Dancer Archive

I posted this on the Entertainer forum and thought I'd post it here as well.

It has been stated that the mind pool should not be the deciding factor in most battles, currently it is. Almost exclusively due to the fact that Doctors can buff up the other pools by thousands of points (yes thousands, I've had over 3k in health/action pools) and can heal those massive pools just as efficiently. Mind pool can only be buffed (in the oh-so buggy and very little known way it is now) by Master Musicians or Master Dancers. I've tried this out and only receive a 50 point mind buff that lasted all of 5 minutes, after listening to a Master Musician play for 10 minutes in a cantina. Giving the mind buff/healing to medics would imo (and in the devs opinion since it was taken away from them) be a mistake. The logical choice is to give this ability to Entertainers (perhaps branches of the ability to Musician and Dancer profession for increased ability in buffs for Musicians, heals for Dancers.)

What I propose is this. Either merge the "Entertainer Healing" line with the musician/dancer lines or just add this new line abilities on to it. Rename it "Relaxation Techniques." Now entertainers would be given the ability to craft two different types of kits. (any names for them, I just use two I think would work well) Massage Kit, and Aromatherapy Kit. The Massage Kit would be used to heal mind damage. The Aromatherapy Kit would be used to give mind buffs. I don't know much about the medical professions myself, but I think that Doctors are the only ones that can buff. So in this case perhaps the Aromatherapy Kits should only be available to Musicians, Dancers, and Image Designers, whereas the Massage Kits would be available to Entertainers. Give them similar healing/buffing amounts to the medic/doctor equivalent skill types. This gives Entertainers a nice little crafting incentive (Instrument crafting is done very rarely, you only need one of each type and they never break or get used up), and fixes the problem with the mind pool having no way to heal or buff. This also greatly GREATLY enhances the use for entertainers out in the field. If a Master Musician, Master Dancer, Image Designer with zero combat skills wants to go out hunting, they have practically nothing to offer a group. Now they would be the ones to take care of mind damage.

I havn't thought of all of the specifics, but they should not be too hard to work out. I believe a change like this would give many entertainers a skill they would use outside of the cantina. What does everyone else think about this?

- Darril Starstrider, Gorath

Mind pool can only be buffed (in the oh-so buggy and very little known way it is now) by Master Musicians or Master Dancers. I've tried this out and only receive a 50 point mind buff that lasted all of 5 minutes, after listening to a Master Musician play for 10 minutes in a cantina.

Vdog, join my campaign I've been trying to get attention for better Mind buff control as the solution to a number of our problems (see Ravenmist's "#1 Gripe" thread).

However, please allow me to correct a minor inaccuracy in your statement above. Musicians buff FOCUS and WILLPOWER, not Mind directly. I have tested this and I have seen a very significant increase in both stats after 10 minutes of watching. My scout's Focus went from about 600 to 900+, and so did her wilpower. These affect the rate at which Mind pool regenerates.

Master Dancers, on the other hand, directly buff Mind pool. The undocumented theory so far is that it is a +50% buff to Mind Pool. The amount and duration of both Musician and Dancer buffs depends on how long you watch -- with a max of 30 minutes duration, it doesn't help you to watch or listen longer than 15 minutes (it's 2:1 duration). The buff begins at the moment you /stopwatch or /stoplisten (or the entertainer stops).

What I think should be done is this:

(a) Allow Novice Musicians and Dancers to buff as well, scaled down according to skill.

(b) Extend the duration to be competitive with doctor buffs, some of which last 2 hours.

(b) Make the buff an active command which requires targeting a player and typing a /command. This would remove much of the appeal of AFK macroing and also give entertainers a tangible product for which we can legitimately charge money.

I'm more dubious about allowing us to do everything outside of cantinas/hotels. We can buff mind and heal mind wounds in camp, we just can't heal BF. And that's fine because the public cantina is already a dying breed in the game, thanks in no small measure to the number of LAMERs and cyberho's who haunt the places. Allow everything to happen in a camp and they may as well just close all the cantinas.