Oblivion talk:Weakness to Magic

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Someone should cover what happens when you have both Weakness to Magic and Resist Magic functioning at the same time. A Breton born under The Apprentice, for instance, will simultaneously have Weakness to Magic 100% and Resist Magic 50%. Do these two effectively cancel each other out, then? (You'd be taking half of double damage.) I don't know, myself, or I'd post something.--Robin Hood 20:57, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, they would cancel each other out, since both effects work on the same "actor value", by increasing or decreasing it. Thus the end result would be a 50% weakness to magic, in this case.

I have a half-finished article about the way resistance and weakness to Magic/Poison/Elemental Damage work, which you can see on my Sandbox page. -- JustTheBast 09:01, 21 March 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, that was the basic question I had was whether it left you with a 50% weakness, or no weakness, no resistance (since 50% of 200% damage is 100% damage). Your formulae make it look like it would be 100%, but you say above that you'd be left with 50% weakness...so I'm a little confused. :) --Robin Hood 21:39, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

So does that basically mean that weakness to magic lowers your resistance? Like, as an example, take a 100 point fire damage for one second spell. If you use the Breton example, that would do 50 points of damage, yes? Now, what happens if you have someone cast a 100% weakness to magic spell at you? Is it reduced to only 50% effectiveness, making your total resistance 25% then? --Mikekearn 08:22, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

Yes, a weakness to X will first counteract any resistance to X. Only once your weakness to X is larger than any resistance to X will you start to actually be weakened.

A standard (non-Apprentice) Breton would indeed take 50 points damage from a 100 point fire damage spell. If someone casts a 100% Weakness to Magic spell the Breton resistance would reduce the magnitude of that spell's effect to a 50% Weakness to Magic. That would effectively add to the Breton's inherent 50% Resist Magic and leave the Breton with 0 total resist/weakness. The next 100 point fire damage spell would do 100 points of damage to the Breton.

Note that on JustTheBast's sandbox "RM" = (Resist Magic)-(Weakness to Magic); "RE" = (Resist Element)-(Weakness to Element). So Resist/Weakness of the same type always add to each other. Multiplying only comes in to play if both Resist Magic and a Resist Fire (for example) effects are active; in other words when combining resistances of different types. --Nephele^Talk 11:36, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

I just added a new section Resistances and Weaknesses to hopefully explain this all in one places. --Nephele^Talk 12:43, 25 May 2007 (EDT)

I was able to confirm the answer to my own question later using the console, and it agrees with what you've said in the new section. 100% Weakness + 50% Resistance = 50% Weakness. Thanks for the new section, BTW, it really covers the topic quite well. --Robin Hood 01:54, 7 July 2007 (EDT)

[edit] How weakness affects spells with no magnitude

Would it just affect the duration? If you cast paralyze for 3 seconds on something with 100% weakness to magic, would it become paralyze for 6 seconds? --Kevindrosario 03:19, 3 July 2008 (EDT)

That always works for me. When I cast Weakness to Magic 100, followed by a 7-second Paralyze spell, the paralyze effect lasts twice as long. I'm playing on the 360, with no patches or add-ons, if that makes a difference for this function. Padomay 13:53, 9 July 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Weakness to magic on self

Can I cast Weakness to Magic on self to enhance the effect of my defensive and healing spells? ^{—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.233.81.91 (talk • contribs) on 10:47, 9 July 2008.}

yes^{—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.166.67.150 (talk • contribs) on 21:50, 14 July 2008.}

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that this no longer works after one of the patches, but I don't recall where. --Mike | Contrib 10:22, 19 July 2008 (EDT)

Information has been added to the article. --Nephele^Talk 11:07, 19 July 2008 (EDT)