Right of Way

So, I'm curious, what do you guys do in terms of player-marked AOE?

Here's the thing, most people by instinct run away from AOEs, and a lot of the time, when I am running away from people who are marked with one, they keep running alongside me. Now, I know latency is a thing, and people often see you move at a different pace than you see yourself. So what is the best approach?

Personally, if I am marked with an AOE, I move away from the boss, but I will stop moving and let others have the chance to move away from me to try and avoid the "chasing" scenario.

On the other side of it, though, I have had it where I am not marked with an AOE, so I don't move, and someone who is marked with one decides to stop on top of me.
You ever try to move out of the way for a stranger and you both keep side-stepping in the same direction? This is that scenario but with mechanics. So are you the type of person who, when marked with AOE, keep running until you're away from everyone, or do you expect people to move out of your space?

I think it has to be done within the circumstance, but I'm curious to see where people stand.

I'm on satellite internet with massive ping. I assume that anything horrible that resolves quickly already did before I could do anything about it, and that anyone else looking at me has already reacted to my standing still for a second or more by taking it as a cue to go somewhere else. If it's something with a long wind-up, I'll go wherever I think I need to to avoid ganking the pt, and hope for the best.

Normally it'd be "whoever CAN move without losing DPS, moves." This means BLM, then most of the casters, then healers, are lower on the "needs to move" priority. For my static, since one of our members has to deal with AUS ping, it's "[RDM] doesn't move, everyone adjust." It's lead to a few "The only people you can't bully out of [E12S Titan Marker Spots] are [RDM] and [PLD]."

...for everyone else it HAS led to a couple "Stop chasing me!" "No, you're chasing me!" moments.

So, there's several factors that I process when I'm dealing with an aoe marker: which role I play, what role my party members play, how many people are being targeted by aoes, distance and most importantly, damage done by aoes. There's ways to deal with these factors and the best way to deal with them is to effectively retain in your head your party numbers and composition and taking note of dmg and type of aoe done by boss for future reference. Another thing that people tend to forget: not all aoe maked players need to be perfectly far from one another. If anything you can still take the same amount of damage you would if you were completely separated even if your circles overlap a little. But that's the keyword: a little.

Exhibit A: I'm melee dps (typically samurai) and most of my co-dps are ranged. Me and two other dps in a 8-man situation get targeted by aoes and there are no hot zones in the arena.

My solution: I don't move. Ranged dps have the advantage of dpsing from anywhere. There's no cost for them to move (with obviously some of it for BLM). I don't. If they do stack on me, I will only move if:

-The stacked dmg that I remember will 100% kill me or

-There's leg room for me to move AND dps.


Exhibit B:

I'm ranged dps with a mix of other ranged jobs or melee jobs. Everyone gets targeted but the boss has turned certain sections of the arena into hot zones.

My solution: I stay put in the safe zone. Gotta remember that most aoe marks actually give you time to deal with it so there's no sense to immediately if you are in a safe spot. That being said, make sure you maximize the spot. Try to give leg room in the direction that has the least players but don't overreach. Normally, by maximizing the safe area and staying put, party members can focus better on their own safety rather than yours (that's what usually trips up people).

Exhibit C:

You got no marker on you but some people do and they're headed your way. You have no way to outrun them or you try but they still follow you (any role, them or you).

My solution: Stay put and take the dmg. Again, it's all a matter of knowing if a mech is going to kill you outright or not. If you know it's not, better to stay and avoid messing other players who executed their situations better.


I was going to initially give a very simple "just take the dmg and move on" but I felt like that was going to communicate the wrong type of message I'm sending.

What I don't understand is how two people can be standing near each other, one with an AoE and one without, and they've moved far enough apart that the other person won't get hit. Then at the very last second, the person with the AoE sidesteps into the other person for no reason and hits them because there's no time to react. It's shocking to see how poorly people manage not hitting other people with AoEs, especially in late game content.

Relative to the jobs I play, I tend to give right of way to BLM first and then melee classes and usually just try to be adaptive for the other ranged classes. Getting hit by other AOEs I never really mind, exception being when players somehow come together to form an intersection of a complex venn diagram around you. If I happen to be playing as BLM I am usually far enough away to not be disturbed by aoes so that I can casually drink tea during my fire 4 phase.

I Mostly play SCH/AST/BLM though and never really touch the melee or phys ranged, so I do wonder what their approach is.

I usually pick a spot and commit to it, regardless of what job I'm playing at the time or what the jobs of others are. Anyone who sticks around only has themselves to blame. In my personal experience this tends to work out a lot better.

I dont really think when I get targeted with an AOE... What I do is sprint like hell and let Jesus take the wheel.

If everyone is getting an AoE, I max melee range to only get hit by one. If it's only a few players with no additional mechanics tied to them, I do pretty much nothing about. It doesn't matter if I hit a player without an AoE or someone with an AoE hits me. The healers will do the same amount of AoE healing anyway, so there is no benefit in dodging as long as you don't overlap two or more.

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Originally Posted by MaxCarnage

I think it has to be done within the circumstance

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It does, and I figure it out on the fly each and every time. Within less than a second I can see whether I should move, or folks are moving. You micro-manage those tenths of a second to get everything right. The better you are at that, the better you are at handling incoming AoE. Skills transfer over to when you are the one doing the avoiding (or stacking) of someone else's AoE.

If someone chases after me when I have an AoE they should avoid, then they'll get hit with it, pretty simple LOL. Can't help that. I don't have time to communicate to that person that they should stay away from me. Oh, well.

If I have an AoE that should be stacked, and no one is stacking, I generally have time to yell 'STACK', sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Holy crap.... I have been yelled at and harrased so many times for this. Pro tip: in the current 24 man's, when it says "precision guided missiles" and you see those red markers around the tanks, don't run with them and then Harrass them because you died. Thanks.

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Originally Posted by MaxCarnage

So, I'm curious, what do you guys do in terms of player-marked AOE?

Here's the thing, most people by instinct run away from AOEs, and a lot of the time, when I am running away from people who are marked with one, they keep running alongside me. Now, I know latency is a thing, and people often see you move at a different pace than you see yourself. So what is the best approach?

Personally, if I am marked with an AOE, I move away from the boss, but I will stop moving and let others have the chance to move away from me to try and avoid the "chasing" scenario.

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Depends. I'm that one to adjust regardless of what job I'm playing because all jobs have their own ways to get around with movements against mechanics, whether it's preemptively (i.e. finding a comfy position to sit still for casters) or on the fly. That being said, I am more often to come across with players who gets panicky when getting targeted with markers OR when seeing one on me. These players can literally do anything that will harm their allies, hence I tend to just sit still: it makes it easier for the other to get away from me. The last thing I want to do is 'dancing' with a panicky 2nd marker and then end up venn-diagram'ing an unexpecting fella.

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Originally Posted by MaxCarnage

On the other side of it, though, I have had it where I am not marked with an AOE, so I don't move, and someone who is marked with one decides to stop on top of me.
You ever try to move out of the way for a stranger and you both keep side-stepping in the same direction? This is that scenario but with mechanics. So are you the type of person who, when marked with AOE, keep running until you're away from everyone, or do you expect people to move out of your space?

I think it has to be done within the circumstance, but I'm curious to see where people stand.

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Again, depends. If I'm the healer of the group, I tend to expect people to move out of my private space and if I end up eating the extra damage, so be it. Because party's HP is my responsibility. If I'm -not- the healer, I will question myself in the fly: "Will this marker kills me if I stack? Do I have any self-preservation action to keep myself from dying if I were to eat this extra damage?". If any of the answer to those two questions is a 'No', then I will most likely be standing somewhere farther from the group preemptively while I keep my damage buttons rolling in ease. And by 'farther', I'm referring to a distance that'd make it pretty obvious if the marked player is intentionally trying to stop on top of me for whatever reason.

If I'm the one targeted with an AOE, I'll usually try to move as far as I can or need to even if that pulls me out of uptime. The exception to this is if it's something like a targetted conal like in the first boss in Delubrum. In those cases, I'll plant myself as early as possible so that others can move around where I am. If they don't and they get cleaved, I'm not really too bothered by it.

If I'm not the one targetted but I'm running in the same space as someone who is then I'll usually plant myself first and let them keep moving. They're the one with the AOE afterall and placing it so it doesn't hit others is part of the responsibility of being targetted.

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Originally Posted by MaxCarnage

So, I'm curious, what do you guys do in terms of player-marked AOE?

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Drop it on the lalafell.

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Originally Posted by Anienai

Drop it on the lalafell.

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and here I was thinking it was just a case of the two of us moving the same way to either get the aoe away from the crowd or run from the aoe.

Since I'm the healer I'm usually with the group so hoping others run away with their AoEs. Though people like to tunnel and drop them right in the middle of everyone (especially on Engels). Then when I do run away, they tend to like to follow me. So I've gotten a lot dropped on my head over the years.

When I get the AoE, I try to move it to the edge of the arena away from the party. But there's always some random person who wants to come with. Or someone else with an AoE who wants to come to the same spot. It can be quite a dance sometimes.

*unwraps a Mounds bar*

*tosses unwrapped Mounds bar into crowded swimming pool*

*waits for train wreck*

Basically describes 24 player raids at times lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MaxCarnage

So, I'm curious, what do you guys do in terms of player-marked AOE?

Here's the thing, most people by instinct run away from AOEs, and a lot of the time, when I am running away from people who are marked with one, they keep running alongside me. Now, I know latency is a thing, and people often see you move at a different pace than you see yourself. So what is the best approach?

Personally, if I am marked with an AOE, I move away from the boss, but I will stop moving and let others have the chance to move away from me to try and avoid the "chasing" scenario.

On the other side of it, though, I have had it where I am not marked with an AOE, so I don't move, and someone who is marked with one decides to stop on top of me.
You ever try to move out of the way for a stranger and you both keep side-stepping in the same direction? This is that scenario but with mechanics. So are you the type of person who, when marked with AOE, keep running until you're away from everyone, or do you expect people to move out of your space?

I think it has to be done within the circumstance, but I'm curious to see where people stand.

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Generally speaking, move towards other non AOE marked people. The AOE guy will generally not run towards others already in a set, safe position unless the mechanic demands it..in which case you should know them mechanics to be aware that is the case.