What strategies do you guys use to survive AoEs . . .

There is only one answer, don't bit off more than you can chew

Agreed! Barbs/BMs should definitely cancel the boss's aoe.

Can't stress the importance of Focused Mind. Its a life saver keep it maxed with your level.

Very important to time your sparks and earthquake genie skill.

A side note, Ranker is a hugeee pain if you're under geared for the instance. As a sin all i can think of is either spark resist or run away when you knw he's gona hit the aoe...also a VERY important note make good use of Ribstrike. Should keep that up to date with ur lvl

Empu - Sanctuary wrote: »

Actually, most bosses cast (magic attacks, debuffs, aoes) in a 10sec, meaning 5 hits, cycle.

This is right.

I remember somewhere that the default boss attack rate is .66 aps, or 1.5 seconds per attack. A 5 second cycle is 7.5 seconds then they start their channeling for about a total of 1 aoe every 10 second cycle.

Back in the old days "barb training" consisted of keeping your Alacrity at level 8 or 9 until you were used to the channeling pattern. Every 8-9 seconds your Alacrity would come off cooldown and you'd immediately start channeling Alacrity and interupt the bosses attack. Once you figured out what 8.5 seconds felt like you'd finish leveling Alacrity.

Sage shadowless kick really isn't any more useful than demon for this since if you interupt they immediately start their next cycle and will be channeling before you cooldown.



Back when I was leveling my sin, I'd either volunteer to be the tank or to be support. If I didn't want to tank I had to hold back my damage which gave me free time to Rib Strike, rebuff myself, and use Dagger Throw and Throatcut to cancel for the barb. This allowed the barb to focus on aggro and the cleric could do other things than squad heal after aoes.

You're actually more likely to find Earthquake on casters nowadays. Its a low level genie skill, cheap, and great at buying you one or two more hits to kill mobs with ranged attacks without getting hits. In the old days bm's and sins used Earthquake because the gear wasn't developed enough to tank many bosses, so a bm would phys marrow everything and use EQ to cancel any magic attacks.

I gotta admit, I"m having a hard time understanding how you're getting one shot by rankar's aoe. Normally, I'm not one to question a posters gear when they make for strategies against bosses, because I think too many people do that on the forums. And say things like if you don't have +10 you can't solo any pavillion in warsong. Which is just ludicrous. But I used to TANK rankar at that level range, even before I got my BOBM. If I could tank it at that level range, I don't see how you're getting one shot by the aoe. And I was and am a pure build.

Anyway, focused mind is important as is keeping the boss rib striked. It really decreases the damage he is doing. Use knife throw or throatcut to cancel and make sure any other sins in your squad are doing the same if you don't have earthquake. Spark when he is about to AOE and you should be able to resist much of the damage. Use inner harmony and rising dragon strike to make sure you stay two sparked when you need it.

edit:

And since you are one shot by aoes, you definitely cannot tank the bosses. At your current gear and level then I'd recommend using chill of the deep to make sure that the barbs take aggro. Focus on amping the boss and keeping it ribbed. Once the boss is at little less than half HP you're free to turn it off and dd as normal.