Dancer Archive
Thread: Techniques useful?
OK, after just hitting Novice Dancer and then Dancing Knowledge 1, I am looking at Dancing Techniques 1. My question is: aside from the aesthetics, do these techniques (/colorlights, /spotlight, etc.) add anything to a dance routine, like flourishes? If not, I'll likely keep climbing the Knowledge tree first before I hit Techniques. Thanks!
/Smokebomb is cool though... You can change your costume behind it.
Regardless whether you find it useful or not, I still would suggest climbing the Knowledge tree first. They are nice perks, but they do not help you progress any faster. They just burn action without the rewards. The knowledge tree gives you better dances, and better dances means more experience. If you don't stick with the knowledge tree you will slow yourself down.
Even if you area casual player I still would suggest knowledge before techniques. Just focussing on the dances and have the icing on the cake as desert. If I want pretty lights I can always light some fireworks
SarlaccFodder wrote:
OK, after just hitting Novice Dancer and then Dancing Knowledge 1, I am looking at Dancing Techniques 1. My question is: aside from the aesthetics, do these techniques (/colorlights, /spotlight, etc.) add anything to a dance routine, like flourishes? If not, I'll likely keep climbing the Knowledge tree first before I hit Techniques. Thanks!
The aesthetics are nice. That's why I forsaked Knowledge and maxed out Techniques. But then, my character was always flash over art.
When we discovered that the Mind buffs were based on Technique, I was glad that I had maxed out Technique then.
But game-wise, the only benefit I've seen is the buffing power.
Chessack wrote:
Trust me a dancer who has mastered this ability will look a lot better dancing than one who doesn't do any visuals or one who does them poorly.
C
That is so true of many things as an entertainer. There was someone who was playing a slitherhorn. Someone referred to him as a newbie. He got upset and started claiming how he's been playing for months, has been an entertainer before up to musician III, and how he knows everything there is about being an entertainer. It quickly became obvious his definition of everything there is includes how to flourish, and ends there. I couldn't imagine any mindset to which that would be everything. Even a pure mechanics person would include mind buffs, which he didn't know anything about.
Oops, forgot to add... The first effect I really found an interesting look for was the first distract effect. I like to time it to go off with the first beat of waltz when played with ommnibox or bandfill. I agree about timing is everything. Also the right effect for the right music.
For example, I don't always use a smoke cloud for a costume change. If it's slow music, I will, but it's something faster, or even better a transition from something slow to fast, I'll use the second distract, or possibly the first smoke bomb. Also for slow music if I use spotlight, it's usually only the first one. This goes double when it's a group dancing.
Lyrical is ripe for good spots to put all kinds of effects.
And I have a hotkey to spam the black streams of smoke too.
PoetDancer wrote:
Actually, effects must help in healing, because I get a huge spike in ent.healing XP when I use one like distract as opposed to my regular flourishes.
Define huge spike. If you are seeing a big jump for one tick, say 5 times or more, that's a bug and unrelated to effects. (I saw it when I was still entertainer level dancing.) If you're talking double or less, that's normal variance of healing.Medics see the same thing, they can usea stim, heal for 70 damage, then use it again and heal for 200 damage. From the tests I've done, effects have little if any effects on healing. If there is an effect, it is so small as to be "lost in the noise" of the normal randomness of healing.