Help a noob not be so noob - Tips for Raids / Towers

[Fated]

No one does Labrynth of the Ancients in the "normal" fashion anymore. It's full of high end players speed running through it for the once a week clear for their weekly reward. I'm surprised anyone even gave you flack for being undergeared / new. Most people are too busy zooming through it to notice anyone else. You'll probably find what you're looking for whenever you get up to World of Darkness (ie. a "meaningful" dungeon experience).

[Distance]

yup, I'm limited to 1k words so work with, but we are under the understanding you enter and say "Hey ( greet ) then say if you are new or a quick instance of I've only done this once"

I truly understand it is not others responsibility to explain the strats, but after doing dungeon after dungeon not much really changing we jumped in thinking win or lose it will be fun to learn.

When seeing 24 people we were like um.... make sure we say we are new. As for the PG-13 yeah.. some were being complete jerks cursing at my otherhalf for not dps'n or dps'n the wrong mob laughing when we died then of course everyone died. We've been trained to follow the tanks # 1 2 3 kill order ect these were never used I guess in towers you don't.

[RyuRoots]

In my experience, most tanks don't mark things in endgame. I do think after a while you sort of get a feel with what you should go after in what instances, and a lot of players that are level 50 now have been level 50 for a rather long time. If you'd prefer the tank to mark enemies, it never hurts to ask. On the rare occasions I play pally these days, I usually just forget about it but I don't mind if someone mentions it. If they won't or can't, then just go for whatever has the lowest HP in trash mobs. For bosses, just ask and if you attack the wrong thing and no one explains after asking, that's not really your fault.

Unfortunately, it sounds like you just got really unlucky and got an awful LotA party which...honestly, is the rule more than the exception these days. :/ Like others have said, most players would never bother with it if not for weekly caboncoat/carbontwine. That includes myself honestly, but I actually love LotA aesthetically (much more than ST or WoD) and think it's a fun raid at its core...but people do a lot to ruin it. Don't let it get you down. Try going in with a full or mostly FC party. That's an easy way to get more out of it.

[monochromicorn]

You got a bad group, because most people are kind of cheery when there's a bonus, makes it a little more useful. So, you shouldnt even have had to say that you were no, they saw the binus message, and if they saw you 2 struggling and didn't help, you really did just get a bad run. Everybody is so over geared that 1 or 2 people from every alliance could be dead and it would still be easy.

Just the other day, I did a no job/naked run, only wearing shoes. It was still easy, although we couldn't burn like normal.

[Garnetiferous]

Yeah, I'd say that unfortunately, saying you were new in Labyrinth may have made you a target. And its ridiculous that it happened because with the gear people have now having one dps and healer at ilv 54 ish shouldn't have caused any problems.

Now as for advice... The best thing you two could do is learn your classes as best you can because playing your class well will always be useful. The dps forum here is a great tool to use to learn your rotation. One of you is a drg so I recommend checking out the Rotation Reborn thread in the dps forums. Has a great guide for the dragoon rotation. I don't heal and haven't been in the healing forum very much but I'm sure the threads there can give you some good advice and direction.

[Kitfox]

Just go in head first, take some punches and grit those teeth. You're only new once, don't think too much of the mishaps.

[Distance]

Haha I love these answers and suggestions very positive and yeah! I will let her know to read the dragoon forums. Thank you for your posts!

[Ghishlain]

I've noticed in general that Labyrinth of the Ancients is quite the cesspool of bad play, with the spectrum being

Total wipe heaven |-------------------------------------| We just don't care and we're going to ignore mechanics (which can also be total wipe heaven if the healer's aren't good enough to handle this BS)

Unfortunately, there's no way for you to get around that as many "elite" players feel LotA is beneath them and (sadly) many won't wait for an explanation before pulling the boss. I find this phenomenon to be particularly bad in Labyrinth but thankfully not so bad in Syrcus Tower or World of Darkness (the next two Crystal Tower tiers).

As others have mentioned, the group you were in was of the lower side of the spectrum and I do recommend reading up a little one how to handle Crystal Tower mechanics as they are more involved than what you're used to seeing in a normal 4-man. This way you won't be as lost when you get into the fights and if someone doesn't give you the time of day to explain the fights, you aren't flying in blind and destroying yourselves (and potentially the raid) in the process.

yup, I'm limited to 1k words so work with

You can bypass the 1K character limit by editing your post. I'd recommend type out your post, cutting the bits off to reduce it below the 1K threshold, post, edit, then copy those parts back into your post.

[RyuRoots]

Haha I love these answers and suggestions very positive and yeah! I will let her know to read the dragoon forums. Thank you for your posts!

I was actually VERY put off when I very first got to endgame stuff myself because of obnoxious people (HM Ifrit stands out in particular, which seems hilarious now because of how loleasy it is, but this is back in the days when Black Mage LB3 on the nails was a common tactic and I was wearing scorpion shield still), and that wasn't a good feeling. Plus, we can't let all the relatively new players to be scared off from easy content just because the people they DF'd with were total douchecanoes.

[Aldora]

Since a lot of players have farmed content so much that they’ve lost count, they just want to clear it as fast as they can (so that they can be done with it). But, that’s not an excuse to behave rude/poorly towards other players who are still new to the content in question.

The first advice i want to give you is to ignore those kind of players and give it your best shot. Observe what happens around you and learn from your experience. Watching a video is good and all, but hand-on experience is the best tutor and they aren’t really required for the current dungeons and Crystal Tower Raids.

When you get to do content like The Binding Coil of Bahamut or the extreme primals, that’s the point where i would suggest doing some research before diving into it since the mechanics in these fights are very unforgiving.

If you want to watch guides, i would suggest to watch those from streamers like MrHappy or MTQCapture.

Also, when you enter a duty through the duty/party finder, 99% of the time the game will show a message that one or more party member has yet to clear the duty for the first time and will grant bonus tomes upon completion. This is the first hint for the entire party that one or more members of the party could use some tips for the duty.

If someone in my party says that (s)he is new to the duty, i’d be more than happy to give some pointers on certain encounters (like boss battles).

Ashkendor gave a good run-down on CT, so you should be fine with that. (^_^ )-b

Some additional info on the LotA:

When you get to the trash pack with 2 Bone Dragons in it, be sure to have them face inwards so that their tail swipe points to the outside of the arena (away from the group).

Dragon:
Be sure to kill the Skeletons before they reach the boss
When Skeletons get closer to each other, they will increase their speed when running towards the boss.

Thanatos:
You can only damage Thanatos when you are invisible.
As a healer, be sure to slap Regen and Stoneskin on the Pots so that you don’t have to heal them for a while. Thanatos will randomly chain a pot and pull it towards him. Heal the chained pot to full to remove the chain.

Vasago:
Be sure to focus on the bombs, since they will explode and deal damage to the entire raid
When a Vasago puts a big circle on the ground, most groups would expect you to move Vasago clockwise.

King Behemoth:
When you get targeted with a green meteor, a comet will drop on top of you when the mark disappears. Try to place them just behind King Behemoth or near the edge of the inner circle and move away when the mark disappears.
The Tanks should take care of the boss, the Iron Giant and the 4 Towers. If you have one or more tanks operating the towers, just slap a Regen or Adloqium on them. That should be enough to heal them.
When everyone is hiding behind a comet, it’s a good time to use Divine Seal + Medica 2 or Succor.

Phlegethon:
Just before Phlegethon casts Ancient Flare, the pads will light up to signal the upcoming Ancient Flare. That’s also the moment that the Iron Claw will appear. Another hint that an Ancient Flare is coming is that the pads in the outer ring will be covered in lava until the Ancient Flare “routine” will start. So, in short: Lava disappears uncovering the pads in the outer ring, which in turn will light up followed by spawning an Iron Claw. Around 20 sec after that, Ancient Flare will be cast.