Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

I had a nice run of the Aetherochemical Research Facility the other night.


I'm leveling RDM on my alt and my boyfriend is leveling PLD. We had a BRD and an AST. The AST greeted us with a hello and then said that they hadn't healed this before. My boyfriend is a solid tank so I wasn't worried.

The AST was doing great through the dungeon. I Mana Shifted a few times but it was because they were spamming Gravity which I was not mad about one bit. Kept everyone alive.

On the last boss the AST and BRD go down to fireball AoE almost instantly bht then I realize my boyfriend and I both have self-heals. There isn't a tankbuster to worry about and the raidwide damage (if you do mechs and dodge properly) is really limited. So we solo'd the boss through the rest of that phase and the Ascian Prime, even killed the fire and Blizzard spheres. I woulf melee combo one down while he focused on the other then jump over and help him finish his off.

It was the most fun I've had in that place in a long time because it required actual thought and playing in a way that was certainly atypical. I loved it!

Made a friend in the AST too, answered some AST questions for her that she'd had trouble getting clear responses too. It was nice.

Medica II is a thing, especially in alliance raids where there's usual amounts of aoe damage. I'll admit, I wasn't doing my best, but I was using all four of my healing skills. I had Selene because I figured hey, white mage has medica II. This white mage only had cure II, stone II, and Medica. That cast bar barely did anything. And no, I don't count constantly raising the dead bard as healing. I wouldn't have minded nearly as much if the white mage was dpsing. But again, cast bar barely did anything. Why not use Medica II when you can literally heal an entire alliance raid up within a handful of seconds with one button and not have to spam physic and Succor because that's the best a scholar has at level 50. I guess I should use Eos from now on just in case a white mage is healing like they never passed their level 35 job quest.

i queue'd in prog on an alt into leveling roulette as a sch, i'm almost 52 and get stone vigil. i don't realise anything as being wrong until i notice the tank can't keep hate on anything. i type in "shield oath" and the bard pipes up, "he doesn't have his soulstone." lvl44 gld in stone vigil... somehow he unequipped it before queuing in (idek WHY you would) and needless to say it was annoying having to deal with it.

last boss's frontal cleave nearly killed the tank every single time and it got to a point where 2 were dead and i wasn't sure we would make it. we did, though and i bolted asap. the bard made this run a little leas painful so ty for that...

Had a Rabanasty, which is how I'm going to be referring to it from now on, last night that really took the game. As with last time two alliances kept messing up but one of them messed up so often that it caused countless wipes. We literally took so long DPSing down Mateus that I saw a mechanic that I haven't seen since the week it dropped, to the point I'm convinced some people were literally just spamming one button because there's no way our combined DPS should be that bad. It got worse on Hashbrowns, no matter what happened that one alliance was almost always dead and almost always to things that inevitably hurt the rest of us. Sand Spheres? Didn't get theirs down in time multiple times. Golems? They saved their LB for a Healer LB twice, though given the circumstances I can't blame the competent ones who did that. Incoming damage? I literally watched one of their healers stand right under the three dropping pillars while everyone else was running to the far north corner and bite the dust.

And of course because a lot of Hashbrown's mechanics punish /everyone/ if not done properly and come in quick succession we'd end up having most of our health eaten by the Sand Sphere exploding with little to almost no time to recover before the rest of the alliances were dead as well; with the poor DPS on top of most of that alliance kissing the floor for 80% of the fight meaning we'd get a second set of Golems inevitably that would just smash people down before there was any time to recover. It was the first and only successful vote abandon I've seen in /months/.

I don't know what it is about this raid... I really don't. It's not hard.

Ran WOD todayFun times
Wiped twice on the eye.All 3 tanks managed to die tanking and my red mage died twice tanking adds for the off tanks fighting for agro on eye boss.Im quite sure they kept getting doomed.

5 head dragon.Was tanked in mid after me explaining to them where to bring the boss.

Cerb somehow went fine but i saw some unknowns getting slayed XD.

Cloud of Darkness -Wiped once.Honestly not sure what happend on this one but it looked like the cloud phase and orb dps check managed to stack on each other along with shadow lurkers.

I unlocked DRG yesterday, and decided to take it into Leveling. Toto-Rak, no surprise given my level. Get a BLM, an AST, and a lala WAR. The WAR pulled the first couple mobs, then stopped, but after a couple of seconds, ran to pull the second group. As soon as we’re down to one mob, he’s off again, on until the first boss room. We wipe on the first boss because there’s three trash mobs in with us. And so on through the dungeon. It was one giant bum-rush, and halfway through, it’s obvious the tank’s not even trying to hold aggro. I admit, I just kinda tunnel visioned and just did my own thing for the rest of the dungeon. When we killed the end boss, my response was U>LeaveNowHeckWithWaitingForCommsOrLoots. I just wanted out of there.

Was doing Keeper of the Lake...with an experienced tank....and two very bad dps. One literally "stepped in the fire" countless times...the other produced zero dmg output. Gave it three tries on the second boss and just one on the final boss, no one was acknowledging the number markers, and ignored the flying mob for the group shield. We died of course, and I'm a more cynical healer as time goes by.

My worst experiences have been with DPS who struggle in the Aery boss fight and healers who can't stop dying to the bosses in cutters cry/dzaemel darkhold.

Since I have a lot of alts I get forced to running Sastasha, Copperbell, and Tam-Tara a lot,

Anyway, I load into Tam-Tara, party is average: one new player, experienced white mage, everything should go smoothly. Except the healer just spammed medica/cure when we were at full health and stood there doing nothing for most of the run. I was tempted to say something but didnt want to start anything. Throughout the whole thing they did one or two stones, on the final boss.

I did however get a nice group for Garuda, explained the mechanics and everything went smoothly.

So this just happened. Was running Skalla/Expert roulette with an FC mate. Throughout the dungeon, I will admit I was distracted because my toddler started coughing in her sleep (The weather has been wonky af, so..), so yes! I was not doing well in the least. We get to clickyboomdragon and halfway through, the other DPS pipes up with, "pretty sure they're a bot" and "spams arrow and no dots".. I answer with, "me?" and "No, just sh*tty at the class."

Never seen anyone book it out of a finished duty so quickly. Sorry, love. Not a bot, just busy! Thanks for the giggle! (I REALLY need Beep Boop for a title now.)

One of my must best runs today)
I leveling my War (want get last run as old war) and get Shisui of the Violet Tides. I get group of 2 RDM and SMN. All was good until last mob before boss room - SMN suddenly left without a word. In quick chat with RDMs we decide to kill boss by ourselfs. And we did it, maybe it was little too long, but all was fine. Then with small pulls we get to second boss, where new healer appear. And then all was just great - all mobs done and last boss died. Only thing was bad for my - i can give only 1 comm((( But get 3 comms from them. Great run before maintenance.

Shout out to the group in Duty Roulette in Dzamael Darkhold last night, for being a splendid bunch of people. Thanks especially to the AST who healed his/her hiney off seemingly without blinking when I accidentally pulled pretty much an entire room of mobs, and gracefully accepted my apology. The best bit was that people were actually acknowledging and congratulating everyone's level ups, just like the old days. Thanks. guys and gals, you were all fun, beautiful people.

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Originally Posted by SavageCipher

I'm a more cynical healer as time goes by.

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I've been maining AST for quite a while now. Initially when I started, I blamed any deaths on myself and would drop out of bad runs with shame and give up the job for weeks at a time. These days I'm covered in undiluted universal industrial strength cynic concentrate.

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Originally Posted by Ascarot

One of my must best runs today)
I leveling my War (want get last run as old war) and get Shisui of the Violet Tides. I get group of 2 RDM and SMN. All was good until last mob before boss room - SMN suddenly left without a word. In quick chat with RDMs we decide to kill boss by ourselfs. And we did it, maybe it was little too long, but all was fine. Then with small pulls we get to second boss, where new healer appear. And then all was just great - all mobs done and last boss died. Only thing was bad for my - i can give only 1 comm((( But get 3 comms from them. Great run before maintenance.

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Out of curiosity how did you manage to get dfed into a party of 3 dps in a 4 man dungeon?i didnt think that was possible. XD

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

Out of curiosity how did you manage to get dfed into a party of 3 dps in a 4 man dungeon?i didnt think that was possible. XD

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I don't think it is. Might have mistaken a healer for one of the RDMs

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Originally Posted by Metalwrath

5 head dragon.Was tanked in mid after me explaining to them where to bring the boss.

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This right here is why I dread getting WoD during alliance roulette. It's not hard in the slightest, but when that dragon is tanked in the middle of the arena...you just lose 80% of your maneuverability due to the ice/yellow marker for the air blast.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

I don't think it is. Might have mistaken a healer for one of the RDMs

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More likely mixed up SMN and SCH.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

More likely mixed up SMN and SCH.

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Yep, that was my mistake - SCH was first healer)

I got a 52 minute in progress Rabanastre as a RDM was thinking hmmm what have I gotten myself into? We were on the 3rd boss, i ask what happened they said nothing guy just randomly left and that they wiped on this guy twice so far. Honestly the run wasn't bad at all we cleared every fight after that in 1 try and there was a guy wearing the same glamour as me on my Rdm the 66 caster chestpiece dyed Dalamund red just like me with the 66 gloves, same boots, only difference he had a beret. I called em commander as a joke and started dancing and having fun everyone was pretty awesome that run, he said to me after "i'll see you back at base whelp!" which made me laugh sometimes you find the best groups before maint I swear.

Log in after maintenance, try to cash in on raid roulette before reset. Well, after a 45 minute queue Royal City pops up, and the tank was pants on head special.
Wipe once the first boss, clear the trash to Hash. Three wipes was enough for me after 60 minutes in. I'm just glad someone else took the hit before I bailed.
At least I got trials done before the emergency maintenance.

Thank you to the amazing group I had in the new Fractum Hard dungeon. Cleared in 9 minute rush with only one knowing some of mechanics; literally finished and logged right as emergency maintenance hit. You guys are so awesome! Such a fun run! XD

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Originally Posted by Azura-Rose

Thank you to the amazing group I had in the new Fractum Hard dungeon. Cleared in 9 minute rush with only one knowing some of mechanics; literally finished and logged right as emergency maintenance hit. You guys are so awesome! Such a fun run! XD

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My group wasn't so fast, but maintenance hit in at last boss dying sequence. Hope it count as solved.

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Originally Posted by Azura-Rose

Thank you to the amazing group I had in the new Fractum Hard dungeon. Cleared in 9 minute rush with only one knowing some of mechanics; literally finished and logged right as emergency maintenance hit. You guys are so awesome! Such a fun run! XD

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9 minutes? Wow.

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Originally Posted by Laurawrzz

I've been maining AST for quite a while now. Initially when I started, I blamed any deaths on myself and would drop out of bad runs with shame and give up the job for weeks at a time. These days I'm covered in undiluted universal industrial strength cynic concentrate.

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There was a time where I blamed healers as well (very early on in my MMO foray with WoW and CoH), then I realized people are addicted to proper heals. So much so that they'll pull three mobs at a time, thinking healers have zero cast times. The most common problem that has held true throughout the many years; is that DPS will go gun ho and pull packs to the tank, only to die in the process or forget how aggro works. What topples all of that? Warriors who only use fell cleave once and wonder why they cant hold aggro.

TFW You use Healer LB3 twice, allowing your team to clear and avoiding 2 wipes, and only get 1 comm. :'(

Dear @#$%^&* Blackmage, that died because they were not doing mechanics, and then complained that they needed healing. @#$% you, next time do the mechanics and you won't end up on your face in the first place.

And dear PLD, how about waiting for the people in the cut scene before pulling. Literally not even a minute and you leave the SAM behind?

In other news, I had a lot of fun in O6, even though we used the healer LB3 TWICE to bring back the raid cause the dps just would not do the mechanics. lmao.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

O6.

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What is it about Sigma 2 that makes people go full head-in-ass? Yes I'm aware it's brand new but... its not even hard and the pattern is so predictable it's laughable. Stop dying to things that are telegraphed for 30 seconds please.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

What is it about Sigma 2 that makes people go full head-in-ass? Yes I'm aware it's brand new but... its not even hard and the pattern is so predictable it's laughable. Stop dying to things that are telegraphed for 30 seconds please.

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LOL yeah, like I failed the first fire one, and then from there on out I had it. XDDD and I'm sitting there watching people just not get it and I'm like "REALLY"??? It wasn't bad though, my cohealer was good (even friended me after) and I had a lot of fun!!! It wasn't even hard, and no one was negative. It was just... A lot of rezzes.

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Originally Posted by VanilleFang

TFW You use Healer LB3 twice, allowing your team to clear and avoiding 2 wipes, and only get 1 comm. :'(

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All 6(I don't know who you comm'd) probably went to the tank.

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Originally Posted by Anarnee

Dear @#$%^&* Blackmage, that died because they were not doing mechanics, and then complained that they needed healing. @#$% you, next time do the mechanics and you won't end up on your face in the first place.

And dear PLD, how about waiting for the people in the cut scene before pulling. Literally not even a minute and you leave the SAM behind?

In other news, I had a lot of fun in O6, even though we used the healer LB3 TWICE to bring back the raid cause the dps just would not do the mechanics. lmao.

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Throughout the many MMO's I've healed and tanked in, over the course of a decade, I learned one thing never changes;

someone will always step in the fire.

Mh a few I can think of now.

Tam Tara, when this character was fresh. Tank runs away by himself (for a change), aggroes the world, dies, curses something, rage quits white I was ressing. This at the very start. We were all noobies and there was an arcanist, so she just brought out topaz carbie and we went on like that for a big part of the dungeon until a new tank popped in. And we went a lot smoother than when we had the first tank, in all the while, was so fun.

On ther other hand, always in Tam Tara the other day (was doing levelling roulette on lvl50 alt so not many options sadly), archer just decides she's the tank and proceeds to pull everything. I was a bit distracted so she died, for a moment I was about to say sorry, as I hate having people die under my watch, then I realized maybe that'd teach her the lesson. Nope. Last boss, she's actually lagging behind so we're waiting for her to arrive, but she goes the wrong way so I signal her to come there. She comes running and right away, even from behind the purple line, she just aggroes the boss directly. lol.

Today I ended up in Dusk Vigil, all smooth enough till last boss. As I saw all three the others were new to it as they got the Mapping, I thought I should say something about mechanics but wasn't sure myself since i hadn't ran it in forever. The BLM gets the mechanics, but the DRG is so lost that halfway he doesn't understand what is happening and why he's taking all that damage and being sucked in. We wipe, so I explain they should hide behind the rubbles...to which he and the tank say they thought they were for aesthetics. I'm still not sure on whether it was a joke or not, but I suspect it wasn't, which made me laugh in a good way. It's satisfying when you get to help someone get better, even though you suck yourself. :P

Labyrinth, I don't know what it's happening lately with it. Went with two friends, one co-heals, and says at the start "I'll just let the fairy heal, no need to heal in this place anyway" then right away first room, with all that easy trash, almost all the dpses almost die from a cone. Ok nice start lol. Then I reply "I wouldn't be so sure, lately I've had almost wipes at Behemoth because people can't place comets" and in fact the same happened and almost wipe. Ooook. In the mean time there was a war on aggro stealing for main tanking, don't ask. Last boss, super easy, right? No way it could go wrong. Wipe from flare. I'm not sure how this can happen as I'm not sure I've ever seen it even when it was still brand new content? I guess not enough people on other alliances was on plates, as we all were? But I don't know, it's ridicolous. No wipes on other raids, which are newer and harder (I haven't been to Rabanastre yet though, which I imagine being all another matter) but constant screw ups in the easiest and oldest one?

Raba.
I get that we're all spamming the new content but that doesn't mean you get to go into Raba as healer and just.. not.. heal. Had two Astrologians in my group tonight who, while 4 or 5 of our alliance were laying dead, were both spamming Benefic on themselves or Malefic onto Hashmal. If they did get anyone up, they didn't heal them up enough and they died shortly thereafter. I died once to my own stupidity (misread the towers) but every other death I had was because I wasn't getting healed at all. The only major healing they did was for the spheres and beyond that, here and there but nothing significant. Just a rough, rough run.

Good news: Went into Sigma with someone I met in that run (who raised me the times I died) and we cleared after 1 wipe since we were all going in blind. What a fun fight!

Okay, so two fun stories(both from the new dungeons too!).

Hell's Lid: Pretty quick run, second boss almost wiped up because healer moved to wrong spot(went closer to an AoE than they should have - naughty healer), the DRG didn't always move away from AoEs quick enough, and died a few time, and the tank died because healer died. Only reason we didn't wipe, I raised the healer, healed myself(I was only one alive at the time) and dual casted raise on the tank. Got off another cure, and just as I hit raise for the DRG, I die. Healer ended up raising me when they could and we finished that without a wipe. Right after the second boss the tank did the whole pull to the gate, healer couldn't keep up(I wasn't paying close enough attention to party list as RDM to be able to assist with healing), and so we wiped. Our only wipe, in a mostly blind run(at least for me it was a blind run).

Fractal HM: Went in blind, got another RDM as DPS, DRK for tank, and either WHM or AST for healer. Both healer and other RDM were allergic to dodging AoEs. RDM was also allergic to self healing. I was the only one who didn't die during that run, and I even had to move away from my controller for a few seconds twice to let dogs back inside during the final boss. Sure, I came close to dying(less than 1k HP remaining) but self healing, and dodging AoEs, kept me alive.

Doing Aurum Vale and the tank was new. Took us a few wipes on the first and second boss but we got it done. During the final boss, the tank kept standing in bad breath. We asked him nicely to not do it but he didn’t listen it say anything. We cleared it in the end somehow (the run took 70 minutes). I feel bad for the healer.

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Originally Posted by Fresky

Doing Aurum Vale and the tank was new. Took us a few wipes on the first and second boss but we got it done. During the final boss, the tank kept standing in bad breath. We asked him nicely to not do it but he didn’t listen it say anything. We cleared it in the end somehow (the run took 70 minutes). I feel bad for the healer.

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What I want to know is, how did the first room go?

I got into Wanderer's Palace with a new tank yesterday and they started fighting the first set of tonberries. The ones that are basically set decoration for the NPC adventurers to kill before the tonberry stalker attacks them.

Wanderer's Palace makes me paranoid at the best of times. I really really hate the tonberry stalker. D:

Ran a mentor roulette and got Ramuh EX.

I tried to teach people, we wiped to silly things and finally the other healer ended up leaving.

So I told them I would still help them clear it unsynced if they wanted an easier time (none of them seems keen on really learning it, and expected it to be easier for some reason.)

XD Got five of them their clear after wiping twice to adds.'

Edit: Lots of EX primals today in the mentor roulette! Got Garuda EX next. Had a MNK in his level 90 gear, and half the time wasn't doing anything. We got the clear though.

Oooh, I forgot to share this one (long stories are long). It's actually a fun story for once lol.

Queued into Rabanastre on the weekend with a few friends (me on SMN, friends went duo healers WHM/AST). I've run this pretty much daily since it came out, the occasional lag problem, but I can do it in my sleep at this point. My friends not so much. XD So I'm kinda dreading the kind of people we could end up with as randoms, since I know it's not a very nice place for learning healers. My friends are bickering amongst each other when the queue pops so our party is treated to something that goes a bit like this:

AST: We're gonna diiiiiie
WHM: I'm tired... you can solo heal this
AST: You know I've never done AST here I can't
WHM: you'll be great. Also I'm not ressing you if you die
AST: @n@
BRD: wait, I thought dying was kind of the goal here
WAR: twelve help us (I'm paraphrasing... it was much ruder, XD)
Me: It's ok, I'll res you
WHM: Not saving any of you either

Barrier drops, me and healer friends go running with the party with battle cries for everyone to prepare to die (half the party /cheered rofl).

Cleared 1st boss no problem. Had to res another party's healers. Hashbrown is when it gets interesting. XD I dunno wtf happened, but half our party was dead almost at all time lmao. We were just getting hit by stupid things. RDM1/SAM would go down, then both healers would get booped while distracted trying to get everyone back on their feet for add phase, and in the time it took me to get them both up, WAR/RDM2 would get murdered and the RDM1/BRD would be dead to AOE before healers got their mojo back.

It was like an endless domino effect. Somehow, and I have no idea how, we always managed to juuuust squeak by on the DPS checks. After the 10th death our party just seemed to give up on being frustrated and embraced The Death Club. Even the pissy WAR was laughing by the time we got through it all. Also! Amazingly enough we didn't wipe on that run, nor did the other parties seem to pay us much mind haha.

The other DPS/healers are apologetic. Whatever, we've all had those off nights where stuff we usually dodge, suddenly we're getting hit by all-the-things.

One of the RDMs left right after we cleared Hashbrown, but everyone else was like "Who cares! We were promised death, and I'd say mission accomplished." Which was refreshing to see. People tend to get really salty in here, so it's nice to get a party where you can have fun even when things are going so badly.

Got MCH a minute later and WAR warned them to leave now if they're scared of dying. Other bosses went infinitely better (MCH died to 2nd trample. We almost wiped our party, people were laughing so hard while the MCH was embarrassed and everyone else celebrated them passing their initiation).

Unfortunately none of them are on our server!

Sorry I know it's long and rambly and doesn't really have a point, but just wanted to share a moment where our group had every reason to turn pissy/toxic and it just didn't. Was a nice change of pace.

Had an AST in V7N ask me what HoTs were when I asked them to please use them after we wiped 3 times due to me basically solo healing both tanks and the party (they were Di AST, I was Noct AST). After I told them that HoTs = Regens, they said they are used to shields and don’t know how to use regens.

....what.

I have never done a raid tier as it released, I've always had a guide. Going through Sigmascape without a guide was both terrifying and alluring... but allure (and gear) won out so I went in on WHM.

I was ready for all manner of salt. Each time I would greet the party then also mention it was my first time and usually a few other people would chime in saying it was their first time as well. Jokes were made.

In O5 the only response to my "first time for me!" other than people indicating that they were also new was the DRK saying "easy fight no problem" but that DRK died more times than almost anyone else. Laughs were had. Cleared on the first pull. One comm.

O6 had notably less newcomers (for 8am EST on patch day so 3 hours in) and was notably harder. The OT turned himself into the monster and flew around our entire first attempt. I did virtually no DPS just trying to keep myself and others alive but we wiped to me and my coheal going OOM. Cleared the second pull after my coheal explained some things, people were pretty cool. Two comms

O7 was the most salt I'd seen thus far. Our MT started a 10 second timer right as the wall dropped and so our first pull was a mess. A RDM managed to kill my cohealer, myself and themself with one exploding rocket which ended in a wipe. The tank just kept pulling almost immediately even though we clearly needed to discuss mechanics. He then DC'd when we told him if he pulled again we weren't healing him. Gave him his wish, kicked him and cleared on the first pull with the new tank. Three comms!

Kefka. This group was the best yet. We wiped 3 times before downing him, had banter mixed into our mechs discussion and everyone was very encouraging. 2 people didn't talk but I think we were all new. Our first wipe was when everyone but a BLM was knocked off by the first ball. Great times. After that each time we wiped people would be in chat saying "hey we died slower, that's progress right there!" which was nice. My cohealer was great here too. Somehow I also scooped up the rareish 7 comms here too!

At the end of the day my fears going into this were almost entirely unfounded. People were really chill. So thank you chill people for helping to prove that the ffxiv community isn't a toxic cesspool like some people make it out to be!

I had a lot of fun this patch day. I jumped out of my comfort zone and went into the new dungeons totally blind as a tank. I really surprised myself by picking up the mechanic clues pretty quickly including that Hell's Lid last boss thing (No spoiler). Pat myself on the back I did :)

I didn't have the item level to enter Sigmascape or Byakko as a tank so I went as my main, bard. I enjoyed Byakko but I was pretty meh on Sigmascape because I only played some of ff1 and ff3 and ff7 is the only one I finished so I didn't get swept in by nostalgia so these fights were kinda, just there ya know? Used the duty finder for everything too. I think the funniest thing about that day was when I was in Hell's Lid and the Astrologian told the party at 10:41am that she wanted a quick run before the reset. The bard informed her the reset happened at 10 am and she replied, "It resets at 11, I have been playing this game since launch." (Mentor Tag too). She proceeds to get obliterated by three telegraphed attacks while typing this reply! Btw in my time zone, it does reset at 10 am. :) Rest of the run went very smoothly though and I tossed her my commendation for having to heal me.

The story is pretty good so far and Tataru never ceases to crack me up. I'm not done though.