Tanking question

Pole has a debuff that he will put on tank, think it amps his dmg on you 400%. There may be away to use a genie to cancell it but most used way is for cleric to purify tank. Purify cancells the debuff but it needs to be cast fast or tank dies. You may of had clerics that watched for it and cancelled it before so you did not notice it.

beastmasterjr wrote: »

So.... in other words it was the clerics mistake and not mine? I do not believe I can purify myself lol?

Kind of yes, if you don't have a lot of lag it's possible to cancel pole's spells with alacrity / genie skill. Then there's always invoke when he does manage to debuff you and the cleric is sleeping, but you can't always keep this up. The easiest and normal way is for the cleric to simply purify you though...

beastmasterjr wrote: »

Yes well I would hardly call someone who doesn't have the ms to interupt it exactly / genie it a "fail barb" when all the cleric had to do was purify. Would not constitute the "FAIL BARB" and *kicked from group* that I received =/.

It honestly sounds like it was a little bit of both your faults. It also really depends on the level of cleric you had. (7x clerics don't have the right level of purify to get it down right) and honestly back in the day until about 85+ we were always in there with two clerics, one for purify and one for heals.

If you're having trouble with m/s and cancel chan, I would take a look into 2-1 with a squad and practice with the boss in there, to get it down.

Dragdoor - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Pole has a debuff that he will put on tank, think it amps his dmg on you 400%. There may be away to use a genie to cancell it but most used way is for cleric to purify tank. Purify cancells the debuff but it needs to be cast fast or tank dies. You may of had clerics that watched for it and cancelled it before so you did not notice it.

Pole causes a -100% gear debuff, not an amp. That means the only defenses you have are from your vit and strength amount and its as if you have gear completely unequiped. For most of us this is a 4-5k hit.

Pole is an excellent opportunity to learn the interupt, rather than depend on your cleric. However, your cleric is there to purify if you miss your interupt, so I would have said it was the cleric's fault. You kept aggro, you remained the sole tank, it's their job to keep you alive through damage and debuff.

This was discussed about a week ago in this thread Problems with Pole and there are some useful tips in here.

Well, blame the cleric first for failing at healing/purifying in time. However, there is always a 'but' in that story: you can help the cleric by using invoke, solid shield and pots in order to buy enough time for the cleric to use purified when the "giant axe smashes your head into 2 halves" (animation for the boss' debuff)

... And, you can always help yourself by using alacrity to cancel the channeling (animation for channeling is a red circle around the feet of the boss). Even with a high ping, you can always 'try' to anticipate the channeling and hit alacrity right before it starts channeling so that, with a bit of lag and luck, the alacrity will hopefully land at the correct moment to cancel the channeling.

[Alert: Wall of Text]

The cycle for most bosses usually goes like this:
1. Boss starts channeling and uses its debuff or magic attack. (time = 0)
2. Boss hits you right after the debuff (time = 0) 3. Boss hits you a second time (time = 2 sec)
4. Boss hits you a third time (time = 4 sec)
5. Boss hits you a forth time (time = 6 sec)
6. Boss hits you a fifth time (time = 8 sec)
7. Boss starts channeling again (time = 10 sec) 8. The cycle will repeat again.

By observing the cycle itself, you can predetermine the moment when the boss will start channeling. In this particular cycle, you can use alacrity right when the boss is finishing its fifth attack.

[Alert: you can stop here for the above quick advice... there more text incoming]

Notes:

I added the numbers (time in seconds) to get a better picture of the cycle. But, I cannot verify the absoluteness of the 2 sec for attack interval because it really depends on your perception of time. (and i also forgot if pole fits the standard boss attack pattern... i.e the magic channel is right after 5th normal attack... I haven't been in bh69 in a long time; but I'll edit the post if needed) Nonetheless, A good benchmark will be to use the cooldown of alacrity and count the number of attacks after one debuff to predict when to use the next alacrity. I would recommend that you take the first 10~20 secs on each boss to observed and memorize its attack pattern/cycle and then use alacrity accordingly.

It usually takes a lot of concentration to time your alacrity along with holding aggro, spamming flesh ream, watching the damage from other people, making sure that your squad is alive and safe, watching your own hp, managing your chi, mana, genie as well as cooldowns on skills, etc... It is not expected that you can do all of the above at the same time but basically, multi-managing all those little stuff is what defines the barb's playing style as fun and challenging.... as compared to the brainless "spark and auto attack" from other classes that I'll not name.

Advance alacrity technique:
This method requires that you have mastered the basics of timing your alacrity. While tanking any boss, you will notice that when you hit the alacrity button on your screen, the alacrity animation will not occur immediately: the delay will include finishing one or two with lag normal attacks before starting the alacrity animation. This delay can account for 1 to 3 secs which cause the alacrity to hit well after the boss aoe/debuff. [Note: this delay is also referred as "F**K... LAGGGGGG!!!!" in common languages]. To avoid that delay, you can stop attacking during the boss' fifth attack (by hitting esc or any wasd buttons to move) and just wait till you see the channel animation to use alacrity. Once you hit the button, the alacrity animation will hit right after a much shorter time delay and this method can significantly increase the chances to cancel the animation.

Freizer - Lost City wrote: »

It honestly sounds like it was a little bit of both your faults. It also really depends on the level of cleric you had. (7x clerics don't have the right level of purify to get it down right) and honestly back in the day until about 85+ we were always in there with two clerics, one for purify and one for heals.

<ahem> Purify is a 29 skill that can be maxed at level 74. Any 7x cleric that still has a low level purify is ignorant; any 7x cleric that has healed on jewelscalen, wyvern, or krimson and still has a low level purify should be publicly shamed.