How Dice Rolling works

[Karinya]

Sub targeting is great (assuming, for the moment, that it even works on PR - it doesn't work on most bard songs, unless you're choosing yourself as the subtarget every time, which kind of misses the point). Having DU in an automatic macro from the initial song is kind of a bad idea - because you may already be on the lucky number.

I wouldn't want anything st-based on that kind of long timer, in fact - it'd be too likely that I'd be trying to do something else when it came up and it would confuse me.

I'd just put each roll I was going to use on a macro, and DU on its own separate macro. If you have trouble counting to 10 seconds, you can put /wait 10, /echo Double Up Ready!, but if you're so busy you can't count to 10 seconds, you're probably using other macros that would interrupt the timer anyway.

If you turn out to be shooting things a lot, you could put /recast "Phantom Roll", /recast "Double Up" in your /ra macro (assuming you have one).

Edit: Icemage, both the official site and Dan's post at the top of the thread claim each roll is from I to VI - i.e., 1 to 6, not 1 to 4. What's your source for the 1 to 4 claim? Obviously the probabilities are very different under each assumption.

[Icemage]

Oops! I thought it was 1-4, but forgot to check. This is what happens when I try to do math while juggling other programming concepts in my head. :D I'll adjust my post for 1-6. Sec.

EDIT: Ran both statistical analysis and used programmatic modelling to arrive at the above numbers, so I know they're right.


Icemage

[Spider-Dan]

I'd just put each roll I was going to use on a macro, and DU on its own separate macro. If you have trouble counting to 10 seconds, you can put /wait 10, /echo Double Up Ready!, but if you're so busy you can't count to 10 seconds, you're probably using other macros that would interrupt the timer anyway.

You don't really need to count seconds at all.

If you wait until the full animation completes (the card animation and the effect animation), your timer is up.

Double Post Edited:

You Bust at 12 or over, so you can almost always roll at least twice safely unless you roll a 6 on the first try. Note that if you roll a 6, you're over the limit for lucky numbers, so there's really not a lot of point in trying again unless you're greedy for a more powerful effect.

Actually, I've decided to stay on 7 unless 7 is Unlucky Number (U#), in which case you might as well roll (if you don't have a Bust already active).

Obviously, if 6 is your U# and you're on 6, you want to roll again. But let's suppose it isn't; let's say it's 9 instead, and you're on 6. Look at the possible outcomes:

1- good
2- good
3- bad
4- good
5- good
6- bad

The odds are greater that you'll get a favorable roll. If you're on 7, the odds are 50/50, so I stay.

[neighbortaru]

blackjack! oh wait, wrong game
sounds more and more like gambling every day (as it should i suppose, but i just find it amusing)

[Muu Yi]

I think you guys are missing my point with sub-targets. Let me try to represent it in a way that might be easier to understand, let's keep the Hunter's Roll as our example:

1. You use /ja "Hunter's Roll" <stpc> and confirm to get the first roll (You can use <me> here if you really like to skip the confirmation but I'd still use <stpc> because it's always possible to accidentally hit the wrong macro when you're really tired... at least I do sometimes)
2. The inital roll lands on Lucky number IV.
3. The Sub-target for Double-Up comes up
4. Hit the Escape Key instead of Enter Key and all the Double-Ups are cancelled, allowing you to stay on Lucky number IV.
5. Ranged Attack, cast spells, whatever you feel like
6. 5 minutes later, reactivate macro when the effect expires

I understand that the confirming and canceling won't feel natural for a lot of pepole. It didn't feel very natural for me at first either, I actually hated it. But once I got it down I wondered how I ever managed to do Macros any differently at all. The echos I put are more to remind me what the Lucky and Unlucky Numbers are. I just put the 9 second thing in for completeness. People may use them, they may not. It's just a suggested Macro, you don't have to follow it if you don't want to.

Edit: Okay so you have to wait 10 seconds before you know the outcome of rolls? No one told me that. That is a more valid reason why it'd better to just have Double-Up on a separate macro so you can do other things while waiting for the roll to come up. If that is the case, then I was wrong about using /ja "Double-Up" <stpc> macro line. I think the /echos are still nice to keep though. :D

[Spider-Dan]

After reading my earlier post about animation, I thought, "Hmmm, the animation doesn't seem like it's 10 seconds long..."

Double-Up's recast is actually 7 seconds, not 10. Original post has been edited accordingly.

[Muu Yi]

0.o; Okay... I think maybe I'll just wait till I can get on the game and test for myself. For the time being, anything I've posted so far is speculation anyways.

Updated my first post as well, yes recast timer is 7. And I realized that unless you use a /ta <me> prior to the phantom roll line, it is possible to accidentally target another party member with a phantom roll even though nothing happens if you select them. I updated the macro with that info but I still advocate the <stpc> targeting pronoun however, as it gives you and your party members time to scramble into position for the initial roll. The tricky part would be rolling double-ups in the middle of battle, as I'm not 100% sure if party members still have to be "In-range" of you when you Double-Up.

[Lmnop]

completely unrelated!

on macros, you can also do <me> <st> or <me> <stpc>. pretty sure they all work. Think you can do it backwards too. anyway, the game registers both commands and as such, you'll get a spell that targets you, but has a Switch Target prompt.

Advantages:
-guarentees that you're the one targetted
-allows you to hit enter/escape to choose whether or not you want to perform. just as explained above.

Also, I thought the official site did say the #s were 1-4. they've made mistakes before (these patch notes had a record high of typos. and remember the Assassin trait fiasco?).

[Jei]

Sub targeting is great (assuming, for the moment, that it even works on PR - it doesn't work on most bard songs, unless you're choosing yourself as the subtarget every time, which kind of misses the point).

You can do this in your macro
/target <st/stpc/stnpc>
/ja or /ma "self only stuff" <me>

This way you still have the pause from <st> and don't have to worry about targetting yourself to successfully use the ability/spell

[Khidir]

i think SE gave refresh abilities to two more jobs because of pts wanting Rdms and Brds as core staples in a exp pt, i know its off subject but i thought it was interesting

[Muu Yi]

Okay, I reread that KI post and should edit some things. Having a Summoner in the party, appears to bump up the effectiveness of Evoker's Roll by one. Killing Ifrit forums has reported Refresh rates of +3 MP/tic on lucky number 5 without Summoner and +6MP/tic with the Summoner in the party and Ballad on. Definately gonna try to invite some of the mid-50's Corsairs on Titan to exp party next time I static exp with a DD Summoner friend as my White Mage.

[Omniblast]

I didn't find any mentioning of distance required to be away for the particular roll to occur, and since they are suppose to be played like bards except -whm sub, is there a particular distance that I need to be at for certain rolls? Reason why I would ask that is that if I wanted to stand a certain distance away and only give a particular roll to the mages vs. standing near or next to the melee to give them a roll.

Also, does double up occur if a person was standing far from the initial roll, however if you used double-up would they still get the bonus of the roll without having gotten the initial roll?

[Muu Yi]

Yes, like self-targeted Bard buffing songs party members do have to be inside your rolling range in order to gain the effect. I do know, however that if someone who didn't catch the initial roll runs into your range when you Double-Up again, they will receive the effect even though they missed the first roll, but it will wear off for them immediately afterward. Try not to miss them to begin with at any rate.

And from a bit of testing in-town I deduce that they also have to be inside your range for Double-Ups to take effect for them. But more testing needs to be done before I'm 100% sure on that.

[Spider-Dan]

Updated the original post to correct some info on Unlucky Numbers and renewing rolls, as well as to add some hard numbers on roll results.

[Spider-Dan]

Edited original post to add Wizard's Roll data.