Provocation painfully slow

[WiseOne]

I created many a bard over my time here, I like starting out as a bard and then training weapon skills while the monsters fight each other and then I drop Music and Provocation when there is no more room for skill gains.

I started macroing provocation on a new character and although musicianship GM'd in a matter of hours Provocation seems to be going painfully slow. I am only at 50something after 2 days of macroing and I have both animals trapped in a house so no foul play can happen.

Any info on this from the recent patches?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[Casey]

Provocation is very slow, but 50 in two days doesn't seem right. Musicianship takes me a few hours, and provo takes me a few days (about 3).

[archaicsubrosa77]

I think it has something to do with your macro if your skills aren't locked. Read it back to us. Hold up, this isn't your first bard

[nightshark]

If you haven't macroed to GM music yet, this would explain how painfully slow it is. Musicianship can be raised on the action timer (1s) - does not need to be raised on the skill timer (10s). Music GMs in a matter of hours. Also, the timeout is only 5s for provocation on a failed attempt.

So a good macro would look something like:

Useskill Provo
Wait for target
[Target Mobile 1]
Wait for target
[Target Mobile 2]
for (1 to 5)
Use (instrument)
Wait 1s
endfor
if (sysmessage="furious")
for (1 to 5)
Use (instrument)
Wait 1s
endfor
endif

Once you GM music you can replace the for loops and everything in it with "wait 5 seconds"

Not totally sure "furious" would work as the system message, been a long time since I've done provo. Whatever the message for success is.

Alternatively, a cheat macro which pretty much does the same thing but just spams the server with useless skill attempts ("You must wait a few moments before using another skill" or w/e):

Useskill Provo
pause .5s
[Target mob 1]
pause .5s
[Target mob 2]
Use instrument

When GM music just delete the "use instrument" part.

[WiseOne]

Yeah I went through many bards probably half of my characters started as bards because I prefer raising fighting skills by actually fighting and not using a hireling so I provoke monsters on each other and then attack.

Normally I got musicianship to GM first with a doubleclick item > wait 1 second macro but this time I incorporated it into the provocation macro where instead of pausing for 10 seconds I had it play the instrument a few times and timed it so when done the provocation timer ended.

After musicianship went to GM I switched to the basic

UseSkill Procovation
Wait for Target
Absolute Target
Wait for Target
Absolute Target
Pause 10.5sec

I put 10.5 instead of 10 because I sometimes get lag and it can throw the macro off. I also changed the Wait for Target timers to 1 second from 30. I used this macro for all my other characters and their provocation went up noticeably faster. I never put the "if" condition even though failing timer is only 5 seconds and it always got to GM in two days tops.

Also this is a new character so there are only 634 real skill points and provocation is only at 64 from 55ish this morning after a night of macroing.

Maybe this one is just unlucky with provocation. At times I could swear I go through gain sprints when fighting and other times its painfully slow. Makes me think there is a 'power hour' for skill raising but of course it is all just down to chance.

Since this is 100% macroed I don't really mind waiting an extra day or two and maybe it will pick up. Thanks for everyone who pitched in with ideas.

Cheers

[archaicsubrosa77]

take out wait for target and insert pause one sec instead for both, and you are good to go
wait for target tends to hang up. Also you should retarget all absolute targets whenever you restart a macro to ensure razor has prompted these exact targets.

[nightshark]

wait for target only hangs when whatever reason you sent the server to bring up a target, fails.

with a pause of 10.5 seconds between skill uses, the only reason this might happen is if he suddenly spikes in ping by more than 500ms at the exact time of skill usage, which is really unlikely. regardless, you can put a 1s timeout on your "wait for targets", which is more efficient than using "wait 1s" every time.

[archaicsubrosa77]

wait for target only hangs when whatever reason you sent the server to bring up a target, fails.

with a pause of 10.5 seconds between skill uses, the only reason this might happen is if he suddenly spikes in ping by more than 500ms at the exact time of skill usage, which is really unlikely. regardless, you can put a 1s timeout on your "wait for targets", which is more efficient than using "wait 1s" every time.

You can change the timeout of a prompt?
By what command?
Or do you mean the MS on the object delay?

[nightshark]

right click on "wait for target" and you can change the length of the timeout