Countering CrD / Mind Crush - Tips for all Classes vs. Assassins / Shadows

[Xinika]

The idea that this combo is invincible is false. Everything can be countered. I've found it outrageously ridiculous that some people allow this ability to still be hard casted up to this day. So this guide is dedicated to those sins and non-sins alike who see CrD / Mind Crush being casted and wish to stop it. There are various ways to avoid being pushed into the LS > CrD > Maul (Stun) combo.

 

When an Assassin or Shadow LS you into casting CrD / Mind Crush, you need to understand that he / she is putting a lot of investment into that combo. The payoff for that combo will be huge, and if it does get off, it will cause massive damage to you. However, if you counter it, the Assassin will be quite dry in their resources. CrD has a hefty force cost you would be heavily hindering their TTK and putting them behind in the fight. Sometimes, using a breaker and making sure you can avoid being stunned (IE: Knockback, Force Push, Mez, Re-Stealth after breaker) will give you a possible advantage and the ability to force that sin to think outside the box.

 

Below is assuming you have been mezzed by the Sin via Low Slash

 

Assassin / Shadow

- Phase Walk (Active)

- Resilience / Shroud (Reactive)

Teleport away. Simple as that.

 

Guardian / Jugg

- Reflect (Active for initial tick)

You will have to rely on the use of your various damage reduction CDs to get past the effect. Just remember, when you see the Shadow / Sin doing this - know this is their burst window. Use your CDs wisely and it is very possible you can slow their DPS dramatically.

 

VG / PT

- Shoulder Cannon (Active, will push the cast back ENTIRELY)

If Shoulder Cannon is active, have a chuckle at the Assassin trying to hard cast this on you. Shoulder Cannon will COMPLETELY negate the cast and push it back long enough for you to get out of the mez and go to town on the Assassin.

 

Sage / Sorc

- Barrier (Active, use to shutdown burst)

- Cleanse (Reactive)

You have 2 breakers. Barrier and Breaker itself. If the sin wants to waste every opportunity getting CrD off like a religion, you can catch him off guard with Barrier and knockback (Pinning if DPS) You will have to play a game of cat and mouse. You being the Jerry mouse, kiting the Tom cat into traps. Not to mention if an Assassin uses this on you - you can simply giggle and cleanse.

 

Marauder / Sent

- Force Camo (Reactive)

There are various damage reduction CDs to use reactive. However, Force Camo is great for the damage reduction and reopener element of surprise. You will have to rely on half of your damage reduction CDs in addition to counters such as Fear to get past this.

 

Operative / Scoundrel

- Evasion (Reactive)

- Roll (Reactive)

Assuming they've already got the cast on you, simply use cleanse or Evasion. For healer operatives, it's far more easier to shrug this damage off. DPS Operatives can simply roll away and restock on their resources / health.

 

Sniper / Gunslinger

- Various. A well played GS / Sniper should never allow this to happen - ever. Especially when you have immunities to stuns and mezzes. If a sin goes around the corner, do not chase them, you need to retain your stun immunity as long as possible. If they are wasting their time hard casting into you whilst said buff is active, you have knockbacks, stuns and mezzes, in addition to pushback effects to make that Assassin waste their time.

 

Merc / Commando

- In the case of a merc, an immediate breaker into knockback into netting the Assassin will throw them off - in addition to giving you a possible advantage of piling some serious damage into them. Assuming you netted them, they will slowly be walking over to you (or forced to used force speed or breaker), which allows you to either use your movement speed immunity or kite in another fashion. This forces the sin to burn some of his CDs. Either Breaker, Resilience or Force Speed. Mercs can wreck an Assassin if played correctly. The problem is the high-risk, high-reward, which the sin will also be gambling on with his / her combo.

Edited April 16, 2014 by Xinika

[Evolixe]

I would never, ever advise people to break the initial low slash, you're going to get punished for that very harshly.

 

If however you have defenses that can be used while stunned (Phase Walk, Shoulder Cannon etc) then yeah you might be better off using those.

 

But it can also be good to just EAT the CrD, and the break the followup stun immediately. Because that is most likely to happen. Not only will you be breaking with a white bar, you now still have your teleport for when you get stunned again. Or when it looks like the other sin is getting the upper hand and you just need his resolve to deplete.

 

I would be very careful at going about this, because most direct counters to CrD have a negative impact almost immediately after.

[Xinika]

I would be very careful at going about this, because most direct counters to CrD have a negative impact almost immediately after.

Same applies for the sin that's gambling on CrD. If countered, they can be in a terrible position. The mere fact that I have a 90% success rate using the combo does not imply its solidity. It states that most opponents don't even try. Most just stand there and take it. People can counter it and there are various ways to do so. I've seen this from skilled players of various classes across multiple servers.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Xinika

[Evolixe]

Naturally, I'm just saying.. taking it is sometimes exactly what you should do.

 

I see most people break for it actually.. which tends to get them in a very nasty position because that opens a world for me to just play with them and their resolve.

[Master-Nala]

Sages have the easiest counter of all. Just cleanse the DoT. The initial strike isn't any more dangerous than anything else an Assassin or Shadow can do. If you're against a Madness Sin, all 4 of them, they get an instant cast and so it's more about stopping the setup.

[Evolixe]

Sages have the easiest counter of all. Just cleanse the DoT. The initial strike isn't any more dangerous than anything else an Assassin or Shadow can do. If you're against a Madness Sin, all 4 of them, they get an instant cast and so it's more about stopping the setup.

 

You can't even cleanse the DoT from a Madness sin if you wanted to.

 

But really, the initial damage alone can be very much worth the cast.

And you'll mostly get stunned right after, which is a stun I can tell you now you can't sit out.

 

You'll get absolutely annihilated if you do that.

[Master-Nala]

You can't even cleanse the DoT from a Madness sin if you wanted to.

 

Right, that's why I said it's more about stopping the setup.

 

But really, the initial damage alone can be very much worth the cast.

And you'll mostly get stunned right after, which is a stun I can tell you now you can't sit out.

 

You'll get absolutely annihilated if you do that.

 

Not really. Sit out the low slash which they mostly waste casting the CD, then use your breaker or Barrier on the stun. Or stun them yourself. I really find that the Deception/Inflitrations that concern me are the ones who don't bother with Crushing Darkness. IMO, it's not worth the trouble against a Sage. The weapon damage from Maul is more helpful.

 

I've had good success on my Inflitration with using the standard opener Breach-Project-SS then low slash and SS again. Most Sorcerer/Sages I play against are dead or nearly so after that.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Master-Nala

[Evolixe]

Not really. Sit out the low slash which they mostly waste casting the CD, then use your breaker or Barrier on the stun. Or stun them yourself. I really find that the Deception/Inflitrations that concern me are the ones who don't bother with Crushing Darkness. IMO, it's not worth the trouble against a Sage. The weapon damage from Maul is more helpful.

 

I've had good success on my Inflitration with using the standard opener Breach-Project-SS then low slash and SS again. Most Sorcerer/Sages I play against are dead or nearly so after that.

 

Nah, that's just wrong. The very fact you blow a barrier on the is VERY much worth the "bother".

That is a 3 minute cooldown in exchange for a 15 second one and a white bar. Please do barrier my opener.

 

And the sorcs you fought then musn't be very good...

[AGSThomas]

If you're against a madness sin just hit him with an auto attack and he'll die.

[Master-Nala]

Nah, that's just wrong. The very fact you blow a barrier on the is VERY much worth the "bother".

That is a 3 minute cooldown in exchange for a 15 second one and a white bar. Please do barrier my opener.

 

And the sorcs you fought then musn't be very good...

 

You obviously wouldn't use Barrier just for the stun, but if you need to stall for time to get help or get a heal or bubble off cooldown it can make sense.

 

As for whether the sorcs I've fought are good or bad, that's e-peen measuring so I'll demur on walking into that discussion.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Master-Nala

[BlobbMonster]

I don't get this combo. CrD never hits hard for me even if I pop Recklessness. I don't understand how it only crits for ~2k while Deathfield crits for ~4k even though it has lower base damage. What am I missing? Edited March 7, 2014 by BlobbMonster

[Evolixe]

It really does quite a bit more damage than 2k.. about the double.

 

But it's free burst damage so there isno reason not to.

[Hei_Atzfel]

I don't get this combo. CrD never hits hard for me even if I pop Recklessness. I don't understand how it only crits for ~2k while Deathfield crits for ~4k even though it has lower base damage. What am I missing?

 

The base attack usually hits for about 3.5k for me with about 4.5-5k on a crit and even then it's still got the DoT that's gonna do around another 3k. So 3.5k initial hit combined with a (usually around) 5-6k maul both hitting you at the same time is quite a bit of damage. And if either of them crit it's even worse, plus the DoT is still attached to crushing. So really, you should be using it. It's a crazy amount of damage that your opponent has to eat.

[cycao]

It really does quite a bit more damage than 2k.. about the double.

 

But it's free burst damage so there isno reason not to.

 

Yeah basically this, free damage.

[Aelanis]

I don't get this combo. CrD never hits hard for me even if I pop Recklessness. I don't understand how it only crits for ~2k while Deathfield crits for ~4k even though it has lower base damage. What am I missing?

 

It comes down to spending your time maximizing damage, especially while they can't react. Hitting them will break the stun. They can't interrupt you if they're stunned (and if they use their stun break to break your low slash, you've effectively taken control of the fight), and so you can take the 2 seconds to compress your damage into a smaller time window, which is, by definition, more burst. I almost dropped a sniper in the 2 globals following my Mind Crush last night. I Low Slashed him, casted Mind Crush, landed a crit on Shadow Strike as MC hit, and then crit him with project. Had a healer not been paying attention, the Spinning Strike that got canceled likely would have killed him.

[Luckeyduckey]

You forgot cleanse as Sorc. It's the only class that can cleanse the force dot (excluding dodge)

[Evolixe]

You forgot cleanse as Sorc. It's the only class that can cleanse the force dot (excluding dodge)

 

You arent going to cleanse anything while stunned.

[bibleblackONLY]

I don't get this combo. CrD never hits hard for me even if I pop Recklessness. I don't understand how it only crits for ~2k while Deathfield crits for ~4k even though it has lower base damage. What am I missing?

 

It's actually a free spell, since the GCD finishes during casting, so when CrD get's out, you could simultaneously activate another spell.

For example, if you wanna lowslash - maul, instead of just doing that combo, you put a CrD in between, and press maul when CrD finishes. You basically did the lowslash - maul identically, but a free CrD fits inside.

 

Talking about CCs in this game, with a 4sec hard stun you could fit 2 GCD inside of it. For example, electrocute - maul - assassinate. For a 4sec mess, usually you could only fit 1 GCD inside, since it will wake your opponent up. With low-slash-CrD-any skill combo, you actually fits 2 GCD inside, making it almost as good as 4sec hard stun with half the resolve.

[KeyboardNinja]

Nah, that's just wrong. The very fact you blow a barrier on the is VERY much worth the "bother".

That is a 3 minute cooldown in exchange for a 15 second one and a white bar. Please do barrier my opener.

 

And the sorcs you fought then musn't be very good...

 

Actually I might barrier off the CrD on my sorc. It entirely depends on what else I have available to me. Remember that Force Barrier is a 2.5 minute cooldown for Lightning sorcs, which is really the only spec that should even consider dueling an Infil shadow in this way.

 

A more likely counter from me would probably be to wait out the cast, then knockback at the exact instant it finishes. I could cleanse off the dot, but I'm not likely to care all that much. The damage just isn't that high. The knockback root is a free Thundering Blast in a 1v1 situation (7.5 meter knockback + moving back during Affliction GCD). If the shadow blows resilience, then I sprint away and heal, secure in the knowledge that their only effective defensive CD is burned. If they don't blow resilience, then I just spiked them for far, far more than CrD hit me, all of my cooldowns are still available (except for my 20s knockback), I may have proc'd Chain Lightning (which will further root them and allow me to kite some more), and they have to gap close again and have lost the advantage of opening stealth.

 

On my shadow tank, when someone does this to me, I truly just laugh off the damage. The Maul is by far the worst part of it, and depending on where I am with my CDs, I will probably Spinning Kick my way out of that one. Resilience is reserved for the auto-crit Discharge > Shock combo, which is always fun. Even better when they try it immediately after the (now failed) Maul, because then I can cleanse off some of the DoT ticks. Beyond that point, it turns into a conventional Darkness-v-Deception duel, which is something that a competent and geared Darkness sin should win every single time, even ignoring that the Deception sin is now out 40 force.

[Evolixe]

Actually I might barrier off the CrD on my sorc. It entirely depends on what else I have available to me. Remember that Force Barrier is a 2.5 minute cooldown for Lightning sorcs, which is really the only spec that should even consider dueling an Infil shadow in this way.

 

 

A barrier for a Low Slash is an immensely good trade for the Assassin. Even a breaker in that instance is a better option for you.

 

Barrier is just a massive waste.

 

But honestly, lightning sorcs don't kill Assassins. Only madness has a chance at that.

[KeyboardNinja]

But honestly, lightning sorcs don't kill Assassins. Only madness has a chance at that.

 

Depends on who has what cooldowns available. I have and do kill Deception assassins on my Lightning sorc. The problem is that Lightning is a spec that almost no one plays correctly in PvP, especially against melee. It's very, very, very rare to see the full tools of Lightning correctly utilized in a 1v1 setting like that. Madness is a bit more straightforward, because it's much more obvious how to kite and control and keep damage up under pressure.

 

As with anything related to dueling Deception, if you can survive the opening double-burst and get a bit of distance, you can probably evaporate them before they are able to build it up again. This is why burning Barrier early against Deception isn't as much of a problem as it would be against other classes.

[Evolixe]

Depends on who has what cooldowns available. I have and do kill Deception assassins on my Lightning sorc. The problem is that Lightning is a spec that almost no one plays correctly in PvP, especially against melee. It's very, very, very rare to see the full tools of Lightning correctly utilized in a 1v1 setting like that. Madness is a bit more straightforward, because it's much more obvious how to kite and control and keep damage up under pressure.

 

As with anything related to dueling Deception, if you can survive the opening double-burst and get a bit of distance, you can probably evaporate them before they are able to build it up again. This is why burning Barrier early against Deception isn't as much of a problem as it would be against other classes.

 

Well, when the Assassin plays it right, and both parties have all cooldowns available.. there is no way in hell the sorc can win.

[KeyboardNinja]

Well, when the Assassin plays it right, and both parties have all cooldowns available.. there is no way in hell the sorc can win.

 

Terrain is another point that matters here.

 

There are a couple of things to keep in mind about Lightning. The most significant of which is the number of slows, roots and stuns built into the spec. Even without using Whirlwind (which would be very counter-productive in a 1v1 context), I have a stun and a dot-immune mez, a short-CD knockback, two roots (both of which are AoE) and three slows (two of which in rotation). Lightning also has a crudload of burst that can be completely negated by an Assassin, but only for 3 seconds. Add to that root-breaking Force Speed and 15 seconds of interrupt+pushback immunity (on a 70 second effective CD) and you have a very scary spec for countering melee.

 

Also, bubble and Dark Heal aren't used enough. In any 1v1 with damage downtime (due to LoS, stealth, or defensive CDs), Unnatural Preservation, Static Barrier and Dark Heal are substantially higher-impact survivability mechanisms than percentage-based defensive CDs, simply due to how much they "mitigate" relative to the damage output. It's the classic self-healing vs mitigation question, which in this case falls in favor of the healing.

 

Oh, and also Barrier, which in a pure 1v1 is merely a tool to soften burst and bait high-damage offensive cooldown use. Much less effective against Assassins, unfortunately, due to the fact that resisted force attacks do not consume Force Potency charges and a dodged Maul doesn't consume the proc. The charges will last too long to simply wait them out, even with Enduring Bastion, so basically your only hope is to negate some burst and buy yourself interrupt protection.

 

That's not to say Lightning sorcs are sitting pretty on silly, OP tools. All it means is that they aren't quite as defenseless as it would seem. An assassin who knows how to whitebar with care and stack their burst might be able to finish off a sorc in the opening volley, especially if they catch the sorc with the bubble debuff still present. If the assassin can't finish off the sorc by GCD #4, then it's probably a horse race. If the assassin hasn't won by GCD #6, the sorc's stunbreak is still active and the sorc is above 30%, the assassin is dead, even if Barrier is on cooldown. There's just no way that an assassin can stay within range to proc their big hits beyond that point, and they can't reliably stealth out without blowing Shroud because of DoTs, and Lightning has enough burst that, with Recklessness available, they can pretty much burst out an Assassin's-worth of damage before said Assassin has recovered from the ranged slow. The disadvantage is that the sorc isn't going to get that burst before GCD 5 or 6 (because of stuns), and blowing CDs early in an attempt to force said burst will result in never getting it at all.

Edited March 24, 2014 by KeyboardNinja

[Evolixe]

Well sure, in a completely flat open ground, the assassin hasn't got much of a chance.

But where do you even really find that, aside from tatooine?

 

As soon as there is some LoS, forget it, really.

[KeyboardNinja]

Well sure, in a completely flat open ground, the assassin hasn't got much of a chance.

But where do you even really find that, aside from tatooine?

 

As soon as there is some LoS, forget it, really.

 

Cuts both ways. The instant there is any one-way terrain, the assassin loses a ton of viability due to the lack of a leap. Think: Civil War side turrets, Huttball anything, Novare north turret areas (prerequisite: dumb assassin, so probably not a fair point), Corellia fountain, Orbital Station anything, Makeb anything-but-below-bridge, etc. There's a lot of room for knockbacks to really mess up a melee.

 

But yeah, flat open ground save for one or two LoS points… An assassin with a brain will win that without any trouble at all. This is why sane sorcs are more careful than that. It's also why I don't like Voidstar, despite it being an insane AoE machine for the spec.

Edited March 24, 2014 by KeyboardNinja