Discussion: "A more powerful spell is already active" and how it should be implemented for the Elysium core

[Mahtan 15]

I want to collect proofs and examples about how buff/debuff strength and their influence on buff/debuff overwriting is working in Vanilla WoW, so that we can report it in the bug tracker in the most accurate way possible.

Problem: The strength of a buff should be taken into consideration by the server to decide if a buff (and in some cases debuff) can overwrite another buff/debuff. The corresponding error message for the players client is "A more powerful spell is already active".

Example (1): Rank 2 Mark of the Wild can overwrite Rank 1 Mark of the Wild, but Rank 1 Mark of the Wild can not overwrite Rank 2 Mark of the Wild.

Example (2): Rank 2 Mark of the Wild (with 5/5 talent points spent in Improved Mark of the Wild) can overwrite Rank 2 (unskilled) Mark of the Wild, but Rank 2 (unskilled) Mark of the Wild can not overwrite Rank 2 (skilled) Mark of the Wild.

Example (3): Rank 5 Rejuvenation with +500 addheal (all healing talents skilled) can overwrite Rank 5 Rejuvenation with +0 addheal (all healing talents skilled) but Rank 5 Rejuvenation with +0 addheal can not overwrite Rank 5 Rejuvenation with +500 addheal.

Example (4): Wing Clip (60% movement speed reduction) can overwrite Concussive Shot (50% movement speed reduction) but Concussive Shot can not overwrite Wing Clip.

These mechanics are not working on Elysium in all cases, therefore correct buff/debuff overwriting is not working in all cases. You can often just overwrite a buff, which is tested for examples (1), (2) and (3), although some buffs/debuffs are working correctly (for example last Rank Demoralizing Roar can not overwrite max rank Demoralizing Shout, but I am not sure about the skilled/unskilled versions and lower rank behaviour). I can not test Wing Clip and Concussive Shot at the moment, too.

Example (1) could be replaced with any other class buff, like Power Word: Fortitude, Arcane Intellect, Paladin buffs and so on.

Example (2) could be replaced with improved versions of any other class buff that you can improve with talents, like Improved Power Word: Fortitude or improved Paladin buffs.

Example (3) could be replaced with other HoTs or healing based buffs, like Renew, Power Word: Shield or Tranquility. (note: I am not sure about Regrowth and Priest's Greater Healing with 8/8 T2, I guess they can be cast when the target has a stronger version of the HoT component, but that HoT component is not overwritten)

Example (4) could be replaced with other debuffs (but not DoTs), like Sunder Armor or Expose Armor.

 

So, why is this important? At the moment, you can buff a player with Rank 1 of a buff (for example Mark of the Wild), even if he had the max rank. Instead of getting the error message, the other player can just overwrite it. That should not be possible. Another problem are HoTs. The Priest/Druid with the highest +heal and healing talents skilled should always have priority, other players (and hybrid or offspec healers) should face the error message from time to time, when they try to overwrite (on purpose or not) a stronger Renew or Rejuvenation.

I hope you can help me with finding proofs. Feel free to comment on my examples and improve/correct them with your own formulations. If you find video proofs, then please share them!

 

Links/Sources so far

• Short discussion about HoTs in the elysium forum that started my interest in the topic.
• Therebirth, a server that has been shut down, implemented correct buff overwriting, but the old forum is deleted sadly. Their actual forum is empty regarding that fix. We could try to contact Andkem, their main developer, and try to ask him about his fix.
• note: many mechanics (like dynamic buff/debuff calculation) did not exist in classic, but "A more powerful spell is already active" did exsist. Therefore I can post these Wrath of the Lichking PvP Videos, that show the behaviour of the error message and buff/debuff overwriting. The source of this report can be found here.

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When you cast a polymorph or fear for example it's duration is 9 seconds on a player.And when you cast another poly/fear immediately after that it will override the 1st one ( which is more powerful ).That's a bug.It should say ''A More Powerful Spell Is Already Active'' ...and it should be able to land only if the duration drops to like ~5.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZzh2MzAfrs - @6:15 druid has 3 stacks of natures grasp, the paladin attacks him and gets rooted, 2 sec later paladin atacks again, 1 more stack of natures grasp is used but the paladin is still in the first root and the message "A more powerful spell is already active" is displayed (the video quality is dreadful but if you pause at the right time u can clearly see it).

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwpmJvwgvos - @2:00 the exact same thing as above happens, bad quality too... but good enough to understand what is happening.

Both videos are from wotlk retail.

Adding another movie: http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=163193

• The mechanic and error message is mentioned in the patch notes of Patch 1.6.0

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Aspect of the Cheetah/Pack - Non-damaging spells and abilities will no longer cause the dazed effect. In addition, when switching between Pack and Cheetah, you should no longer receive the "A more powerful spell is already active" error message.

• There are many complex rules, exceptions and other problems that make it almost impossible to restore everything to blizzlike. Take the behaviour of Shadowmeld and Rogue Stealth for example.

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This also works after the recent patch (1.10) where they made shadowmeld break stealth instead of displaying "A more powerful spell is already active." Enjoy all rogues and especially you VitaminC, you've helped me a whole helluva lot. =D

• There are some insights regarding debuff overwriting in this old post.

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Pure snares, anything with %reduced movement speed, are lumped under the same roof. The strongest will apply.

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With my warrior not having the max rank of sunder I have been unable to apply it to mobs with a higher rank sunder (or even expose armor I'm pretty certain). I get a similar "A more powerful spell is already in effect" message.

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Flyndar is correct, lesser debuffs will never overwrite more powerful debuffs. Equal debuffs will overwrite (this is why sunder and expose armor can overwrite each other, they're equal debuffs).

You can see this with a hunter especially. If you have two hunters and one concusive shots, the other can overwrite that with another concusive shot. If one of them does a wingclip, more powerful than concusive shot, if the other tries to concusive shot they will get a message that a more power spell is in effect. So, only equal debuffs and buffs will overwrite each other and a lesser will never overwrite a more powerful debuff or buff.

 

[Hudson 16]

As far as I know, this was a change from TBC onward. You need to find better evidence that this existed in vanilla for it to be considered a bug. The Rebirth also had summoning stones (for a while) and many other custom changes that did not reflect vanilla mechanics.

[Netherfrost 1]

Investigate the slice and dice mechanic and whether it applied to others if you were looking for evidence.

[Mahtan 15]

Rebirth had less custom changes than Elysium...

I posted a bunch of examples where the error frame is mentioned, like the 1.6 patch notes.

I can't find any evidence that the mechanic was introduced with TBC.

[Dralek 5]

4 minutes ago, Mahtan said:

Rebirth had less custom changes than Elysium...

I posted a bunch of examples where the error frame is mentioned, like the 1.6 patch notes.

I can't find any evidence that the mechanic was introduced with TBC.

In TBC there was a change for HoTs coming from different players, but I haven't found anything conclusive about different ranks or improved versions of the spell being implemented either.

Patch 2.0.1: HoTs from different sources will now stack (i.e. multiple druids can cast the Rejuvenation spell on 1 target).

http://wow.gamepedia.com/Patch_2.0.1

[Mahtan 15]

yeah, that's why classic guides mention, that the Priest/Druid with the highest +heal keeps HoTs up, the other healers were not able to override it.

 

TBC made that obsolete, different players were able to stack their HoTs. What remained was that if you activated a trinket with +heal for a HoT and then tried to override it without the trinket +heal effect, then the message appeared.

I raided as a noob Priest in retail MC and was annoyed that my Renew did not work for MTs most of the time (I collected 8/8 T0 and ignored +heal).

[Mahtan 15]

I constantly fail to find out when the error message was introduced for HoTs and buffs. I guess it is in the hands of better researchers to deal with that work.

 

Regarding "a more powerful spell is already active": It works for different ranks of HoTs on Elysium servers. So I can't override rank 2 Renew/Rejuvenation with rank 1.

Is that working as intended? If yes, then please introduce the same behaviour for buffs, too. The mechanic should be implemented consistently :p

[Pottu 290]

You cannot buff someone with a lesser version of a buff, you get that same error message. If there is a specific case where you managed to do so, please report it in our Bug Tracker.