Dancer Archive
Thread: Applying the Mind Buff, a Guide to buffing.
CaliburClick
Sat Jan 31, 2004 11:48 pm
#118
So, I have a dancer, and am wodnering about the time spent with flourishes vs the time spent without. If i flourish constantly for 5 minutes, will it be any different to if i would dance normally for 5?
Nyk8o
Sun Feb 01, 2004 12:31 am
#119
absolutely... its ALL about the flourishing.
My buff macro has a one second pause between each one... (tatooine sunburns, a doctor buff, of constant healing)
BlauwVis
Sun Feb 01, 2004 6:01 am
#120
I know that there's been speculation in the past that applying the buffs has more to do with burning action than with flourishing as such (or perhaps it's to do with burning action by flourishing; I've also heard some theories that doing loads of light effects will make buffing happen faster, but have never seen any evidence). If you notice, every time you input the command </flourish #> you lose action. If you're in the middle of a flourish your animation won't change, but as far as the system's concerned you will have flourished again. So if buffing is dependent on youhitting /flourish a certain number of timesor burning a certain amount of action, and not simply on dancing for a set period of time, then it would be possible to spam /flourish and greatly reduce the time required to buff, whether your toon does all of the animations or not.
I'm still hoping that the upcoming improvements to the buffing system will include a way to tell when the buff has taken effect and how long it will last; that will make it soooo much easier to test these sorts of theories.
Groovymarlin
Sun Feb 01, 2004 1:57 pm
#121
But the flourishes take 8 or 10 seconds each. If you start a flourish while you're already doing a flourish, nothing happens, i.e. you don't do another flourish. So let's say you're doing exotic2, and flourish 1 takes 8 seconds. Even if you do flourish 1 every second, you're only actually doing a flourish every 8 seconds. So you can /flourish 1; /pause 8; and get the same effect as /flourish 1; /pause 1;.
Raven can you explain that better? Or am I misunderstanding how flourishes work?
Nyk8o
Tue Feb 03, 2004 12:40 am
#122
yeah with the one second pause you are still performing multiple flourishes, trust me.
Hawaii
Fri Feb 13, 2004 10:10 am
#123
Since we can now see exactly how long the buff is going to last,our guilddecided to do some redo some quick tests last night with dancer and musician mind buffs.
Here is what we found:
Active buffing (using /setperform):
2 minutes, performer flourishing a reasonable amount (not using /flourish every second): 1 hour duration
4 minutes, 2 hour duration
4 minutes, performer not flourishing at all, 33 minutes duration
Passive buffing (in a group, *not* using /setperform):
4 minutes, 1 hour and 45 minutes duration
5 minutes, 2 hour duration
Also, we had a master dancer but the musician was 44xx so the buff was only 75% *but* this did NOT affect the duration. When watching and listening at the same time and stopping at the same time the durations were exactly the same.
The last time we tested this before this latest publish, I'm pretty certain that 6 minutes of performing did *not* givea 2 hour buff. Even with constant flourishing and a lightshow. At least as best we could tell. I really wonder if this changed?
Would other people please test 4 minutes active, 5 minutes passive and report back? We'll test it some more too.
This is *very* good news though! No more waiting in line to get a mind buff, just add people to group as they come in and let them watchAND listen and get full mind buffs in 5 minutes! We only used passive before for larger groups because it seemed to take about 15 minutes to get a full 2 hour buff which was just painful.
I think the next thing I want to try is some very short (1 minute) performances with doingdifferent amounts of flourishes and see really just how often you need to flourish. I think that about4 flourishes each minute is enough (every 15 seconds).
One last thing, if you get MORE than a 2 hour duration please tell us the following:
Your faction and overt/covert status
The faction of your customer and overt/covert status
Public or private cantina (and rebel/imperial/neutral alignment of private cantina)
Your Dancer/Musician Mind Enhancement (+100? +120?, it'sunder My Skill Mods on your skills page)
How long you danced/played
How much you flourished
How much you used lightshow effects
Anything else you think might be the reason you got past the 2 hour limit
I haven't seen a buff over 2 hours yet. Even in a private rebel aligned cantina, performer rebel covert and patron rebel covert.
I haven't tested this in a factional base/town or with overt patrons. Supposedly somehow or another you can get a 25% bonus for being the same faction *shrug*
------------------------------------------------------
--Hawaii--
Founding Member, The Kittens -TK-
Master Dancer/Doctor
Owner,The Purring Kitten cantina
Kitten City, Naboo (Bria)
Lyssa
Fri Feb 13, 2004 11:44 am
#124
I have been testing too, and not getting anywhere near 2 hours of buff for a 4 minute buffing time. I was doing exotic4, flourishing once every 8 seconds.What were you doing?
Hawaii
Fri Feb 13, 2004 11:54 am
#125
Hmmm, well we were all grouped, even for the active buff. But you have to be grouped for the passive anywayand that was only 5 minutes so I don't think that mattered. I'll try it ungrouped.
We had both a dancer and the muscian in the same group performing at the same time, maybe that matters?
We were in a private, player-run city cantina.
Dancer was doing exotic 4, I don't know the exact rate of flourishing, I'll have to ask, and she was using a few lightshow effects.
But since the dancer and musican buffs were pretty much the same duration I don't think that really mattered that much.
I was using /pause 240;/stopw;/stopl to time the buff... I've tested and the /pause duration is fairly accurate (I have timestamps turned on in my chat window also). For a while /pause kept changing every patch it seemed, but now it's works pretty well and gives exactly the same results as /addalarmin 0 8 finished buffing.
That's all I can think of that might be different.
What were you doing and what were your results?
Hawaii
Fri Feb 13, 2004 9:23 pm
#126
Ok, I was wrong about one thing. I misunderstood the flourishing for those buffs. We sat down tonight and tried again, and again, and again, and we *couldn't* get it to full 2 hours in 4 minutes. So we started trying all kinds of things finally figured it out.
Here is the key, make a macro called flourish-like-crazy:
/flo 1;/pause 1;/macro flourish-like-crazy
3 and 1/2 minutes later the buff duration will be 2 hours.
Also we tested applying both musician and dancer buffs at the same time with /setperformance and that works fine.
So in 3 and 1/2 minutes you can now fully buff someone. Yippee.
I don't know the exact time for the passive group but I know it's no longer than 5 minutes.
Someone try to reproduce this now and report back.
Ret_Falkan
Mon Feb 16, 2004 8:53 pm
#127
When i try to perform a mind buff, and i do /setperf with someone selected, it says "you direct your attentions towards %TT" instead of the target's name. Am I the only one this is happening to, cozi seem to be having trouble with buffs, and i want to make sure that this isnt the problem, thank you.
- Ret' Falkan
Chimera Galaxy
Ret_Falkan
Mon Feb 16, 2004 9:02 pm
#128
Ok, after a bit of fenageling, i found the unequip weapon etc post, tried that out, and it worked, so thank you for posting that! for those who dont know. it was this:
Preparation:
Make a macro (i called mine buff) with this in it: /flo 3; /pause 10; /macro buff
Use
1.) have person to be buffed (buffee)stand
2.) have person type /stopwatch (whether watching something or not)
3.) have buffee unequip any weapons
4.) start dancing
5.) make sure buffee is watching
6.) select buffee and type /setperf
7.) start your macro
8.) go 8 minutes without unclicking your target and not stopping dancing. you WILL need action refilled
9.) have buffee type /stopwatch
Worked for me! 
- Ret' Falkan
Chimera Galaxy
Splynxie
Wed Feb 18, 2004 2:44 am
#129
Okay, as for the variance in the duration of the buff, I've come to notice a pattern in which people with higher secondary mind stats receive longer lasting buffs, and I have been told as much by a few other master dancers. This might explain why in your experiments, you receieved better results when you had the musician buffing the people as well. *shrugs*
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