What aggro skills should various classes use?

ponyduck

I had a 103 cleric. Retired her. Played some other classes awhile.
Quit game for about a year. Came back & started a new cleric.

On new cleric now, it seems basic game dynamics have changed since I
played my 103 cleric years ago. Mainly, during runs, sins & other classes
tank whereas before it was ALWAYS barb tanking. Which leads me to the
point of this post:

I always knew when to start healing barb when he was rounding up several
mobs. I could see when he threw some skill to aggro all the mobs. Then
I knew it was safe to start healing him.

Now with sins, for example, I learned the hard way that when he pulls a
group of mobs & his HP bar starts to drop drastically--I can't help
myself, lol, I throw a heal . . . and half the mobs leave him & immediately
come for me. Luckily I've always managed to survive until someone takes
aggro off me, but it got me wondering.

My question is: what skill/s (if any) should the other classes be using
if they're pulling a group of mobs, to ensure that they have aggro of
all the mobs?

It seems sins are the ones I'm primarily curious about since in almost
every run, it's a sin doing the pulling. I know they have some aoe
skills--should they use one of those once all the mobs are rounded up?
Should it be expected that sins establish aggro on all mobs once he's
got them, like barbs do? Generally, what's the accepted wisdom in such
a scenario?

Sorry if there's someplace out there that gives all this info, but tbh
I hardly knew what to put in the search box to find it, lol.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

What I do is never mind which class is pulling I wont drop a heal 'til someone AoE (the puller or someone else), I learned to don't kill myself for people that don't know what they are doing. No class have a roar like a barb.

I don't know which lvl your cleric are and about which instance you talk.

To be honest a sin should not pull so many mob unless he can solo them without heal, cause they can't keep aggro on a group of mob with been heal. Generally for a pull of mob it's suppose to be a barb or a seeker that pull, unless the squad have high DD that will be able to kill in 1-2 seconds.

If really you feel it's too risky use BB (if you have it I don't know your lvl) so at least that will heal all and cut the damage on everyone (use expel on yourself if you take to much damage) and as usual before the person start to pull stack a few IH and put the shield (again if you have the lvl for it), the best way is to communicate with your squad.

_Ghoul_ - Lost City

actually i can see where the sin would be pulling and that is in br.

i seen so many sin die pulling full br.

sin make bad puller honesty but cos 99% of our current population is a sin well u have crappy sin and more sins.


actually i love non sin frost on my barb while doing frost for faction all caster archer and no sin or seeker.


nobady can pull like a barb and if you get to the poiint of barb pulling then a barb would never die in ff cos serusly we rock at it.

last frost i did with party i only used tree crab meat no hp charm i was like woot

ponyduck

My new cleric is currently lvl 75, and the runs I'm talking about
are 51 & 59 mostly.

In 51, we'll have a sin in squad (and is usually a high-lvl one),
and he'll take off down hallway, pulling all the mobs after him.
And I mean, he'll go down 1st hallway, turn, down next, turn, etc.,
till he has about a dozen mobs on him. One of two things almost
always happens: 1) his HP plummets, I heal, half of mobs come to
atk me; or 2) he dies & yells at me why didn't I heal?

In 59, it's particularly difficult with all the ranged mobs in there.
Sin will run & pick up several of them. Now they're all beating on
the sin, while sin whales away at just one of them. As soon as I
throw a heal on him, the ranged mobs turn to me.

I have to say, that even though this type of pull happens VERY frequently,
we do manage to stay alive by using the various methods you mention,
Bella. I'm not really wondering what skills I as a cleric need to use.
I was more curious if there is an accepted method that sins should use
when gathering up a bunch of mobs, to ensure that cleric doesn't draw
aggro when she casts a heal on him.

Ah, the good old days of barbs tanking everything! lol
I love barbs. They make me feel so safe.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

As Ghoul said sins are not made to pull, if a sin pull a dozen of mobs than he should not expect heal, they don't have aggro skills. The sin that pull a lot of mobs and blame you for die cause no heal is a idiot. Sins are not barbs, sins are not a AoE DD.

If you say you manage to live than good for you.

You are the cleric don't be scare to tell them to don't do big pull if you have no seeker or barb or high lvl AoE DD or as i said stack IH the puller put wings of protection on him (when you gonna get it at lvl79) than BB and expel if you are in danger.

I would normally not say to BB, i way much more prefer IH than anything else, but for a lot of mobs and no barb and seek to keep agro BB gonna be your best chance to survive and save the squad.

Just communicate with your squad.

Welcome back to the game.

ponyduck

Thank you. You've all pretty much answered my question. I just
didn't know if there was something I was missing, or what.

Take this as sin-hating if you like, but I swear virtually 100% of the
problems I have in squads is due to sins, lol.

And thanks for the welcome, Bella. This time around is strictly
casual, old-fashioned leveling. I truly do not care how fast I
level--don't even pay attention to it, in fact. Sometimes that
LEVEL-UP animation will flash & it startles me, lol. Just playing
to be playing.

Xainou - Sanctuary

I just don't heal those "spark and aps single target with 3 mobs on them" sins. b:surrender Either they aoe all of them or they better be able to tank that.

Sure, I could live. But that doesn't mean everyone is fast enougzh to hit the right skills. It's just very poor teamplay imo.

Vindis - Dreamweaver

51 is doable with pulls of several groups (you can pull alot more with a barb). 59 is better tanked by mage classes since it is a magic mob filled instance. I do not know the population of your server, but if you manage to get a mystic, psy or even an archer they should be able to tank fine on mobs. I would go group by group unless the tank is capable of holding aggro on multiple groups and surviving.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Pfft sins pull fine. Wait for Earthen Rift or Subsea strike before healing them. If they don't use it, they don't get heals. A lot of bms don't have hf yet at those levels but you wait for highland cleave or anyone else's aoe before you attack. (Highland cleave is the red swirly move they usually do at that range after they've pulled some mobs.) You wait for seekers to aoe as well.

And lol at don't heal the sin just because they pull. That's why people rage. I had no problems pulling groups of mobs on my sin. But I always made sure to rift so I could be healed.

Also this is where your teammates should be yelled at a bit too. I mean there is no reason not to go group by group. And a bm or something could easily take aggro of something that the sin has not. Instead of also derp attacking the same mob and leaving you to figure it out.

Since you said you used to look for animations and haven't played in a while...
edit: This is highland cleave. I'm sure you've seen it plenty of times. Just as a refresher.
This is earthen rift.
And this is subsea strike.

Not that highland is a bm's only aoe, if you see them aoe at all, heal. It's just the one I personally saw used most often in that range. :P

This should be more than enough to keep aggro from your heals.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Pfft sins pull fine. Wait for Earthen Rift or Subsea strike before healing them. If they don't use it, they don't get heals. A lot of bms don't have hf yet at those levels but you wait for highland cleave or anyone else's aoe before you attack. (Highland cleave is the red swirly move they usually do at that range after they've pulled some mobs.) You wait for seekers to aoe as well.

And lol at don't heal the sin just because they pull. That's why people rage. I had no problems pulling groups of mobs on my sin. But I always made sure to rift so I could be healed.

Unfortunately the way he say it the sins he had in his squads don't earthen rift or subsea cause he say when he heal he get all mobs on him. Some sins are great, but a lot are not really good. I see a lot of sins not use subsea even at lvl100+, many sins have only 5 skills which is spark, bp, stealth, stun and the skill i don't know the name that make them not one shot. (I seriously know some sins that have only 5-6 skills and never learned the others)

Every class can pull, it's more after pull what people do that will make it fail or not. Also the speed they kill the group of mobs, as i said if it take 1-2 second than it doesn't matter no one will die, but it always depend on the squad.

It all depend on the squad and it's why i say communication is the best way to make it.

The thing i don't understand is why now people are always so hurry for everything, every instance it's now like a FC and people make huge pull to kill with AoE, some people are just crazy and don't understand that everyone cannot handle the same thing, i know some people that in warsong pull the fire mobs from the start to the last mobs than scream and QQ cause half the squad die. It's not everyone and every squad that can handle mega huge pull. I see too often squad **** cause of to big pull, in TT, Abba, SoT and warsong. I cannot really speak for the lower instance cause all my chars was made a long time ago and lucky me that was back in time barbs was still existing.

My new baby cleric is now 55 and i cannot wait to see how now people deal with the ''low'' instance as bh51/59/69.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands wrote: »

Unfortunately the way he say it the sins he had in his squads don't earthen rift or subsea cause he say when he heal he get all mobs on him. Some sins are great, but a lot are not really good. I see a lot of sins not use subsea even at lvl100+, many sins have only 5 skills which is spark, bp, stealth, stun and the skill i don't know the name that make them not one shot. (I seriously know some sins that have only 5-6 skills and never learned the others)

Every class can pull, it's more after pull what people do that will make it fail or not. Also the speed they kill the group of mobs, as i said if it take 1-2 second than it doesn't matter no one will die, but it always depend on the squad.

It all depend on the squad and it's why i say communication is the best way to make it.

The thing i don't understand is why now people are always so hurry for everything, every instance it's now like a FC and people make huge pull to kill with AoE, some people are just crazy and don't understand that everyone cannot handle the same thing, i know some people that in warsong pull the fire mobs from the start to the last mobs than scream and QQ cause half the squad die. It's not everyone and every squad that can handle mega huge pull. I see too often squad **** cause of to big pull, in TT, Abba, SoT and warsong. I cannot really speak for the lower instance cause all my chars was made a long time ago and lucky me that was back in time barbs was still existing.

My new baby cleric is now 55 and i cannot wait to see how now people deal with the ''low'' instance as bh51/59/69.

True, but it helps to know what to ask for. Sometimes they do have it, they just didn't know any better. I agree with you that communication is really a key to making things go smoothly. It just annoys me that the advice is usually don't heal the sin. When it should be ask them to use "this move" and "that move," so you can heal them. If they don't have it, obviously don't heal them or go one by one. But the first solution shouldn't be not to heal them. Plenty of sins are moron but a lot of good sins aren't getting healed and getting killed cause they aren't getting heals. It slows everything down for no good reason whatsoever. Whoever has aggro and can survive the aggro with heals is the tank.

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Pfft sins pull fine. Wait for Earthen Rift or Subsea strike before healing them. If they don't use it, they don't get heals.

Great post Venus.

Sins only have two aoes (3 with the AEU skill, but most don't have that) and they both are only 8m range. Earthen Rift is the more spammable because it doesn't have a chi cost and only has 8 second cooldown, while Subsea costs 2 sparks and has a 30 second cd.

If you've played a sin you know that we're sort of squishy but a steady stream of bloodpaint can do wonders. Thats why so many sins aren't aoeing. They run in and triple spark and aps a single mob and the paint heals from that one mob keep them alive better than the aoe paint which is a huge chunk of heals, then nothing for a few seconds which can be deadly.

I make a habit of aoeing before I triple spark aps if there is a cleric around. Sometimes I wont have noticed the cleric showed up and I'll be apsing and they'll surprise me by healing me. I then have to try to save the cleric when I would have been fine without any heals, now I'm scrambling to kill mobs, losing my chi, and possibly dieing. Its a cleric's job to heal, but its also a clerics job to know when not to heal.

~So, Venus showed you a picture of Earthen Rift (looks like the sin punches the ground and fire explodes from it) and Subsea (blue scythes spin out).
~You obviously know barbs Roar, Sunder, or Untamed Wrath for aggro.
~Seekers have pretty obvious aoes. The have 2 ranged aoes and 3 melee aoes. The ranged aoes are Gemini Slash (makes 3 black circles at the seekers feet then shadow seekers explode in different directions from the target) and Ion Spike which costs a spark so is less common. They also have Darkcloud Bolt, Stalagstrike, and Vortex which are obvious aoes,
~Archers tend to use either Thunderous Blast (twirls and shoots a lightning arrow) or barrage. Lightning blast has an 8m aoe range so may not get everything. Some archers also use STA, which will cast a group hp debuff. If you see that, it was an aoe.
~Venos use Noxious Gas, which is green channeling and then green gas on the mobs. Many venos may pull in fox form and use a genie skill like bramble rage for aggro.
~Mystics use Gale Force. Can't remember the channeling/cast but you'll recognize it because it seals/freezes a large number of mobs so you'll see those effects all around.
~Wizards have their ultis which are easily recognizable. I've also had wizards recommend distance shrinking forward to put all the mobs in a line, then using Will of Phoenix (blazing bird shoots out and pushes mobs back) which is a linear aoe. Then they can walk into a bb ahead of the mobs.
~Psys have easily recognizable aoes. Same with BMs.

If the sin never aoes, he doesn't want your heals. If he does want your heals and didn't aoe then he may have to die to learn for the future. At least you'll be there to rez him. Which reminds me, get in a space so the mobs don't reset on you if he does die. If you feel you should do something then give him and shield and assist-attack target and debuff the mob for him to give him more bloodpaint. In a way, this acts the same as healing.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

Great post Venus.

Sins only have two aoes (3 with the AEU skill, but most don't have that) and they both are only 8m range. Earthen Rift is the more spammable because it doesn't have a chi cost and only has 8 second cooldown, while Subsea costs 2 sparks and has a 30 second cd.

If you've played a sin you know that we're sort of squishy but a steady stream of bloodpaint can do wonders. Thats why so many sins aren't aoeing. They run in and triple spark and aps a single mob and the paint heals from that one mob keep them alive better than the aoe paint which is a huge chunk of heals, then nothing for a few seconds which can be deadly.

I make a habit of aoeing before I triple spark aps if there is a cleric around. Sometimes I wont have noticed the cleric showed up and I'll be apsing and they'll surprise me by healing me. I then have to try to save the cleric when I would have been fine without any heals, now I'm scrambling to kill mobs, losing my chi, and possibly dieing. Its a cleric's job to heal, but its also a clerics job to know when not to heal.

~So, Venus showed you a picture of Earthen Rift (looks like the sin punches the ground and fire explodes from it) and Subsea (blue scythes spin out).
~You obviously know barbs Roar, Sunder, or Untamed Wrath for aggro.
~Seekers have pretty obvious aoes. The have 2 ranged aoes and 3 melee aoes. The ranged aoes are Gemini Slash (makes 3 black circles at the seekers feet then shadow seekers explode in different directions from the target) and Ion Spike which costs a spark so is less common. They also have Darkcloud Bolt, Stalagstrike, and Vortex which are obvious aoes,
~Archers tend to use either Thunderous Blast (twirls and shoots a lightning arrow) or barrage. Lightning blast has an 8m aoe range so may not get everything. Some archers also use STA, which will cast a group hp debuff. If you see that, it was an aoe.
~Venos use Parasitic Nova, which is green channeling and then green gas on the mobs. Many venos may pull in fox form and use a genie skill like bramble rage for aggro.
~Mystics use Gale Force. Can't remember the channeling/cast but you'll recognize it because it seals/freezes a large number of mobs so you'll see those effects all around.
~Wizards have their ultis which are easily recognizable. I've also had wizards recommend distance shrinking forward to put all the mobs in a line, then using Will of Phoenix (blazing bird shoots out and pushes mobs back) which is a linear aoe. Then they can walk into a bb ahead of the mobs.
~Psys have easily recognizable aoes. Same with BMs.

If the sin never aoes, he doesn't want your heals. If he does want your heals and didn't aoe then he may have to die to learn for the future. At least you'll be there to rez him. Which reminds me, get in a space so the mobs don't reset on you if he does die. If you feel you should do something then give him and shield and assist-attack target and debuff the mob for him to give him more bloodpaint. In a way, this acts the same as healing.

Also great post and fixed for ya.

One thing to add though since you're playing in 51/59 the sins probably don't have triple spark yet. And if they do, they probably aren't going to need your heals anyway.


But, they should have maze steps, focused mind, and both types of stealth. What I used to do was on the first group I'd use stealth. (regular) and then rift the mobs. Since I wasn't taking damage running into them and got a spike heal from rift the half a second I was exposed while casting rift, my health didn't dip too bad before the cleric could heal. THe second and third groups I'd combine maze steps/focused mind and then windpush/holypath and then rift them. By the time I came around to the fourth group and those skills were on cooldown, force stealth would be out of cooldown. And I could wash rinse and repeat. If too many things were on cooldown I'd let the squad run ahead of me, get out of combat mode. Stealth and then go about it that way. This way the cleric never had to worry about if they'd die just from healing. Now keeping aggro from others besides the cleric is a whole 'nother story.

But of course a sin that uses their skills like this is probably not gonna cause problems anyway.

I'd just make sure the cleric knew that, that what was I going to do. Because some of them don't pay attention, see your run into a group of mobs and even though you're in stealth drop a heal. Stealth is one of a sins most valuable PvE weapon. If they are the doing the pulls and you guys are going group by group, they definitely should use it as part of their arsenal.

edit:In higher dungeons this tactic doesn't work that well due to more numerous mobs and tighter bunching. But for 51/59 it's a good way to get the squad comfortable with going by group rather than mob by mob. Even though in 59 often it's better to just let an arcane do it. Cept in the phys hallway.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

It's interesting to see someone talk about sins and use skills name and use of them beside the usual APS thing.

Xainou - Sanctuary

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

~So, Bella showed you a picture of Earthen Rift (looks like the sin punches the ground and fire explodes from it) and Subsea (blue scythes spin out).
~You obviously know barbs Roar, Sunder, or Untamed Wrath for aggro.
~Seekers have pretty obvious aoes. The have 2 ranged aoes and 3 melee aoes. The ranged aoes are Gemini Slash (makes 3 black circles at the seekers feet then shadow seekers explode in different directions from the target) and Ion Spike which costs a spark so is less common. They also have Darkcloud Bolt, Stalagstrike, and Vortex which are obvious aoes,
~Archers tend to use either Thunderous Blast (twirls and shoots a lightning arrow) or barrage. Lightning blast has an 8m aoe range so may not get everything. Some archers also use STA, which will cast a group hp debuff. If you see that, it was an aoe.
~Venos use Noxious Gas, which is green channeling and then green gas on the mobs. Many venos may pull in fox form and use a genie skill like bramble rage for aggro.
They also got Parasitic Nova, which is purple and easy to recognize by the skulls.
~Mystics use Gale Force. Can't remember the channeling/cast but you'll recognize it because it seals/freezes a large number of mobs so you'll see those effects all around.
Could also use thicket, you will see 4 pink plant things labeled "x's Thicket" drop on the mob.
~Wizards have their ultis which are easily recognizable. I've also had wizards recommend distance shrinking forward to put all the mobs in a line, then using Will of Phoenix (blazing bird shoots out and pushes mobs back) which is a linear aoe. Then they can walk into a bb ahead of the mobs.
Or they use Hailstorm, pretty much a blue circle on the ground and rain falling down.
~Psys have easily recognizable aoes. Same with BMs.

b:surrender

Sakubatou - Sanctuary

Thanks Xainou and sorry Venus, had stuff going on in my house and actually had to rewrite the post halfway through and mistyped some things. Edited to give you credit. I meant you and said your name right the first time but Bella posted after you and I'd just read her response and same picutres and all...

Xainou, you're right. I meant Noxious gas and described it as such, just got the name wrong. I always say those two backwards =/ Actually, what I do when pulling on my veno is of course use bramble for some aggro and I use Myriad Rainbow since its an instant and an aoe. This means I really don't have to stop to cast it and can group the mobs by arcing as I run with them and cast it at one in the center. I've never fully tested the aggro amount. Most the time it works perfectly (and I run through mobs with bramble anyways since I'm an HA veno that has had 20k+ pdef since like level 85 and it barely damages me) but I have had some times where mobs went for the cleric, but only a mob or two. I think if not a single bleed, poison, or debuff procs from Myriad then they're unaggroed but even the squishiest clerics can tank a mob or three while in bb if they're removed quickly.

Didn't know that works with thicket. Good info. My mystic and my wizzy are my last chars to really focus on. And sort of my psychic. Caster aversion, although I love my cleric and tolerate my veno well enough since he's HA and mixes casting and melee.

ponyduck

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands wrote: »

It's interesting to see someone talk about sins and use skills name and use of them beside the usual APS thing.

Exactly what I was thinking. Puts sins in a different light to me.

Wow!--y'all answered the hell out of my question. It is PRECISELY
what I was looking for. And then some.

I'm bookmarking this thread for further study, lol.