Oblivion:Spell Stacking

Spell Stacking is a game mechanic that allows you to use Weakness to Magic to recursively boost the magnitude of spells with negative effects on subsequent spell casts, including Weakness to Magic itself. This allows for casting spells with incredibly large magnitudes relatively easily, enabling the player or a desired target to reach absurdly high stat values. While spell stacking is a game mechanic, the player's ability to apply it to themselves is not. In the latest patch, you can only apply Weakness to Magic to yourself via a spell reflecting glitch.

Instructions

For stacking spells on a target:

1. Cast an On Target or On Touch spell on the target that contains the Weakness to Magic effect. Make sure the duration is long enough that you have time to cast a second spell.
2. Cast a different On Target or On Touch spell on the target that contains another Weakness to Magic effect. The Weakness to Magic of the first spell will increase the magnitude of the second spell.
3. Repeatedly cast these two spells back and forth until you've reached your desired Weakness to Magic magnitude. If one spell wears off before the other is cast, the stack is broken.
4. Now that the target has a high Weakness to Magic, cast a payload spell containing the desired effects you would like to apply in large magnitudes to the target. The spell must have at least one negative effect for this to work.
5. The end result is that the target now has massive spell magnitudes applied to them that extend far beyond what you would normally be able to achieve.

For stacking spells on yourself:

1. Cast an On Target or On Touch spell with a Reflect Spell effect onto another creature, ideally with a magnitude of 100 points (100% chance of reflecting) and a duration long enough to cast another spell before it wears off.
2. Cast an On Target or On Touch spell on the creature that contains a Weakness to Magic effect. Make sure the duration is long enough to cast a second spell. You will notice that this spell is reflected back at you and applied to yourself instead of the creature.
3. Cast a different On Target or On Touch spell on the creature that contains another Weakness to Magic effect. The Weakness to Magic of the first spell will increase the magnitude of the second spell.
4. Repeatedly cast these two spells back and forth, reflecting the effects onto yourself off of the creature until you've reached your desired Weakness to Magic magnitude. If one spell wears off before the other is cast, the stack is broken.
5. Now that you have a high Weakness to Magic, cast a payload spell containing the desired effects you would like to apply to yourself in large magnitudes. The spell must have at least one negative effect for this to work.
6. The end result is that you now have massive spell magnitudes applied to you that extend far beyond what you would normally be able to achieve.

Additional Notes

• A summoned creature or horse is ideal for reflecting spells off of when applying the spell stacks to yourself.
• The Animation Blocking glitch may be useful for casting spells quick enough to stack them.
• Instead of having separate Weakness to Magic stacking spells and a final payload spell, you can alternatively have the Weakness to Magic and payload effects built into a single spell that you have two copies of, allowing for the same stacking effect.
• It is recommended that your payload or stacking spells contain effects that boost your magicka so that you can afford to cast all the required spells in the chain. Spell Chaining mechanics may be necessary to utilize in some cases.
• Your payload spell does not need to have a high magnitude since it will be amplified, but it is recommended that you make the duration as long as possible since this typically cannot be increased.
• Spell effects such as summon spells do not have a magnitude, so their duration is amplified instead, allowing for extremely long spell effect durations.

Mechanics

Basics

A target with a Weakness to Magic effect on them will have subsequent spells cast on them be amplified by the Weakness to Magic magnitude as long as one negative effect is present in spells being cast on them. See the section below for a list of all spells the game considers negative.

Weakness to Magic's magnitude represents the percentage any subsequent spell effects will be multiplied by when applied to the target. For the purposes of all calculations, the Weakness to Magic magnitude is 100% + Weakness to Magic Magnitude %. For example, a target with a Weakness to Magic effect of 0% on it will have a Flare 8pt spell effect applied as 8pts + (0% WeakMag * 8pts) = 8pts, i.e. 100% of its normal magnitude. A target with 50% Weakness to Magic will have a Flare 8pt spell effect applied as 8pts + (50% WeakMag * 8pts) = 12pts, i.e. 150% of its normal magnitude.

Weakness to Magic itself is a negative effect, meaning that it can affect another instance of itself. For example, a target with a Weakness to Magic effect of 200% on it will have a Weakness to Magic 50pts applied as 50pts + (200% WeakMag + 50pts) = 150pts. This then stacks on top of the 200% that was already present on the target, resulting in 350% Weakness to Magic until one of the effects wears off.

Stacking Conditions

There are several more subtle mechanics that affect when/how a spell effect will stack. For the following examples, we will use Shadowmere. We will be using the sdt and tdt 8 console commands while selecting Shadowmere to see the results of each test.

First, let's examine the following basic spell, representing a desired effect we want to stack:

Fortify Strength, for 4 points, for 120 seconds, On Touch

If we apply this spell to Shadowmere, who has a base Strength of 50, we can see that the Strength increases by 4 pts as expected. However, all subsequent casts of this spell keep Shadowmere's Strength at 54 pts, rather than stacking 4 more points each time. This illustrates a basic mechanic that casting the same spell will replace the previous instance.

Weakness to Magic, 75%, for 4 seconds, On Touch

When spell is cast repeatedly on Shadowmere, the Weakness to Magic effect stacks each time, first adding the intended 75pts. of Weakness to Magic, then adding 131pts. on the second cast. Using the formula from earlier: 75pts + (75% WeakMag * 75pts) = 131pts. from this we can see that each subsequent cast is actually being modified by the Weakness to Magic of the previous instance of the spell. When we examine this using the sdt and tdt 8 console commands while selecting Shadowmere, we can see that the spell is not actually stacking multiple instances of the effect, rather it is replacing the previous one each time after being boosted by it. This allows for linearly stacking Weakness to Magic.

Now let's try another spell, this time without Weakness to Magic in the equation:

Two small mechanics to consider are that a single instance of a spell will not stack exponentially, only linearly, and that a Weakness to Magic effect within a spell with not buff the effects in its own spell. Consider the following spells:

For example, if you have a Weakness to Magic 100% spell that you want to apply to a target twice, the second cast will overwrite the effect of the first cast, resulting in no amplification of the Weakness to Magic effect. It is for this reason that you need to have two different Weakness to Magic spells to recursively stack the amplification. They can be identical in every way aside from their name so that the game counts them as separate effects. When casting two Weakness to Magic spells back and forth, each one is amplifying the other, replacing versions of themselves with progressively more amplified ones as they overlap. If they both wear off before you can successfully cast the next one, the chain is broken and your Weakness to Magic goes back to zero, requiring the whole stack to be built up again. Due to the magicka cost associated with longer durations and starting magnitudes, spell stacks often require implementing magicka boosts on the player to enable them to cast enough instances of the spells in a row.

A calculator for Weakness to Magic stacking has been provided here.

Methods

On Self Reflect

On Self Weakness to Magic spells were originally able to be stacked on the player in v1.0, but were patched in v1.2. However, by making an On Touch/On Target spell with the desired effects and reflecting it off of another NPC or creature first, the game now considers it a spell that was cast at the player, not by the player. This results in the Weakness to Magic effect stacking correctly, making Weakness to Magic stacks on the player still possible in v1.2.

A main difference between an On Self spell and a reflected spell is how they stack. On Self spells normally replace the previous instance of themselves, while reflected spells each count as a separate effect. For example, examine this spell:

Weakness to Magic 100%, for 10 seconds, On Self

In this case, casting the spell the first time will apply the 100% Weakness to Magic effect as expected, but all subsequent casts will replace the previous version before applying the new instance of the effects. This means that the second cast would not scale up to equal 300%, nor would it linearly add on to the previous total to equal 200% since the previous effect gets removed. It would simply be 100% again. Note that this spell stacking behavior On Self is applicable to all spell effects, not just Weakness to Magic.

Enchanted Weapons

The spell effects on enchanted weapons work the same way as spells. There is no difference currently known between the two mechanics.

Using an enchanted dagger is the fastest way known to stack the same effect/s on each other in order to perform the spell stacking mechanic. Combining an enchanted dagger and different spells are the fastest way currently known to stack high values of effects since different spell/enchantment effects stack on each other exponentially, while a same effect stacks on itself linearly. This method consists in attacking an entity with an enchanted dagger and casting different spells between each attack. It works for spell stacking on other entities as well as on the player's character using a Reflect Spell effect first.

Example Spell Stacks

Here is a relatively simple example of a useful spell stack. Two copies of the following spell are made, and are designed to be used on a horse to increase its speed:

• Fortify Magicka 100 pts, 4 secs on self
• Fortify Speed 3 pts for 120 secs on touch
• Fortify Restoration 50 pts for 4 seconds on self
• Weakness to Magic 100% for 4 secs on touch

In this example, the spell is both the amplification stage and payload. When casting two copies of this back and forth, the Fortify Magicka and Fortify Restoration effects keep the player's magicka and Restoration high enough to keep the spell cheap and able to be chained together infinitely. The Weakness to Magic is the amplification effect and makes the spell contain the one required negative effect to amplify all the effects. The Fortify Speed is the payload effect, which has a maximum duration but a low magnitude that will be increased significantly each repetition of the cast.

Each cast of this spell amplifies the Weakness to Magic by another 100%, and fortifies the horse's speed by 3 pts + (x% WeakMag * 3 pts). Within less than 10 total casts, the horse can be buffed to have over 1,000 speed.

Because each copy of the spell is overwriting itself each time, the end of the spell stack results in the horse only have two active spells on it, one for each copy of the spell, both with a two minute duration. This allows the player a long time to use the payload Speed effect to travel around the map.

For more examples of spell stacks, see our progress in implementing them into map exploration.

Negative Spell Effects

Here is a list of all the spell effects in the game that are considered negative. Having at least one of these effects in your payload spell will trigger the Weakness to Magic magnitude to be applied to every effect in the spell, even positive ones.

List pending.