Post Your Healing Horror Stories.

[MXMoondoggie]

There are some people who think AV is one of the easiest dungeons. =/ They obviously don't heal it.

Depends on your group really. Some runs can be an absolute pain and others easy. It's not what it used to be a WHM can own the last boss between how strong divine seal regen and medica II is and Holy on the seeds that the boss plants. People can survive several stacks of the debuff with just how powerful your regens are. Amusingly i did a run recently that went pretty horrible on the second boss somehow the Tank and all DPS managed to get one shot by the big swipe it does and i had to swiftcast res the Tank then run around like an idiot healing and trying not to die until the Tank can get the boss under control and i can get a DPS up then the Tank died again from the same thing and we finished it with me and the Bard i got up ping ponging aggro. Funny yet very frustrating all at once.

[VanilleFang]

Blurb

Yeah. I know what you mean. But generally speaking that's like the most disliked dungeon among healers. At least from what I've seen. That or Brayflox NM. I may be wrong though

So much can go wrong and sometimes you just can't heal it. It requires you to trust your allies more than usual (with how the mechanics work) which is not always a good thing.

And wow. That sounds like it would have been a little stressful. At least you guys beat it!

[EmeraldAres]

That or Brayflox NM.

Speaking of which, I just had a new story from this particular dungeon.

I get in, and I see that the tank is a level 36 Gladiator. Alright, fine. It's going to be more difficult, but it's still possible to do so I give it a shot. The dps are a monk and a BLM. The BLM immediately points out that the tank should get his job stone. No reply. For the entire run, this tank never says anything. He's either a Playstation player with no keyboard, a bot, isn't reading chat, or simply doesn't care about what his party is saying. Whatever the case, we never get anything out of him. I shrug my shoulders and decide to see if it's possible or not. Sometimes I heal tank Gorgimera in Northern Thanalan for fun, so sometimes I like these kinds of challenges.

On the early trash pulls, I have to double repose just to stay alive. I'm not exactly blaming the BLM for this, but I never saw one use of sleep. The point is that the tank basically only used flash when he felt like it. It's worth noting that he did have a few other classes under 10 (but no jobs), and was using the skill perfect dodge to sometimes mitigate a hit. That was his only good point. He'd also try to use physick sometimes, which was really not helping at all. Anyway, we get to the pelican boss. He spends the entire fight spin tanking the boss. As anyone here who has played a monk or dragoon knows, there's nothing more annoying than a tank who spins or moves enemies for any reason other than necessary positioning or avoiding aoes. Anyway, we beat it somehow because the dps were on point, despite the pelican spinning like a top the entire battle. The monk immediately drops, probably cursing the fate that dropped him into this forsaken dungeon run. The BLM follows suit, likely deciding that she would rather wait 30 minutes than see any more of this. While I could have left too, I decided to press on. I wanted to see how low this run could go.

Two ninjas appear, which is a bonus because they don't require positionals at this level to be good. It's necessary because the tank keeps spinning things at random: sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't. Who knows with this guy? Anyway, we clear/skip more trash with intelligent use of fluid aura and repose so I don't die from being chain interrupted. Next is the Inferno Drake. This one goes fairly smoothly. The boss tends to turn on people because of Brayflox anyway, so it doesn't really change a whole lot with spotty threat control. We go through the scenic part, and engage in a large battle in the middle of the room. I have to use swiftcast and presense of mind, but I'm able to keep up with the necessary healing with the help of the ninjas, who were playing competently. One of them would break a repose on me sometimes, but it's hard to blame them when CC isn't usually needed in this game.

Next up, the eft boss. This one also goes okay. The tank runs around the room randomly shield lobbing and loses and gains threat constantly, but eventually settles on the spot where the treasure chest appears when you win. I help break people out of bubbles when I have time, but mostly the ninjas help each other out. I fortunately don't get a bubble, because I did not want that added stress with this tank. The dragon comes down, smacks me in the face really hard, and leaves. We continue upward and do two more pulls of trash. I have to use more fluid aura / repose on the first group, but one of the ninjas offtanks on the second pack and keeps me safe. We continue up the path and fight the dragon for real.

As any veteran player knows, this fight is made or lost by the tank. If you get a tank who can't move the dragon out of the poison puddles, you'll never win because the healer will run out of mana and you will wipe. Guess what our Gladiator did? He ran around in circles, similar to the pelican boss, and left the dragon in the poison as if it were lounging in a hot tub. Its HP never drops below the 70%s, and the tank keeps popping the tank LB so we can't even use that. I eventually tell the ninjas that I'm killing myself and we're wiping. At this point, I had a few options. I could have kicked him (and I'm sure the ninjas would have backed me on this), but I like to save Vote Dismiss for an absolute last resort. I hate kicking people, because I know how bad it feels after a jerk and his friends booted me from Syrcus Tower once. So I decided to come up with an alternative solution that would challenge me and lead to victory for the ninjas without me having to be the bad guy.

When the dragon started spewing poison again, the tank was spin tanking as usual. That's when I let him die. Telling the ninjas to get ready, I turned one of them into a pseudo tank and allowed him to move the dragon out of the pools. It works, we whittle him down and the LB gauge starts to climb. It takes more concentration than usual, but I am able to keep the ninja afloat through some close calls and the use of a HQ X-Ether. As soon as the LB gauge hits two full bars, I save the tanking ninja from the brink of death while the other ninja does Bladedance and takes the dragon out. I res the Gladiator out of courtesy, apologize and explain that I had no choice in order to assure a win, and leave the dungeon. Even then, he never said anything.

He did accept the res immediately, though.

[VanilleFang]

Holy crap.

Ah Brayflox. Such a wonderful dungeon, no?

You did really good and made some smart moves. Killing off the tank was a risky but necessary decision. I applaud you on your earned victory.

The only thing that I have to say about the tank? I really hope it was just a very bad player. I hate bots so much.