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Ambeon's General Guide to Dungeon PvE


Ambeon

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Change log.

4/02/2016 -Initial Guide created. 

 

Contents

I. Terminology 

II. Dungeon PvE basics

1. AIRS

2. Grabs

3. Defensives

4. Interupts

5. Learning to CC

6. Draws

7. Speaking out

8. iFrames

9. CCs

10. Being a support fighter

 

 

 

I. Terminology

iFrame - Invulnerability/invincibility frame. (Brief period after skills which makes you resist all damage)

CC - Crowd control, skills that put the target into a detrimental loss of control status, i.e stun, daze, knock down

KD - Knock Down

SS - Double tapping the S key

Q - Your Q key

E - Your E key

Specing - putting points into a skill's tree. 

AIRS- Aerial skills and combos

Grabs - Skills which paralyze the enemy such as Grab, Phantom Grip, Grapple or Power pounce.

Defensives - Skills which resist/reduce damage, parry, block or evade, or restore health.

Dps - Damage per second

AoE - Area of Effect

Add - Refers to additional enemy, usually an enemy in a boss fight which is not the boss.

FM,SMN,BD,DES,KFM,SIN - class abbreviations...you probably can figure them out. 

 

Damage modifiers and defensive variables. 

Block - Absorbs a certain amount of damage based on your block damage modifier.

Evasion - Evades an attack resulting in no damage sustained.

Defense - You basic damage mitigation modifier. Can also refer to when a target is in a state of blocking, countering, counterattacking

Damage - well...damage. 

Piercing - Ignores a % of your enemies defense/armor modifier. Basically Armor Pen. 

Critical Hit - An additional damage modifier based on your Critical Hit Damage and is activated based on Critical Hit Rate (Critical) 

Accuracy - Probably like acc in every other game? (I forgot exactly what this means in this game I'll look it up later).

Critical Hit Defense - Reduces Critical hit damage modifier 

Resist- Resists all damage. 

 

Specific Class Damage Mitigation

Counter - Deflects a Frontal attack resulting in no damage sustained. ~ KFMs- Counter, SMNs - Seed Shroud, SINs - Decoy etc.

Block - Mitigates a Frontal attack ~ DES - Stone Shield etc.

Frozen - Resist all damage and status effects. ~FMs - Frost armor, 

Parry - Deflects an attack resulting in no damage sustained. ~ BDs - 2 point vortex

 

 

 

II. Dungeon PvE basics. 

 

So apart from PvPing a big element of this game is the dungeon aspect. I've done countless runs on cross-server dungeons and feel that some people may not fully understand some of the mechanics of this game. Due to the absence of healers in this game, players have to be primarily responsible for anticipating and responding to boss attacks and putting the right points into skills that will sustain and recover your HP. 

 

Let's go over the do's and don'ts of basic party play and how not to *cricket* 5 other people off. 

 

  1.  Do not use AIRS. Skills that knock enemies up and subsequent combos are a big Dps loss as others in your party are not able to efficiently damage an enemy while it's in the air unless they are a FM. Secondly bosses require to be in a daze or stun status before being able to be knocked up, which requires 2 consecutive stuns/dazes (Joint attack), while they are in this stun/daze window this opens up the ability for the boss to be grabbed/phantom gripped/grappled etc. WHICH IS THE MUCH PREFERRED OPTION. AIRS will waste this opportunity. 
     
  2. GRABS are your friend. I cannot stress this enough. Not only does it stop the boss from moving, attacking, using skills and mechanics, many classes can put points into their skills which will make their grab last up to 6 seconds. Also, several classes are able to reduce the grabbed targets defense and many skills specced correctly will do additional damage to grabbed targets. OVERALL IT IS A BIG DPS INCREASE. THIS IS A DELI. SO GRAB THEM BOSSES AND WATCH THE REST OF YOUR PARTY GO HAM.
     
  3. Learn your defensives. Pretty much all classes have skills which will reduce their damage taken, restore health or resist damage entirely (whether it be parrying or evading etc.). Additionally certain skills when specced can change into a completely different skill focused on survivability and defense. "But Mr Ambeon, won't I be losing an additional damage skill?" - Screamed the Stable Boy. Yes little Johnny but dead dps is no dps. Your defensive skills will become your bread and butter to avoiding heavy hitting boss mechanics and generally surviving the entirety of the fight.

 

Lets do a some role play. you guys love role play.

 

OK So I'm a BD who is about to do the Captain Salami boss in  e fleet Supply. I'm a winner because I've put 3 points into my Guardian Tempest Skill which now resist up to FIVE attacks for 5 seconds and additionally restores 10% of my health. I've also added 2 points into my Vortex skill which now lets it parry attacks for 0.5 seconds. 

~Salami has dived and is about to unleash a devastating attack. He spits water at me which is going to do a massive amount of damage if it hits me (Its probably LA Ice or something) however watching the timer (sometimes there's no timer e.g blackram supply) I anticipate his attack and use Vortex at the right time which parries the attack! I sustain no damage.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE.

A message appears over head THE WATER IS GETTING HOTTER. Kinda like my childhood friend, as she grew up. The boiling water is about to hit me consecutively three times for loads of damage. However never fear!, I have used guardian tempest at the right time to resist 3 of those straight shots to the baby makers to sustain no damage.

 

You see, using 2 correctly specced skills I have completely mitigated damage from a boss' mechanics (most likely of which would have killed me if I took every attack to the face) and am able to continue the fight, maximising dps.  

 

4. Umm where were we....OH YEH INTERUPTS. Building on the basics of joint attacks, bosses will have a window where they are able to be stunned/dazed/KD right before they use a big attack (generally signaled by a big red AoE hitbox). Successfully initiating a joint attack therefor will place it under one of these conditions, effectively interrupting the mechanic. While it is hard to communicate and use joint attacks, some classes can effectively interupt by themselves using consecutive skills or for example in the case of BD they are able to spec 3 points into "Raid" which will give them the ability to 2 joint stun with 1 skill.

 

You are able to watch for an interrupt window by watching the two thin bars underneath the boss's top health bar on the UI. If the bars are uncoloured, it means it is open to be interrupted. Essentially stopping the boss and allowing for additional grabs. 

 

5. Learning to CC.  The appropriate use of CCs, stun/daze/knock down skills is valuable to a fight so don't spam them willy nilly, this will enable interrupts and joint attacks to go off more fluidly. This may be difficult to avoid as communication during a boss fight is very little, however using CC skills will cause a Boss's joint attack bar to fill up prematurely which will cause joint attacks of different types to be resisted, effectively failing to CC a boss. There are only certain windows which a boss can be CCed and a boss's 2 joint attack bars will remain coloured white or light blue? (Idunno im kinda color blind) indicating that the boss will resist any form of CC. Therefor if you want to be using skills with a CC effect for more damage, try to use it during the white filled bar period. 

 

Another very handy and commonly looked over form of CC is the ability to make a target Unconscious. This usually last for 30 seconds if the target does not take an additional damage. You can strategically knock adds out causing them to be unconscious and then focusing on the boss. 

 

6. Draw the boss/enemy away from dying allies. If possible drag the boss away from dying allies, either by moving it away if you are tanking it or phantom gripping/grabing it and moving it away manually. This will enable allies to Chi Restore without being hit by Boss AoEs and continue the fight. 

 

7. Don't be afraid to let people know you're inexperienced. Sure there may be some douchebags out there who will scoff when you let them know, but a lot of the time someone in the party will be happy to explain the main mechanics of the fight to you. This will also help prevent people from rage quitting or calling you out when the fight fails.

 

8. Learn how to iFrame.  Ok this is a big one and the main way you're going to stay alive in a fight.

 

iFrames refers to that brief period of time (depending on the skill) which makes you invulnerable to all damage/status effects. The most basic iFrame found on all classes is your SS. aka pressing you S key twice. This will make you dash backwards and for a split second as the animation plays out, will make you resist/ignore damage and status effects. If timed correctly you may use this to avoid specific boss skills and mechanics. Several classes also are able to use Q and E which relocates them to either behind or to the sides of the target essentially gaining an iFrame (however not all skills do). Giving you additional iFrame options with short cooldowns! A good way to tell if your skill has an iframe is to check if it says "Damage Resist and Resist Status Effects" on bnstree. (It might also say on the tool tip in game but I'm writing this guide during maintenance so I can't check.)

 

Additionally some skills will include in the tool tip "Evasion increased by 100%" which is essentially an iframe. During the skill animation you will gain 100% evasion and take no damage/status effect. However most of these pertain to aerial combos, which is a big no no unless used situationally, such as iframing through an aerial on an add during a boss's attack. I.E Slashimi's smaller manta rays while he boils water or Poharan's tigers during Ice mine. 

 

Learning to iFrame will help you not only in dungeons but also in general pve, raids and even pvp. 


 

9. Support Fighter(SF). Gathering all this information together, I've decided to term this into a playstyle called the Support Fighter. 

As a SF, overall you probably won't being the most damage. Instead your main job will be to maximise the damage of everyone else. 

How? Through grabbing, interrupting, not aerialing and generally staying alive. So specc your character to take some of the skills that will supplement you in doing this. It may not be the most rewarding playstyle but I believe in the long run, everything seems to get done faster and you will be much more successful in downing a boss. 

 

However please note that it maybe counter productive if everyone is play SF style. Like mentioned above bosses have brief windows in which they can be CCed then grabbed. Therefor it may be good practice to nominate 1 person as the main interrupter/grabber or even possibly 2 to rotate in between cool downs. 

 

 

Anywho I hope you enjoyed this guide.

 

Please feel free to leave feedback and comments below and I will add any relevant changes to this guide. happy hunting

 

Ambeon

 

 

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