Were we in the right to kick?

I just ran Aurum Vale as WAR in DF and, as you know, it's a damn nightmare, mostly if you're trying to pull small groups instead of lol-pulling the whole room. Besides a rough patch in the beginning (that I admit was 100% my fault), things were going...fine. Our DRG would occasionally sound off at the MCH to stop pushing enemies because it annoyed them and MCH simply said they were playing their class and that if annoyed DRG so much, they should just target other enemies. This happened about 3-4 times.

It comes to a point where DRG says they're not gonna go on if MCH doesn't stop pushing enemies, points out that this is a group and not solo, etc. Even the healer spoke up about how the MCH should follow group rules. The MCH argued with them for a second and then DRG told me to kick the MCH, which I was hesitant about because the pushing didn't occur to me as that much of a problem but the others were clearly upset. I started typing up something to MCH about how I was sorry but I wanted to finish the dungeon and if both DPS weren't cooperating, there was a small chance of that happening, so I had to kick them.

While I'm typing, MCH sprints ahead, pulls the entire next room, and brings them back to us. Chaos ensues, we make it out by the skin of our teeth, MCH is kicked in the aftermath, and us remaining 3 took Miser's Mistress, no problem.

Pulling a room full of enemies back to us was a serious dick move and was the only discrepancy I had with MCH. I wasn't upset about the pushing--in all honesty, that was a very, very small issue in the myriad of shortcomings we had in that run. Was it right of us to kick MCH, massive pull (in reaction to being told they would be kicked) aside?

What are you talking about, people now entitled to kick people whose dps don't meet their expectation, especially parser people, without remorse at all, even though there isn't option "low dps" in the vote kick. Your case is worse, yeah the MCH was the troublemaker, you were right to kick the MCH.

Both were in the wrong. The DRG would have been my first 'consideration' to kick. The MCH was right that the DRG could switch targets for a few seconds.

But the MCH reacting the way he did justified his kick.

You were right to kick the mech.They shouldn't be spamming knockbacks on targets.'You can target other enemies' is not a valid excuse.Thats encouraging bad play.You should be focusing on a single target to make tanks job easier.By encouraging the idea of attacking multiple targets at once when it's not aoe skill based you are making the tank do more work to hold agro on more than one mob at a time.
By the sound of it though the Dragoon wasn't helping the situation though.More than likely by not asking the mech nicely and giving out to him instead probably encouraged the mech to knockback on purpose to annoy the Dragoon.

The mech should have been kicked for being an idiot.

Knock back moves are not necessary to the full dps rotation of any class. It's more of a tool than a dps asset, and can easily be ignored or saved for when you might actually need it (like interrupting an attack, or temporarily stalling an accidental pull by pushing the target you pulled in the tank's direction.). The bigger issue is that people who use knockbacks willy-nilly within dungeons are developing a bad habit that can severely F* up a Tank or position dependent Dps.

Sure, War's and Drks can just spam their respective aoe's, but Pld's cannot do this to the same effect (Flash deals no dmg and has lower threat gen, so, as much as you can continually spam it, it does not hold aggro to the same effect as overpower or unleash). Further, each Tank's aoe has an effective range that is shorter than any in-game knockback. Meaning any target knocked out of your range is getting less threat gen than the targets that are close by. This is not a big deal when your dps is all melee or has lower potency attacks like a MCH or BRD, but if you have a high dmg AOE in your dps (like BLM or SMN) the target that is outside of your AOE range, or outside of your immediate enmity combo range, is at HIGH risk of being pulled by peripheral dmg done by casters. Especially if it's a big pull with 4 or more targets.

On 4 or more pulls, every tank's enmity gen combo only grants enmity bonus on the 2nd or 3rd attack, which means you only have 2 attacks to split enmity bonus between your enemies. That means that for every one enmity rotation half of the targets in a 4 or more pull are going without direct enmity gen (being held purely by peripheral aggro by tank aoes). Knock-backs only make this problem worse, because you might be forced to skip a target because some idiot knocked him out of your range.

For high-end tanks, this is a bigger problem because they like to maximize their dps output as well as hold enmity. Knock-backs make this difficult to do because you might have to interrupt your own rotation to throw in a ranged attack or an extra AOE to compensate for missing a direct enmity combo move on the target that got pushed away.

Further, DRG and MNK's have position specific moves that are difficult to get dmg bonuses on if the target is constantly being turned or moved. I can tell you first hand that the full Dps rotation for DRG's is actually quite complicated, and 3 moves require specific positioning if you want to optimize their dps. 6 moves (7 at lvl 60) require all the targets to be close by if the DRG wants to optimize their overall dps.

TL;DR: The use of the knock-back as part of a regular rotation only gets in the way, and actively nerfs the dps output of tanks and melee dps (and technically casters if the knock-back pushes the target outside of caster AOE range). So, when the MCH said he was "just doing his job" he was actually doing the exact opposite. Dps should be making targets die quicker, not slower.

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Originally Posted by AriaEnia

What are you talking about, people now entitled to kick people whose dps don't meet their expectation, especially parser people, without remorse at all, even though there isn't option "low dps" in the vote kick. Your case is worse, yeah the MCH was the troublemaker, you were right to kick the MCH.

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Sigh. Put the shoe on the other foot. I was in a dungeon in what we will call some other game, and there was another DPS there who was doing 1/3 the damage I was.

One Third.

Mind, I was by no means in the upper crust of DPS either, so this was particularly bad, as in not even TRYING to do a correct rotation. The sad part was, the player was geared in token gear with many upgrades, and some higher token gear pieces. This player also executed every mechanic properly, so he/she was neither new to the encounter nor new to the class.

So I didn't say anything but that dungeon still went wayyyy slower than it needed to. That's someone being carried and trolling other players who are doing their best to play their classes. Why shouldn't that kind of player be removed from a group? Why should that player get to be carried by the OTHER players in the group? In this game I wouldn't even be able to TELL that person they were underperforming because then it's harassment and I would be banned for even having a tool that let me know that person was so deeply underperforming. (As an aside, I wouldn't have been a jerk about it, either.)


Folks exaggerate how often people are kicked for low dps. A couple hundred dps here and there - unless you are on bleeding edge progression (in which case you agreed to let your raid leader do whatever they want to anyway) - you aren't getting kicked.

One third the damage of another, average DPS? Come on. That's why we need parsers. THAT player.

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

One third the damage of another, average DPS? Come on. That's why we need parsers. THAT player.

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So much this.

Although, with the advent of Wanderer's Minuet, I've noticed more and more bad dps based on their cast bars. It'd be nice if they could implement a way to show someone's moves that way, via a cast bar, even for immediate moves. Without Wanderer's I'd have never noticed 1 particular bard in a A3 normal run who repeatedly did Venomous Bite 3x in a row in phases with just the 1 target. He ended up kicked of course, but it'd be nice if we could tell who "THAT" player is without a parser and without relying on them being a job with cast bars. Just a thought.

The DRG was right about the knock back. It's unnecessary and makes the things more difficult which hinders the whole group. knocking back is a defensive skill which should be used only at certain situations.

The MCH was not playing according to his job but he was just mindlessly using all skills available to him. For instance, a healer can over heal and take aggro who will say I am playing my job!

If he pulled the whole room you should have let him die like a poor fly and waited for everything to reset by not attacking any of the monsters.

DPS should not be actively doing things that get in the way of the party, that is, knocking back when it's detrimental to them. DRG can't dps, tanks won't be able to grab aggro, so on and so fouth. It's not so much a problem if you use it as the killing blow or kill them immediately afterwords. When he'd go out of the way to pull things without the tank, thats enough reason to kick since he's just trying to wipe your party at that point.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Souljacker

Sigh. Put the shoe on the other foot. I was in a dungeon in what we will call some other game, and there was another DPS there who was doing 1/3 the damage I was.

One Third.

Mind, I was by no means in the upper crust of DPS either, so this was particularly bad, as in not even TRYING to do a correct rotation. The sad part was, the player was geared in token gear with many upgrades, and some higher token gear pieces. This player also executed every mechanic properly, so he/she was neither new to the encounter nor new to the class.

So I didn't say anything but that dungeon still went wayyyy slower than it needed to. That's someone being carried and trolling other players who are doing their best to play their classes. Why shouldn't that kind of player be removed from a group? Why should that player get to be carried by the OTHER players in the group? In this game I wouldn't even be able to TELL that person they were underperforming because then it's harassment and I would be banned for even having a tool that let me know that person was so deeply underperforming. (As an aside, I wouldn't have been a jerk about it, either.)

One third the damage of another, average DPS? Come on. That's why we need parsers. THAT player.

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There's a difference between doing subpar dps, and being deliberately bad. You have to be in the latter to do 1/3rd of someone's dps, let alone less less than 400 if we're talking values. But this sort of bad is detectable by their animations or cast rotations. The latter is what I can't stand and it's what usually earns a kick from me or someone else in the group.

MCH shouldn't have pulled an entire room on the group.

Nothing wrong with using a knock back move at the right time. In the case of MCN, as a finisher.

If someone complains about using it as a finisher, that's just being petty.

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So I guess it depends on what all went on. If the DRG was grieving for the wrong reason, which frustrated the MCN to cause him/her to lash out, then it's probably the DRG who is responsible and who should have been Kicked if they didn't stop.