A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 1, and begin reading.

A Brief Overview of Tattoos
Tattoos, while a vital part of combat, already have much written on them and the necessity of each depends largely on your class. For fighting, sacrificing moon and boar tattoos is sometimes necessary.
I urge people not to get rid of their moss tattoo because bleeding would become a great nuisance over time. As far as which tattoos are necessary: Cloak for almost all classes. It's an absolute must for classes that are more stationary (such as Magi), but less so, with the less amount of preparing you have to do in a room, for each class. Mindseye is also a must, unless you really like fighting without being able to see. Tree is a lovely tattoo to get you out of a bind, and shield will often save you, if you've made a stupid mistake. Web tattoos are nice, but I've found them to be of limited use. You obviously can't use them on anyone with web boots, and the amount of time it takes you to get equilibrium back is often considerably longer than the time it takes your opponent to writhe.
Besides those above stated, most tattoos are decided on a personal fighting style. And, as this book is primarily more defensive, most of those strategies will go undiscussed. However, brazier is good for keeping someone still, tentacle can be nice if your opponent has a tendency to fly away, and a crystal tattoo can let you pretend that you haven't been getting beaten into the ground the previous couple of rounds.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 2, and begin reading.

Preparation, Making the Most of Your Abilities
While preparation is probably the most important part of combat, it is a hard thing to tell someone to do without sounding like you're harping on a point too much. It is always important to have all of your defenses setup properly before heading into combat. Make sure your pipes are working, and lit, your mind is in a good state for combat, and make sure you know who your opponent is. For example, constitution is vital against necromancers, while it wouldn't be very important if you were fighting a forestal.
Setting up a checklist for yourself is a very wise idea. Even seasoned fighters can forget the most crucial defenses. I'm not necessarily very seasoned, but I've already fought long enough to find out that curing aeon without elm in your pipes is difficult, and that taking damage from a monk without any damage reduction is a very quick and humiliating way to die.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 3, and begin reading.

Introduction To Defensive Approaches by Class
To begin, the reason I write this book is because I was asked by a young Magi what strategies they should use against each particular class. My response was that there are some things you have to be careful about from each class, but how you kill them really depends on what skills you have available, and how creative you like to be.
I went on to list for the Magi the particular things that they should watch out for coming from each class. At the time I thought it was a helpful lesson, and I thought I could help out even more by going in depth, without having the constant distractions that those with anyone with responsibilities grows accustomed to.
Each class is going to have special defensive traits, and those traits should be worked into defensive strategies. However, most have certain abilities that will serve the same function.
Devotionists have the ability to lay hands, Magi can reflect to slow damage, Sentinels can trip, so on, and so forth. To go along with that, almost everyone has access to web and shield tattoos.
When fighting, in the most simplistic terms, you have two choices.
One, is to fight defensively, and stay alive using the aforementioned skills. And two, be more offensive than the opponent and beat them to the punch, so to speak. While I think everyone wishes to be an offensive master, a slower approach is often the wisest.
Specifically, the following passages in the book will demonstrate situations in which a combatant should really fall back to a defensive approach before going on the offensive, again.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 4, and begin reading.

Sentaari
Sentaari can be a particularly dangerous class due to the large amount of damage they can do in a short amount of time. Tekura can quickly break limbs, and put people out of a fight. Even if a combatant is skilled in avoidance, he will still likely need to slow down the damage from the barrage of combinations. Kaido is a rather all-encompassing ability with defensive traits, and very potent offensive abilities. Telepathy can be frightening if you let them keep a mindlock on you for extended periods of time.
To deal with Telepathy, before a fight, make sure you leave the local area of the monk, remain away for a moment, and then return.
Monks use combinations with blackout such as backout and kaicripple, or blackout, confusion, disrupt. There is a variety of ways they can afflict you once they've blacked you out, so it's wise to to check on yourself when your senses return to you. However, mostly that can be avoided by evading their mindlocks. Without a lock they are limited to much fewer abilities, with the only practical ones being mind strip (takes away defenses) and mind batter (stuns, gives two goldenseal afflictions).
Tekura, besides the pure damage aspect, has limb damage you have to be careful of. A Sentaari will often try to break your legs, jumpkick or sweep you to the floor, and then break your back.
Paying close attention to your limb damage can help prevent this, and, if you're not disadvantaged by standing in water, that will negate a Sentaari's ability to jumpkick.
Kaido's primary offensive abilities are kai cripple, kai deliverance, and kai enfeeble. Enfeeble, while not used very often, will half a combatant's current life and mana, while also stunning them. It costs a lot of Kai for the Sentaari and is thus seldom used, but something to watch out for, regardless. Kai cripple will give a slight delay and then will cripple all of the afflicted's limbs.
While applying mending, and using a tree tattoo will generaly cure this quicker than they can recover, it's important to be wary of the ability along with presustained damage to the limbs. Deliverance is the most potent ability in Kaido. It will kill anyone who attacks the Sentaari after it is setup. Before attacking a Sentaari, be sure to see that they do not have glowing white eyes. Also, if you're in combat, and there is a slight separation, always be wary of them setting deliverance up, and running or jumpkicking back into your area. It's always a good idea to look twice before attacking.
The other ability that should be noted is kai banish. If you're in a team situation, banishing can displace you for about twenty seconds in which time you will not be able to interact with the

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 5, and begin reading.

Daru
Daru share the Tekura and Telepathy skillsets with the Sentaari so all of my warnings on the previous pages still hold true. To add a slight bit of warning against telepathy: If you're in the same area with someone for prolonged periods of time, watch out for mind radiance. It's rather simple to get away from (either prism to the person or leave the area) but, I thought it was worth noting, anyhow.
Illumination is the Daru's third, and primary skillset. They can fear all entities out of the area, shine and inflict more damage upon enemies, and attempt to transfix you with beautiful fire displays. There have been rumors of their fire bomb ability which supposedly kills everyone in a certain radius, but most have yet to see it in action.
Against shine, you have to be particularly careful of falling to the damage it adds onto Tekura. When they fear the entities, it's easy enough to recall them, and have them start attacking again. You will generally find you can do that quicker than they can fear. As a note not mentioned above, if you're out of the arena they can shadow an opponent, making the sunlight blister their skin.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 6, and begin reading.

Infernals
Infernals, like their Paladin counterparts can be extremely
dangerous. The focus of most of their combat is their ability to doubleslash rapidly (normally with rapiers) and overload an opponent with venoms. Aconite/Curare is a rather popular combination of venoms that work on most anyone, and can slow them to a near halt.
Depending on their opponents, they'll also try aconite/monkshood, and when going for a lock it's normally a kelp venom / kalmia, and then gecko/slike.
While not as common, an aconite/curare combination or a delphinium/ delphinium combination can lead to an impaling and disembowel. The move is rather difficult to pull off, but deadly when it is
perfected.
Necromancy is a rather potent art in itself. An Infernal could potentially use decay to finish off an opponent who is being stingy with rebounding, they can belch and try to starve a combatant to death, or they could attempt at crippling all four limbs and go for a vivisect.
The best way to protect against knights is to make sure healing is properly prioritized, and you stay calm, and keep on the offensive while they're loading up venoms. Having a rebounding aura surround you every couple of seconds helps slow down the onslaught, even if it can be razed away quickly. Shielding is of little use as raze will take it down rather quickly if the knight is paying attention.
Due to the Infernal's reliability on speed, you'll fight a lot of Rajamalans. In this case, and with Paladins, going for damage and staying on the offense could be your best defense. Besides that, make sure your limbs aren't being crippled too horribly, and stay in control of your pets, if you have any.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 7, and begin reading.

Paladins
As far as chivalry and swordplay, all things taken into consideration against Infernals, should similarly be cautioned about Paladins. For the sake of room, I'll discuss the different skillset, being devotion, as opposed to necromancy.
Devotion is arguably one of the strongest abilities in the realm.
By laying his hands on wounds, a Paladin can restore them greatly.
He can also call forth rites which will damage enemies, steal their mana, and keep them bound in place by their faith, or lack thereof.
They've also Bliss, which grants them a number of defenses including toughness, constitution, and magic resistance amongst other things.
Coupled with their fullplate, their rite of healing, and their rite of revitalization, they can be extremely difficult to bring down.
However, how to kill them I'll leave to the imagination.
Defensively, you will find yourself taking more damage from a Paladin due to their ability inspire their actions (+2 strength), and their rites. Force can manipulate your will into doing something potentially damaging, and hellsight leads to a quick death if not cured properly.
Against Paladins you have to be even more careful not to let asthma stick for even the slightest moment because hellsight is so potentially harmful. Having selfishness will stop knights from making you give away, or drop items. A common 'force' is to have one with entities, or vibes, or whatnot, unenemy all. Besides that, fight them like you would fight anyone else, but know that they might take awhile to bring down.
As a little sidenote, using enchanted baubles are good at distracting falcons and can give you some breathing room against a knight. If they wish to bring their falcon back to them, they'll be forced to use equilibrium, and will have to slow down on their relentless doubleslashing.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 8, and begin reading.

Luminaries
It is difficult to decide where to start with Luminaries. They've all the defensive measures in devotion previously discussed for Paladins. In addition, they have spirituality, which is the use of an angel that can be very offensive and defensive. And, they have Illumination like the Daru, but can find much better use for it in combat.
To reiterate some points for devotion: Their rites are difficult, hands will heal the Luminary rather decently, if they decide to use it over their other abilities, and force can be tricky. Piety, however, is probably the most annoying of their rites. Recently it started throwing off balance when you tried to move from it, and last I checked, tumbling didn't help escape it. So, fight outside, and have a way to swing up into trees, or fly away. Running may work if you've decent alignment, but if you're trying to keep your alignment down to save yourself from force, running away from piety is a very annoying, and often futile attempt at getting away (and/or chasing after the luminary if they fled).
The staple ability of spirituality is spiritwracking. It will give sensitivity, disfigurement, fear of heights, stupidity, or recklessness. The most usual defense is to eat lobelia, and then, if it doesn't cure anything, eat goldenseal. Diagnosing on a regular basis is a good idea, as well. Using focus is a dangerous practice because many luminaries will attempt to angel sap your mana, and then absolve you once it gets below fifty percent. For that reason, always be watching your mana. If you get overwhelmed by their angel they will either start smiting, for decent damage, or will attempt to go for a judgement. It has one more message than behead, but can only be stopped after the last warning by leaving the area. And, as I mentioned, if you're stuck in piety, this is often difficult.
While illumination is only vaguely helpful for the Daru, Luminaries have a number of impressive combinations with it. For example, they will often attempt to transfix, until the herb balance required by spiritwrack interferes enough with their constant transfixing, that they land a successful attempt. Flare, the ability to burn out people's pipes, is extremely difficult to defend against, especially while dealing with angels, and trying to mount an offense. Honestly the best defense against it, is to get artifact pipes. Otherwise, you could potentially spend a fourth of the fight refilling and relighting your pipes, and trying to stay away from hellsight, and disfigurement. Shine, with their rites, and ability to lay a large hit with smite, means you can't just focus on curing mana, either.
In conclusion, stay on top of herbal balance, make sure stupidity doesn't stick too long, fend off absolve, think about shielding to slow down spiritwrack if you get in trouble, but be wary of them converting to angel strip, and make sure all your pipes are filled, and lit.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 9, and begin reading.

Indorani
The Indorani are an extraordinarily annoying class to fight against.
Between Necromancy, Tarot, and Domination, their number of ways of running are immense, and the possibilities to mess people up are quite extraordinary. In particular, necromancy will allow them to soulcage and blackwind, Tarot does a number of things including entangling people, transporting them through their lust, making people change feelings about their enemies, and cursing them with aeon. Domination gives them a number of demonic little creatures that most fighters grow to hate.
I'll start with Necromancy, since I've covered it once, and don't have too much to add. Remember to use constitution, so you don't starve to death from fumes real fast. Decay can do decent damage, so watch for it. If you're fighting out of the arena, be aware that if you do kill your opponent, they'll most likely just soulcage and get away. Vivisect can be dangerous, but not so much for the Indorani.
Tarot is the true annoyance of the Indorani. Some of the tarot that are most commonly used are star, aeon, hanged man, empress, lust, universe, death, and devil. Lust and empress is a combination that allows the Indorani to immediately summon someone they've setup, be it friend or foe. It's particualrly annoying because once an Indorani lusts you, it takes balance to reject, and when you do, you waste a few seconds of combat time. Also, if you're fighting a pair of Indorani, one will always lust the other out if they're in the slightest amount of trouble. Paranoia stops it, but the best bet is to use a monolith. Hanged man is another annoying tarot as it can wrap you up in ropes, making you writhe free. While the time it takes to writhe free is debatably no longer than web, the balance required to use it is considerably shorter than the equilibrium recovery for web. Also, if you don't have boots of the spider, you'll often get caught up in a hanged man/web combination, which usually gives them time to use aeon, which will, true to its name, give the curse of aeon after two throws (the first takes down speed).
Another common practice is to hang, web, then use devil, which allows the tarot to throw a tarot card the next round, that will land with one effect of their choosing, and then another random one (picked from six that include hanged man, aeon, moon, and justice.)
If they're not one for messing around with the above stated tactics, they often opt for throwing a lot of stars, and then going for damage. However, if they use the more frustating path, and you don't succumb to the aeon and hanged man, they will rub their death card on you seven times, and eventually throw it. At that point, having a good means of escape is incredibly important.
The Domination ability has a variety of uses. While I'm not going to go over all the pets in detail, there are some that are very annoying. Pathfinders will give the Indorani a chance to escape to a place of their choosing, very quickly. The soulmaster can take over your body and control your movements if you don't lose it, and the chimera has a variety of annoying effects including stunning, and putting you to sleep. The doppleganger recently was given the ability to use all tarot cards, and has therefore become even more of a nuisance. At transcendent ability, an Indorani can summon the pit of Golgotha which will try to strip your levitation, and then pull you into its lair of scary denizens and treacherous wastelands.
Best defense against an Indorani is to stay protected against aeon, and try to overwhelm them quickly with whatever abilities you have.
Otherwise, the fight will be slowed to their pace, and between their pets and tarot, they'll eventually get to you.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 10, and begin reading.

Cabalists
The Cabalists are very similar to the Indorani with the exception being they have numerology rather than tarot. Amusingly, however, the fights will be rather similar. I'm going to follow with a little discourse on numerology, since the rest was covered for the Indorani, with very few differences in tactics.
Numerology grants the users many very useful abilities. The most used combination of the numerologist is infirmity, infirmity, madness, and then unravel. Infirmity first drops speed, and then causes aeon, and weakness. Madness causes paranoia, hallucinations, and dementia (all cured by ash). If you're afflicted with all five of these afflictions, they can unravel, splintering a mind, and causing instant-death. The defense against it, of course, is healing aeon well, keeping speed up, and not getting overwhelmed by madness. Of course, that's easier to write in a book than to do.
Other abilities you should be aware of, is their ability to link their health and mana pool. Essentially, when they run out of health, it stays at 1 life, and they start losing mana from the damage they take. Because of their ability to survive through so much damage, afflictions would be the next thing to turn to. However, they also have an ability with which they can share all of their afflictions with their opponent, and another ability that heals their afflictions at a rapid rate. The most success I've had, is beheading them, but, that often fails because they've figured out that they can use one of their great escape abilities (direcall, which switches you randomly with another person as long as both are outside) while transfixed, and webbed, and have it stop instant-killing abilities such as behead.
Their most annoying ability against Magi, is to 'deflect' harmful vibes or rites. Which, in essence nullifies rites in a matter of moments, and will decimate vibes over the course of a fight.
I think I went on a little long, complaining about their defenses because they've annoyed me greatly in the past. However, from the the defensive standpoint, be sure you don't get hit by unravel. Near all cabalists use it to kill simply because it's very effective.
Also, be wary of their soulmaster, as they can order it to consume your soul and use infirmity in very rapid succession. As far as offense against them: Good luck finding something that works.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 11, and begin reading.

Vampires
Vampires, once considered the most brutal combatants, have now lapsed into a period in which all of their good fighters have gone missing. However, with their abilities of corpus, mentis, and sanguis, they're still able to put on quite a hurting.
Sanguis allows a vampire to summon an undead minion to their aid.
Ghasts do considerable damage as well as occasionally land paralysis.
However, they are weak, and have as of late been replaced primarily by wraiths. Wraiths are more sturdy than the ghast counterparts, and drain mana while doing a decent, steady stream of damage. With them, a vampire's hope is to keep their opponent focused on their life, drain their mental energy, and annihilate quickly.
The corpus ability grants a number of defenses and it also gives the vampires their trademark frenzy attack. Frenzy, along with a good amount of damage, stuns an opponent. With their whispering ability in mentis, they can frenzy and whisper an affliction simultaneously. While this can add up damage-wise very fast, a more threatening attack is hitting with an envenomed weapon, and then whispering. Perhaps the most popular combination is oculus and then whispering anorexia, to hopefully mess up the opponents' blindness, and prepare for feeding.
To stay alive against vampires, slow down the damage, and watch mana, blindness, and sileris very carefully.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 12, and begin reading.

Druids
Druids are forestals with two offensive abilities, metamorphosis, and groves. Both are extremely dangerous when paired with the other.
Metamorphosis, of course, you come across with when fighting sentinels as well, so I'll touch on that a little more in depth here.
With metamorphosis, the primary two fighting styles are using wyvern for maul, then incinerate, or going with icewyrm or jaguar for reflexes, and very rapid mauling. The first style is very potentially dangerous because with good timing on their mauls, they can incinerate for an instant-kill as soon as they get their target below half of their health. However, healing from non- reflexed mauling isn't too difficult if you don't get caught in some other type of trouble. With reflexes, though, the mauls come at a speed that is very difficult to keep up with. Therefore one has to be more careful about leg breaks, and trips, then continued mauling, because it will eventually get the best of even better fighters.
Groves is an interesting ability that most decent fighters have learned to fear. A druid can summon a swarm of bees to help damage and subdue their opponent (through paralyzing limbs).
Also, the forest comes to the aid of the druid by lashing out with thorny branches, doing a few hundred damage and causing decent bleeding. The vines also entangle opponents and can spell the end of the fight for an unlucky combatant who happens to get entangled in crucial moments of a battle. To sum it up, groves are primarily passive in that the druids have little control over when the damage or entangling is done, and only works as a complimentary skillset to metamorphosis. However, in conjunction, the two abilities are quite deadly. The mauling, vines, and swarm of bees can quickly bring a fighter to a quick death from incinerate.
The nature of the druid's abilities lends itself to a very cautious defensive approach. Shielding before is necessary will sometimes make the druid waste an incinerate. Fighting a druid out of their groves is preferrable, if you can convince them to do that. If not, and you have a way to lure, or pull them from their grove, it's definitely worth the attempt. Grove roots will keep them rather tied to their position, though.
Still, evasive tactics will give the grove time to lose some energy, perhaps drop prismatic barrier, or make the vines recede. If you can spare a few rounds of offense, their swarms of bees are relatively weak, and can't be resummoned quickly.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 13, and begin reading.

Sentinels
Sentinels are similar to the druids in their use of metamorphosis but they have the ability woodlore to compliment it as opposed to groves. While it's too much to say that woodlore makes them more powerful than druids, it definitely gives them more
mobility, and more of an immediate offensive threat as opposed to a grinding style of fighting.
With woodlore they're going to get a couple of friendly and furry pets to aid them in their combat. Included in the group is a lemming that strips defenses, a raven that knocks off balance, a badger that causes some good bleeding, a gossamer that
transfixes opponents that are not blind, and some canines to add basic damage. Their other main offensive weapon is their ability to set traps. If an opponent walks into, or is pulled through into a trap, they may possibly be stunned, entangled, or overloaded with a large number of darts.
Due to the lemmings fast rate of stripping, and low health, it's often prudent to take him out early in the fight. Two hits will normally do the job. The raven is similarly
annoying, and similarly easy to kill off. If you can handle the damage for a considerable amount of time from the other entities, leaving them be is normally the best option. Elsewise, you're giving the sentinel a number of free rounds while focusing on his pets.
Darts are tricky to get around. Most sentinels will sit surrounded by them, which then obviously makes them more of a defensive tool. It befuddles me why someone would willingly walk into a trap, but, the ways around traps aren't foolproof. As a Magi, I've noticed that portalling only occasionally avoids dart traps. I doubt prisming would work, but I've not tested it so it's worth a try. The other option is to swing up into the trees, and swing down into the room. However, traps can be set in the trees, but the other ones on the ground will not be set off by swinging down.
If you happen to get stuck in traps, the battle is going to be a little uphill for the next few minutes. The darts will shoot out at the rate of about one per second, beating your balances decently, and combined with the entities and the sentinels' ability to trip, trouble normally follows. To try to weather through the storm, shielding will slow down the darts, and the sentinel's offensive. It will give time to regain herb or salve balance, and if you last until the darts run out, your chances improve considerably. At that point, you should just be careful not to be axe-pulled into another set.
The same tactics as mentioned earlier in the book are used in metamorphosis. In Wyvern, however, sentinels have the added benefit of being able to use thornspray as a more consistent, more damaging ability than simply mauling.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 14, and begin reading.

Syssin
The Syssin are masters of the sneak attack, and can quickly overwhelm even talented fighters who are unaware of their presence. If caught unprepared, and sitting still, hypnosis can quickly end a fight in favor of a syssin opponent. The afflictions implanted will throw off herb balance, keep insomnia from coming up, and generally just be an all around nuisance. The offensive abilities of subterfuge are primarily focused around double-stab and bows, with rather common approaches most often used. Venoms are dangerous when already afflicted, as shielding nor rebounding will stop it, and camus with scytherus can be quite deadly.
In relation to hypnosis, the best defense is to always be knowledgeable of your syssin opponents' whereabouts. Never let them stay long enough in the room with you without confrontation, and if there's the slightest worry, move into a different area, and setup again. A rather amusing defense is to snap yourself, and ruin their long strings of implanting if they do indeed intend to hypnotize while tanking damage.
For defense against double-stabbing the most effective thing is to have rebounding come up often. If you get in trouble, slow down the attack, and make sure your sileris coating stays up because as soon as they can't get through rebounding, they'll often go for bites. While double-stabbing in itself is rather dangerous, when combined with illusions it gets even worse. Primarily, the Syssin I've encounted focus on two types of illusions. Limb breaking and goldenseal cured afflictions. The first, if successful, will make using an epidermal to cure anorexia impossible for a couple seconds. The goldenseal affliction illusion may cause you to eat goldenseal, relaxing insomnia, and making their use of delphinium arrows very potentially
dangerous. For the breaking illusion, it's often best to make all of your limb damage cures manual for the fight, because the chance of coming across a limb break is less
likely than having the illusion work in your opponents favor. For the goldenseal illusions just be sure to have plenty of cohosh ready to eat, and, if possible, keep
metawake up. Venoms through biting can be dangerous, but also are easily protected against. Unless you get yourself in a bind from the other abilities, the combinations of camus and scytherus shouldn't be too problematic. It is not a bad idea to apply sileris soon after shielding while fighting a syssin.

You open a simple book entitled, "A copy of The Guide to Basic Defense" to the bookmark, on page 15, and begin reading.

Magi
I honestly have very little experienec against Magi as they would really fight. Most of my combat with them excludes vibes, and focuses on elementalism. However, I do know how I hate to be fought...
Magi take considerable amounts of damage from most physical attacks. Sword users, maulers, and monks, all do rather considerable damage to me, even taking into account my transcendent avoidance. So, one of the best defenses is a good offense.
Besides that, with vibes, there are a few things to worry about. First, the constant drain of mana and life is hard to keep up with. Also, the vibes cause amnesia, so acting often is a necessity. Herb balance isn't necessarily a concern in its general sense. Even with plague up, switching between ash for the confusion, and goldenseal for the dizziness and dissonance isn't necessarily difficult until illusions and erode are thrown in. The problem then lies normally with not becoming deaf fast enough, and letting stridulation kick in (by throwing off equilibrium), or in eating too much goldenseal, and falling asleep momentarily from lullaby.
For defense against vibes, the best way to learn is through practicing. Be careful of erode, and watch for your most important defenses. If a Magi starts dropping holocausts it is generally a good time to get out of the area, unless you happen to be a xoran and can take the damage easily enough.