Psychic in FCC, version 2

Vindrael - Lost City wrote: »

Instead of replying to the first thread on this topic, I would like to create a whole new thread with some advice for fellow psys who run in Frost:

1. There is only one place in Frost you should be in white voodoo: Pulling the magic mobs in the second hallway (before the bishops). I like to pull those mobs because with White Voodoo, Empowered Vigor, Bubble of Life, and Holy Path I can pull them all without even ticking my charm. A barb or BM can also do the pull, but their charm ticks a few times doing it. May as well have the magic guy do the one big magic mob pull.

Everywhere else, Black Voodoo is the way to go. Your job is to help kill stuff before it even has a chance to start running toward you.

2. Go with a BM. Who knows how to stun. And Heaven's Flame. For big pulls, I usually do a double-spark Earth Vector after the BM has stunned and flamed. This re-stuns the mobs, does quite a bit of damage, and then allows me to follow up with Sandburst Blast. I've only been on 1 or 2 runs where this was not enough to kill everything. For those rare times, I try to get Psychic Will up and then wait for them all to come over and hit me. Aqua Cannon them and they all die.

3. If you want to DD a boss right off the bat, open with Soulburn and your DoT skills on the boss. Soulburn does decent damage on bosses, but it won't cause you to pull aggro (in fact the aggro it does create is directed to the tank). The DoT skills (like Torrent) are decent for damage as far as these kinds of skills go. As soon as the boss is down around 10%, you can start easing in to full DD power.

4. The second boss (surrounded by the colored pillars of light) has a nasty "bubble" (looks like Occult Ice). I almost always hit this boss a few times with Aqua Impact / Spirit Blast right away to get his attention. For some reason, even if his aggro goes back to the tank, I become the target for his sleep and bubble skills. This is what I want! Wait for him to sleep you; tell the cleric to purify if he does this, and then immediately put up Soul of Retaliation. Not only will you not get bubbled when he tries a few seconds later, the boss will get hit for half your soulforce! We are literally the only class that can avoid bubble of death and damage the boss in the process.

5. Soul of Retaliation does not reduce the "SUPER... MEGA... TURKEY... SLASHER...." boss's AoE attack. I tried, I died.

6. Psychic Will does not resist the above boss's AoE either. I tried, I died.

7. Triple-spark DOES resist the above boss's AoE, but it has to be timed just right. I'd rather save triple spark for when the BM comes back in to HF.

I use Soul of Retaliation a lot in FCC. Any time a boss or mob does an AoE attack, they take damage from me. I use Bubble of Life frequently to help out the cleric (especially on the Bishop Boss, and I do a sparked Bubble of Life if the cleric is slept).

I hope this helps. If I've missed anything, or if anyone has different advice, post away! I'm hoping this post prevents anyone else from ever running Frost in White Voodoo. :P

Good Tips Vindrael.

Maybe I can help add a couple.

On that 2nd boss his hurty bubble can be a problem if you have a lower healer or low health/level players inside.

If your a sage Psychic (Which most of us are) Then we have a awesome mechanic with our Bubble of life that will cleanse off boss debuffs, including the bubble that the 2nd boss will put around people. Try and save your sage BoL for the bubbles and help your team out.

On the same note if you can acquire sage Soul of Vengeance it will take away it's mana cost, letting you cast it on the Barb tanks and make it tons easier to hold those aoe pull mobs he'll be gathering.

Another thing I've found is if you don't have that great of gear yet or are just starting out try using Soulburn on the harpies that shoot from the sky, they shoot at a super fast rate and will take many ticks from it.

The above post mentioned saving your Stun for the Frost bishops which is a way good idea. Try and wait till the BM's stun falls off then hit them with Earth Vector right after to keep the damage low.
At my level I don't even need a BM since I can solo all those pulls myself with the stun.

Last one I can think of is keep refreshing your Seal of Retaliation on the lass boss, you will reflect back a chunk of his damage whenever he uses his aoe slowy hurty move.


That's all I can think of atm.

I'd love to share some things, some were already said, but it never hurts to say them once again

-Always cast Empowered Vigor on barb whenever is going to be a pull.
-If you're Sage and have Sage Soul of Vengeance, cast it on barb, the fixed amount of dmg reflected will be excellent and the barb can hold better the aggro.

--For easy pulls you can always used Advanced Spark, let the BM use Heaven's Flame; then you can use Aqua Cannon and 1shot everything. If you're a mid lvl Psy (70-80) this may not be enough. Let the BM cast HF, then you can use Earth Vector and Sandburst blast, that should kill the mobs.

--For bosses, the best you can do is to use your DoTs whenever they're availabable. And then use Sandburst blast, reducing boss accuary is always nice (But avoid your AOEs when killing Oceania). If it's high lvl barb attack like normal. If it's a low lvl barb, mix your DoTs and normal hits.

---- For Bosses with AOE always give support to the cleric, use your Bubble of life. Cleric may be under a Seal, and Psy's can cast Bubble of life pretty fast.

----If a boss spawn a minion, take it down, you can do it by yourself. If it's a Dragoon you can kill it alone without trouble using this: Crystal Light/Aqua Impact-->Landslide-->Glacial shards. The objective is to slow the target at first, then use the landslide to take him far from you, with the slowdown effect it'll give you enough time to cast Glacial shards before the mob reaches you; if lucky enough the mob will be frozen at a safe distance and that gives the Landslide enough time to cooldown, repeat.

If the mob is a Bishop, don't use Landslide on it, even if it's right next to you, make whatever to endure it. You can use Earth Vector and start killing, avoid the knockbacks. If your Physical defense is way to low, use Psychic will then.

If it's the Oceania boss, DON'T hit the mini version of him, that will cause 5k of dmg to everyone.

----For the Slasher boss, attack from your max distance (28.5m), that way even if the boss cast his AOE, the AOE won't hit you.
--Pretty tip for the AOE--
Fortunately his AOE takes a while to cast, while he's casting it use your Soulburn (Lvl 10 it's prefered for the 28.5m factor), since his AOE are many many hits, the Soulburn will do a lot of dmg on him, and you won't get the Aggro .

----For big pulls like the one in the Exp Room, you can use your Advanced spark, Master's Li Technique and the Psychic will. Then you have some seconds to nuke everything, if there's HF on, you can clear this by yourself . If you're mid lvl Psy, let the BM use HF + Stun, then use Sandburst Blast, wait for the Stun to go away and use Earth Vector + Aqua Cannon; if the mobs aren't dead by now, use Psychic Will and abuse of your AOES.

For Dragons, let the barb get well the aggro before even considering attack!.

Qingzi - Harshlands wrote: »

I got one.

Make sure you use Glacial Shards on the big pull in EXP room. It makes everything lag so hard Assassins die

a party asked me not to use that skill because of lag (during the 2 pulls before slasher+bishop)b:chuckle

Don't use Soul of Silence. Especially not on bishop spawning boss. makes them run away and things could get real ugly. If you accidently get aggro from a ton of mobs, chances are you're gonna die anyways xD. I don't use it at all in FF.

Use water skills as little as possible on bosses (water on water mob = weak, earth = moar damage on water due to weakness). I always do spirit blast, landslide, spirit blast, sandburst (except on big room boss) rince n repeat


on heads spawn always use sandburst if you blindly tab, you'll get more mobs if you're lucky


I also use white voodoo on dragoons. You'll get destroyed if you go all out aoe with black voodoo on HFed dragoons.

Vindrael - Lost City wrote: »

1. There is only one place in Frost you should be in white voodoo: Pulling the magic mobs in the second hallway (before the bishops). I like to pull those mobs because with White Voodoo, Empowered Vigor, Bubble of Life, and Holy Path I can pull them all without even ticking my charm. A barb or BM can also do the pull, but their charm ticks a few times doing it. May as well have the magic guy do the one big magic mob pull.

Everywhere else, Black Voodoo is the way to go. Your job is to help kill stuff before it even has a chance to start running toward you.

I don't agree with this at all. Even with a BM's stun and HF, if the squad doesn't do enough AOE damage fast enough (a major problem with high 70, or low/high 80 squads), any decently statted, decent geared psy will get aggro way too fast with black voodoo, which usually spells trouble. I used to just sit there and wait for mobs to be down to half, and just on vector or sandblast I still get instant aggro. Whether or not a psy white voodoos should be directly proportionate with early tests in an FF (the first several pulls) run on how quickly they draw aggro with black voodoo or no voodoo, and how much tolerance they have to physical damage, due to the long animation preventing me from doing any immobile spells like shards since they'd be on me by the time I'd cast it. In my case, I often had to white voodoo myself in the low 80s unless I was paired with a wizard or archer.

2. Go with a BM. Who knows how to stun. And Heaven's Flame. For big pulls, I usually do a double-spark Earth Vector after the BM has stunned and flamed. This re-stuns the mobs, does quite a bit of damage, and then allows me to follow up with Sandburst Blast. I've only been on 1 or 2 runs where this was not enough to kill everything. For those rare times, I try to get Psychic Will up and then wait for them all to come over and hit me. Aqua Cannon them and they all die.

I've been on a lot of runs where it wasn't enough for a psy, especially my own. At higher levels, black voodoo your heart out. Sins, BM's, and veno's actually do decent AOE dmg at this point and their high crits are gonna be as dangerous as psy AOE's on mobs with 50 - 150K HP.

3. If you want to DD a boss right off the bat, open with Soulburn and your DoT skills on the boss. Soulburn does decent damage on bosses, but it won't cause you to pull aggro (in fact the aggro it does create is directed to the tank). The DoT skills (like Torrent) are decent for damage as far as these kinds of skills go. As soon as the boss is down around 10%, you can start easing in to full DD power.

Have never pulled aggro on a boss, and that's with ~ 8k mag atk at 86 and 12% crit.

4. The second boss (surrounded by the colored pillars of light) has a nasty "bubble" (looks like Occult Ice). I almost always hit this boss a few times with Aqua Impact / Spirit Blast right away to get his attention. For some reason, even if his aggro goes back to the tank, I become the target for his sleep and bubble skills. This is what I want! Wait for him to sleep you; tell the cleric to purify if he does this, and then immediately put up Soul of Retaliation. Not only will you not get bubbled when he tries a few seconds later, the boss will get hit for half your soulforce! We are literally the only class that can avoid bubble of death and damage the boss in the process.

This method is very inefficient. For a psy, all you can do is try to time sparks, perhaps time bubble, even set an early HP pot, or just eat the bubble as one should not be enough to kill you if you are arcane and with more than crappy HP.

The boss does random sleep and random bubble to everyone who doesn't have aggro, unless the person who has aggro is fighting it solo, then they get the works.

5. Soul of Retaliation does not reduce the "SUPER... MEGA... TURKEY... SLASHER...." boss's AoE attack. I tried, I died.

I didn't try.. didn't need to be told. o.O

6. Psychic Will does not resist the above boss's AoE either. I tried, I died.

.. or this.

7. Triple-spark DOES resist the above boss's AoE, but it has to be timed just right. I'd rather save triple spark for when the BM comes back in to HF.

Although, it's a stupid thing to do anyways. You can just attack from max range and not have to worry about sparking his SUPER. What's the point of this other than to show off? I'd laugh at a psy or wizard who tries this and die.

I use Soul of Retaliation a lot in FCC. Any time a boss or mob does an AoE attack, they take damage from me. I use Bubble of Life frequently to help out the cleric (especially on the Bishop Boss, and I do a sparked Bubble of Life if the cleric is slept).

This is really the only decent advice. You have bubble. Use it to help out the cleric. Pretty simple. Psychics aren't just damage dealers. They're supporters. Throw some empowered vigor on the barb/tank too.

One bonus piece of advice I would give is for Dreadindra. I almost found it comical every time a bishop spawns I'd smack it with vector for the stun, immediately cast soul of stunning, and ticky tack AI/SB it to death, waiting for it to AOE so it can be stunned again. Helps out a squad tremendously.

I can understand why some wouldn't use silence. I use it on large phys mob pulls, though generally not dragoons if we're in a tight space in the same room as the ladies and don't want to pull them.

;o Hi kanjou
To be fair, you have to understand that your gear/sharding is probably more extreme than most of ours. x)
It is nice to see your videos up here showing what psy is capable tho keep being cool~

---

Hmmm FCC.... what to say.
I've been FCCing my cleric and archer lately and the same things always seem to stand out with other psy in my squad:

* Don't use Earth Vector on bosses, it does not stun them >_> I don't know how many times I've had to tell a psy this. And if you're choosing it for the damage....
Sprit Blast: 100% + 2043.6 Earth damage.
Earth Vector: 100% + 3461.7 Earth damage (one spark)
Landslide: 100% + 3600.8 Earth damage (DO NOT USE ON SUPER SLASHY) <--this is what you were looking for.

* Soulburning bosses is..... like a really expensive, long cast DoT spell, and should not happen after the boss is at 50%. Use your DoTs if you need to, but it is more difficult to steal aggro on level 150 bosses. Don't blow sparks you'll need on pulls late into the boss.

* Psy will. Often. I even do it just to give people time to establish aggro. And if your BM is not stunning, you can throw an Earth Vector. However, learn which mobs RESIST STUN and which do not. May save your life if you cast Earth Vector and suddenly have a horde of wonderful stun resist phys mobs on you.

* Our base run speed is a tad faster than the mobs in xp room pull. Use that to your advantage. Mobs reset at the door up the ramp a little, so if you want just holy path away when tank falls.

* Bubble on Shock Trooper if cleric gets bubbled :< We work our butts off to save you, return the favor. Even if it's not sage, believe me, it helps. And even with the new influx of mystics who don't use their plants, you're still the designated back up healer.

*Psy max range is safe from SUPER SLASHY's aoe. Just stay there and keep dding and move when he runs towards you back to max range.

*Emp vig the barb, NOT THE CLERIC. While the thought is appreciated, it's incorrect.

*Don't landslide bishops. We stay bunched up for a reason, so dds who may or may not be immobilized can turn and dd the bishop.

On a side note: Diminished Vigor does stick to bosses, but to what effect, I have no idea.

my rule of thumb for pulls:
If BM has stunned - sandburst, glacial, earth vector
If BM has not stunned - psy will, glacial, sandburst, earth vector
If No Bm - Earth Vector, sandburst, glacial, psy will if needed
If BM HFs and barb has weak aggro - Psy will first, the cast/channel gives others time to aggro, earth vector, glacial


I wrote more than I thought I would QQ

Eden - Raging Tide wrote: »

good post kerona

also the post above urs is obviously not meant to be information its to show off

Edit- wow so long. read reds for skimming purposes

I am disappointed that my post was seen as an attempt to show off. Although I admit dragoons can not be gathered by any poorly geared psychic, it is entirely possible with level 100 gear. I have been rounding up mobs in the EXP room since I was in my level 90's, using TT90 gear. Of course, at low levels, you should expect the team to help you.

The only reason that I did not ask for help in those videos is because, ironically, I was trying to be informative. I wanted other psychics to see EXACTLY what steps to take in order to successfully gather and Nuke the mobs.

As you can see, in both pulls, I try to have the mobs gather around me by going immune first, and then aqua cannon to establish my aggro. This allows other party members to properly AOE/HF the group of mobs. Then, because the mobs are gathered around the main AOE DDer (psychic). There is no fear of others stealing aggro, and the mobs are wiped cleanly and uniformly.

Again, I hate to give advice because it makes me sound arrogant, but the reasons why psychics should pull those two areas specifically makes so much sense to me.

First, I will explain WHY psychics should pull the popular EXP room, without even referring to the efficiency of how hyper time is used.

As much as I love psychics, I admit that psychics are fairly useless against this boss-- due to the lack of non-AOE DD attacks.
Before level 100, we have 3 non-AOEs and 2 DoTs. with 2 being water (which the boss has resistance to). One of them is landslide, which forces the psychic to get close to the boss, is unusable at lower levels because the boss has the potential to 1-shot the psychic with his AOE attack at close range.
So psychics are left with 2 WEAK non-AOE attacks and 2 DoTs, with 2 being half damage (water)-- making psychics a poor DD choice for this boss.


In EXP room, psychics should just kill harpies and proceed to pull the room. If you had watched the video without a stubborn mindset that only people with good gears can perform this task, you can see that during the EXP room pull, I was only hit a total of 5 times. One being reflected by Soul of Retaliation. Even poorly geared psychics can survive 5 hits from these mobs. Then it is just a matter of going immune and nuking them. No cleric heals required. In fact, they should tempest.

Based on the reasoning above, I don't see a more efficient or better way to use a psychic in the EXP room. Not to mention completely survivable.

Now, I will explain why Psychics should pull the dragoons. The reasoning is so simple. It is because dragoons have a lot of HP, and it is much more efficient to kill them uniformly. Again, if one had watched my video for informational purposes rather than jealousy, you can see just how cleanly psychics can kill dragoons. there was only 1 stray.
Do you think a BM stealing aggro from a barb using heaven's flame would result in such clean wipe of dragoons?
If you have BMs, barbs and Cleric (heal aggro), and psychics all competing for aggro, chances are that mobs will be scattered, and the squad will waste time having the kill the strays.

Psychic should be the choice to hold dragoon aggro for the following reasons:
1. Psychics have white voodoo and psychic will.
2. Psychics do most AOE damage over this specific duration of time.

In the video, the pull itself was inefficient, due to people's lack of knowledge for the capabilities of psychics. It hurts too much to bring them back to the hallway, However, had I pulled the mobs into the boss room hallway, I would not have suffered so many attacks during the pull. Maybe less than 10 in white voodoo, so again, the survivability is high with medium geared psychics. The hard part is getting immunity from the seconds between triple spark and psychic will. During that time, you may want to ask the cleric to give you Wings of Protection, ask BM to HF, or any squad member to AD for those few seconds you take to go immune. It is VERY important to triple spark because that is how you will establish aggro based on pure damage. Aqua cannon is best for aggroing the mobs around. After your Aqua cannon, precede to nuke with any AOE skills you like. Again, no cleric heals required.


In this post, I know I only explained the reasoning why psychics should gather mobs in these two areas. The technique in which to perform these tasks can all be observed in the videos. Try it, before you think it is impossible. Don't downplay psychics like other people.

In the videos, I put soothing music in the background. Because when I made the video, I was so relaxed, it is so simple after you get used to it.

1. There is only one place in Frost you should be in white voodoo: Pulling the magic mobs in the second hallway (before the bishops). I like to pull those mobs because with White Voodoo, Empowered Vigor, Bubble of Life, and Holy Path I can pull them all without even ticking my charm. A barb or BM can also do the pull, but their charm ticks a few times doing it. May as well have the magic guy do the one big magic mob pull.

that depends....if you are +10 you dont need to use white vodoo...unless you use a vit/mag genie, you cant do the pulls fast enough, in that case you need to trust your gear...

Everywhere else, Black Voodoo is the way to go. Your job is to help kill stuff before it even has a chance to start running toward you.

2. Go with a BM. Who knows how to stun. And Heaven's Flame. For big pulls, I usually do a double-spark Earth Vector after the BM has stunned and flamed. This re-stuns the mobs, does quite a bit of damage, and then allows me to follow up with Sandburst Blast. I've only been on 1 or 2 runs where this was not enough to kill everything. For those rare times, I try to get Psychic Will up and then wait for them all to come over and hit me. Aqua Cannon them and they all die.
When you have a BM at party you dont need to waste a spark with earth vector, BM got stuns...so, sandburst blast or aqua cannon...

3. If you want to DD a boss right off the bat, open with Soulburn and your DoT skills on the boss. Soulburn does decent damage on bosses, but it won't cause you to pull aggro (in fact the aggro it does create is directed to the tank). The DoT skills (like Torrent) are decent for damage as far as these kinds of skills go. As soon as the boss is down around 10%, you can start easing in to full DD power. Why wasting time with soulburn or dots? If you got a BM, everyone 3 sparks and go full DD, the boss will die quickly...

4. The second boss (surrounded by the colored pillars of light) has a nasty "bubble" (looks like Occult Ice). I almost always hit this boss a few times with Aqua Impact / Spirit Blast right away to get his attention. For some reason, even if his aggro goes back to the tank, I become the target for his sleep and bubble skills. This is what I want! Wait for him to sleep you; tell the cleric to purify if he does this, and then immediately put up Soul of Retaliation. Not only will you not get bubbled when he tries a few seconds later, the boss will get hit for half your soulforce! We are literally the only class that can avoid bubble of death and damage the boss in the process.
Same as above....

5. Soul of Retaliation does not reduce the "SUPER... MEGA... TURKEY... SLASHER...." boss's AoE attack. I tried, I died.
For this boss, just hit at max range...even when he do the slash attack, it wont hit you...you can try use soulburn when boss is about to use slash attack...the only thing that avoid the slash attack is AD or spark and apoths of course...

6. Psychic Will does not resist the above boss's AoE either. I tried, I died.
Slash boss attack is not physical...

7. Triple-spark DOES resist the above boss's AoE, but it has to be timed just right. I'd rather save triple spark for when the BM comes back in to HF.

I use Soul of Retaliation a lot in FCC. Any time a boss or mob does an AoE attack, they take damage from me. I use Bubble of Life frequently to help out the cleric (especially on the Bishop Boss, and I do a sparked Bubble of Life if the cleric is slept).
That is called support healing....that is our secondary job, help cleric but....the healing job is the cleric not you, remember that

Recentely im running FC with 3-4 ppl...cleric, me, barb and archer or cleric, me and archer and bm... we finish a full run in 20 min...everyone know what to do and when to do...dont run with non experienced ppl, you will get pissed.

How dare they try to help other people use their psychic better!

Gosh darn them!

KittyTaco - Lost City wrote: »

How dare they try to help other people use their psychic better!

Gosh darn them!

I just find it kind of odd that we're discussing the use of Psy will on bosses as if it's a skill that puzzles modern-day science. Or we're debating how frequently a Psy should heal as if every FC run will go exactly the same... Sure little tips like SoR on the bubble boss and don't Psy will the slash boss are cool, but discussing them for two pages?

I'm astounded you guys pulled that off. xD

Yeah, clearly Longknife has not seen some of these new psy in action.

God forbid people try to be nice and helpful.

+10/12 R9 with full JOSD and some pdef orns

Longknife - Harshlands wrote: »

You just repeated the exact post I just responded to without actually addressing the post I made. :U

Holy **** man, deja vu all up in this $%&$ b:faint

Clap yourself on the back for me.