in my
experience, 1/3 to 1/2 of the time). Mez has a better and better shot of
mem blurring as you get your new mezzes. Reoccurring Amnesia (level 44 or
49, I forget) isn't much better than level 12 or 16 Mem Blur.

I guess, I'm willing to believe it was fixed to pulse properly (4 ticks) around this 1/28/01 date, however I think there may have been a bug where it was working too good (i.e. 100% chance or damn near during the duration), and it was nerfed to a lower percentage. There is just too much mid-to-late and post velious commentary about this spell not being worth memorizing.

In regards to lucy data being off and being crappy like mem blur line because of no message, I thought Reoccurring Amnesia gives you that message? Seen logs post about 'soandso blinks a few times' when it succeeds. So either that doesn't fly or in era it never had the success message.

I'll see what I can come up with in obtaining an old spell SPDAT for reoccurring amnesia, I've never done that kind of thing so have to figure that out.

[Para99]

Rygar, you should read this post so you'll have a better understanding of how memblur's are/should be calculated. The 1% is misleading. https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=250990

The calculation of a 1% blur

Example 3: let's use a max level Illis Froglok in Sebilis, when using level 4 Mesmerize, and again 255 CHA.

1. Level Component for level 53+ mob = 25%
2. Raw Value for Memory Flux = 1%
3. Charisma Calculation for 255 CHA = (255-150)/10 = 10.5%
Sum = 25+1+10.5 = 36.5% Chance your Level 4 (or any mez due to them all having a 1% memblur) should roll a success and blur a target.

Assuming it is 1% for RA on P99 and we were testing it only against level 53+ mobs, it should still have almost a 40% chance of success on each role if cast by a 255 CHA Enchanter. I've tested it against level 2-53 mobs and it blurs instantly and stops. On mobs on the lower end of that scale it should have 100% success rate on every tick, just like feign death always memblurs low level mobs.


Very few Enchanters on Live thought it was valuable to have 200+ CHA, but a few did. Maybe the plane buster had 255 CHA and was casting it on level 49 planar mobs, lower level Clerics of Innoruuk, while the guy farming seafuries after level 49 using a summoned pet had 120 CHA and was casting it on level 53+ mobs like higher level Fear gorillas. Again, we have no way to know.

TLDR - Even if this was a memblur 1% chance 4 out of 4 ticks it would be useful.

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

In regards to lucy data being off and being crappy like mem blur line because of no message, I thought Reoccurring Amnesia gives you that message? Seen logs post about 'soandso blinks a few times' when it succeeds. So either that doesn't fly or in era it never had the success message.

It says that regardless if it works or fails, all memory blurs do. The complaint was that it didn't say "Soandso doesn't blink a few times, he remembers you". It gave the same message no matter what. The only way to see if a blur worked is 1) invis/ivu if applicable 2) Out of combat regen if applicable 3) see if the mob still wants to kill you. That applies to all blurs.

[Baylan295]

Originally Posted by Para99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rygar, you should read this post so you'll have a better understanding of how memblur's are/should be calculated. The 1% is misleading. https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=250990

The calculation of a 1% blur



Assuming it is 1% for RA on P99 and we were testing it only against level 53+ mobs, it should still have almost a 40% chance of success on each role if cast by a 255 CHA Enchanter. I've tested it against level 2-53 mobs and it blurs instantly and stops. On mobs on the lower end of that scale it should have 100% success rate on every tick, just like feign death always memblurs low level mobs.


Very few Enchanters on Live thought it was valuable to have 200+ CHA, but a few did. Maybe the plane buster had 255 CHA and was casting it on level 49 planar mobs, lower level Clerics of Innoruuk, while the guy farming seafuries after level 49 using a summoned pet had 120 CHA and was casting it on level 53+ mobs like higher level Fear gorillas. Again, we have no way to know.

TLDR - Even if this was a memblur 1% chance 4 out of 4 ticks it would be useful.



It says that regardless if it works or fails, all memory blurs do. The complaint was that it didn't say "Soandso doesn't blink a few times, he remembers you". It gave the same message no matter what. The only way to see if a blur worked is 1) invis/ivu if applicable 2) Out of combat regen if applicable 3) see if the mob still wants to kill you. That applies to all blurs.

I will confirm that blur mechanics on this server (and as I recall them on live) make it extremely difficult to know if something has been blurred. There are techniques, as Para indicates above, but there are no logs or other clear indicators one way or the other which would confirm that a blur was successful. My p99 experience on blurs is that green mobs are practically a 100% chance to blur. I can’t recall and instance where they weren’t blurred.

I’ll also say that in the absence of compelling evidence that a spell was “classically broken”, we should strive for spells that work as intended.

Maybe the devs will disagree, but I’ve yet to see convincing evidence that the spell was broken as of 1/28/01 in the timeline, and would argue that the spell should work as Para has outlined in this thread. Also, I look forward to using it in TOV to goalie 😂