Fox Form Tanking Question

Darth_rambo - Lost City
Darth_rambo - Lost City Posts: 80 Arc User
edited February 2010 in Venomancer
I started out building a Arcane with Vit build Veno after reading about the pros and cons of each class, but something struck me as weird.

I did an HH run with a 91 HA veno I know, and even though she has a herc, said that she had to tank drum boss in fox form.

Now, my questions are: Since HA provides all the pdef, is fox form pretty much useless for an arcane build veno?

Second, if a herc is so ultimate, how come she couldn't use it to tank drum boss? Any thoughts? Thx in advance.
Post edited by Darth_rambo - Lost City on

Comments

  • WaffleChan - Sanctuary
    WaffleChan - Sanctuary Posts: 2,897 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    no, fox is not useless for an arcane veno, if anything it makes things easier.

    she didnt NEED to tank in fox, it just gives her a simpler fight.

    the 1-3 drummer on the other hand, if thats where you were can easily one shot hercs.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    advice to fledgling archers:
    Going sage is like drunken sex, at first she may look good, but when you wake up the next morning; you'll look at her and go WHAT HAVE I DONE.
  • Vitenka - Dreamweaver
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver Posts: 4,125 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Because drummer has a long-range physical AOE, it makes a lot of sense to be in fox form.

    Usually you'd still want the pet to tank it, but you're likely going to be inside the AOE. (The exception is if you're using a ranged pet, then you can stay at maximum range and be out of the aoe)

    And yes, going fox sometimes is good for arcanes, we just don't get as much out of it as LA and HA venos.
  • Solandri - Heavens Tear
    Solandri - Heavens Tear Posts: 2,843 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    WaffleChan - Sanctuary wrote: »
    the 1-3 drummer on the other hand, if thats where you were can easily one shot hercs.
    It's actually two-shot. In the first half of the fight, he casts a magic attack which is almost immediately followed up by a melee attack. The max damage I've seen from the magic attack on my 90 herc was something like 3576. My 90 herc has 4135 hp so this isn't enough one-shot it. The killing blow is the melee hit immediately after if I fail to land a heal in the split second between the two attacks.

    But 1-2 and 1-3 drummer has a really long cast animation on his magic attack. My friends and I tried it several different ways. The easiest turned out to be two genies with Earthquake. I send herc in, quickly follow to get within Earthquake range, and interrupt his initial magic attack. From then on, my friend and I simply take turns interrupting his casts with Earthquake. Doing that, I didn't even need any help healing my herc.

    Two genies with 85 mag taking turns will regen energy quick enough to interrupt for over 5 minutes, which is usually enough to get him below half hp (when his magic attack switches to an AOE). Three genies with 45 mag taking turns can keep interrupting forever. Or if you have a barb, he could do the interrupts.

    Same strategy works on wurlord, though his cast time is quicker so it's easier to mess up.
  • Darth_rambo - Lost City
    Darth_rambo - Lost City Posts: 80 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »
    And yes, going fox sometimes is good for arcanes, we just don't get as much out of it as LA and HA venos.

    Thanks for the responses, but would you mind elaborating on the above? Because if I decide to stay on the arcane path, which I'm already leaning to, how much much point is there to level fox form skills Vs. working on making pets powerful, if I'll never be tanking in FF? It would pretty much all be for PVP then against phys chars, right?
  • WaffleChan - Sanctuary
    WaffleChan - Sanctuary Posts: 2,897 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »
    It's actually two-shot.
    ive seen some lower level ones die in one so it depends on the situation
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    advice to fledgling archers:
    Going sage is like drunken sex, at first she may look good, but when you wake up the next morning; you'll look at her and go WHAT HAVE I DONE.
  • Pressa - Heavens Tear
    Pressa - Heavens Tear Posts: 1,287 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    If you work with anyone or ever want to pvp if you have to ever do level 90 bosses. You need purge and amp fox form skills are novel at best other then that they are situational skills using them out of situation usually results in the being utterly useless. All venos get 120% from fox form it helps quite a bit.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • Vitenka - Dreamweaver
    Vitenka - Dreamweaver Posts: 4,125 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    Darth_rambo - Lost City wrote: »
    Thanks for the responses, but would you mind elaborating on the above? Because if I decide to stay on the arcane path, which I'm already leaning to, how much much point is there to level fox form skills Vs. working on making pets powerful, if I'll never be tanking in FF? It would pretty much all be for PVP then against phys chars, right?

    Ok. Arcane path veno.

    When fighting bosses: You NEED to go fox every {cooldown... 60?} seconds to cast amplify damage. No arguments, just do it.
    The only exception is if you're tanking and can only just manage it and can't stop healing for even a second.
    Whilst you are fox, you might as well cast another fox skill, since it has a long enough cooldown that you can't unfox for a little while anyway.
    If you time it right, a pet heal is fine. But it's worth increasing some other fox skill (befuddling mist is the one I mostly use, leech and the manadrain one work well too) and using that. (Edit: The correct order is: Fox, skill, amp, unfox. That leaves you with as long as possible remaining on amp whilst in arcane form, letting you throw a couple of ironwoods during it)

    The other time you MUST go fox is when some enemy is about to smack you for way too much physical damage and you need the extra armour.

    The increased attack accuracy does basically nothing for you as an arcane veno, you aren't smacking things with your wand - you're casting spells which does more damage. (Though magic swords are actually surprisingly effective weapons to, uh, bite people with. The metaphor kinda breaks down there.)

    You typically run out of spirit WAY before you run out of coin early on, so I'd not worry about 'pet vs fox skills' I'd worry about 'arcane vs fox skills' - and arcane skills mostly win out. (But do max out amplify damage quite early on)
    Later on - yeah, you can ignore most fox skills. (The second 'must cast' is the 20% health reduction sage skill, but that's just once per fight.)

    PVP I can't talk about usefully. The increased defence would be nice, since your pdef is your biggest hole - but against everyone except clerics and archers (ranged physical damage is ouchie!) just staying out of range seems a better bet.
    Fox skills are very short range. I really don't think you want to get that close to a melee character. Having said that - one of your stuns is in foxform, so for PVP you might want to max that.
  • SeaStorm - Heavens Tear
    SeaStorm - Heavens Tear Posts: 315 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    I also find I prefer to fight in fox form on magic resistance mobs. The pet still tanks but I have a higher amount of damage in fox form as I'm melee attacking.

    I also prefer to use fox form in lower lvl FBs (right now FB79 and down) where I do not want to steal aggro off the pet due to my mage form attack damage.

    TT wise when I'm tanking 3-1 I prefer fox form on some of the bosses so I can continually amp as soon as the cooldown is done.

    PVP wise if you're sage the sage purge is an aoe for a small range, can't remember what they said the meter area is for it. Heard some venos use that on grouped catas etc in TW as well.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • mooman321
    mooman321 Posts: 86 Arc User
    edited February 2010
    As a vit arcane, if i was going to level one fox skill to squeeze in before amp, or when spam healing then it would be befuddling mist. It is an aoe skill so i find it useful in solo aoe grinding situations. It also adds a 9 second debuff that decreases target accuracy. When I can ALMOST but not quite tank a boss, the decreased accuracy means less damage to pet and is the difference between success and failure.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

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