Sacred 2:The most powerful protective CA in Sacred 2. How "Expulse magic" works

1st part: general discussion

The first thing you should know, multiple castings stack. It means that all effects of Expulse magic (Detrimental Magic Effects -x%, Block chance: Combat Arts, Chance to Fear Opponents and damage against some types of enemies) overlay the previous.

There is one interesting property of Expulse magic: banishing potential. To describe this property is used the string entry2 = {"et_banish_spells", n1, n2, 0, 8 } in configuration file spells.txt, where n1 is the base banishing potential, n2 - increase of banishing potential for every memorized rune.

Is it possible to caste CA by opponents in the Expulse magic circle? - Yes, possible, regardless of the banishing potential.

What does banishing potential? - dispell the effects of Spell Damage Based Combat Arts (further CA) in the area of the EM circle.

Any projectile of Spell Damage Based Combat Arts is dispelled (including summon of creatures and traps, elemental missiles, spit CAs of the weaving spiders, meteor shower), permanent buffs/short buffs on the opponent and debuffs on the character are cancelled. AoE Combat Arts (for example Ice Field of ogres, Expulse magic/Blazing Tempest/Raging Nimbus of High Elf) are dispelled too.

CA is dispelled by EM if:

1)The Projectile/AoE of Combat Art crosses the Expulse magic circle;

2)Creature with an active effect (buff\short buff\debuff) crosses the border of the Expulse magic circle;

3)Banishing potential overcames difficulty class of CA.

• There is no effect on the CAs type "lightning", "ray", "dragon breath", "sonic scream", "poison fountain of zombies/poison elementals" and also on some permanent buffs of weapon based aspect.

What about difficulty class of CA: every CA has its own difficulty class, depending on its CA level. The higher level has creature, the higher level CA it uses, and the higher banishing potential must have EM to dispell CA used by this creature. The difficulty class compared with the banishing potential of EM: if banishing potential higher then difficulty class, CA is dispelled.

Overcoming difficulty class has 2 outcomes:

1) the difficulty class is overcome, CA is dispelled;

2) the difficulty class is higher than the banishing potential, there is no effect on CA.

Difficulty class is one of the few things in the game that doesn't depend on the difficulty level, I.e. for dispelling CA 100 level mobs on the "gold" difficulty need the same banishing potential as on platinum\niobium. Banishing potential can be enhanced by consuming more runes of EM, taking bronze modification "strength" and improving Delphic Arcania Lore skill.

Being equal level creatures can use CA at different levels and their CA can have a different difficulty class (for example on the Seraphim island and Wasteland champions of the same level throw a fire trap, with a difficulty class difference of 10-20%).

Bosses have higher difficulty class of their CA than the same level Champions, and champions have higher difficulty class than ordinary mobs of the same level. If EM dispells CA of ice elementals, it doesn't mean that EM dispells CA of elemental-champions same level.

• The banishing potential >1000 dispells CA of champions and bosses highest (200+) levels.
• On average for a confident dispel of all combat arts you should have the banishing potential about 6*CharacterLvl.
• Dispelled CA can not be reflected.
• Banishing potential does not affect detrimental magic effects, root (which is a DME too), DoT, knock back, and stun.
• Hybrid Damage Based Combat Arts and Weapon Damage Based Combat Arts are not affected by EM.
• Expulse Magic is the only possibility to remove from character all short-debuffs (10 sec) or long-debuffs (30 sec), which can be used by the enemies or characters (pvp).

2nd part: all about removing buffs

I will try to describe the mechanism of deactivating the target's permanent beneficial spells (buffs) by Expulse Magic.

Every buff has its own difficulty class, depending on CA level. The higher level has creature, the higher level buffs creature uses, and the higher banishing potential must have EM to dispell buff used by this creature. The buff difficulty class compared with the EM banishing potential: if Expulse Magic banishing potential higher, buff is deactivated.

Overcoming difficulty class has 2 outcomes:

1) the difficulty class is overcome, buffs are deactivated;

2) the difficulty class is higher than the banishing potential, there is no effect on buffs.

With three activated buffs let cast at yourself Expulse magic with extremely high CA level and banishing potential. The opponent casts EM circle with lower CA lvl and banishing potential next to the character. Our Expulse magic circle dispells enemy's EM, but in spite of this all our buffs are removed.

• The result: Expulse Magic circle can not save character from removing the buffs by opponent's EM.

3rd part: EM vs opponent's EM

Note: "Expulsive magic" CA has an interesting ingame AI bug: some creatures that have the ability to cast shortbuffs; they lose available shortbuff in the EM circle, recast it again, lose, recast it again ... well just do that recast their buff, not paying attention to anything more.