To Flesh Ream or not

ItsAWolf - Archosaur · January 2012

I don't really understand how barbs are managing to consistently keep aggro from anything, unless perhaps they have heavily refined OP weapons. When I was lvl 90 I got my demon flesh ream, I had a +5 pan gu axe and was helping some psychic do their culti in fb 79. The psychic was lvl 80 and I spammed my demon flesh ream on every cooldown (started off with full chi).

The psychic regularly took aggro back a second or so after my flesh ream landed, so somebody please enlighten me how they all manage to keep aggro from full blown APS chars their lvl, when I couldn't even keep aggro from a lower lvled psychic. And no I didn't use roar or alpha male to reset aggro, and yes the psychic was wearing a lowly refined TT 80 weapon. I only devoured once though, and a cleric kept up pdef and mdef debuffs, until she popped into BB to protect the psychic since it got the aggro all the time.

About a day after this I switched to APS build (at lvl 90), because I couldn't stand not having aggro, especially after expecting demon flesh ream to help.

I do still use flesh ream when I duo with the cleric and she has a mob on her to pull it off her. But devour + regular attacks are good enough to keep aggro over her ( we both have +7 r8 weapons). On bosses its APS all the way though, only people with good refines will steal aggro from me and they will be able to survive just as well then.

SerenityCNB - Dreamweaver · January 2012

ItsAWolf - Archosaur wrote: »

I don't really understand how barbs are managing to consistently keep aggro from anything, unless perhaps they have heavily refined OP weapons. When I was lvl 90 I got my demon flesh ream, I had a +5 pan gu axe and was helping some psychic do their culti in fb 79. The psychic was lvl 80 and I spammed my demon flesh ream on every cooldown (started off with full chi).

The psychic regularly took aggro back a second or so after my flesh ream landed, so somebody please enlighten me how they all manage to keep aggro from full blown APS chars their lvl, when I couldn't even keep aggro from a lower lvled psychic. And no I didn't use roar or alpha male to reset aggro, and yes the psychic was wearing a lowly refined TT 80 weapon. I only devoured once though, and a cleric kept up pdef and mdef debuffs, until she popped into BB to protect the psychic since it got the aggro all the time.

About a day after this I switched to APS build (at lvl 90), because I couldn't stand not having aggro, especially after expecting demon flesh ream to help.

I do still use flesh ream when I duo with the cleric and she has a mob on her to pull it off her. But devour + regular attacks are good enough to keep aggro over her ( we both have +7 r8 weapons). On bosses its APS all the way though, only people with good refines will steal aggro from me and they will be able to survive just as well then.

Coming from a cleric standpoint, it is possible that the cleric's mdef debuffs were leveled up to 10/sage/demon, while their pdef debuffs were leveled only to 1. That could have been what caused that difference. (Considering that most of a clerics attacks are metal based, and a tendency for clerics to level the debuffs last since they weaken us as well, would stand to reason that his/her physical debuffs were not yet leveled, but they were trying to be helpful by debuffing for you both. Its quite possible that they did this not knowing that barbs have a pdef debuff in devour as well. I didn't even know until I started playing as a barb.

Even if it was leveled, psy's hit amazingly hard; second only to wizards in dph. Therefore, with the mdef debuffs, a psy is going to do much more damage than you are as a barb, since barbs aren't known for their damaging abilities. I would have said that in this scenario where a psy is regularly stealing aggro, then the cleric should have stopped using the mdef debuffs, because even though it was allowing the psy to see greater numbers damage-wise, they could not handle the aggro that was given, so the cleric should have ceased debuffing the enemies magic resistance so that you could keep aggro easier.

That's just my take on it, and I hope it helps.

Edit: Also, if you devoured, and the cleric used pdef debuffs afterwards, then your devour was overwritten. A fact is, and I was guilty of this until I started playing a barb as well...is that clerics are warned not to overwrite venos, but are not warned not to overwrite barbs. I've even had squads try to get on me for not using pdef debuffs. It was the barb that was mainly complaining too...and it was on wyvern...with my pdef debuffs only being 1, wyvern threatening to physical AOE, and the barb saying, well its better than nothing. (Barb was around level 80's too.) Since then, If I would debuff, I'd make efforts not to overwrite venos, but I was confused for a while whether I should overwrite barbs...so I did based on that experience...as well as others where the tanks felt they didn't need heals, just debuffs.

Again, that could have been the reason as to why.

Take care all, and good luck, b:victory

Vindis - Dreamweaver · January 2012

I did a BH59 with a 79 archer, 80 archer, 78 bm and 84 sin (90 mystic healing).

I held aggro just fine for the most part. You can't really complain when you don't have aggro all the time. You can only do what you do. If someone else in squad has a deathwish, then let them have one.

I lost aggro only once on one of the bosses, Qianji. The 80 archer (w/+4 80 xbow) took it for afew seconds. Alpha Male comes in handy in these scenarios. Since learning it, I rarely lose aggro. If the other person can tank and they only have one mob on them, I don't see the point in spamming Ream to try to keep aggro. Much better off double sparking and just Stomp, Might, Garrotte, back to tiger imo.

XylolyX - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Light_Tiger - Raging Tide wrote: »

im not 100% sure on this sence im not a 100+ barb but have you tried to use devour then 3 flesh ream rince and repeat it works wonders on holding agro even 2 a 5 aps its matter of hit power on the flesh ream and devour makes it stronger flesh ream stacks 3 times where devour does it once for a short time but devour is also a agro skill if a 100+ barb can tes this out and see how it works plz let me know if you see any change

I spam devour. All the time. As soon as it cools down it's spammed again. It's not for aggro (the squads I run with are all highly refined weapons +10 or better.) i spam devour because it helps kill bosses faster. If I really try I can get aggro for about 3 seconds. But I learned a long time ago...letting the BM or Sin hold aggro is better for the cleric. No ping pong aggro.

As for pre-lvl 100s and pre-high refine squads it wasn't that big of a deal. It doesn't bother me though, my barb is built for pulling catas, my sin and archer are my DD/aggro stealers.

Miugre - Heavens Tear · January 2012

My barb is currently 95, and on all his runs I spam Ream. I don't care if someone wants to out-aggro me, but if you have the gall to demand I be relegated to Devour-slave, the next thing you'll be seeing is a 60sec timer.

But then, this is coming from someone who tries my damndest to make squads myself in order to avoid such people like the plague, so take that into consideration I guess.

Occasionally, when I've been pressured into some run where the tank is a massively-equipped 5aps sin who can quite clearly solo the entire instance him/herself, I'll get in the mood to do a sort of silent-protest thing. :P Basically, I stay mostly in human form and do almost nothing aside from providing rebuffs - y'know, sitting calmly on the sidelines, not bothering to attack while the mobs fall like so many dominoes. It's designed so that the sin or whoever else eventually asks me "Liger why aren't you doing anything?", at which point I calmly reply "what's there to do? I'm quite clearly not needed here in the first place. >_>"

XylolyX - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Miugre - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My barb is currently 95, and on all his runs I spam Ream. I don't care if someone wants to out-aggro me, but if you have the gall to demand I be relegated to Devour-slave, the next thing you'll be seeing is a 60sec timer.

You do realize that devour helps the entire squad DD, right?

But then, this is coming from someone who tries my damndest to make squads myself in order to avoid such people like the plague, so take that into consideration I guess.

Occasionally, when I've been pressured into some run where the tank is a massively-equipped 5aps sin who can quite clearly solo the entire instance him/herself, I'll get in the mood to do a sort of silent-protest thing. :P Basically, I stay mostly in human form and do almost nothing aside from providing rebuffs - y'know, sitting calmly on the sidelines, not bothering to attack while the mobs fall like so many dominoes. It's designed so that the sin or whoever else eventually asks me "Liger why aren't you doing anything?", at which point I calmly reply "what's there to do? I'm quite clearly not needed here in the first place. >_>"

*facepalm*

Vindis - Dreamweaver · January 2012

XylolyX - Heavens Tear wrote: »

You do realize that devour helps the entire squad DD, right?

*facepalm*

You think thats facepalm worthy? Wait until you see his archer

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · January 2012

Miugre - Heavens Tear wrote: »

My barb is currently 95, and on all his runs I spam Ream. I don't care if someone wants to out-aggro me, but if you have the gall to demand I be relegated to Devour-slave, the next thing you'll be seeing is a 60sec timer.

But then, this is coming from someone who tries my damndest to make squads myself in order to avoid such people like the plague, so take that into consideration I guess.

Occasionally, when I've been pressured into some run where the tank is a massively-equipped 5aps sin who can quite clearly solo the entire instance him/herself, I'll get in the mood to do a sort of silent-protest thing. :P Basically, I stay mostly in human form and do almost nothing aside from providing rebuffs - y'know, sitting calmly on the sidelines, not bothering to attack while the mobs fall like so many dominoes. It's designed so that the sin or whoever else eventually asks me "Liger why aren't you doing anything?", at which point I calmly reply "what's there to do? I'm quite clearly not needed here in the first place. >_>"

This whole post was sad.

Don't think of it as a "devour-slave," think of it as doing something useful to help your squad. Sins are spark-slaves, BMs are HF-slaves, Clerics are heal-slaves... Just because you put a derogatory calling someone helping another person a "slave" doesn't make it bad. It's kind of the point of squading is to help each other. Threatening to kick a person for not playing how you want them to play or for offering tips to improve your own usefulness and support is just... sad.

Your "silent protest" is proving how useless you can be? Even if they are doing the killing you can be useful by rounding up the mobs, frightening, devouring, roaring so the cleric can heal them... You're punishing people for helping you, and its not much of a punishment because it only makes yourself look bad.

Miugre - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Oh, it takes a certain kind of idiot to not know that devour helps most of the squad (at least, depending on how many physical DDs there are); that I get. :P But to use Saku's example of rounding up mobs, etc. - take a run like, say, BH Eden or Aba. Typically what you get is a squad with 2-3 sins which are each capable of taking any mob down in five seconds or less. Are you gonna tell me with a straight face that devour is useful there? Or even pulling/frighten/roar/etc.? Rounding up mobs is pointless when you have chars who may as well just touch the nearest mob and watch it turn to ash. Sure you can run ahead and grab the next couple of mobs (thanks only to tiger-from speed), but once your "DDs" catch up, all challenge is forfeit. And as for a boss in such a run, what's the point of using Devour on, say, Phlebo if the boss will be dead in 15 seconds anyway? Shortening it to 10 seconds?

That's not a challenge. That's not even gaming. That's just hauling your char from place to place. And I'm not one to engage in a futile effort to recover some challenge that the run clearly never had in the first place.

XylolyX - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Vindis - Dreamweaver wrote: »

You think thats facepalm worthy? Wait until you see his archer

LMAO thanks for the laugh. I wonder if that's the same archer I asked "what level's your STA?" and got the reply... "What's that?" (At level 94 mind you.)

XylolyX - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Miugre - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Oh, it takes a certain kind of idiot to not know that devour helps most of the squad (at least, depending on how many physical DDs there are); that I get. :P But to use Saku's example of rounding up mobs, etc. - take a run like, say, BH Eden or Aba. Typically what you get is a squad with 2-3 sins which are each capable of taking any mob down in five seconds or less. Are you gonna tell me with a straight face that devour is useful there? Or even pulling/frighten/roar/etc.? Rounding up mobs is pointless when you have chars who may as well just touch the nearest mob and watch it turn to ash. Sure you can run ahead and grab the next couple of mobs (thanks only to tiger-from speed), but once your "DDs" catch up, all challenge is forfeit. And as for a boss in such a run, what's the point of using Devour on, say, Phlebo if the boss will be dead in 15 seconds anyway? Shortening it to 10 seconds?

That's not a challenge. That's not even gaming. That's just hauling your char from place to place. And I'm not one to engage in a futile effort to recover some challenge that the run clearly never had in the first place.

Obviously your squad mates don't trust that you will survive. I usually leapfrog mobs with Sins/other DD in instances. They may get 2 or 3 to every one I get, but so what? Barbs have never been known for killing fast.

Either way my devour comment was meant about bosses, not about mobs.

Miugre - Heavens Tear · January 2012

XylolyX - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Obviously your squad mates don't trust that you will survive. I usually leapfrog mobs with Sins/other DD in instances. They may get 2 or 3 to every one I get, but so what? Barbs have never been known for killing fast.

Either way my devour comment was meant about bosses, not about mobs.

In a run like that, what even counts as a threat to anyone's survival, much less the barb's? You'd have to be pretty phenomenally stupid to die in that kind of a situation, so I'm at a loss as to why you're commenting on it. Because really, let's be honest, that's not a run. A run is where a squad works together to take down the mobs + boss in a reasonable amount of time. If other people are clearly not needed to accomplish that, then what's the point?

XylolyX - Heavens Tear wrote: »

LMAO thanks for the laugh. I wonder if that's the same archer I asked "what level's your STA?" and got the reply... "What's that?" (At level 94 mind you.)

Most certainly not; I know what my skills are and how to use them properly, tyvm. In the future I would thank you for not assuming that an eccentric gear build is any sign of incompetency. Frankly, it's the pro builds who are more often incompetent, but we're not here to discuss builds (which is why I first ignored it when Vindis went off-topic).

Crazy__erik - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Devour also increases you threat level something that every Barb understands and is the key to holding aggro even if someone is dealing more damage.

On a side note...I run a lot with my second account cleric and if I get a powerleveled moron that is threatening to kill the squad with his messy aggro, I Flip to rb with the cleric...Honestly I never laughed so hard at their "You Mad" moment, but hey, if as Barbs we have to adapt to everyone else's style, they should learn to adapt when I throw them a curveball. b:laugh

BloodTyrant - Raging Tide · January 2012

grrrrrr miawww b:cute just passingb:avoid

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · January 2012

Crazy__erik - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I Flip to rb with the cleric...Honestly I never laughed so hard at their "You Mad" moment, but hey, if as Barbs we have to adapt to everyone else's style, they should learn to adapt when I throw them a curveball. b:laugh

That is fricken awesome. Takes the triple spark away from overzealous DDs and gives the barb a bump in aps and dmg since barbs never get to triple spark. This is a new trick to me.

Miugre - Heavens Tear · January 2012

Crazy__erik - Heavens Tear wrote: »

On a side note...I run a lot with my second account cleric and if I get a powerleveled moron that is threatening to kill the squad with his messy aggro, I Flip to rb with the cleric...Honestly I never laughed so hard at their "You Mad" moment, but hey, if as Barbs we have to adapt to everyone else's style, they should learn to adapt when I throw them a curveball.
b:laugh

This. You have no idea how many times I've heard a sin whine when I suggest that cleric RB at the Shocktrooper's elementos.

"Waaaah I can't spark" is not an argument, it's a cry for attention. XD And it's not like any 90+ squad can't kill enough elementos to put the boss in Weakened state, anyway.

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973 · January 2012

The only time I'd get annoyed at flesh ream is when a bad cleric is confused by it and doesn't know who has aggro. They never switch back to healing the aps tank.

Not that it matters much these days when you don't really need the cleric either.

GohRaL - Sanctuary · February 2012

Im sure FR has its uses even at 99+. But, beside all that have been said here already, i find it annoying cuz it makes the boss use his AOE/Mag skill to reset everytime aggro swap.

Hi saku b:chuckle

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · February 2012

GohRaL - Sanctuary wrote: »

Im sure FR has its uses even at 99+. But, beside all that have been said here already, i find it annoying cuz it makes the boss use his AOE/Mag skill to reset everytime aggro swap.

Hi saku b:chuckle

*wink wink* Hai Goh... *pats his knee*

ICasTBiDS - Raging Tide · February 2012

stopped reading at claw barb. smh.

I had a claw barb and quit it immediately, only made it to see what the hype was about.
even with demon beastial onslaught my bm was out dding my barb by far.
go get more hp on your bm instead of making a claw barb. smh

ItsAWolf - Archosaur · February 2012

ICasTBiDS - Raging Tide wrote: »

stopped reading at claw barb. smh.

I had a claw barb and quit it immediately, only made it to see what the hype was about.
even with demon beastial onslaught my bm was out dding my barb by far.
go get more hp on your bm instead of making a claw barb. smh

You do have to actually equip your barb yaknow

If your barb is doing much less dmg than your BM you're doing it wrong.

Traz - Dreamweaver · February 2012

ItsAWolf - Archosaur wrote: »

You do have to actually equip your barb yaknow If your barb is doing much less dmg than your BM you're doing it wrong.

+1

Probably doesn't know what poison fang does. b:laugh

Sakubatou - Sanctuary · February 2012

I've been thinking about Fleshream vs FR and Devour. Actually, it keeps me up at night (nerd, right?). My field is medicine so I tend to correlate things to that. Now nothing has been confirmed by PWI, but FR seems to have a spike aggro and then loses efficiancy over time. Essentially, its aggro ability has an unknown half life.

I was thinking about pharmacodynamics (the effect of drugs on the body) and how drugs that have a half life are given in smaller than therapuetic levels, but at increased intervals. It takes about 6 doses for a drug to reach peak therapuetics because the drug is approaching half the dose when the next dose is given after 6 rounds. If the drug was fleshream and it has a half life (15 second bleed, lets assume that long) it would take about 6 FRs to achieve maximum efficiency

^^
Pointless rambling, just thought I'd share

Miugre - Heavens Tear · February 2012

Sakubatou - Sanctuary wrote: »

I've been thinking about Fleshream vs FR and Devour. Actually, it keeps me up at night (nerd, right?). My field is medicine so I tend to correlate things to that. Now nothing has been confirmed by PWI, but FR seems to have a spike aggro and then loses efficiancy over time. Essentially, its aggro ability has an unknown half life.

I was thinking about pharmacodynamics (the effect of drugs on the body) and how drugs that have a half life are given in smaller than therapuetic levels, but at increased intervals. It takes about 6 doses for a drug to reach peak therapuetics because the drug is approaching half the dose when the next dose is given after 6 rounds. If the drug was fleshream and it has a half life (15 second bleed, lets assume that long) it would take about 6 FRs to achieve maximum efficiency

^^
Pointless rambling, just thought I'd share

I wouldn't say pointless - I've been wondering about similar things myself recently (just not with such concrete terms as half-life :P). How else do you explain a barb's ability to steal back aggro on a boss he hasn't even attacked yet, when 2-3 other people have been whittling its HP down over a few minutes?

I'm not much of a mathlete (unlike some archers) but even I have to admit that aggro mechanics are frustratingly vague without actual numbers to back them up. -_-

Beleni - Dreamweaver · February 2012

Bobobejumbo - Raging Tide wrote: »

I don't think our role has changed at all. Tanks are meant to protect people from dying, not just hold aggro. We adjust to whatever is necessary to prevent people from dying.

Sure, most aps chars. can hold aggro and survive. That's not tanking. Our whole existence we play with the mentality of "don't let anyone get squished".

Every now and then something DOES happen that could be or is disastrous. A sin who forgets to BP himself for example...(Really, this happens far too often) Or a cash shopped nub with his r9+12 weapon who has no clue about the fights and gets himself or others killed. These DD's with high aps don't have the same mentality we do. They go pew pew as fast as they can. We monitor everything out of habit. And in the event its needed, we've slammed our axes back on and are in tiger controlling the situation before the silly fish even knew there was a situation.

Yeh I agree we are wanted for different reasons now than before. But our role remains the same. Kill the boss, protect idiots and squishies when need be.

good summary

LolliLoo - Sanctuary · February 2012

I use flesh ream quite a bit, but also devour on bosses. I figure if I can get aggro off the sin or BM or archer for a bit I am helping them out. Yet, if it is impossible to steal aggro from them I will just devour, or go afk b:chuckle

To Flesh Ream or not

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