11/18/04

First thing you need to do after installing NB2:BLE is to make a profile. A profile is where you keep the list of spells/actions your character needs during the buffing process.

While there are nothing wrong with putting everything you need to do for the buffing process into a single profile, it will be better in the long run to learn how to separate them into logical phases. So this tutorial will do just that.

Typical buffing process can be divided into following six phases.

1. Equip Phase. This phase places all the equipment you need to go adventuring, except weapons/shields.
2. Pre-Buff Phase. This phase get you ready to cast buff spells, good place to equip the items you use for buffing, as well as cast lower level spells to ready yourself for main buff process.
3. Creature Buff Phase. This phase is where you buff your attributes, skills. If you buff the casting device to buff yourself, this is a good place to do that too.
4. Life Buff Phase. This phase is where you place life protections, as well as regeneration spells.
5. Armor Buff Phase. This phase where you buff your armor.
6. Post-Buff Phase. This is where you may want to remove the buffing equipment and re-equip your adventuring gear.

With that in mind, let's get started.

Step 1.

Open the NB2:BLE's main control panel by clicking on the NB2 icon on the Decal Bar.

Open the Profile Editor. The button is located at the bottom of the NB2:BLE's main control panel.

Type in the name of the new profile. For now, we will use "Equip Phase" as the name. You should now have "Empty profile". We are now ready to add the steps to this profile. Since this is a equipping profile, we will head over to "Equip" part of the Editor (6th tab on the right half of the Editor).

Equip panel is divided into 3 parts, Equip, Unequip and Restore. You can choose to manipulate your equipment using their name, GUID, or (for unequipping) cover. Unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, always use "By GUID" option. A GUID is a unique number that identifies a object. By using GUID, NB2:BLE will not accidentally use an wrong item, just because you happen to have two or more of the items with same names.

NB2:BLE provides a quick way to capture the names and GUID of selected object. Just hit the "?" button and it will place the correct information in the box next to it. For now, select our "Gold Amuli Coat" and hit the second "?" from the upper right of the Editor. Notice the content of the box to the left of the button have changed from 0x00000000 to something like 0x813D8CB6. Now hit the "Equip Item" button. You should see "Equip Item by GUID 0x813D8CB6 Gold Amuli Coat" in the your profile now. The icons to the right of each step is used to change their order (up and down arrows), remove them (the X mark) or change the GUID (circling blue arrow). Normally NB2:BLE will add the steps to the bottom of the list, But if you want to insert one in the middle, select the step before you add the new step. NB2:BLE will add the new step to just before the selected step.

Continue adding the steps you need to equip everything you need to go adventuring, except for the weapons and shields. We will get to that later.

Jewelries needs some extra attention while equipping. NB2:BLE will remove any conflicting armor/weapon/shield while it is trying to equip, but it will not do the same for the jewelries. If you swap jewelries around a lot, then you must ensure that there is a slot open for them. You can do this by including "Unequip" steps. You may want to use the "Cover" option here. It will unequip anything that your character is wearing on the specified slot.

Once all the steps are added to the profile, hit the "Save" button. NB2:BLE will confirm it by reporting in the chat window saying "NBII Editor Profile saved..."

Hit the "Dismiss" to close the editor for now. In the main panel, the pop-up list should now have our "Equip Phase" profile. You can test the profile by selecting it in the list and hit "Start" Button. Head back into the Editor if you find some problems in the profile. You can re-load the profile into the Editor by selecting it in the pop-up list within the Editor. Fix any glitches and re-save the profile.

Step 2.

Now that we got our first profile done, let's move onto the actual spell casting. Open the Editor and make us a new profile named "Pre-Buff Phase". You should be already be looking at "Creature(S)" tab, if you are not, simply hit the first tab in the Editor.

NB2:BLE could automatically equip a casting device, but it will randomly pick a casting device from your inventory. This is clearly not the optimal solution. You can either include the "Equip" step here to ensure that you are holding the right casting device... Or you can set your preferred caster in the Option Panel. For now, don't worry about such things, I will go over the Option Panel later in this tutorial.

Let's assume our character has high enough skill to cast L7 spells, but only just so. It means we need to do some pre-buffs. So we will add couple of L6 spells to help us get started.

Find the "Creature Magic Self" in the list of spells under "Creature(S)" tab. The seven icons on the right of that are the each level of the spells. Hit the second one from the right marked "VI". The Editor will add "Cast 'Creature Enchantment Mastery Self VI' on self" in your profile. Continue to add spells you need to cast L7 spells here.. Focus/Will/Mana-Conversion VI are good candidates.

Hit "Save" and "Dismiss"

Step 3.

Now, we have a profile that actually cast spells. But don't hit that "Start" yet... NB2:BLE needs to know a few things about your character before it can go around buffing. Hit the "Options" button on the main panel. This is where you tell a little about your character to NB2:BLE so it knows how to buff. If you are 3-school, then only thing you will have to do here is to set the preferred caster (at the bottom). Select your favorite buffing wand, and hit "Set", then "Save/Dismiss".

Please note that NB2:BLE requires you to know all the levels of Stamina to Mana, Revitalize Self that you can cast. This is so becasue NB2:BLE will try to use the lowest possible spell to fill your stamina and mana.

If your character is not 3-school, or not high enough level to benefit from the Stamina to Mana/Revitalize process, you may want to explore other options NB2:BLE offers here. You can select from one of the five other methods NB2:BLE supports.

For those who has no life magic, but has healing skill, "Heal with Healing Kits / cast H2M" is an attractive option, provided you have some way of buffing your life magic with at least L5 spell.

Failing that, you can always use either "Elysa's Wondrous Orb", or "Casting Stein". But you should know you must have one of those item in your inventory (don't have be set as preferred caster, however). In addition, you must have healing kits/skill to use the Wondrous Orb", or have some stamina recovery items to use with Casting Stein.

If you have life magic, but can not cast high enough level, or does not have high enough mana conversion, then you might try the "Drink Stamina Elixirs / Cast S2M"

As the last resort, you can always rely on mana potions for the buffing.

By default, NB2:BLE supports following items: (Can be changed, however)

Elaborate Field Rations
Simple Field Rations
Stamina Elixir

Trade Mana Elixir
Mana Elixir
Mana Potion

Peerless Healing Kit
Treated Healing Kit
Plentiful Healing Kit
Gifted Healing Kit
Adept Healing Kit
Handy Healing Kit

Once the options are set up the way you want it, hit "Save/Dismiss". And test out the "Pre-Buff Phase" profile.

Step 4.

Now that you know how to make profile that cast spells, go ahead and make "Creature Buff Phase" and "Life Buff Phase". The process is pretty much the same as "Pre-Buff Phase".

Item buffs are added to the profile as a group, so select all the spells you want on the items, and hit "Add Spells". Armor buffs can be done using "Self-Bane" if you use "Self" option here, or use "By GUID" option to buff the shield (or piece of armor you are not wearing) you want to buff. Don't add the weapons here yet. We will get to that even later.

Step 5.

Now we have all the six phases done, and hopefully tested to make sure it all works. By separating these into six parts, testing your profiles get much easier. Just take my word for it. It also have added benefit of being able to run them separately. For example "Equip Phase" might come in handy to be called by a hotkey. But those topics are beyond the scope of this page.

Now it's time to tie them all together. Head back into the Editor, and create a profile called "Me". It's a nice short name that describe what we want to buff. You will see why you want the name of this profile short in a little bit.

NB2:BLE has ability to include profiles within a profile. We will use this ability to tie all the six phases we created so far.

Hit the last the tab labeled "Extras". You will see bunch of stuff here, but all you need is the pop-up list at the top, and "Add Include" button. Select the "Equip Phase" profile in the pop-up list (the one inside of the tab, not the one at top of Editor). Then hit "Add Include" button. Editor will add "Include Profile: 'equip phase.xml'" to our profile. Repeat it to add all six phases in the order. Hit "Save/Dismiss"

Now when you select "Me" from the pop-up list of main panel, and hit "Start", NB2:BLE will buff your character.

Step 6.

By now you must be thinking "What about my weapons?" The reason I kept saying "Don't add weapons" is that weapons are usually buffed according to what you will be killing. There is little point in buffing your fire weapon to go hunt bugs.

But NB2:BLE can also help you buff your weapons. Let's make a profile called "FR" (stands for fire-rending. You got one of those, don't you?). Add the item spells you need to buff the FR weapon you have. Then hit "Save/Dismiss". Go ahead and test it to make sure it buffs the weapon right.

NB2:BLE has four different ways of starting buffs. First one, you already know, is to hit the "Start" button in the main panel. It is by far the most intuitive, but it is also most limiting. Second one is where the true power of NB2:BLE lies. You can start buffing by issuing /nbuff command from the chat buffer. There are couple of benefits for using this command, but one and foremost is the ability to chain multiple profiles together.

For example:

/nbuff me, fr

This command will execute our main buff profile and our fire-rending profiles together. Now you see why we wanted a short names, as well as why we didn't include weapon buffs in our main profile.

The third and forth way of starting buff is beyond the scope of this page. Let's just say that they are "Hotkey" and "API".

Final note.

There are more to NB2:BLE than this tutorial covers. If you are interested in more advanced features, head over to "Bootleg" Section.