Curse

Banebow · Mar 03, 2006, 05:48 AM // 05:48

This is a fairly simple guide on how triggered effects work in guild wars. I will say that it is intended more for beginners or intermediate players, most experts will already know how to figure out what happens in these situations. Since I doubt you all care for a long introduction, let us begin (if you have ever played Magic: the gathering, this should look somewhat familiar to you).

Many skills operate on a triggered condition. Backfire will only deal damage (or trigger) when a spell is cast. Spiteful spirit will only do damage when the player triggers it (attacks or casts a spell). But in what order do these things happen? Lets use a simple example first.

Example one: The player has backfire on him/her, and casts smite hex to remove it. What happens?
First, the player casts smite hex. But this does not mean backfire gets taken off just yet. No, first the spell is placed on a stack. Next, backfire sees that a spell has just been cast, and since that is a trigger condition, it places damage on the stack. In this example, no other effects come into play, so we go back down the stack, backfire dealing damage and then smite hex removing backfire. Notice that the first thing on the stack (smite hex) was the last thing off, and as such backfire is a nasty thing to try and remove from yourself!

Now, that was a fairly simple example, but what if other things come into play? Say, you have protective spirit on you, and wastrel's worry.

Example two: Same as example one, but this time the player has wastrel's worry and protective spirit on him/her (backfire was cast, followed by wastrel's worry, so worry is covering backfire).
The player casts smite hex. It goes on the stack as a spell, backfire sees it as a spell and this triggers damage, which goes on the stack. Protective spirit sees damage, and places a cap on the amount. Wastrel's worry sees that a skill has been used, and it has a trigger to remove itself when that happens, so wastrel's worry taking itself off goes on the stack. No other effects are triggered, so we go back down the stack. Wastrel's worry takes itself off, protective spirit reduces the damage of the trigger below it to 10% of your health, that damage triggers, and then backfire gets removed.

Now, did it matter that wastrel's worry was above backfire? Not really, but order does matter in the next example.

Example three: The player has shielding hands and protective spirit on him/her (shielding hands is covered by protective spirit).
Lets say the player gets hit for 100 damage and has 480 health. 100 damage goes on the stack, shielding hands sees damage and this triggers an effect to reduce it by X amount. Protective spirit also sees damage, and so places a damage cap on the stack. No other effects come into play, so we go back down. Protective spirit reduces damage to 10% of your max health, so down to 48. Then shielding hands will reduce that 48 further, by the X amount mentioned earlier. Notice that you take less than 10% of your max health in damage.

Does it matter that shielding hands is below protective spirit in this example? You bet.

Example four: Same as example three, but this time shielding hands covers protective spirit.
You again take 100 damage with a total health of 480. Protective spirit sees damage, triggers, and places a cap. Shielding hands then sees damage, triggers, and places an X amount of reduction on the stack. No other effects come into play, so we go back down. Shielding hands reduces 100 by X, then protective spirit forces it to 48, or 10% of your max health. Notice that the effect from shielding hands is redundant here, but not in example three.

But why, you ask? Because hexes, enchantments, skills, weapon spells, and anything else, all trigger in an order. You start at the left, and move to the right for the order of the triggerable effects on your character. When you cover one enchantment with another, the first enchantment on that player will still be triggered first, it has the highest "priority", if you will. Hex removal will always take off the lowest "priority" hex first, which is one reason why covering a hex can be so effective.

Triggers also apply to attacks.

Example five: Clumsiness is on a warrior who is about to make an attack. What will happen?
The attack will go on the stack. Note that damage does not go on the stack yet. Clumsiness sees an attack, which is its trigger, so it places its effect on the stack. Nothing else comes into play, so we go back down. Clumsiness stops the attack and causes damage, and since the attack has been stopped we are at the end of the stack.

To include one more possibility, what if you have vigorous spirit and clumsiness on you and you make an attack? The answer is you get interrupted, take damage, and heal. Order does not matter here, the attack is not interrupted until we start going down the stack, and the healing is on the stack before that happens.

To summarize: When something happens, be it an attack or a skill use, it gets placed on a stack. Triggered effects are then placed on this stack, until all triggers have gone off. Then the stack goes down in a last-in-first-out fashion. Consider a bucket just wide enough for a plate to fit inside. If you place one plate in, then another, the first plate you put in cannot come out until all the others above it have been removed.

Just as some parting info, I call it a stack because it shows resemblance to MtG's (magic: the gathering's) trigger order, and in that game it is called a "stack" and because a "stack" is a kind of data structure that operates in this fashion. It is, however, just a name and you can use whatever you happen to like.

-Banebow

Kabale · Mar 03, 2006, 02:50 PM // 14:50

Thanks for the in-depth explanation, I've always wondered about WW, if it is removed by hex removal or by itself first.