Bards are so happy, they just might write a song about it.

[WorldsAway_Nybor]

Ah right, ok I see where you are coming from. Still, not many fights last anywhere near 9 minutes, even raid encounters tend to be defeated much quicker than that in my experience. How many 9+ minute encounters have you been in, and why do they take so long? What single encounter lasts 9 minutes, without breaks in between? You get long enough breaks in raids, on access boats and instanced dungeons to rebuff out of combat. Unless your group keeps getting adds that make the encounter last 10 minutes, in which case you ought to be /disbanding and going somewhere a little more organized :smileytongue:

Message Edited by WorldsAway_Nybor on 03-23-2005 09:21 AM

[Chalkdust1011]

I understand this is different, but I still don't see why a troubador would want to get themselves into a situation where they are buffing in combat on a regular basis!

 

Like I said before, I tank on a regular basis, and have learned to utilize the ridiculous amount of agro our songs generate in a very effective manner. I am a dirge, tho I would rely on the same tactics if I were a troub.

 

~Spacek

40 Dirge

 

[Mat]

Mostly the ones I solo, that was a somewhat bad argument. My concern honestly is.. I think its plain fully obvious they kind of "rigged" it up like this, I belive everyone can agree with that. If you don't you might want to wash the dirt out of your eyes. Why cant they just make buffs cast over the other ones? In everquest you certainly could, it leaves me to worry about the future and what I'm paying for if they have the inability to code something that seems so simple to me.

[Chalkdust1011]

Right, exactly what the update notes lead you to believe.

[MMThunda]

---

Matt5 wrote:I'll try to explain it again as simple as possible.Say I haveHaste 2 slotsStat 1 slotmana 1 slotresist 1 slot this is just a bad exampleOk now our buffs are say 1 min from running out, we click the haste off then we recast over the other buffs. You CANNOT do that now. If I drop haste and try to cast the other buffs they drop off when I click the button to cast and I have the stupid 3 seconds to wait.

---

I guess I'm simply not having this experience. I tried this earlier in my inn room, just to make sure I had the best framerate I was going to get it. My time to rebuff is not significantly different than it ever was before. It is exactly 1 second between when you can bring a song down and when you can recast it, not three. By the time I've used the mouse or keypresses to end my existing songs, that 1 second timer is already gone and I am already queuing up my songs for recast. Heck, in the time it takes one of the songs to actually be cast all the recast timers for the rest of the songs are down and they can be cast again. My usual setup is three spells: Raxxyl's, Invigorating Opus, and Swan Song. My usual method of cancelling them is to cancel all three, and by the time I've ended the third the recast timer on Raxxyl's is gone. (This is how I've always done it, even prior to the patch. I guess I'd never tried getting around the concentration limit for the purposes of recasting like you have). Thus, with the current method it takes me 10 seconds to rebuff (1 second spent deactivating the three songs, 9 seconds spent recasting them). From what I am reading, it sounds like via your preferred method it would take approximately 9.3 seconds to recast these same buffs (.3 to cancel Invigorating Opus, 6 to cast Raxxyl's and Swan Song over themselves, 3 to recast Invigorating Opus). If using five buffs that take one concentration slot each, it would be 16 seconds vs 15.3 seconds. I will offer that, depending on how you are used to rebuffing, it may take slightly longer now. But I just don't see that difference as being significant. In a fight, the difference is less than one hit or series of hits from an enemy or enemy group. The times when that .6-.7 seconds without full buffs would make the difference between a won fight and a lost fight (or perhaps just a live group member or dead one) strikes me as being fairly rare. In any event, if songs merely cast over themselves, how would you cancel them without resorting to the horrid old method of right click + cancel so that other songs could be cast in their place?

Message Edited by MMThundarr on 03-23-2005 12:05 PM

[Olod]

Solution. (If they chose to do it this way) /cancelbuff /useability /dance Theres your macro. Now all they need to do is implement a better way to cancel buffs by using /cancelbuff

[Mat]

You're still not getting what I'm trying to say, I'm done explaining it.

[Chalkdust1011]

In any event, if songs merely cast over themselves, how would you cancel them without resorting to the horrid old method of right click + cancel so that other songs could be cast in their place?

This "horrid old method" you speak of is the way most of the population is used to using to cancel buffs of any sort.. and is not the issue that the patch was intended to correct. (Assuming the patch notes are correct that is.)

In the past did you not ever have to cancel PotG for Virtue or vice-versa? How about now, when you need to click off wolf form to ride the griffons? Should I need to click my totem again instead?

Obviously if you are changing your lineup of active songs, you are most likely not going to be in a combat situation and should have plenty of time to right-click off your buffs. However, when a song begins running out you often do not have that luxury, either your running towards next group of mobs, or in combat, in which case movement and/or lag would make this minorly inconvenient.

Again the patch notes:

- You can now recast/refresh a spell that uses concentration without needing to cancel it first. Bards are so happy, they just might write a song about it.

lies...

And I did write a song about it...

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=37&message.id=2094

~Spacek

[Jehannum]

I'll explain what Matt5 is trying to get at, with reference to mmThundarr's post...

Prior to the Live Patch 5, if we wanted to refresh our concentration buffs we'd cancel a two-slot if necessary or a one-slot otherwise, re-sing all the other concentration slots to refresh, then finish with the song which got cancelled, resulting in 0-second downtime for all but that 'keystone' buff.  The 'keystone' would then be down for anywhere between 9 seconds (2-slot, 1-slot, 2-slot at 3 seconds each) and 15 seconds (5 1-slots at 3 seconds each) but would be assessed, on the fly, as the least-valuable use of slots for that interval.  So we'd have ZERO downtime on any songs we deemed important enough to prioritise.

Post-patch, each song takes a hit.  It takes 1 second for the recast delay to refresh, plus another 3 seconds to actually refresh the buff.  No longer can we prioritise ANYTHING (i.e. less tactical advantage to skilled players, more steamrolled-to-average results) and rather than taking between 9 and 15 seconds of aggregate downtime we're forced to sustain between 12 (4 seconds*3 buffs) and 20 seconds (4 seconds*5 buffs) of downtime.  While effectively we've only really lost between 0.5 and 1% general efficiency, our fight-specific efficiency, especially in a shorter encounter, can be much more severely hampered.  In either case, there's no call to ask us to be pleased about it taking 33% longer to recycle our buffs.

[Xran]

To gain aggro quick, I can cast Arcane Chorus (Arcane buff) really quick. Cast Right-click Cancel Cast Right-click Cancel Cast Right-click Cancel ... till I get aggro. - I can cancel faster than I can wait for that 3 sec refresh. New patch, no way I can do that anymore.

[MMThunda]

---

Jehannum wrote:

I'll explain what Matt5 is trying to get at, with reference to mmThundarr's post...

Prior to the Live Patch 5, if we wanted to refresh our concentration buffs we'd cancel a two-slot if necessary or a one-slot otherwise, re-sing all the other concentration slots to refresh, then finish with the song which got cancelled, resulting in 0-second downtime for all but that 'keystone' buff.  The 'keystone' would then be down for anywhere between 9 seconds (2-slot, 1-slot, 2-slot at 3 seconds each) and 15 seconds (5 1-slots at 3 seconds each) but would be assessed, on the fly, as the least-valuable use of slots for that interval.  So we'd have ZERO downtime on any songs we deemed important enough to prioritise.

Post-patch, each song takes a hit.  It takes 1 second for the recast delay to refresh, plus another 3 seconds to actually refresh the buff.  No longer can we prioritise ANYTHING (i.e. less tactical advantage to skilled players, more steamrolled-to-average results) and rather than taking between 9 and 15 seconds of aggregate downtime we're forced to sustain between 12 (4 seconds*3 buffs) and 20 seconds (4 seconds*5 buffs) of downtime.  While effectively we've only really lost between 0.5 and 1% general efficiency, our fight-specific efficiency, especially in a shorter encounter, can be much more severely hampered.  In either case, there's no call to ask us to be pleased about it taking 33% longer to recycle our buffs.

---

Ah, now I DO see better where you are coming from. And yes, Matt5 was having problems expressing that point. Don't worry, I admit I requently suffer from the inability to get my own points across. So yeah, you do have a point here. Three seconds of combat time can be significant in some cases in the kind of fight that is going to last longer than the buff's duration. While I personally have not run into that myself, I can see how it may be problematic in raid scenarios where every tiny bit of the group's defensive power is needed just to keep the tank alive. I won't say that everybody else has to be happy with how the buff recasting currently works, though it is still more convenient for me, personally. I would not be at all averse to a change that would allow for both convenience and efficiency, but I do not know how that would work given the current setup.

[Mat]

Sorry about that little outburst, I suck at English and explaining stuff so I get frustrated easily.

[ShiroiOokami]

The biggest issue isn't the extra time it takes to refresh buffs - it's that each buff DROPS before it can be recast. Dropping haste in combat would only slow down your dps - dropping your +defense can be deadly. This is even more important when soloing, and you notice your buffs beginning to wear off. Yes, in a perfect world you would've rebuffed before you entered combat - but given that some solo encounters can take 4-5 minutes, you don't always plan that far ahead. Plus, used to be able to queue up the songs so there was zero downtime between recasts. Now you have to click, click - wait - and then click, click again. The interruption while you wait hovering over the next button is annoying far out of proportion to the actual time lost. I'm sure most of us will get used to it. But it just seems a backwards way to "fix" the problem of recasting concentration buffs. An easier way would simply be to check whether the spell was already casted and just let us recast over it. Of course, I've always held out that the easiest way would be to make all our buffs into 12 hour buffs.

[thorvang]

why 12h? infinite!there are fights what last longer than 10 mins, so you have to rebuff during combat. sometimes this leads to aggro problems, but you have to manage that, keep an eye on your buffs etc.i don't want afk-bards again

[Andric_D]

the new system is a pain to keep maitained songs going - only good thing is that it is easier ti cancel buffs if you wan tto change the line up on the fly.

[SGrim]

---

ShiroiOokami wrote:The biggest issue isn't the extra time it takes to refresh buffs - it's that each buff DROPS before it can be recast. Dropping haste in combat would only slow down your dps - dropping your +defense can be deadly. This is even more important when soloing, and you notice your buffs beginning to wear off. Yes, in a perfect world you would've rebuffed before you entered combat - but given that some solo encounters can take 4-5 minutes, you don't always plan that far ahead. Plus, used to be able to queue up the songs so there was zero downtime between recasts. Now you have to click, click - wait - and then click, click again. The interruption while you wait hovering over the next button is annoying far out of proportion to the actual time lost. I'm sure most of us will get used to it. But it just seems a backwards way to "fix" the problem of recasting concentration buffs. An easier way would simply be to check whether the spell was already casted and just let us recast over it. Of course, I've always held out that the easiest way would be to make all our buffs into 12 hour buffs.

---

Actually, you don't have to wait to queue the next buff. Say you have BuffA, BuffB and BuffC on. click BuffA to cancel BuffA, click BuffA to recast. Immediately click BuffB and it will cancel WHILE BuffA is still casting.  Click BuffB again to queue it for recast and it'll cast as soon as BuffA is done without any delay. Wait for BuffA to finish casting and BuffB to start. Immediately click BuffC and it will cancel WHILE BuffB is still casting.  Click BuffC again to queue it for recast and it'll cast as soon as BuffB is done without any delay. Once you get the feel for it, you'll know just when to pre-cancel and queue each buff to minimize the time the buff isn't on your group. So this 3 second delay (I don't notice 3 secs on mine... maybe 1 sec)  you're talking about will only affect the first buff you're refreshing because you can have the rest pre-cancelled and queued. That's not to say I wouldn't like to see SOE do it right, but this isn't the end of the world. The way it should work is that when you attempt to cast a spell that uses concentration and it's a spell that will overwrite (ie: you can't cast it on several different players/mobs/groups), it should check for that buff already being maintained and if it finds it, don't even do a check for available concentration because it should know that overwriting the buff will result in no net gain of used concentration. Where I find this change more annoying is debuffs.  In an ideal world, I'd probably only ever be fighting one group of mobs at a time.  But, unfortunately, I don't live in an ideal world and being able to throw a STR/AGI debuff on a second group of mobs while maintaining the same debuff on the current group can be a lifesaver because it reduces the amount of damage being done to the group.  Similarly, being able to throw a DOT on that second group to get the damage started while we finish off the first group is a huge value to the fight.  It's often worth dropping a buff to free up concentration for this purpose. Unfortunately, with this change, casting the debuff or dot on the second group cancels it on the first group. The value of this latest system for me is the ability to refresh the buffs without using the mouse.  I'm a Linux person and I like my keyboard.  The mouse is just a necessary evil to me so being forced to interact with buffs with the mouse was incredibly annoying to me.

Message Edited by SGrim on 03-31-2005 03:14 PM