A Level 23 Arcanist Who's Annoying Everyone I "Party" With...And Wants To Stop

First things first, I'm new to the world of MMORPG's. Problem is, I'm annoying everyone I party with because I don't know what I'm doing.

Here's what happened at the Cooperfield Mines:

- I got yelled at for pulling out my Topaz Carbuncle. Why? I have no idea.
- They refused to move unless I put away said carbuncle. Again, I have no idea why.
- They were spouting words like DFS and tanking. I think the tanking guy is the character responsible for drawing the main enemies attention, but I could be wrong.
- I also have no idea what a DFS is.

In short, I want to go on these parties and not be the guy who screws things up and can't even ask questions to get help.

If anybody could point me toward some resources or simply tell me what I should be doing as a Arcanist in a group situation, please do. I don't want to suck any longer.

Thanks in advance!

Topaz Carbuncle is a tank pet. You shouldn't be using that in dungeons at all. Cause it can pull hate from the tank and sometimes cause problems.

The topaz carbuncle is considered the "tanking" pet for arcanists. All of its skills are pre-loaded with enmity generation, meaning it's attacks are designed to make the enemy think you're doing more damage than you actually are. This results in your pet attracting many attacks from the enemies that should be going to the tank. If you know what you're doing and you talk it out with you group beforehand, it might work.

As for why your group is screaming at you, it is for the following reasons: Healers will have a hard time healing Carbuncle since the pet does not show up in the party menu and is therefore not easy for healers to see or heal with conventional macros or skills. If said pet is acting as a tank, it means it will be constantly taking damage, and if your pet dies or an overzealous dps is doing too much damage, it is very likely the enemy will fly off and kill someone. Similarly, the tank will have to fight your pet for enmity, which drains their mp/tp resources and may leave them without the ability to attack. Some players react to it more violently than others. It is unfortunate that you found yourself with such a group.

If they are telling you to go DPS (Damage Per Second), that means they want you to play as a damage dealer. That unfortunately means summoning Emerald Carbuncle, Ifrit Egi, or Garuda Egi. As a Lv25 DPS arcanist, you will be using emerald carbuncle, and you will likely focus on the targets marked by the tank. Aggro is not a major issue for you since your damage is split between your pet and yourself, but it is good to be safe in case the tank isn't pulling properly. Also, please notify the party that you are new to the arcanist and are learning it. Some players might leave, but others will offer advice and other tips to you as a new player. Overall though, the parties will cause you less stress because of it.

As far as a guide for mmo party roles go, here is a useful guide from reedit. It's very basic, but neatly outlines a party's expectations for each role. I'll try to find some more guides as well.

Also, the genre has been alive for some decades now, so it has developed quite a lot of lingo that mmo veterans fling around. This is a dictionary for terms specific to FFXIV. Some terms obviously see more use than others.

Your Topaz is your 'tanking' carbuncle, the pet you use to take hits for you while the emerald one is the one that does ranged damage. Your party was confused as to why you want your tanking pet out when you are the DPS (damage) role.
There are 3 basic roles in a party, namely Healer, Tank who takes and tries to keep the mobs attentions and the DPS (not DFS) the damage roles.

Check this basic guide to the roles in the game : http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1kpl3m/

Funny how you have to find that out on the forum instead of getting your answers when you first asked "why?" in that dungeon :/

If a party invites you as an arcanist, they are expecting a DPS unless they say otherwise. In addition to the reasons stated above, another reason to use Emerald Carbuncle is his attacks actually do MORE damage than Topaz. By using Topaz instead of Emerald, you are hurting your ability to do the role you were invited for. Now, that's not to say Topaz has no uses: He's very useful when solo, or for certain strategies that call for a second tank. But just because you get him at a higher level does NOT make him "better" than your existing model.

Aside from all the responses you got above (every single one of them is absolutely correct), you apparently just partied with a bunch of people who wouldn't know proper manners if it kupo'd them up the smurf.

Shame that there are people who will automatically assume everyone knows exactly what they know and fly off the handle if they don't.

Even I, Burning Passion, never let my passion for the game burn so hot as to lash out at my fellow party members! That's totally not nice!

@ njskaguy33 - Unfortunately you joined a Legacy server so most ppl are on endgame content and lvling the last of their classes, so "most" are experienced and since people like to troll groups, some people get butt hurt really easy.

I am also on Sargatanas and have a great Free Company (Organization XIII) so if you need a friendly group and don't mind some adult language :-P then you can let me know and ill send you an invite. Players of all skills are welcome as long as you are respectful of others.

@ HakuroDK - You are too effing awesome lol





Auron: Now! This is it! Now is the time to choose! Die and be free of pain or live and fight your sorrow! Now is the time to shape your stories! Your fate is in your hands!

as an addtional hint: when you join a dungeon you haven't done before, say so in the party chat. and i would also mention that you are new to the game and to the mmo genre in general. i bet this will improve peoples reactions considerably. there might be some idiots out there who might leave if you say that, but that should be a vast minority. if they know upfront you are not familiar with the game/genre they will explain more stuff to you and they will be more forgiving if you make mistakes. if you don't say anything people will assume, you know what you are doing.


just a little anecdote from yesterday: the ifrit fight in hard mode. there is one point where 4 "nails" spawn, you have to kill these within a set amount of time or ifrit will make an attack that kills most people/everyone. without using limit break, a normal party will not be able to kill them all. the best way is to have a caster use his limit break, it brings down all the nails to about 10% health. if not caster is around, a melee can kill the first with limit break and damage the 4th with limit break. if you have 4 bards, you are screwed. this is a mechanic that is known to everyone who has done the fight a few times or has read a guide about it. but the only caster in our party just didn't use the limit break, although people wrote so in the chat when they noticed he wasn't using it. of course we wiped and people were mad at him, because he didn't do his job.

it turned out it was only his second time doing this fight and he didn't know he had to use the limit break (and probably was too occupied to read the chat). if he had just told everyone upfront that he doesn't know the fight very well, people would have explained him what he has to do and the drama (and the wipe) could have been avoided.

btw: ifrit died in the second attempt.

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Originally Posted by Naryoril

as an addtional hint: when you join a dungeon you haven't done before, say so in the party chat. and i would also mention that you are new to the game and to the mmo genre in general. i bet this will improve peoples reactions considerably. there might be some idiots out there who might leave if you say that, but that should be a vast minority. if they know upfront you are not familiar with the game/genre they will explain more stuff to you and they will be more forgiving if you make mistakes. if you don't say anything people will assume, you know what you are doing.

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Well you'd think that. But I was leveling my Gladiator in Tam-Tara Deepcroft a couple days ago. We got a Pugilist in the party who said he was new, but didn't tell us that he didn't actually speak English. So even though I was using signs to try to control the aggro output, he kept pulling aggro and my other party members were screaming at him like he was doing it on purpose. Eventually, I tried using a series of auto-translate phrases to try and communicate, and he eventually got the hint.

But yeah. People can be pretty mean for no reason.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

Well you'd think that. But I was leveling my Gladiator in Tam-Tara Deepcroft a couple days ago. We got a Pugilist in the party who said he was new, but didn't tell us that he didn't actually speak English. So even though I was using signs to try to control the aggro output, he kept pulling aggro and my other party members were screaming at him like he was doing it on purpose. Eventually, I tried using a series of auto-translate phrases to try and communicate, and he eventually got the hint.

But yeah. People can be pretty mean for no reason.

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but doesn't that even more prove my point? if he just had also said in the beginning that he didn't speak english, the drama could have been avoided. I admit, not speaking the predominant language is something i forgot, and i think it should also be mentioned at the beginning of a run. An exception is of course if it's japanese, german or french and you selected just that language on the duty finder.

All good advice above

I would agree with the general vibe - you were unlucky with your party. I also agree it could be your server...you might want to try one of the new ones - I see a lovely offer from Titan ACU
Offer also stand from me - on Pheonix - we have a fun FC....a lot of us in the 50s, but we have several new members too...and we also are levelling our other classes a lot

The other day we did Copperbell with 4 x DPS (Arcanist, Archer, Thurma and Arcanist) - we had Topaz and Emerald out.... my Tankie Carb was awesome! :)

There is fun to be had - you just need to find nice, fun-loving people, who don't take life so seriously...

Good Luck (if I don't see you!)

If he made his character on a legacy server, I'm afraid he can't move to a regular server. :(

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

Even I, Burning Passion, never let my passion for the game burn so hot as to lash out at my fellow party members! That's totally not nice!

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And I, Swear Bear, swear to never swear, so much like a bear, at my fellow party members.

Man... If my RL friends weren't on my server, I'd hop over to Balmung with all you fun Balmungians.

Hi njskaguy33, do you have friends on your server? if not feel free to move to Cerberus and send me a tell ^^ won't mind helping you even if you're new to mmorpgs

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Originally Posted by Naryoril

but doesn't that even more prove my point? if he just had also said in the beginning that he didn't speak english, the drama could have been avoided. I admit, not speaking the predominant language is something i forgot, and i think it should also be mentioned at the beginning of a run. An exception is of course if it's japanese, german or french and you selected just that language on the duty finder.

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You can check their language selection in the party menu. The levels of all the party members alt classes are also displayed there. If someone pulls out their tank carbuncle in a low level dungeon I know without checking they are a new player and politely ask them to use emerald. Sometimes they argue, which is really frustrating.

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Originally Posted by PetiteMalFleur

You can check their language selection in the party menu. The levels of all the party members alt classes are also displayed there. If someone pulls out their tank carbuncle in a low level dungeon I know without checking they are a new player and politely ask them to use emerald. Sometimes they argue, which is really frustrating.

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Unfortunately, I had to deal with quite a few tanks who were either new, or thought they knew better than me and was forced to used tankbuncle in low levels dungeons the past couple weeks. Of course, if you are new to pet mechanics or FFXIV in general, I would always stick to emerald carbuncle. I have seen a few Arcanists who use tankbuncle, not because they are new, they simply do not trust the tank.

To OP, there is some good advice above. Once you become familiar with your job as you continue to level up, you will get a better grasp on pet mechanics. Just remember to ask questions. And only use tanking pets in emergencies. Luckily, pet mechanics are fairly straightforward for now, but you will get a better idea as you move up.

Thanks so much to everybody for all the advise and suggestions! I'm on the server I'm on now because my friend, who recommended the game to me, is on that one but since she's been inactive for over a month, I wouldn't mind moving. Is there any easy way to transfer a character over to another server if I choose to?

@TitanACU - If I stay on Sargatanas, I'd love to take you up on your offer! I'm in a Free Company now, but it's mostly crafting, which I'm not crazy into. Someone saw me helping a lower level character who was biting off more than they could chew and randomly invited me. Not sure if I should have, but I was hanging back just healing him/her for fear of stealing experience. Again, not sure if that was even a thing but I was trying to be a nice fella!

See? I'm not guy who has to be "the one douche in the group" my party-mates made me out to be!

Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by njskaguy33

@TitanACU - If I stay on Sargatanas, I'd love to take you up on your offer! I'm in a Free Company now, but it's mostly crafting, which I'm not crazy into. Someone saw me helping a lower level character who was biting off more than they could chew and randomly invited me. Not sure if I should have, but I was hanging back just healing him/her for fear of stealing experience. Again, not sure if that was even a thing but I was trying to be a nice fella!

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Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure you can't steal experience in this game unless you can drop the mob super quick and the person hitting the mob only did 1-3 hits at the most. Seems kind of like how you get credit for most Fates.

Very nice of njskaguy33 to be so considerate though.

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Originally Posted by Arakatos

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure you can't steal experience in this game unless you can drop the mob super quick and the person hitting the mob only did 1-3 hits at the most. Seems kind of like how you get credit for most Fates.

Very nice of njskaguy33 to be so considerate though.

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You can't steal experience from the person who initially tagged the monster. Tagging (the mob is red to you) guarantees you XP, quest items, and regular item drops. Doing 1/3 of the damage also gets you XP and quest items (but not normal items). It's conceivably possible for four people (or parties) to get full credit on any given enemy if the first person/party tags with an ability that doesn't do any damage, and the other three do exactly 1/3 of the damage each.

The only thing you really need to worry about when it comes to drive-by helping another player is possibly dying yourself.

Yah only pull out the topaz tank for the end battle. The leader usually won't mind since you'll be fighting other targets besides theirs. Don't ask why my font is so screwey..new phone. Still learning it. :/