Would You Say We're Elitist?

[Ryuko]

I encountered a situation last night that really put me between a rock and a hard place.

I was helping my friend out with Titan (a fight I must have done over a dozen times by now) and he PUGed a few random members to fill the extra slots. One of those extra members was a summoner.

Note: I am generally not the type of person who wants to teach you how to play your job. I'm not going to nitpick about every little rotation you do. However, this guy's performance could not be ignored. I knew I would kick myself if I didn't say something and let him get kicked without trying to teach him first.

Whether or not you believe parsers work for summoner (DoT tracking is infamously wonky), you can easily gauge a person's performance based on their hate on the main boss. Summoners have access to Quelling Strikes, but this will NOT dump your hate to seventh place -- which this guy was consistently at. His dps was consistently less than half of mine after multiple attempts if you are to believe the parsers.

This guy had great gear (relic and full DL) so there is no way his dps should have been that much lower. I couldn't figure out why his dps was so low, so I started watching his every move. He was keeping up his four DoTs... But... he's using Energy Drain? After yet another wipe, I politely asked him... "(name), why aren't you using fester?" I'm paraphrasing his response: "Fester isn't worth it. Energy drain is better or else I'll go OOM. Fester damage isn't that good and it wastes time. It's better to use my DoTs." Fester is an instant ability and costs one aethercharge. It costs no MP. I'm not sure what he meant by that, although I'm assuming he meant that he NEEDED to use Energy Drain to get mp back.

Instead of laughing at him, I tried to explain why Fester is good. It's the one summoner 'burst' we have. With his gear, he could EASILY crit for over 1k without Raging Strikes. He refused my advice, told me I was wrong, and reassured me that he knew what he was doing. I explained to him that mana isn't an issue because we have a bard who will be using ballad after heart for the healers -- free mp for us! Yay. I didn't get the chance to tell him that he should conserve the use of Energy Drain for when he is starting to get low (which he wasn't in the beginning).

But... he refused my advice, and another try later, he didn't improve at all. The entire party decided they were going to kick him, but not before berating him by calling him a 'fail smn' and 'bad at his job'. Did I agree with my party? Yes, in a sense. The guy refused advice even though I tried to help him. Yet, I wouldn't be rude toward him because nothing gets accomplished that way. However, if someone is UNWILLING TO LEARN, they are a bad player in my opinion. If someone is receptive to advice and help, I will never think of them as a bad player because they are willing to learn.

Anyway, the whole point of my story was to say, "It's hard to handle certain situations without coming off like a jerk." I never directly said anything rude to that summoner, but my party did (people I can't control) and I am sure the guy left with a sour taste in his mouth. I just hope he thinks about my advice because that performance isn't going to fly in the future.