Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

[Snowball]

Getting ready to fight the dragon in Giddeus, (mission 2-3, for which there were 4 of us) I started casting some of my ra spells, and 1 player in our group noticed something and said that a couple of my spells didn't stack. I didn't really notice this, since I was too busy casting. Anyway, I'm a little unsure what is meant by "stacking" with spells. It might just be something I learnt of a while back and now, I just forgot what it's about.
I have experinced this thing (as a WHM) where I have had to cast Sneak and invis to go into a high LvL area, (for e.g. - I had to search for a key item - key, while going into Castle Oztroja at LvL 30 to do the quest for the "Star Onion Brigade") but I find that you have to cast (and please feel free to correct me here if I have this the wrong way round) sneak first, before invis, otherwise the little icon doesn't show up at the top of the screen, and you don't gain one of the effects unless you cast them in the correct order. Is that what stacking is about?
I know that WHM and BLM have a lot of spells (not forgetting RDM and BLM too, but I don't use those jobs really since I just want to concentrate on the 2 mage jobs I have already) and I'm interested in trying to learn which ones stack and which ones don't.
Is there a possible guide or information somewhere on this kind of thing?
I hope this isn't something I'm supposed to have searched other FFXl sites for, because I have had a look around, and I can't find anything related to this.
Infact I'm not really sure what type of thing to search for. A key word, or what?
Maybe someone else could give me better help than I can find, and I would much appreciate it too.

[Taskmage]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

There's not really a guide anywhere, it's just something most people figure out through experience.

You're probably referring to resistance spells with the Giddeus example right? There are two groups of resistance spells: elemental resistance spells (Barfira, Barwatera, Barthunder, etc) and status resistance spells (Barsleepra, Barsilencera, Barpoisonra, etc). You can only have one spell from each group on at a time. If you already have Barfire on and cast Barwatera, you will get the Barwater effect and lose the Barfire.

With sneak and invis, the issue is that any action including casting a spell will cancel invisible status, so it always has to be cast last.

[Caspian]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

You are right about invis and sneak. If you do anything, invis will wear, this includes recasting sneak. Anytime you lose sneak, you'll have to cancel invis and recast both. This goes for the invis and sneak spells, powders and oils, and Tonko spells.
This is, however, different than the type of spell stacking that occurs most other times. I know the DoT spells often used will only stack with certain other spells of the same type. (Dia, Bio, Poison, Choke, Shock, etc.) I can't remember what they all are, nor which of the bar spells stack together, if any at all. I'd suggest looking up individual spells in the wiki pages, or waiting for someone who plays a mage job to answer those questions more specifically.

And TM beat me to it. ><

[Theyaden]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

This is, however, different than the type of spell stacking that occurs most other times. I know the DoT spells often used will only stack with certain other spells of the same type. (Dia, Bio, Poison, Choke, Shock, etc.) I can't remember what they all are, nor which of the bar spells stack together, if any at all. I'd suggest looking up individual spells in the wiki pages, or waiting for someone who plays a mage job to answer those questions more specifically.

And TM beat me to it. ><

Bio and Dia cancel each other out. Poison with stack with either of those and all 3 do damage over time so they will prevent sleeping the mob.

Dia will lower the mobs defense resulting in faster kills which is why XP parties want this one.

Bio: lower the monsters attack reducing the speed it can hurt the tank, but casting it when there is already a dia going tends to result in yelling from pt members since it slows the killing down when it cancels Dia.

Choke: lowers monsters vitality and does damage (Preaty sure it was vitality, but it's been awhile since my blackmage has been leveling)

Shock: lowers magic resistance blackmages fire this tword the beginning of a fight to imporve their nukes usually, but at least before a MB is being geared up

Choke and Shock stacked if my memory serves if I'm wrong on this please let someone correct me here.

[Icemage]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

You can have all of the following effects active on you simultaneously:

Signet OR Sanction
One version of Protect
One version of Shell
Two Bard Songs/Corsair Rolls per player that is producing the effect.
One Spikes-type effect (Blaze Spikes, Ice Spikes, etc.)
One Stoneskin-type effect (Stoneskin, Metallic Body, Diamondhide, Earthen Ward)
One Blink-type effect (Third Eye, Blink, Utsusemi)
One MP refresh effect (juice, Refresh)
One HP regen effect (juice, Regen)
One Bar-element effect
One Bar-status effect
One En-spell effect
One Food effect
One Medication effect
One Reraise effect
One modifier for each stat (up/down) - such as that given by Fenrir's Ecliptic Growl, or Absorb-Stat spells.
One Dedication effect.
One additional ongoing effect per Enchanted Item that you've used, such as High Breath Mantle.
Deodorize, Sneak, Invisible, Aquaveil, and Haste
One effect per job ability you've activated recently (Divine Seal, Warcry, Berserk, Boost, Soul Voice, whatever).

I'm sure there's probably a few other positive buff effects you can stack that I've missed, but I think that's most of them.

As for negative effects:

One Poison effect
One Sleep effect
One Paralyze effect
One Slow effect
One Silence effect
One Blind effect
One Gravity effect
One Flash effect
One Petrify effect
One Virus/Plague effect
One Curse/Bane effect
One Stun effect
One Terror effect
One Elegy effect
One Threnody effect
One Flash effect
One Stat-down effect per stat
One Bio/Dia effect (search the BLM forum for this discussion on how this works if you don't know how these interact)
Up to 3 elemental enfeebles like Choke (again, search the BLM forum for elemental enfeeble discussions if you want to know how this works)


Icemage

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

Bio and Dia cancel each other out.

That makes it sound like casting Bio on top of Dia will result in removing Dia, but leaving nothing in its place. From what I understand, the relationship is better described as follows.

Bio will always override Dia. Dia II will always override Bio. Bio II will always override Dia II.

In other words, if you cast Bio on a mob that already has Dia, their Dia effect will be replaced by Bio. If you cast Dia on a mob that already has Bio, Dia will simply have no effect on the mob, and the mob will be left with the Bio effect.

There's some simply tests you can do on a mob using those 4 spells. By paying attention to the battle messages indicating which effect has worn off (and which battle messages don't appear), you can verify this relationship.

I'm sure that it's even easier to test this in Ballista.

[Icemage]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

That makes it sound like casting Bio on top of Dia will result in removing Dia, but leaving nothing in its place. From what I understand, the relationship is better described as follows.
Bio will always override Dia. Dia II will always override Bio. Bio II will always override Dia II.
In other words, if you cast Bio on a mob that already has Dia, their Dia effect will be replaced by Bio. If you cast Dia on a mob that already has Bio, Dia will simply have no effect on the mob, and the mob will be left with the Bio effect.
There's some simply tests you can do on a mob using those 4 spells. By paying attention to the battle messages indicating which effect has worn off (and which battle messages don't appear), you can verify this relationship.
I'm sure that it's even easier to test this in Ballista.

Bio III > Dia III > Bio II > Dia II > Bio > Dia/Diaga

Whichever effect is further to the left is the one that stays.


Icemage

[Theyaden]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

That makes it sound like casting Bio on top of Dia will result in removing Dia, but leaving nothing in its place. From what I understand, the relationship is better described as follows.

That is correct you cast one and it will overrite the other efectivly cancelling the origional and putting the new one in it's place unless the current effect is a higer level version like a tier 1 to a tier 2 exc in which case it just doesn't take effect. Although I thought dia could also overwrite bio as long as their both the same was I incorrect in this?

Gets parties rather mad since most xp pts would rather have dia going for the quicker kills that Bio for the reduced damage to the tank

[Kitalrez]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

Bah, you forgot the BLM 'elemental wheel' DoT/debuffs. I'll give you a brief crash course here. Hit auto sort on your Black Magic menu then go down the list. Any two of your elemental DoTs that are right next to each other on it, will not stack.
I.E. You can stick Rasp, Drown, and Frost on a mob, or you can stick Choke, Shock, and Burn on one. These lines only mix and match however, if you move far enough out of the line that you don't overlap a spell with one right next to it. For instance, you can put Rasp and Burn on a mob, since they're nowhere near each other on elemental correlations, but Rasp and Shock would not stack since they're right next to one another. Also, stacking Rasp and Burn on a mob precludes using any other elemental DoT, since that would overwrite one of the two DoT's you've got going. Bio, Dia, and Poison will stack with any of the DoTs, since they lack an elemental based stat down component that would overwrite one of the DoTs you put in play already.
So, if you really enjoy screwing up a mob, you can always stick:
Rasp + Drown + Frost / Choke + Shock + Burn
+ Bio / Dia
+ Poison
----------------------------
Giving you a total of 5 DoTs on a mob at once. If you're using multiple DoT'ers remember that the damage restriction is from all sources, so you all have to coordinate your casting not to overlap and cancel someone else's. This method works extremely well vs. mobs your elemental nukes would not normally touch for significant damage as a BLM, or against a certain TAU Assault mission mob that doesn't move at all and has ungodly defense/nuke resistance.

[Icemage]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

Bah, you forgot the BLM 'elemental wheel' DoT/debuffs.

I did?

Up to 3 elemental enfeebles like Choke (again, search the BLM forum for elemental enfeeble discussions if you want to know how this works)

Icemage

[Kitalrez]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

Ok... so you included something about it, just declined to go for the full elemental enfeeble hack-job I did. Although, having seen these discussions and the giant steaming loads they turn into on the BLM boards, I can't really blame you in that regard.

[Karinya]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

You *did* forget Bind, Charm, Amnesia and Requiem from negative effects, though. And you seem to imply that you could be simultaneously hasted and slowed, which is not true. Positive effects and negative effects are not always so neatly separated. Generally when two effects are *directly* opposite, like haste and slow or defense up and defense down, only one can be in effect at a time (although there are apparent exceptions, like Poison + Regen).

That's without even getting into interactions like Cocoon/Sonic Wave/Acid Bolts etc. or spells/abilities that cause more than one effect at once (e.g. Dream Shroud, Warm-Up, Enervation).

[Taskmage]

Re: Stacking Spells. I'm Unsure. Please Help.

I think we've already gone into much greater depth than the OP is prepared to absorb at this point.