Does Flurry affect buffs?

If you're using Flurry and, say, Conjure Flame, does Flurry reduce the amount of damage caused by Conjure Flame, or just the base damage your sword is causing, leaving the Conjure Flame damage unaffected?

Just the base damage. That's why the drawback on Flurry isn't really a drawback.

Peace,
-CxE

...or not much of one, particularly for the build I'm thinking of (I won't be putting too many points into Swordsmanship to begin with). Sweet. Now all I need is a dragon sword with +1 energy per hit and a nice, high AL shield.

If you're not putting many points into swordsmanship, you can skimp on the base weapon as well, and just shoot for a low damage, low req, good mods weapon that should prove to be a whole lot cheaper.

Basically Flurry just breaks up your damage into smaller chunks on its own (better vs. RoF, worse vs. Shielding Hands), but ends up boosting all of your buffs. So it's an odd skill when you really look at the effect - buff multiplication. Ah, well.

Peace,
-CxE

Cool, that was more or less what I was thinking. In the last beta, I found I was having a lot of fun with PBAoE spells on my elementalist, but I figured if I really want to pursue that option, a good shield (and thus Tactics) would be nice for better AL. Then I figured, as long as I'm running point-blank, why not grab a sword while I'm at it and beat on people for energy (if I can find a sword with the +1 energy per hit mod). Throw on Conjure Flame and it might even be useful for damage too. Throw in Flurry and Hundred Blades and I start looking like a backwards W/E, but I'm going to need the E primary to power the PBAoE spells, the W was just to get a good shield. Going toe-to-toe with a warrior I'm sure I'd get eaten alive (if I didn't burn him to a crisp first), but there are other more tempting targets to go beat on with a sword...

I assume the same thing is true with Hundred Blades as with Flurry regarding the damage reduction not applying to Conjure Flame. Does Hundred Blades do what I'm thinking it will do in a crowd with a sword that has +1 energy per hit? :drool:

Yeah, Hundred Blades does what you think it does when in a crowd - it's basically a combination of Dual Shot and Cyclone Axe in one cheap, convenient package. It's absurdly good with buffs, so abuse the hell out of it.

Peace,
-CxE

Just to clarify one thing: when you say it's a combo of Dual Shot and Cyclone Axe, do you mean:

[A] It hits target foe twice (like Dual Shot), and also hits everyone else nearby once (like Cyclone Axe)?

or:

[B] It hits target foe twice, and also hits everyone else nearby twice (like an insanely great combo of the two skills, a Dual Cyclone)?

[B]. It hits your target and everyone nearby twice, like an insanely good combination of Dual Shot and Cyclone Axe. It's 150% weapon damage done as a PBAoE, and all of your buffs will trigger twice per target. All things considered it's the best sword skill in the game and is likely due for a slight rebalancing.

Peace,
-CxE