How to Tank Pole with Seeker?

BriarFoxy - Raging Tide

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So I'm getting to the level where I'm in BH69 and I was wondering if anyone can share their techniques for how to Tank Pole and Nob with a Seeker when a Barb is not available.

Tanking Pole highly depends on whether pole is in a bad mood or not. I have seen everyone die with good high level players and seen him get beat hard by average players.

One such time Pole was exceptionally in his stride and killed everyone but me (and it was a good squad). So, I was stuck tanking him by myself on my 79 Seeker. I just barely held my own having higher than normal defenses but died when I got distracted just when everyone else was up and and ready for action.

Pole does interrupt vortex as shown in your video clip (Nice work). My question is how did you get vortex up and running again so quickly after it went down (not mentioned)?
Did you use Chi potions?
Also, what is the best and easiest way to prolong vortex (Preferably without pots, ect.)? Is high mana the solution? I use mana pots and mana boosting potions and chi potions to help keep it going but the buff pots will not activate while vortex is working and if interrupted you can possibly loose the buff effect.

BriarFoxy - Raging Tide

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Ah, my bad, I didn't notice that the Seeker had QPQd back the debuff onto Pole. Yes Pole hits pretty hard when debuff is on. I was being hit about 500 without debuff but 2-3K+ with Debuff and if the Cleric hasn't got IH stacked or Wellpring at the ready, it can kill the Tank quite fast.

That's what happened on the first try, Pole debuffed me right off the bat and the Healers didn't respond fast enough and I was dead in a few secs. Looking back on it I should have QPQd but I wasn't expecting to have no purify or heals. 2nd time around they got things together and it went well as you see in my vid.

As a rule and partly because I do not know the skill effects of the other players as well as I should, I normally work with the other players in a team effort but do not depend on them to keep me alive. I look at their contribution as a bonus and thus am not fully dependent on them. I guess this comes from playing in a lot of pick-up squads when I first started playing this game and it taught me what to watch out for. When it goes bad and panic ensues I instinctively do the right thing, die, or run like hell. LOL

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear

BriarFoxy - Raging Tide wrote: »

Tanking Pole highly depends on whether pole is in a bad mood or not. I have seen everyone die with good high level players and seen him get beat hard by average players.

Pole does interrupt vortex as shown in your video clip (Nice work). My question is how did you get vortex up and running again so quickly after it went down (not mentioned)?
Did you use Chi potions?

Also, what is the best and easiest way to prolong vortex (Preferably without pots, ect.)? Is high mana the solution? I use mana pots and mana boosting potions and chi potions to help keep it going but the buff pots will not activate while vortex is working and if interrupted you can possibly loose the buff effect.

Lol, I don't think Pole has moods, if he does have one it is always bad.b:chuckle Most likely your squad wiped because someone made a mistake. The Cleric in particular is key, the few times I have died at Pole it is usually because of a weak Cleric or lag or a disconnect by the Cleric. You will notice that in my video this Cleric was trying to minimize use of heals to save his mana and as such I was lucky to have an MP Charmed Mystic to do backup emergency healing (you can't tell from the viewpoint but the mystic was also using plants to AOE heal the Cleric and others). Normally it isn't necessary to even have a 2nd healer although if one is available the insurance is nice to have.

However a weak Cleric can be compensated for by skilled other players. Notice that after the 2nd Vortex interrupt the 71 BM had figured the timing to successfully interrupt Pole consistently. I believe Sins, BMs, Archers and Barbs all have skills to interrupt Pole. I've been in several BH69s now where I wasn't interrupted once during the Vortex due to the BM, Barb or Archer interrupting Pole. So far I haven't had any Sins in my squad brave enough to try to do it.

I use Cloud Eruption, a Genie skill, to get Vortex back up quickly, watch what I click on my Genie. I consider it an essential Genie skill for Seekers since we gain Chi so slowly. It gives one spark+, so if my Chi is full before Vortexing, I can get back to 2 sparks again instantly. It is also a Genie skill which can give you cool moves like Voidstepping into a crowd of mob then starting Vortex. Or the most powerful Vortex possible Spark>Cloud Eruption>Vortex.

As far as keeping Vortex up continuously the key is more mana. I have about 2.4K mana and can keep level 10 Vortex running continuously on an MP charm only. Here is the thread discussing it - http://pwi-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1227381 I currently use a Helmet of Pirate sharded with 4 +100 mana Turquoise and a +mana stat cape to get there without sacrificing much HP.

You can also see how I use Cloud Eruption more clearly in my video soloing Phoenix Valley.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF6imgVSf-8

Alsiadorra - Sanctuary

I should level up my new seeker to 80 someday just to try tanking pole, since I missed it(I bypassed 69 entirely with someone and went FFCing). I already know I can pull it off though.

Reikarah - Sanctuary

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Lol, well you really must have been in fail squads then.

Well I have seen 80s Barbs and Seekers successfully Tank Pole. The guideline that seemed to be bantered about for Seekers was somewhere over 5K HP. Seekers may not have anywhere as high HP as Barbs but their defense buff is really good if maxed.

I think it has a lot to do with how good the Cleric is. If they stack IH continuously, only breaking to purify, the amount of continuous healing can be very high with a high Mag Cleric.



b:shocked I dunno but I think I would be worried to go in a squad with a lvl 60 Barb tanking Pole, lol.

----

The other thing is what the Tank does when their HP is going south. I always carry Crabmeat and am HP charmed so even with a not so good healer, I can boost up my health if the heals aren't coming in fast enough.

So usually my worry is more what happens if I lose aggro even temporarily and the Cleric switches focus to try to save the other member. Some of the newer Clerics are rather slow at switching back and forth, they rely too much on AOE and BB heals.

Rofl, back in the day when everyone was 70-, a 60+ barb was the best thing you could get. No one died if they were smart, like most used to be.

There's also a genie skill you could consider too, Alpha male. I use it for backup aggro when the DDs are being idiots and attacking before I can properly establish aggro on a boss, which happens ALL the time. /Nerdrage.

unstop77

to tank pole with seeker is easy, good hp, have bloodpaint if can, cleric heal long range. also get the 15 defence level from bless, also use windshield helps if cleric purify timing no good. also gears ok, no super low level. also keep vortex up to kill boss.

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear

Reikarah - Sanctuary wrote: »

Rofl, back in the day when everyone was 70-, a 60+ barb was the best thing you could get. No one died if they were smart, like most used to be.

There's also a genie skill you could consider too, Alpha male. I use it for backup aggro when the DDs are being idiots and attacking before I can properly establish aggro on a boss, which happens ALL the time. /Nerdrage.

I do have Alpha Male on my Genie although I have never had to use it on Pole or Nob. When I use Vortex there hasn't been a squad member who could pull aggro from me (but I haven't squadded with high levels in BH69, who might have pulled aggro).

unstop77 wrote: »

to tank pole with seeker is easy, good hp, have bloodpaint if can, cleric heal long range. also get the 15 defence level from bless, also use windshield helps if cleric purify timing no good. also gears ok, no super low level. also keep vortex up to kill boss.

I agree, Seekers can Tank Pole easily. I started this thread when I was below level 80, now that I'm level 90 and have Tanked BH69 many times, I can safely say that a decent Tank Build Seeker can easily handle Pole with a Cleric and BP.

One thing I've noticed is how much more damage I inflict when there is a Veno in squad who knows how to Amp and Myriad Rainbow. In my Pole Video (without Veno) I was doing 10-11K dmg per hit, double that with Crit. Recently I Tanked a run with a Veno in squad who actually knew how to use her debuffs and I was hitting 30+K consistently and 60K+ with Crit, Pole went down so fast it couldn't have been more than 30 seconds. I wish I had captured it on video. And now I'm past BH69 I've lost the chance.

anotherwraith

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear wrote: »

this Cleric was trying to minimize use of heals to save his mana and as such I was lucky to have an MP Charmed Mystic to do

b:shutup
it's really bad that you don't know main skills of other classes (especially the main classes)
cleric healed you pretty good, he threw up quite enough IH (like 2-3 in a row?) on you, as i see in your video. Common healing scheme on Pole is: 2-3 IH > looking for orange circle and waiting for debuff or aoe > purify if debuff or CHB (or IH/WS instead) if aoe > repeat
i did Pole on my seeker lvl 80 (~4500 HP. macros + vortex. no QpQ, no pots or crab meat) + my cleric lvl 90 at that time. it takes a lot of time to kill him tho. but kinda easy if you know what to do, i even had time to use triple spark and att. skills on my cleric

HildieGarde - Heavens Tear

anotherwraith wrote: »

b:shutup
it's really bad that you don't know main skills of other classes (especially the main classes)
cleric healed you pretty good, he threw up quite enough IH (like 2-3 in a row?) on you, as i see in your video. Common healing scheme on Pole is: 2-3 IH > looking for orange circle and waiting for debuff or aoe > purify if debuff or CHB (or IH/WS instead) if aoe > repeat
i did Pole on my seeker lvl 80 (~4500 HP. macros + vortex. no QpQ, no pots or crab meat) + my cleric lvl 90 at that time. it takes a lot of time to kill him tho. but kinda easy if you know what to do, i even had time to use triple spark and att. skills on my cleric

I actually know a lot about Clerics since I play one as well.

Well this guy healed and purified well enough for me to survive although I had to use Blinking Poultice to boost my HP. What you don't see in the video is the fact that we squad wiped once before right before this because of the Cleric. One of the squad members actually had to check that he knew that he had to purify. So I was extra cautious this time round. You see my mouse cursor hovering over the Crabmeat just in case. In fact if you watch closely I had to use Crabmeat at least twice because the Cleric had allowed the IH stacking to lapse and I got hit with a debuff. It doesn't help if the Cleric healed fine most of the time, they have to be consistent all the way through to the end.

When I compare him to other Clerics who solo healed me on Pole (no Mystic or 2nd Cleric in squad), he wasn't anywhere as skilled as them. Nevertheless, the fact we made it second time round without any deaths is testament to the fact he did an ok job.

I just get annoyed at the random fail Clerics that allow their mana to run out and are stingy with heals. I've been in several squads where the Cleric ran out of mana and pots in the middle of a boss and either the squad wiped or I was left holding the boss alone with my HP Charm, BP and Crabmeat. There was even one Cleric that threw up BB out of healing range when I was Vortexing and didn't even realize it. Fortunately these fail Clerics are in the minority, most are awesome.

BTW there is a fairly noticeable difference in healing ability between a mid 80s Cleric (which is what I usually have had to squad with in BH69) and a level 90+ Sage or Demon Cleric. Personally I don't consider BH69 to be much of a challenge if you have a 90+ Cleric with level appropriate gear.

hiddenmonkey

laloner wrote: »

I've never seen a non-barb under 90 successfully tank Pole. The tank needs a lot of HP to survive until the cleric can Purify the debuff.

I've seen lots of seekers/bms/sins tank pole/nob. The trick is to be smart and save your spark and fire it when you get debuffed giving the cleric an extra 2 seconds to purify. 89 is becomes easy for aps to tank because all they have to do is triple spark to purify. Of course you need to have reasonably decent gear. Even goes for a barb, seen barbs get 1 shot because they had **** gear and **** hp.


Anyways trick for agro is for DD's to sit tight and wait to build agro. The smart ones make themselves useful by providing debuffs while waiting to speed the agro building process... Atleast for damage tanks, barbs are pretty fail when it comes to weapon damage investment. Bramble is also great for building agro, genie's alpha male, seekers like barbs also have skills intentionally designed to boost agro. Try using them?

dyrl

At lvl 90 I started rushing the back room and killing both pole, nob and the mobs all at once. Many BH69 squads have seen me do this. The key to it all....the cleric and the others allowing me to get a firm grip on agro. I debuff and then vortex...the horse run to me like moths to a flame..when my vortex gets knocked down I use my other aoe skills or a chi pot and bring it back up. Now I don't pull any bosses anymore..79, 89..I rush and kill the boss and all their little friends.

Ebrithalia - Dreamweaver

b:shutup was wondering where thsi thread went too, there it is, necroed b:sad

b:bye

Dyrlll - Dreamweaver

I have been rushing the back room and set up vortex so Nob is the first to arrive...The knights come and die and eventually I am doing both Nob and Pole. The cleric is key. I have been doing this since lvl 90 and many, many squads have been there to see it. I used no special pot beyond mp to keep vortex up and a crab meat or two. The range of clerics who were good enough to do this task ran from lvl 70 to 102. Most were in their 90's. Hail to the ones who practice and learn their skills!