Comments below...
> From: "Perhaps a Princess..." <sarah@...>
>
> Swift Like the Wind costs a LOT of mana, and doesn't last as long as
> the lower level speed up buff. Add onto this that there is a speed
> beyond which a weapon can't get any faster. And Swift Like the Wind,
> in higher levels, isn't even used on people with haste sashes. Not
> worth it.
Hmmm, our enchanters will swift our tanks and yes they all have haste
equipment of some sort (FBSS, Planes belts, etc.) It's our SOP to SLTW on
tanks at the end of the buffing. This is for Dragons and Gods. Also for
general work in the planes our tanks beg for swift. I am not sure abou the
cap on a weapon speed nor what it takes to reach the cap. We buff SLTW
religiously.
> So. Sometimes a minor speedup is good enough.
If you have 6 level level 45-50's and you're farming Yk's and the spawn is
spread and they can manage to all stay awake, yes.
If you have 6 level 27-34's and you are camping the Raider room in HK and
are getting all spawns one right after the other, yes, prolly minor speed up
is ok. If you are looking at the Nobel Dojorn or Innoruuk for the first
time face to face, do you really want a minor buff?
> Quicken is very definitely a combat buff. And fairly high mana. Grouped,
> I'd put it on my main tank and let a bard handle the speedup for the
> rest, preferring to use mana for crowd control, or other circumstances
> rather than keeping everyone Quickened.
Again, what are your 'normal' circumstances? There are circumstances where
the team has to fight mobs that are 100% resistant to magic. In that case,
our enchanters go OOM buffing everyone before the fight and hope for the
best. Different situations call for different tactics.
> Just because it is better does not mean that it is always the best
> use of the enchanter's mana. Bards ARE Still needed.
Bards *ARE* needed - I fully agree. They make the mana that provides these
great buffs ;p I guess you have to look at what is the highest and best use
of everyone's skills/talents/powers. In the heavy duty situations, and the
Ghoul Lord with not quite high enough folks or for the first time, even
breaking the Raider room early morn before all the rooms are camped can be
just as tough when you are at the level where the stuff is yellow and red to
you as the planar stuff that is yellow and red to higher levels.
Much of EQ is the same over and over with the basic change being in Health
Point scale. Ok, there are some increased spell effects too. But generally
for boss mobs, you want to kill them as fast as possible. SLTW does that
best. Bards make mana for clerics and enchanters - they do that best. And
there are probably more than one way to skin a scorned banshee. I hear
tales of guilds that do planes and *dont* have monks to pull. OMG!!! how do
they do it? Well, they manage somehow.
Well, time to go home now and grind xp,
Sylly