What strategies do you guys use to survive AoEs . . .

Asassinate - Raging Tide

What strategies do you guys use to survive AoEs. Especially between levels 6X - 9X. And yes I mean without charms Lol

Thx

Azizsixer - Raging Tide

Gotta be a bit more specific here.

What instance/mob/boss are you going after?

Generally....stay away from the aoe? Or spark immune to it? Or knife throw/tc/earthquake to cancel?

More info would allow for more help

Salari - Raging Tide

There is only one answer, don't bit off more than you can chew

Tsyren - Archosaur

Bosses often cast a spell of AoE every 10 seconds (Ty Empu)

That's the length of a double spark.

Cast Double spark every time a boss starts casting. At your level you should have enough chi to maintain this cycle.

Asassinate - Raging Tide

Well ranker for starts, sins were on ground quite a lot. Just hits you before you realize. Bosses in TT 1-1 another example. Generally a lot of us sins at my level seem to have this problem, so I meant generally overall. Tried bow it merely hits your base attack, and speed is slow ofc.

Spark, deaden nerves suppose are good ideas. But wanted ways generally to simply counter this and keep digging in.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Azizsixer - Raging Tide wrote: »

earthquake to cancel?

The answer has been highlighted. Ask your next door neighbour to stop being lazy and use the shadowless kick to cancel aoe. It's there for a reason and makes you look cool. Most classes have 1~2 channel canceling, interrupting skills, best to use them.

Azizsixer - Raging Tide

Agreed! Barbs/BMs should definitely cancel the boss's aoe.

Can't stress the importance of Focused Mind. Its a life saver keep it maxed with your level.

Very important to time your sparks and earthquake genie skill.

A side note, Ranker is a hugeee pain if you're under geared for the instance. As a sin all i can think of is either spark resist or run away when you knw he's gona hit the aoe...also a VERY important note make good use of Ribstrike. Should keep that up to date with ur lvl

Empu - Sanctuary

Gonna be the bad guy, but seriously, if an aoe 1shot you when doing something in your lvl range, I think the first thing to look at is your gear. With o'malloy blessing and the ridiculously cheap 3* and mold gear around, no sin should be a 1shot by an aoe.

For the rest, there are several solutions :
- use damage absorbing/reduction apo
- use those buff-pills from maiden chests to get hp buff or defence buffs if you don't have a barb/bm in squad (or get them from faction base)
- use genie skills like ad
- time your sparks

Tsyren - Archosaur wrote: »

Bosses often cast a spell of AoE every 15 seconds.

Actually, most bosses cast (magic attacks, debuffs, aoes) in a 10sec, meaning 5 hits, cycle.

Azizsixer - Raging Tide wrote: »

Agreed! Barbs/BMs should definitely cancel the boss's aoe.

BM's can't cancel all unless they have sage shadowles kick or a genie with earthquake (which they often don't have because there are more usefull skills).

Barbs used to have the job to cancel, but the increasing difficulty to hold aggro combined to increasing lvl and gear quality mad that most barb's don't do this anymore. There is either no real use for it anymore (afterall, bh is either the easiest boss in up to lvl fb or bosses in a 10~19 lvls lower instance) and/or they have to spam fleshream to hold aggro as much as possible.

Tbh, I used to cancel with alacrity on my barb. It was considered as a form of art, especially on bosses that have no appearing channeling (like wyvern). But these days, I honestly don't bother anymore. Most ppl are so well geared (yes, talking about low lvls too) and clerics are usually good enough, to not bother with it.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Empu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Actually, most bosses cast (magic attacks, debuffs, aoes) in a 10sec, meaning 5 hits, cycle.

This is right.

I remember somewhere that the default boss attack rate is .66 aps, or 1.5 seconds per attack. A 5 second cycle is 7.5 seconds then they start their channeling for about a total of 1 aoe every 10 second cycle.

Back in the old days "barb training" consisted of keeping your Alacrity at level 8 or 9 until you were used to the channeling pattern. Every 8-9 seconds your Alacrity would come off cooldown and you'd immediately start channeling Alacrity and interupt the bosses attack. Once you figured out what 8.5 seconds felt like you'd finish leveling Alacrity.

Sage shadowless kick really isn't any more useful than demon for this since if you interupt they immediately start their next cycle and will be channeling before you cooldown.



Back when I was leveling my sin, I'd either volunteer to be the tank or to be support. If I didn't want to tank I had to hold back my damage which gave me free time to Rib Strike, rebuff myself, and use Dagger Throw and Throatcut to cancel for the barb. This allowed the barb to focus on aggro and the cleric could do other things than squad heal after aoes.

You're actually more likely to find Earthquake on casters nowadays. Its a low level genie skill, cheap, and great at buying you one or two more hits to kill mobs with ranged attacks without getting hits. In the old days bm's and sins used Earthquake because the gear wasn't developed enough to tank many bosses, so a bm would phys marrow everything and use EQ to cancel any magic attacks.

thumbs

Stay out of instances you're not properly geared for.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

I gotta admit, I"m having a hard time understanding how you're getting one shot by rankar's aoe. Normally, I'm not one to question a posters gear when they make for strategies against bosses, because I think too many people do that on the forums. And say things like if you don't have +10 you can't solo any pavillion in warsong. Which is just ludicrous. But I used to TANK rankar at that level range, even before I got my BOBM. If I could tank it at that level range, I don't see how you're getting one shot by the aoe. And I was and am a pure build.

Anyway, focused mind is important as is keeping the boss rib striked. It really decreases the damage he is doing. Use knife throw or throatcut to cancel and make sure any other sins in your squad are doing the same if you don't have earthquake. Spark when he is about to AOE and you should be able to resist much of the damage. Use inner harmony and rising dragon strike to make sure you stay two sparked when you need it.

edit:

And since you are one shot by aoes, you definitely cannot tank the bosses. At your current gear and level then I'd recommend using chill of the deep to make sure that the barbs take aggro. Focus on amping the boss and keeping it ribbed. Once the boss is at little less than half HP you're free to turn it off and dd as normal.

Jaabg - Sanctuary

Wow, times must have changed. When i was doing lower bh with my bm, always had a barb tank. Barb cancelled one aoe, i cancelled the other. Most sins had to be taught that they to have aoe cancelling stuff to use, but that's sins b:chuckle.

I have tried cancelling some aoes at higher instances with shadowless kick, either my timing is super bad, or some boss skills can not be cancelled. I have tried numerous times to cancel the fire aoe boss in nirvana just before the final boss for normal runs. I can never seem to cancel that aoe. I can never cancel the aps aoe for steelation either with earthquake or kick. I can cancel all other aoes, but that one does not want to seem to cancel.

As for rankar, if all else is failing for you, get pdef and mdef charms. As empu suggested if you are being one shot by rankar, probably gear fault. I can imagine hp dropping to 1k or less, maybe even under 100, but i presume you are not tanking the boss, take a pot, spark, cleric will heal in time, and you'll be at full hp soon enough.

There are numerous ways to survive with low hp, but all those ways require work as mentioned by other posters.