User blog:CTheDragons/Best Buffing

A question I often hear, is

What is the best buff for the party?

The long answer will depend on what is your goal or behaviour you are trying to encourage in your party.

To avoid a long discussion on what best, I am going to assume it is to encourage your party members to complete tasks. The more clicks the better as it something completed in real life. (I realise others may have the goals of completing quest quicker however, this seem the best reason to me as it encourages productivity).

What is the best then? We will look at each of the classes in turn.

Rouge
You only get one party buff is Tools of Trade (buffs Perception). That is it. Cast it often to encourage your members and yourself to keep clicking those tasks for more gold and drops.

Healer
The two buffs you have Protective Aura (buffs Constitution) and Blessing which heals any party member of any damage. It should be remember that increasing your Constitution does not decrease damage from Bosses. (Only damage from negative habits and your own personal missed dailies).

Because increase your CON stat helps increase your ability to heal, when I played healer I would cast protective aura first and then cast blessing till my party members were full. (Or just cast Protective first till I have enough to cast Blessing 1 or 2 times).

Warrior
The two party buffs you have at your disposal is Intimidating Gaze (buffs Constitution) and Valorous Presence (buffs Strength). For a warrior in a party with active healers there is no need to cast Intimidating Gaze as it:


 * Does not increases any effect of your other battle skills like Valorous Presence or Brutal Smash.
 * It has no effect on Boss Damage.

How much should I cast as a Warrior? And this is where it "depends" on what you are aiming for. If it is purely to encourage, you and others in your party, as the stated goal, I would be casting Valorous presence as often as possible. This will encourage others to complete their tasks. Even without a quest on, Valorous presence increases the chance of a Critical Hit, which increases your rewards; another item to encourages task completion. If you have other aims in mind this will vary slightly different.

Mage
Ethereal Surge & Earthquake are the two party skills you have. Ethereal Surge gives mana to everyone while Earthquake buffs players Intelligence stat.

Because our goal is to encourage you, and your fellow party members to complete tasks, the skill to cast is Earthquake. Ethereal is a great skill to cast if your party is desperate for mana, ie the Healers need to cast Blessing to heal the party. However it does cheat the system and removes the encouragement of others to complete their tasks. Earthquake does as it allows others to earn mana faster and therefore be able to cast more skills.

How often do I cast? When do I cast?
For me the rule is cast as much as you can as early in the day, and then throughout the day as people cron.

Buffs only last till cron. So your party members will only enjoy the benifit till they cron. This important to remember when you are in an international group who have different times to cron.

Another important fact to remember is, excess mana will be removed if you complete a task. (If you are on the web you can sometimes cast the excess before it removed but it can be dicey and this option may be removed in future versions of the website). That being said, the excitement of running on near empty also appeals to me, as again it forces me to look at that task list and see what is needing to be done. The only time I would not run on near empty is when I am a healer and then I keep just enough for one or two Blessing skills.

For me I use the Party & Guild Data Tool to determine when my party members are cronning. I will then cast the majority of my skills at the beginning of the day when I cron, and then spend the rest of my mana once I have done my morning tasks (before I tick them off) and few of my fellow party members have also cronned. Then as the day progresses I cast to empty and then tick off tasks. It encourages me to keep going with my tasks and if I find someone just "missed out" (I'm a softy at heart somedays) to find some quick tasks to do to get some mana and cast. As I near the end of my day I may keep about 90 mana or less in reserved to cast at first when I next cron.

That my wise words for this post! Comments will be appreciated!

If the Dyslexia Dragon has run rampant please feel free to point out the mistake so I can correct the battlements.