Hero of the Black Shrine, an Interview with Savantelle!

Greetings Adventurer!

Welcome back to another interview with the 'Hero of the Black Shrine'. This on-going series provides a spotlight for the astounding performances of adventurers in our community who have conquered the daunting bosses of the Black Shrine at the highest difficulty: Calamity 7.

Today, we would like to feature the enigmatic magicks of Savantelle, who has triumphed over Bari! [GM]Vaha has paid a visit to the Dangsan Tree in the Land of Morning Light to rendezvous with this enchanting Sorceress to ask a few questions. We hope to gain some perspective on their thoughts & insights concerning these Boss Blitz battles to see if we may learn some tips & tricks against the wrathful Mudang conduit, Bari!

Savantelle

Yeah I’ve been playing Sorceress since I started playing BDO, so I’ve been maining her for many years now. I’ve played a little bit of every class here and there, throughout the years during the Seasons and tag events. Right now, I currently have an archer tagged, and I also have extra gear set for a Shai to grind Oluns with friends and for supporting in the Atoraxxion dungeons.

[GM]Vaha

How long did it take you to triumph over Bari in Calamity 7? (and then How long did it take to lock-in the fastest ranked time?)

How would you rate Bari's difficulty compared to the other calamity 7's you've beaten?"

Savantelle

Bari was probably the easiest Calamity 7 boss I have defeated. If I can recall correctly, it took about 1-2 hours as I hadn’t quite figured out the right crystals at the time, and also hadn’t unlocked my evasion roll on sorceress which I thought would remain locked forever. Although this was just the first week, so I feel like I’ve learned quite a bit about boss rush on my Sorceress since then!

 

I’ve done every C7 boss at this point with the exception of Duoksini and Imoogi. I’ll say that Gumiho was my favorite boss by far, it was very challenging but had well telegraphed mechanics and patterns you could learn to make it possible. I think Duoksini is actually not that hard of a fight, but I tend to run out of time before the enrage mechanic.. With Imoogi, there is just one really tough phase, and I’m just a little short on damage there! In comparison to Bari, I struggled a lot more against Gumiho, Songakshi, Odukisini, and the Golden Pig King in particular. Duoksini and Imoogi are the 2 Calamity 7 bosses I have yet to defeat and have definitely given me a harder time than Bari has!

[GM]Vaha

Did you approach the fight blind, so that you may encounter and figure out all the mechanics on your own? Or did you utilize a guide? 

Savantelle

When I approached Bari's Calamity 7 version, I had already done the lower difficulties, so I had a sense of what to expect just with the damage and health of the enemies boosted by quite a lot. Some mechanics that I previously had ignored I now realized were quite deadly on Calamity 7, the small red homing wisps in particular, really pack a punch especially during the very end of the fight.

[GM]Vaha

What do you think are the advantages/disadvantages of your class when facing off against this particular boss?

Savantelle

One major issue that Sorceress has for this boss fight, and frankly against all the bosses is: the inconsistency with the iframe, very unlike my experiences in PvP. Many classes have a dedicated PVE invulernability frame, and generally these i-frames are very generous in their duration; however for sorceress, it turns out that there are very very small gaps between casts of Night Crow, which means that against bosses like Bari and others that have very high damage Area of Effect attacks and many multi-hits attacks, It can kill you mid i-frame which is quite frustrating. I learned that if I unlocked my evasion roll, and only used night crow in awakening stance, that I could basically use a night crow and use a regular evasion roll mid i-frame to remove the gap! The downside of this is that it uses double the stamina, so managing stamina becomes pretty challenging - especially if a lot of damage is being dished out by the boss.

 

In terms of advantages, Sorceress has had a lot of healing through skills added over the years. Abilities like Grim Reaper's Judgment, Bloody Calamity, and the new Magnus skill: Dark Tendrils really helps us sustain. I also found that changing my Awakening's core skill to Dead Hunt gives me a really strong forward guard offensive ability with a big heal, which helps even more! I previously had quite low opinions of this core skill but it’s nice to see it have a really good application against Black Shrine bosses. And last but not least, Nightmare is just an absolutely amazing tool in boss fights, so saving it to dodge the more challenging mechanics was a great lifeline as well.

[GM]Vaha

What was the most difficult mechanic during this boss fight in your opinion? and do you have advice on how to best handle it?

Savantelle

Haha well in terms of deaths I think I died tripping over a tree root more than anything… there are a lot of them there, really learning the arena well and avoiding certain areas was important for me. Besides for this I think the hardest part of the fight was damaging the tree to stun the bosses in the last 20-30% while the red homing sparks hit you in the back… it was a balance of not being too greedy but also not playing it so safe that you missed the DPS window on the tree.

 

In terms of advice, I’d say positioning yourself slightly more on the side and rotating more sideways was enough to prevent these homing sparks from hitting you in the back. The threats really come from her summons, and a lot of the AOES combined with the small adds and sparks, but unlike some other bosses I found myself just running at her as long as the tree wasn’t able to be hit.

[GM]Vaha

Can you give some advice on when there will be a good timing window to push for damage on the boss?

Savantelle

For Bari, just making sure you successfully stun her every time the tree can be damaged, and then really using all of your damage in this window is the key.
I find her to generally not be a very threatening boss herself, I found that as long as her Gumiho or Duoksini summons weren’t out, I could keep hitting here. The general who would come out and do big AOES I found I was usually able to just position my forward correctly so that I could keep DPS up.

[GM]Vaha

What motivated you to keep striving towards overcoming the highest difficulty of this boss?

Savantelle

I have always been a big fan of challenging PVE boss fights. Before playing BDO I was a big fan of this in other games, so I was really excited to see it come to BDO. I also tend to be a bit of a completionist. I would love to one day see an “all time leaderboard.” I think this would really add to the time pushing aspect of the mode.

[GM]Vaha

Before we wrap things up, do you have any Shoutouts for friends or guildmates that have provided you great support throughout your journey to victory?

Savantelle

I’ll give a general shout out to the community and to a lot of my friends, for Bari I didn’t end up using a guide, but for some of the other bosses it was really helpful to get small tips and pointers about dealing with certain mechanics. Also it was nice to learn where to get started from people who had already given certain bosses a run or two in previous weeks.

[GM]Vaha

Thank you so much for your time, Savantelle, and Congratulations once again on your achievement! I really appreciate you participating in this very informative interview!

Savantelle

No worries at all Thank you for having me for this interview! I’ll make one last suggestion - I would love to see some duo boss rush in the future, perhaps higher calamities or new bosses! I think this would really spice things up and add some quality bonding time with some friends… I know I’ve been asking for a lot, but I think the mode has a lot of potential so I look forward to seeing this!

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Once again, We would like to sincerely thank Savantelle for taking time out of their day to join us for this interview. You are truly amazing and we can't wait to see what other impressive feats you will accomplish in the future!

We hope that everyone had a wonderful time reading this interview and maybe some of the tips shared by our outstanding adventurer will come in handy when you are challenging the Black Shrine!

Good luck out there, see you in the next interview!