Chef Archive

I've been posting this to a bunch of individual threads, but I thought I'd call it out since there seems to be a large number of people who don't know this.

People say chef buffs are not so bad, +100 is pretty good, 6 minutes is not so short, maybe it should be increased to +200 or 12 minutes...

I just want to point out that there is a class in the game that can buff your health and action stats for up to 2000 for up to 2 hours - doctors. Fairly early into doctor you can buff for maybe 100-200 for maybe a half hour, and it only gets better from there. Doc buffs can be made in a factory with multiple charges, the schematics are valid, and experimentation and quality ingredients make a HUGE difference in buff quality. This makes food look completely brokeninsignificant for the most part.

How a doctor buff works:

1.The doctor makes a medicine for each type of buffs (6 meds for 6 stats). There is a skill required to make the medicine which btw is WAY easier to master than chef in terms of experience requirements.

2.The doctor buffs the patient at the start of a hunt. This has to be done at a med center, house, camp, or medical droid. Since medical droids and camps are pretty common, it is easy enough to buff whereever.

3. The patient is now buffed for anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours, based on the skill of the doctor, the quality of the meds, and luck. The doctor does NOT need to be near him for these buffs to continue to work. This means the doc can buff multiple parties of hunters in a town on an advanced planet, without a significant time investment or commitment. There are doctors who hang out in these towns and sell buffing services.

Sure, food has a distinct advantage since a doctor does not need to be there. Sunburn is very popular with soloers. Buta group of advanced gamers(these are the ones with money to burn for buffs, remember) will either generally have a doctor in group or may even have an extra account with a doctor just for buffing purposes. For that group of people, the only buffs they are looking for are mind buffs, so I sell them bivoli and ormacheck, which pale in comparison to their doc buffs. Since mind damage is common in these groups, mind damage cannot be healed, and our buffs are weak, these groups probably die more from mind damage than anything else.

Basically, I'm saying yes there is a use for food for soloers, and yes there are a few buffs we have that doctors don't. BUT, we are not even close to being competitive as a buffing class, we are outshined by a class for which buffing is only ONE of the many useful things they can do.

BTW, I do not want to nerf doctors, being one myself. I just want our buffs to be more competitive and/or unique.

A very nice post. Another thing I have run into with food is the fact that a couple of items will fill you up. It's nearly impossible to get decent coverage on buffs because its so easy to be filled up with food. Even if you wanted to eat food constnatly to keep your buffs up, you can't, because of the fullness timers. My two wastril bread wear out in 4min or so and I can't eat more for 10-20min.

Do food buffs stack with doctor buffs?

Good post. I'm glad you talked about the whole doctor line rather than just master. If I didn't know better, I'd think doctors magically got the ability to do huge long term buffs at master rather than progressing up, from what I've read of other people's posts.

I think chef should be the middle ground of buffs. Spice should be extremely quick with a high magnitude of buffing with the downer effect too, doctor buffs should last awhile with a little lower magnitude, and chef should be somewhere in between with the ability to use anywhere and no huge downside but with a longer duration and decent magnitude. I'd be happy if chef buffs had a twenty minute duration at the high end like you say low end doc buffs have and and something a little nearer to where doc is in magnitude.

Do food buffs stack with doctor buffs?

Yes, but I have to say the effect of a +100 buff stacked on 1000 or moreis hardly noticable. I mean when I was trying to finish off my healing experience I was buffing my friend for maybe 500-800 and I wasn't having to heal him much at all. Only when his buffs wore off (and I did not rebuff str and quickness so he would take more damage) did I get any healing experience.

Just wanted to say nice and informative post

Am I the only one that thought Chefs would be the ultimate buffers? I wasn't in beta so I really didnt have much to go by when I started out, but I've read several posts on this forum where people state that chefs should be lesser buffers than doctors and/or smugglers.

When trying to decide what class to train in, I noticed smugglers had 5 skill boxes related to spice buffs, doctors had 5 Skill boxes that allowed them to craft enhance packs, and Chefs -- an entire elite profession dedicated to buffing. I seriously thought Chefs would be the best buffing class in the game.

When my friend who decided to go doctor first tested his best enhance packs on me we both **edit** our pants and thought it was a bug. Over 1600 health for 2 hours?? And every stat except for mind could be buffed that high for that long?

Out of over 100 foods and drinks, only a handful are worth selling, and the duration on our buffs is pitiful. I know we are getting an overhaul but seriously, shouldnt we be the best at the only thing our class is designed to do?


Bodak

Thank you, Ida, nice informative post. Let's see what they do to chefs on this balance pass.

This is one of the issues I've brought up numerous times, and usually get a bunch of doctors flaming me for

You can quite easily get a friend with roll shot to macro it against a wall, & wham - continuous source of healing XP. Ive seen medic friends get 90k xp in 2hrs on Dantooine in a group O_o, best I ever did was 25k chef XP in a DAY grinding

99% of our buffs come nowhere near Smugglers spices, never mind Doctor buffs, especiallly in the duration.

I mainly became a chef to buff PA mates, and Im sorely tempted to ditch chef for Doctor, as it buffs, heals, revives, cures poison & bleeds etc, whereas I..... erm, make sunburns, some vegeparsine & swear at my factory

and Im sorely tempted to ditch chef for Doctor

Just do both!

Yes, leveling a doctor is rather easy compared to chef. Each time I went out for a 2 hour hunt I filled at least one box, including the top boxes on the tree. Would be harder with the pet healing nerf since pets are generally the main tank, but probably still not too hard. Not saying doctors don't have their own issues, but it's a much more well rounded class.

Interesting post. I'm thinking of becoming a chef (already master doctor). I've stayed away from enhance packs in the doctor line. There are problems with them, experimentation on ease of use makes the packs harder to use, not easier. It can cause the player not to be able to see damage they incur (always maxed).

However, I agree, doctors probably should not be able to enhance greater than chefs, although perhaps they should be able to enhance for a longer period of time. Honestly, the only thing I have seen food do best is well... heal pets wounds. I suppose the fact that doctors can't affect the mind based stats gives food a nice advantage there as well.

Heh Ida, I have Master Carbine Assault Tactics, 2 intermediate boxes, novice medic, parts of CH, and 0 points left

I enjoy combat too much to give carbine up, Im kindof a Combat Chef

There are problems with them, experimentation on ease of use makes the packs harder to use, not easier.

Yes but as master doctor you don't need to experiment on ease of use, I have no trouble using packs.

It can cause the player not to be able to see damage they incur (always maxed).

I've haven't noticed this problem at all recently. My groupmates always appreciate a good buff.

My issues with doc buffs are you can't tell when they're going to run out exactly, and you can't refuse them (possible griefing if someone buffs you with a low level buff when you were going to get a higher buff). Also they're a pain in the butt to make (as they should be, I just wish they didn't cost an arm and a leg cuz I don't like asking my friends/groupmates to pay for buffs). But for the most part I think they work very well currently.

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Kisedd wrote:

A very nice post. Another thing I have run into with food is the fact that a couple of items will fill you up. It's nearly impossible to get decent coverage on buffs because its so easy to be filled up with food. Even if you wanted to eat food constnatly to keep your buffs up, you can't, because of the fullness timers. My two wastril bread wear out in 4min or so and I can't eat more for 10-20min.

Do food buffs stack with doctor buffs?

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I noticed this but didn't give it much thought till now. This IS a problem...if your food is not useful to you anymore - why should a player still be full? The durations of the buffs on the food you intake should last just as long as the "full timers". Yes - I see the aspect of applying real life 'digestion' times to this game...but then again...a player DOESN'T EVEN HAVE TO EAT! Starvation doesn't exist currently, so why do "full timers" need to exist? If the devs read this post - I hope they make a "pass" on this li'l but annoying issue too.

Good Post - looks like the chef community is growing and becoming stronger and more specific in our suggestions to the devs. Keep it going chefs and maybe soon we'll be heard and start going somewhere with this highly under-rated profession.