Also, a lot of Prophets should learn to cycle buff. You buff one person every couple of minutes, depending on what group you have and how many. This also helps with mana problems. Boxed Prophets can't cycle buff (at least not very well).
I still dont know why would cycling buffs help me with mp problems. Never did that, never felt need for that and dunno what is it good for :) anyone wanna enlighten(*spelling) me?
This suggests buffing people Xminutes apart which allows the prophet to regain MP before each buff. This would help, but most people I know like that 5-10 minute break between buff runs.
how would that help me with regaining mp? mp regen is still the same no matter how i buff
True. The only difference is that the buffs do not fade on all party members at the same time. But other than that, there is no difference. If you regen x mp during one buff round, you will still regen x mp no matter when you buff. Same amount of mp used for buffs, same regen over one buff round.
Some say that staggered buffing is good because then you do not need all of the mp at once and can use instead 500 mp to buff player x, and then a few minutes later another 500mp to buff player y. But they fail to see that if you can do that, you would also be able to just wait until the end of the round and buff them all at once.
The absolutely ONLY situation in which I could see a use in staggered buffing would be if the prophet wears e.g. heavy armor and does not have enough max mp to buff the whole party at once. But I do not know any prophets who use heavy armour in a 9 ppl party - the casting speed alone would make it a very painful experience...
For this 5mins break between buffs, I suggest some buffing "on-the-fly". There is no need to stop fighting just for buffs.
Yup. With a good buffer, there is no need to have a break for rebuff. You just rebuff while the others keep killing mobs. Actually it is not even a sign of a "good" buffer, it is just normal.
buff cycling might be worse off actually cause the prophet must stand up sit down stand up sit down and the time it takes to do that = lost mp regen, (compared to sitting down)
in the parties I am in, the prophet clobbers the mobs, like everyone else (as do I, when I am playing my ShSaint). No need to sit down for regen. Well, I guess when you're still lower level (-60) and have to buff a full party, you have to sit a bit to get back to full for the rebuff.
That said, staggering (or cycling or whatever) helps with needing less max MP (i.e. if you're in light or heavy), it doesn't help with not regaining enough MP to use your buffs.
It's also MUCH easier to stagger not by person but by type of buff, as that makes for much easier bookmarking (as a prophet, you'll have just about every type of buff anyway, even if you use slim setups for yourself).
The reason you would cycle buffs is to make sure you are never at 100% mp. If you are always below 100% then you can take max advantage of mp regen. Lets say that if you buff everyone all at once you can regen to full mp in 18 min. This means that roughly 2 min are spent with 100% mp. How much mp do you think you can regen in 2 min? That is how much more mp you will have by cycling.
The numbers I gave were totally made up, so dont try to tear me a new one because they are wrong. The logic is there and that is all that matters.
The reason you would cycle buffs is to make sure you are never at 100% mp. If you are always below 100% then you can take max advantage of mp regen. Lets say that if you buff everyone all at once you can regen to full mp in 18 min. This means that roughly 2 min are spent with 100% mp. How much mp do you think you can regen in 2 min? That is how much more mp you will have by cycling.
The numbers I gave were totally made up, so dont try to tear me a new one because they are wrong. The logic is there and that is all that matters.
This is what I meant. When my Prophet was a low level I couldn't buff an entire group at once... but I could if I cycled buffs. I know it doesn't take any character in this game 20 minutes to regenerate their mana.
It doesn't take you 10 seconds to buff either though. If you're wearing MP pool equipment, buffing a whole group can take as long as 4 to 5 minutes. And yes, regening up into Bless the Soul, Conversion and Blue Wolf or Majestic can and does take up to almost 20 minutes.
Just like back when i had a WC, i had Light armor so i didnt even have enought mp to do all my buffs, so i did 1 buff everything few minutes in a cycle. so i never had any problems.
It doesn't take you 10 seconds to buff either though. If you're wearing MP pool equipment, buffing a whole group can take as long as 4 to 5 minutes. And yes, regening up into Bless the Soul, Conversion and Blue Wolf or Majestic can and does take up to almost 20 minutes.
If you have max mp equip, then you should never reach 0 mp. If you do, then you are probably overbuffing.
I used to buff a 6-7 man party with a 56ish prophet in devotion with a mana up weapon. Mana got a bit tight at times, but I could do it. What I would do was buff the healer, myself, and any other mage type class in the group first. After about 6-7 min, I would buff the rest of the group. This would keep me from ever reaching full mp, but wouldnt ever run me totally out of mp.
Well, if you have mana set-up (+MEN and conversion or mana up weapon) then you shouldn't be cycle buffing. If you run out of mana buffing a 9 person party with that set-up, then maybe you SHOULD switch to cycle buffing set-up. My Prophet is +4 WIT -4 MEN with Blue Wolf and an acumen weapon, level 71. I can buff 7 people with fighter buffs, and it takes me (just tested it) 13 minutes to regenerate my mana. That means I would be sitting at full mana for about 7 minutes... which since it takes me 13 to get full, is about half of a tank of mana. So if I do NOT cycle buff I waste half of my mana pool. Does everyone see what I'm saying here?
That means I would be sitting at full mana for about 7 minutes... which since it takes me 13 to get full, is about half of a tank of mana. So if I do NOT cycle buff I waste half of my mana pool. Does everyone see what I'm saying here?
Buff party in one go. Pull out your focus dagger. Walk around, hit mobs. Use block shield on mobs (or, if you're lower level, root mobs and help with crowd control). Be at full mp right when rebuff comes around. That way you do not waste any mp regen either, and you do something useful with the mp you regen :) Basically, if you could buff the whole party and then regen back to full in half the buff round while sitting, you could also regen back to full by the end of the buff round while walking around and hitting mobs.
There's that as well - and of course, if you skimp on buffs it's all no problem - but then, I usually am in parties with at least two hybrids and two to three servitors if mana gets tight. That's not a pretty thing to try to single-target full buff.
Also a question. I just do not really get it. Let's say you have 4k mp and it takes you 500mp to buff one party member (just random numbers). That means that buffing 7 people costs 3.5k and you are left with 500mp. You say it takes you 13 minutes to regen back to full and then you would be at full mp for 7 minutes, wasting mp regen. But when you cycle buff, you use exactly the same amount of mp to buff the seven members, so you have to regen exactly the same amount of mp, which takes exactly the same time - no matter WHEN you use the mp.
If you buff party member 1 at minute 1, party member 2 at minute 3, party member 3 at minute 6 and so on, it still always costs 500 mp. So you will be back to full eventually - unless you use MORE mp by cycle buffing, by rebuffing party member 1 several minutes before his buffs run out (13 minutes to regen the mp used on 7 people means that it takes not even two minutes to get back the mp used on one party member). Is that what you do? That would IMO be just a waste of mp, it would be better to just buff everybody, regen mp, and when you are close to full again, use the mp on crowd control / heal assist / whatever and manage it so that you are back to full by the time you have to rebuff. That's IMO way better than wasting mp on rebuffing people who still have time left on their buffs.
There's that as well - and of course, if you skimp on buffs it's all no problem - but then, I usually am in parties with at least two hybrids and two to three servitors if mana gets tight. That's not a pretty thing to try to single-target full buff.
True, that is the only situation in which I could understand that cycle buffing is a useful thing - when you just do not have enough max mp to buff everybody in one go BUT your mp regen is good enough to support all buffs over the course of a buff round. I personally would then probably first buff all the "important" party members, wait for mp to regen enough to buff the rest and then regen back to full for the rebuff of the "important" ones at the end of the round.
But the "I would waste mp regen" argument is flawed IMO.
Cycling buffs is for when you have mana trouble. If you dont, then cycling does nothing. If you are just going to sit and have enough total mp to buff a full party, then it does nothing as well.
Staggering/cycling is also good to help avoid emergencies (i.e. all buffs dropping when you SHOULD be helping with CCs). It is the better way to buff, pretty much - especially for WCs. It's always good to even out your MP consumption over the twenty minutes rather than squeezing it all into one point.
Not sure what to say I guess... I could get a dagger and fight, but if you can't afford it, then you should cycle. Even if you stand and fight, you can probably bring your mana up to full unless you are set-up with max mana. I really thought more people knew about cycle buffing. It reduces that mana that you just sit on. If you have to support heal, ect. then you probably need a better healer too :(
Converison weapons are hardly used. They give a great boost to mana, but nobody seems to use them. They all go for accumen weapons. Does the 15% matter so much for a buffer?
They are - at least I use it and I know about prophet and overlord in ally that use it too.
5380 MP with BW/conversion/BTS6 is very pleasant for buffing at raids, sieges, duoing with mages where you constantly recharge ... just regening is pain.
Switch to Acu weapon when the difference between conversion and your normal MP is 0, which is around 3-3.2k usually.
The only advantage on cycling buffs is that the prophet is never out of mana.
Take this scenario:
You buff entire party and are left with say 100 mp.
Tank overpulls, healers cant keep up with the heals. You only got 100mp to spare on heals. (Prophet is not a real healer...)
OR:
You buff each member with a few minutes apart.
It leaves you with lets say 300 mp after buff.
Tank overpulls and you can help healing with 300 mp. Could be the difference between life and death.
But the first buffround, when you start cycling buffs must be pain for everyone, you either need recharges or ppl are without buffs for few minutes, am I right?
As I said, I am active prophet for 2 years, and never used cycling buffs strategy to help me with mp, what i used on lower lvls was buff all needed buffs, rest, when i was full again, buff the less important buffs...but never some complicated buff every 2 minutes someone, or something etc...and i was always backuphealer, minordd, cc
Hm one thing bothers me: let's say you are 8-man party. I know WC is a must in such case because people want perfect parties :p but let's say you are prophet. When you buff everyone, including yourself, every 3 minutes, that's 3x8=24. So as soon as you buff 6th guy, you need to start buffing the first one again, then 7th and 8th still do not have buffs ... that's a bit illogical to me.
Unless you buff every 2 minutes, but then, how much MP you regen back when buffing 30 seconds and regening let's say 1.5 minute?
Converison weapons are hardly used. They give a great boost to mana, but nobody seems to use them. They all go for accumen weapons. Does the 15% matter so much for a buffer?
In fact yes it does. (and yes I play a PP as a main)
The faster you get off your buffs the better!
The faster you can sit to regen, Faster that they can get back into combat or stay in combat, and less chance for you to get in troubled senerios.
Acumen makes a huge difference in times when you have a limit on time for buffing: Rift, festivals, 4 sep. quest/RB, olympiad fights, Raids, emergency rebuffs from cancel (some Raid bosses do this, open pvp vs scor/SpS).
I personally don't like conversion, or mana up SA's. It don't help me to have that much MP. Just that much more MP that has to get filled up with 20 min. or less to do it in.
But as a general rule I don't party with more then 6 people, cept for raids, rift, pvp, and festivals. Specially after lvl 60 XP slows down quite a bit, and I feel it's best to max mp with the lest amount of players possible.
As a 76+ PP I think you need to get a arcadia mace with MP regen, you can buff +7 people (self included) sit and be fully regened in less then 10 min.
And no PP's do not get Invocation. And they have worst MP management for a Buffer class.
As for staggering buffs, it's pointless. You'd end up having to keep track of who got what, and when which is just a nightmare! I'd rather not stress my self out like that!
And total time for regen is no different, groups shift way too much, you can buff up a party run up to ToI 5 from 1, and have to rebuff, and not be full while at the same time lose 2-3 members by the time you got to ToI 5, or 20 minutes later.
Staggering is worthless practice for PP's it's only good in bot parties cause they will be there for 12+ hours if no one comes by to harass them.
The bad thing about conversion is the HP loss, Mana Up is here better. As for how fast you do your buffs, even without Acumen SA my castspeed is over 1k, that should be fast enough. And for 76+ Prophets its the same, get Mana Up and forget about Acumen, and if ya really go Arcana Mace, put Acumen on it ffs but do _not_ use the weapon before you are 78. Why 78? 2 things: PoF, reuse is connected with castspeed and there you want acumen SA and 2.: Arcane Wisdom. Arcane Wisdom makes you use 30% lesser mp for buffs, so its almost the same as Mana Up, but better because you dont need to regen 5k MP but just 4k MP.
Second, you should always have a homu W/ acu. till your doing olym fights and you need the Magic atk. Other wise having 2 Arcadia maces one with MP regen, and one with Acumen. (yes I know not every one can afford that!)
Take the money out of the picture for a second. at 76+ you should be making a ton of money, if your not; your doing something wrong.
There is nothing wrong with having a acumen before 78. I personally prefer a acumen over the other 2 SA chooses. But some things are just not as useful as other things, and conversion is one of those thing.
But the question is is Staggering better on mp management then say buffing every 20 min's. And the answer is it can be, but it's not really that much better. (situational)