FATE Grinding = Not learning?

So, I just participated in my first real chunk of fate grinding this past week, trying to get MAR up to 30 in Quarrymill. Initially, it was at lvl 19 or so as I was just derping around on it while waiting for DF queues for DRG. I only ever leveled it at all because of the Dragoon job requirements, but after learning I'd want Mercy Stroke for my dragoon endgame repertoire, I figured I'd shoot past level 26 and at least start working on qualifying for Warrior.

So, prior to fate grinding with random pickup groups, I had never played Marauder with a party before, meaning I never had to learn to tank. I see a lot of sentiment on the forums that fate grinding does not teach you how to play your role, but I'm confused. Fate grinding in Quarrymill has taught me how to grab enmity from both multiple mobs (that one courell poachers + goblin thieves fate) and single bosses (the Courell King), and how to effectively use my abilties to keep me alive (like popping Bloodbath right before Overpower spamming).

So, what am I missing? Is there something else I should be doing to make me an effective tank? Because I feel like I have learned a lot, but I don't want to assume I know what I'm talking about.

Go do dungeons and keep your TEAMMATES alive. Then you will be an effective tank.

Most of the time Fates is just a massive zerg fest with everyone trying to claim and kill as many things as possible. Tanks just have to flash here and there to get credit. DDs take this with them to dungeons and then starts whacking at every mob before the tank gets hate.

If you're actually trying to play your class the way it's intended then it's true you'll probably learn something. Most people just don't bother with that once they realize that Flash -> Flash -> Flash -> run away gives them easy Gold on everything.

Oh, okay. I guess I wasn't doing "real" FATE grinding then... the parties I was in usually stayed to the end of the FATE and worked like a real party.

Players who don't bother to fully understand their class won't understand it no matter how they get to 50, at least, in any game you're able to solo to level cap.

Your first class via storyline requires you to play your role in dungeon formats, over and over again. Questing to max level isn't going to make you any more comfortable with your class either.

It comes down to basic reading of your tooltips for abilities and traits, and simple understanding of how they synergize.

If I liked doing FATE grinding, I would never learn as well as I have right now on how to tank. In a FATE you don't have many opportunities to practice and learn.

You also have to remember alot of melee DD's have positionally effective skills, NONE of which most DDs realize even if theyre doing Qarn or Stone Vigil. I can't count how many DDs and Tanks ive PuG'd that didnt know how overpower/flash or Bootshine/Twins Snakes/Snap Punch or Heavy Thrust worked. I can forgive Brayflox, but not Qarn or Vigil. You can't get past any dungeon lv35+ without knowing your job...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keneblerz

You also have to remember alot of melee DD's have positionally effective skills, NONE of which most DDs realize even if theyre doing Qarn or Stone Vigil. I can't count how many DDs and Tanks ive PuG'd that didnt know how overpower/flash or Bootshine/Twins Snakes/Snap Punch or Heavy Thrust worked. I can forgive Brayflox, but not Qarn or Vigil. You can't get past any dungeon lv35+ without knowing your job...

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Joygasm

It comes down to basic reading of your tooltips for abilities and traits, and simple understanding of how they synergize.

---

That... okay. Well. I know how to read, so I guess that isn't an issue for me. O_o

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Joygasm

It comes down to basic reading of your tooltips for abilities and traits, and simple understanding of how they synergize.

---

Theres a lot to be learned by reading.

But theres a lot more to be learned by doing.

I've been leveling up Arcanist by mixing dungeons and looking for FATEs that people generally ignore so it's only myself solo, or a few others - it's helps tremendously. When I leveled MNK through Coerthas and N Thanalan in FATEs it felt like my eyes were bleeding. 2.1 and increased dungeon XP will be interesting, I did Satasha the other night and was the only person clicking the bubbles on the final fight, I don't think the others knew or cared. Of course, I wasn't quick enough to keep all four drains covered so it ended up a massive zerg race and frantic tank healing. I hope it gets better.

whm solo-fating:
I throw stone at a mob.
if I dare to heal someone, I INSTANTLY have 10 mobs on me that they aggroed besides the 'target mobs' (or the boss of the fate) and they don't even bother attacking them, meaning for the rest of the fate I will be busy trying to survive on mobs that aren't even part of the fate...

whm group-fating:
medica spam




yeah. no thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Keneblerz

You also have to remember alot of melee DD's have positionally effective skills, NONE of which most DDs realize even if theyre doing Qarn or Stone Vigil. I can't count how many DDs and Tanks ive PuG'd that didnt know how overpower/flash or Bootshine/Twins Snakes/Snap Punch or Heavy Thrust worked. I can forgive Brayflox, but not Qarn or Vigil. You can't get past any dungeon lv35+ without knowing your job...

---

Ran a friend through AV a few days ago. The DRG and BLM that were DF'ed had never cleared it, and were good people, very willing to learn. (I was WHM, friend was PLD)

But no matter how well it worked (we won with a few wipes, but it was fine, they were so happy to have someone who helped them out), it still was incredibly grating to see a DRG who has no idea what Heavy Thrust does...and just spams Impulse Drive and Disembowel without triggering the combo...helped him get things sorted a bit, but still...it was AV...

Yeah, I don't like Fate grinding and am so glad Dungeon XP is getting buffed. Leveling my WAR, WHM and SCH I made sure to run dungeons to learn my class in between grinding. Sadly, most people don't do that :(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sylve

Theres a lot to be learned by reading.

But theres a lot more to be learned by doing.

---

I agree. Doing FATEs isn't going to stop you from learning your class. Shy of forcing people to group the entire way up (which I am a fan of old school grouping for experience), you cannot prevent getting people hitting cap without experience doing their role in a party system to an extensive degree.

We aren't talking about a complicated combat system with this game. I'm not trying to make a swipe, I love this game, but its about as simple as you can get save having the abilities say "PUSH ME FOR THREAT" "PUSH ME FIRST" "PUSH ME SECOND"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ceiimq

... Most people just don't bother with that once they realize that Flash -> Flash -> Flash -> run away gives them easy Gold on everything.

---

If u do that in my fate party, i'm kicking you out, when i'm in a FATE party, I want everybody to participate in the fate the best they can. If a member just hit and run all the time, he's out, if a healer doesn't heal and just DPS for the XP, he's out. FATE parties are "PARTIES", not group of people who doesn't care

Main story quest line (forced dungeon runs and primals) help curve this issue but I don't feel it absolves it. Honestly, it's a non-issue if you /sh to form groups in end-game. If you run into an incompetent player failing to capitalize on their jobs abilities then you have a couple options. Ask them why they're not doing X Y and Z, they respond with either calling you a noob and demanding you don't tell them how to play their class or they say they didn't know. If they respond with the prior it becomes a clear choice to simply drop them and move on and don't invite them further. If it's them not knowing, possibly help them understand and run lower level dungeons with them to slowly have them learn skills. I'm not saying it's your responsibility to aid them but it's the holistic approach. It will be clear and evident they didn't level properly.

What scares me is that I've seen Paladins in Stone Vigil spamming the living crap out of Rage of Halone (not comboing, just the skill alone). Worries me that people can actually get that far without learning how their combos work (especially the main one), and thank goodness the ones I ran with were fine with taking advice though.

In my opinion, it's fine to FATE grind, but it really helps way more (skill wise) to add a bit of dungeon grinding in-between.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NoRyoKu

If u do that in my fate party, i'm kicking you out, when i'm in a FATE party, I want everybody to participate in the fate the best they can. If a member just hit and run all the time, he's out, if a healer doesn't heal and just DPS for the XP, he's out. FATE parties are "PARTIES", not group of people who doesn't care

---

This mentality would work if performing the skills of your job correctly guaranteed a gold medal/max xp. As it stands now, you can go to a fate as a healer, spend the entire time healing everyone in your party, and not get a gold medal. You can't hate on people for trying to maximize their XP in a broken system.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AvonRekaes

So, I just participated in my first real chunk of fate grinding this past week, trying to get MAR up to 30 in Quarrymill. Initially, it was at lvl 19 or so as I was just derping around on it while waiting for DF queues for DRG. I only ever leveled it at all because of the Dragoon job requirements, but after learning I'd want Mercy Stroke for my dragoon endgame repertoire, I figured I'd shoot past level 26 and at least start working on qualifying for Warrior...

---

Tanking FATES doesn't teach you how to tank dungeons. It teaches you to grab aggro but not maintain it for multiple targets. Many starting tanks know to use an AOE aggro on the initial pull, the problem is that they forget to do it after the initial pull. By the time they get to the third or fourth target a healer or arcanist with Bane has pulled aggro. Additioanlly, FATE grinding doesn't teach you the rotation to optimize hate when you have DPS that hit really hard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NoRyoKu

FATE parties are "PARTIES", not group of people who doesn't care

---

They could (and can) be.
Most of the time though, it's the opposite.
What is sad, is that the game rewards the later as much, if not more than the former.

From my experience, you are the exception to the rule. At least in the regions with big rewarding FATEs.

Once you start running WP and AK with players who has relic or +1, those players either will make you or break you as a tank. (I was running them with my FC sword, until i have full set of DL)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OldGeezer

Tanking FATES doesn't teach you how to tank dungeons. It teaches you to grab aggro but not maintain it for multiple targets. Many starting tanks know to use an AOE aggro on the initial pull, the problem is that they forget to do it after the initial pull. By the time they get to the third or fourth target a healer or arcanist with Bane has pulled aggro. Additioanlly, FATE grinding doesn't teach you the rotation to optimize hate when you have DPS that hit really hard.

---

Ah, okay, I see what you mean. That is something I had not thought of. When trying to hold aggro for a bunch of mob Fates, I'd just spam my cone AOE aggro ability to keep them all on me. Efficient use, of only using it in rotation with another ability, never came up because most Fate fights were short enough that Invigorate resolved any issues with TP consumption. I can see now that dungeon mobs, who live a lot longer, would teach me to stop spamming. Though in my case, I guess I was at least TRYING to be the best tank I knew how to, so the issue wasn't me not having aggro, but wasting resources on maintaining it.

On your last point, though, I'm not so sure. Boss-like FATEs that I've been in (namely the Courell King one in Quarrymill) have taught me that if I'm not doing well, I will loose agro. Now I'm not sure if what I came up with was optimal rotation to get enmity back, but it at least worked for lvl 25-30 (tomahawk, overpower, heavyswing-skull smash was my quick-aggro-grab method of choice)

God, I've ran healer for too many parties where I'd wind up stealing hate from the tank. Or watched DDs steal hate from the tank. It's not a matter of what you learn from Fates, it's what you learn from having the shyte hit the fan. Fates don't last near as long to allow you to learn this. This is why I say we need a crucible liken to XI's Valkurm Dunes. When you were level 14 it was either Valkurm or spend the next few weeks soloing. If you couldn't learn your role in Valkurm your party wasn't going to be doing much of anything beyond respawning or running for their life to Selbina.

The problem is more than just people not learning, though. It's ingrained. I've had arguments with people who think the hate mitigation actions are all you need to control hate... complete BS but this is what people really think. That you can just spam all day long and make everything alright by just hitting Quelling Shots when the cooldown is up. Haven't had much talk with tanks about hate management, but if the DDs think like this then they clearly have their work cut out or them.

I'm leveling up a PLD at the moment and it's a mixture of FATE grinding and dungeon runs. As previously mentioned, you can't really learn your class by just running into a group of mobs and spamming AoEs. I've only tanked Sastasha and Tam-Tara on my PLD but keeping aggro is tough. Especially if they're 20 levels higher than you and better geared *cough* *grumble* but it's been great experience, learned to be on my toes and act quickly when the Healer has all the aggro. That's something you won't learn in FATE grinding!

I've made a point of running every dungeon (apart from Qarn and AV, because ugh, not fun in DF) at each level tier to ensure that I'm figuring out the best way to play my class in a true group environment. In 2.1 the XP will be raised to a point to where it should trump that of FATEs, assuming you're not waiting 30 minutes for a party, (which shouldn't be an issue for a tank) so there will be more incentive to do dungeons. That's not to say that some people won't still pick the path of least resistance and continue to spam that same 1 button to 50 though.

Supplement your fate grind with appropriate level dungeons. That's what I've been doing on all jobs. Even though 90% of the time in fates its just aoe to tag then off to next fate before it depops (save for the off chance you log in when less people are on), the dungeons force you to use all the skills you've unlocked to that level so it teaches you pretty well.

if you do fates the way they were probably intended (not a giant gw2 style zerg like we have now) then you should have no problem learning your respective job

try doing fates in an area that isn't populated with a lot of people, like upper la noscea, or eastern thanalan

In a game where just about everything is easy, I say fate grinding is perfect for this game.