What is the order in which status effects are applied?

Feature Requests and Game feedback
1

The Plaguelord weapon “applies all status effects”, but this raises some interesting questions that have never been answered by the devs.

This interaction is interesting because some effects, like Stun, affect traits. And, historically, if many effects are being applied at once and Stun comes before another effect, the game behaves as if Stun nullifies any immunity traits. This is important for trying to hit troops with Impervious and other immunity traits.

But normally, we’re only applying one or two status effects, and also up until today it was often true that they were being applied in an order like “ability, affix” which we could intuit. Plaguelord’s weapon applies “all status effects”, which means for the first time ever we need to know the comprehensive order in which they are all applied.

I had a chat with Discord user ALX who has apparently sussed out the order is:

“The chronological order in which the effects were released. If two effects released on the same day, they are applied in alphabetical order.”

That’s something. It’s at least predictable. I’ve been able to figure out some of the interactions with traits like Impervious or Insulated. I could make a table that shows me how they all work. But I shouldn’t have to.

@Saltypatra, @Cyrup, I think this should be part of the FAQs. It should be codified exactly how status effects are applied.

As-is, the way it’s defined feels undocumented. I reckon if we don’t get it placed as a specific order in an FAQ, two things will happen:

  1. We will get numerous bug reports that erroneously say the effects should override the traits because Stun should be first. (We already do.)
  2. Every bug report can be met with “it’s working as intended” because we have no way to tell what the devs intend.
  3. Any change to the order, even unintentional, will be met with, “Oh yeah, I meant to make that side effect. Working as intended even though that’s not how it’s worked for months.”

I don’t want to have to dig in the Gowdb timeline to make this table. You’ve got access to the devs. Can you ask them to please explain what order status effects are applied so it can be documented for players?

4 Likes
2

I would bet it’s random…like so many other things

3

From what I gather, Curse is applied last.
I don’t have the new weapon yet, but a guildmate said that impervious troops require two casts - first one gives Curse and then another to apply every other status effect.

4

As @Dust_Angel

Last two effects applied are curse followed by bleed. If you target an impervious that’s what you get. The curse renders further effects to be applied and if it clears it’s back to the curse/bleed. Invulnerable - still totally immune.

5

Yeah we can figure it out ourselves, but until someone commits to put it in the official FAQ we’re only just stating what we’ve observed. That’s the thing that bugs me.

RE: the above: Curse and Bleed were the two last status effects added to the game, so they are applied last. Apparently they also aren’t blocked by Impervious. That’s why the 2nd cast applies everything: Curse overrides Impervious. Also notable: you can’t freeze Queen Mab on the first cast due to her trait: Stun applies after Freeze. Today.

Maybe this would go faster if I’d just file an individual bug report for every troop with an immunity trait.

6

For fireproof enemy, it resisted burn, but got faerie fired because of stun.

Burn applied first, failed.
Stun applied.
Faerie fire applied successfully.

1 Like
7

That’s crazy.

8

Bumping because we still don’t even know if it’s working properly because we have zero confirmation of how it’s supposed to work.

9

It would make the most sense (to me) to apply Curse first. That seems most in the spirit of the weapon.

Alternatively, if they deliberately wanted the target’s resistances to apply, then Stun should be second last and Curse should be last. That’s fair in a different way: troops with some resistances are affected, but not as much as those without.

2 Likes
10

With plaguelord weapon almost fully traited, it applies curse to first enemy.
So if you cast on 1st enemy who is impervious, does it mean there will be 2 curse, hence a possibility for 1st enemy to get all negative effects with 1 single cast ?

11

I love the discussion of how it works, but I’d also really like it if @Saltypatra or @Cyrup could either:

  • Post an FAQ article
  • Post that an FAQ article is in progress and will materialize by the next patch

Unless the proper order is documented, nothing is a bug.

1 Like
12

No.

At the moment iit works as follows;

EOE applies all negative effects, but curse is the penultimate effect then bleed. We have figured this out by watching what it does to an impervious troop.

A second application of any negative effects on a cursed impervious troop will stick if the troop is still cursed. As for order we are at the mercy of devs advising as Slyp points out.

2 Likes
13

I somehow get the feeling that, as far as Essence of Evil works, stun is applied right before curse. For example, this is how using it on Krystenax looks like

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No entangle.

When I used it on Satyr Musician (alert), silence was not applied; when used on Mab (insulated), Freeze did not trigger.

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14

gemsofwar
gemsofwar1920×1080 538 KB

Actually I was referring to the damned weapon trait. Because if you cast on the first troop, enemy should get two curse, so maybe an impervious first troop would get all negative effects with 1 cast?

2 Likes
15

The affixes(/upgrades) always occur after the effects of the main spell, so in this case, it would simply apply Curse twice and Bleed, with no other status effects, on the first cast :slightly_smiling_face:.

I guess the strategy would be to target a troop other than the 1st slot, letting the affix/upgrade Curse the Impervious troop in first place, and then to follow up with a cast on that 1st troop, to apply all(?) status effects.

1 Like