Duty Support - Bowl of Embers Fails due to enrage

Low Level Players are experiencing failure in the Duty Bowl of Embers during the Nail transition due to their gear + the NPCs not attacking the nail.

I'd hate to have a new player come into the game and be unable to clear it so either you need to have the thaumaturge target the nail, or add an echo function to Duty Support on a wipe.

This is especially pertinent on new worlds because gear is less common to distributed due to higher levels.

I witnessed this happening to a player who was targeting the nail as soon as it appeared on their thaumaturge and failed twice before they had to ask a mentor to kill it for them.

It's doable with what the game gives you as equip with duty support as a thaumaturge.

I mean for gear you could just buy the highest vendor gear available, thats usually enough.

But the NPCs not targeting nail, hmm.

I'm not seeing what you are seeing......

I tested the Duty just now:

1. I queued as Black Mage, Duty Support was tank, healer, and thaum, I did the mechanics correctly, the healer and thaum switched to the nail when it spawned, as did I.... result = full clear
2. Next I repeated, but went in with no gear except weapon and did the mechanics correctly, same as above.... result = full clear
3. Last, I repeated with no gear, but this time I did not attack the nail at all. As above, the healer and thaum switched to the nail and DPS'd it to about 33% before the DPS check went off..... result = wipe

Basically, you don't wipe even with under gear, as long as you do DPS the nail with your own 1/3rd of the damage along with the two other Duty Support NPCs doing their 2/3rds, if you are not the tank.
If you are the tank, and the Duty Support NPCs seem to be failing that DPS check, then reposition the boss so you can tank + DPS the nail.

Were your duty support NPCs DPSing the nail? The one I witnessed was not.

If a newbie fails twice that is enough of an issue to say that others may have the similar issue. Remember we have to think about this from the context of a solo player who this is their first MMO experience who doesn't know their rotation, and isn't synced down with high level gear as a black mage with a maximum stat weapon. Weapon damage is stronger than you realize, so they might only have a level 15 weapon.

The MSQ is also meant to teach new players and that includes being able to figure out that your equipment is too bad and you should find out how to change that. The MSQ will have given you treasure coffers with better weapons before that fight.

Duty Support not attacking the nail would be a bug.

Btw, that mentor did the newbie a disservice by just taking Ifrit down instead of looking at issues like gear and taking them synced with a party the MMO way. Will that mentor also unsync the non-duty-support trials for them? What about the solo duties, those can be quite hard if you are clueless and there's no one to help you with them.

Duty support is awesome for concentrating on story and to learn a bit how the game works without the pressure of other people. And it's a good way to teach the player to at least stand on their own feet. Because as you just noticed, unlike dungeoning with a party, dungeoning with duty support hinges upon the player only. Like with any other solo playing game.

Edit: are you sure duty support wasn't attacking? Neither of the three peeps you get with a THM player would walk up to the nail and smack it. The THM and CNJ are just going to stay were they are and cast. I never checked whether the tank does ranged on it or not, but he doesn't go to it too melee.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Edgedy

Were your duty support NPCs DPSing the nail? The one I witnessed was not.

If a newbie fails twice that is enough of an issue to say that others may have the similar issue. Remember we have to think about this from the context of a solo player who this is their first MMO experience who doesn't know their rotation, and isn't synced down with high level gear as a black mage with a maximum stat weapon. Weapon damage is stronger than you realize, so they might only have a level 15 weapon.

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The Duty Support NPCs always switched to the Nail as it spawned in every try I did above.

I'll give you the weapon reasoning, even with zero gear/no food buffs/no FC buffs, I can clear it "nude" so to say with only a weapon.
However, my Black Mage job isn't "maximum stat", I'm L50 in that job with Ironworks gear (in that sense, I guess I am "max" for ARR), but when I remove all the gear except that weapon, my IL (Item Level) is only 21.

I just tried it again, this time no gear (nude), no job stone (so I'm not a Black Mage, but a Thaumaturge), and a L1 merchant bought weapon (Weathered Scepter), which make my IL = 0
As soon as the nail spawned, the Duty Support NPCs switched to it (not the Tank, it held the boss), and so did I.
The result was a wipe, as between me and the Duty Support NPCs, we only got the nail down to about 10~15% health, before the DPS check.
This was basically because my DPS was less than the minimum 33% I needed to output, mine was likely around 20%-ish, and solely due to having a zero IL.

On every attempt, the Duty Support NPCs, specifically the Healer and the Thaumaturge, did always switch to DPS'ing the nail as soon as it appeared. The Tank did not switch, it held the boss. The two NPC's combined DPS was always at least 66% of the nail's health and it was my job to do at least the remainder 33%.

Also, unless it was a test attempt to measure what the NPC's could do when I did no damage to the nail, I always did the mechanics of the Trial, and used a rotation attack based on Thunder, Fire, Fire, Fire, Fire (until I used up my mana), Transpose, repeat while re-applying Thunder as that DoT expired.

So, the only times I could get a wipe was:

1. When I wasn't even trying to DPS the nail when I had a IL of 21
2. When I had a IL of 0 and I couldn't output enough of the 33% damage I needed to do on the nail

If you friend was in gear that provided no IL, was not attacking the nail or using inefficient attacks on the nail, or was not following the mechanics of the Trial, then that is why they wiped.
While it might be hard to "see" what the NPCs are attacking, just looking at the battle field, all one has to do is target the NPC and see what it's target is, to then tell that the two non-tank NPCs are in fact attacking the nail. (the Healer will switch between Stone'ing the nail and healing the tank/others, but it will be primarily attacking the nail)

EDIT:
I decided to see at what IL I could get down too and still clear the Trial.
At IL9 I could reliably clear it each attempt.
That was with merchant bought:

• Toothed Ramhorn Staff - Two hand weapon
• Cotton Cowl - Chest + head
• Hard Leather Ringbands - Hands
• Cotton Breeches - Legs
• Padded Leather Duckbills - Feet

No melds, no jewelry, no food or FC buffs, and no job stone, at IL9 (above gear) I can clear it each time.
Below IL9, I couldn't reliably clear it.