Last night, we downed the Nightmare Pilgrim and obtained the +50 buff. We all logged out our characters almost immediately afterward to preserve it for our next raiding night. One of the group members double-checked a few hours later to ensure the buff wasn't ticking while logged out, and he was able to confirm that it was, in fact, nearly at its full timer. Upon checking again this morning, we all discovered the buff was gone. Of course, the *debuff* preventing us from just doing it again was still present.

Basically, it looks like the server upgrade just nuked a major boss reward. Class buffs, stims, etc are all still present, but one of the most significant reasons to actually down the Voss boss has been stripped away. We all filed tickets, so we'll see if CSR is able/willing to do anything about this. In the meantime, I thought I would toss the information up here to warn anyone else who may be in the same situation.

Update: Looking at combat logs, it appears that we actually had the buff upon first login and then *immediately* lost it. I'm not sure if this is significant…

Sorry to burst your bubble, but that isn't the way the buff works. It is a timer that counts down immediately from kill regardless of logged in state. This is by design to prevent exploiting circumstances.

Your goal should be to clear NP on a Tuesday reset, then go into HM EC and clear everything you can, hopefully full clear while buff is present. Then you can follow up the next day with a story mode clear for badges. Rinse/repeat.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but that isn't the way the buff works. It is a timer that counts down immediately from kill regardless of logged in state. This is by design to prevent exploiting circumstances.

I thought about that, but then why would the timer have *not* been advanced when one of our party members logged in later? Here's the sequence of events:

1. Downed NP

2. Logged out

3. <3 hours pass>

4. One of the raid members logs in and verifies that the buff still has 4.5 hours remaining on its timer

5. <server reset>

6. Buff is gone

There are also other people on my server who have done the "log out your character to preserve the buff" trick. As far as I know, it worked for them. I'll try to verify with them once they come online.

It is possible the timer doesn't show correctly on a relog in an hour later, but AFAIK it is meant for 5 hours only regardless of logged in state.

Can anyone else confirm this? If this is the case, then I'll be less annoyed at BioWare. I think it's really bad design to make the buff behave this way, but at least it wouldn't be a bug. The reason this is poor design is it biases the buff strictly toward 16 man progression guilds. We do 8 man (casual-ish) raids, and so we got together on a special night to do NP with another guild. Because of real life, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to down NP and then immediately jump into a 2-3 hour raid. So, if this is in fact the design, then the buff is actually worthless to us.

I'm not sure exactly what purpose would be served by making the buff tick while logged out. The only thing I can think of is the fact that you could log your character out for a week and then down NP again while you still have the buff, but that situation is really a non-issue if the buff refreshes rather than stacking.

It is possible the timer doesn't show correctly on a relog in an hour later, but AFAIK it is meant for 5 hours only regardless of logged in state.

This is correct.

Either the timer display glitched or your raid member had sudden reading difficulties.

This is correct.

 

Either the timer display glitched or your raid member had sudden reading difficulties.

Well, that's annoying… I'm glad it's not a bug, anyway. Thanks for the info!

Its always been that way, at least for the past few weeks. It is possible that the buff doesn't time out when you are logged out for the day of the kill, maybe to prevent losing time just in case you crash to desktop or something, but as soon as the server resets you lose the buff to prevent exploits.

What sort of exploits does this prevent? Serious question. I really don't see what is gained by having the buff timeout, other than forcing guilds to down the Voss boss on the raiding night, rather than letting them schedule the event at other – perhaps more convenient – times.

Well you could tell your team to man up and do both in the same night.

Or just raid without the buff like the rest of us do.

If you really want it that bad. Its on your team to make it happen. You certainly don't need the buff for any of the raids lol

What sort of exploits does this prevent? Serious question. I really don't see what is gained by having the buff timeout, other than forcing guilds to down the Voss boss on the raiding night, rather than letting them schedule the event at other – perhaps more convenient – times.

It's meant to be a one night buff used appropriately with content you find difficult (thus scheduling to run the hard content after downing this boss). The challenge is to successfully kill him in a manageable amount of time that allows for the other content to be cleared as well.

It is not meant to be used for the full 5 hours as efficiently as possible so that a guild can keep the buff going for any and all content they wish to run in a week.

The intent of the buff is in no way meant to encourage people to log off from the game simply because it might lower there chance at running PvE content more easily.

Well you could tell your team to man up and do both in the same night.

 

Or just raid without the buff like the rest of us do.

 

If you really want it that bad. Its on your team to make it happen. You certainly don't need the buff for any of the raids lol

This. The buff is just meant for something 'fun' it seems... it's only +50, in no way gamebreaking (less than a stim, which aren't really 'required' at this point in the tier). Thinking it's neccessary to get the Pilgrim boss for EC.. is just odd.

This. The buff is just meant for something 'fun' it seems... it's only +50, in no way gamebreaking (less than a stim, which aren't really 'required' at this point in the tier). Thinking it's neccessary to get the Pilgrim boss for EC.. is just odd.

I wasn't thinking it is *necessary*, just useful. It is that usefulness which is diminished (severely) by making the buff tick while logged out. So, there's basically two ways to look at the NP as it stands. Either a) as the fifth boss for 16m hard mode EC providing a nice buff upon defeat, or b) as a random fun thing to do on a non-raid night with no added value other than loot.

what I think happened is that your guildmate looked at the icon but not the tooltip. For whatever reason, the SWTOR GUI does not remember the "original" max duration of any buffs so whenever you relog, you'll notice that all your buffs are maxed out, but if you look at the tooltip, it will tell you the exact time left on the buff.

You can test it with your own class buff (that persists outside of game time). Wait until there is 30 min left, the buff icon will be half greyed out, log out, relog, the icon will be full (as if there is one hour left) but your tooltip will say 30 min.

what I think happened is that your guildmate looked at the icon but not the tooltip. For whatever reason, the SWTOR GUI does not remember the "original" max duration of any buffs so whenever you relog, you'll notice that all your buffs are maxed out, but if you look at the tooltip, it will tell you the exact time left on the buff.

 

You can test it with your own class buff (that persists outside of game time). Wait until there is 30 min left, the buff icon will be half greyed out, log out, relog, the icon will be full (as if there is one hour left) but your tooltip will say 30 min.

Yeah, we're aware of that bug. He specifically hovered over the icon to make sure. I talked to a CS rep just now. Apparently the timer inaccuracies are a known issue that is usually resolved by resetting the UI.

I wasn't thinking it is *necessary*, just useful. It is that usefulness which is diminished (severely) by making the buff tick while logged out. So, there's basically two ways to look at the NP as it stands. Either a) as the fifth boss for 16m hard mode EC providing a nice buff upon defeat, or b) as a random fun thing to do on a non-raid night with no added value other than loot.

Well if you want full campaign for your team it you need to do it for 8 weeks. And there is always the off chance you get the MK piece you were looking for.

Really I can't understand your fixation on the buff. The loot off that thing is clutch and clearly you need it.

Really I can't understand your fixation on the buff. The loot off that thing is clutch and clearly you need it.

The buff actually provides a better stat boost than the gear, at least for a short time, and especially if you're already wearing Rakata boots with 61 mods.

It was in the strategy guide that I read that Exulted Victory only lasts 5 hours included log out time. That's part of why I did Nightmare EV right after. The buff should last you two hard Operations so you can do two of the following: N EV, N KP, or HM EC after killing NP on Voss. I'd say do N KP and HM EC since those give BH comms and Campaign gear respectively.

As for the tooltip not saying "Buff counts down during logout" they should add that. The only reason I found out about this was because the strategy guide I read stated it - IT WAS NOT OBVIOUS VIA TOOLTIP. That needs to be fixed.