I got to give you people credit.

[Atrious]

This is probably going to upset some die-hard Dps players, but I don't often give any credit to Dps players, because most of them don't deserve it. I'm willing to give credit when credit is due, and when I run across solid Dps I will let them know they are doing a good job and that I appreciate it. However, I'm sad to say that this is extremely rare.

SNIP

And we can say the same about tanks and healers. We all have to deal with it lol. You guys aren't as good as you think

[FunkyBunch]

And we can say the same about tanks and healers. We all have to deal with it lol. You guys aren't as good as you think

^^ This, but since there are so few of them we always treat them nicely. Even when they're terrible and you're on minute 30 of the arboretum =/

[RiisWolf]

This is probably going to upset some die-hard Dps players, but I don't often give any credit to Dps players, because most of them don't deserve it. I'm willing to give credit when credit is due, and when I run across solid Dps I will let them know they are doing a good job and that I appreciate it. However, I'm sad to say that this is extremely rare.
. . . snip

Most of my commendations as DPS were either by being a great guide/help, making excellent use of my supportive/healing abilities and evasion, using LB as soon as possible more than once(never vs last boss if I'm not melee, unless melee is dead), and/or in rarer occasions dealing excellent damage. Sometimes I get the feeling a good bunch of them are because the others didn't do so well.

I'd commend DPS for the same but I'd be lucky to even find someone who'd use LB more than two times in a dungeons entirely on their own., or if most of the ones who do excellent damage weren't morons trying to screw the team somehow. And I definitely won't commend anyone who "strategically" NEVER use anything good. Showing that you can get away with doing less or teetering on the edge of failure will not win me over, it only makes me like you less that the rest of us gotta bust our butts making sure we don't take forever.

It's not to say I'll default to the tank or heals, simply because one kept us alive and the other kept threat. Again, showing that you can get away with less or with teetering on the edge of failure will make me not trust you. Tanks not using CDs to better help DPS kill the mobs and make the healer have a better time, poorly controlling mechanics they are responsible for, or stay at 90~99% threat for no good reason, means you're not getting commended. Healers who focus too much on DPS, neglect to utilize regens/barriers, neglect to even try to dispel DoTs (this one's really bad in Void Ark), tells you to run back instead of reviving you in the middle of the fight, be overconfident and fail to back it up, neglect to top players off frequently, or make it clear that your healing philosophy is DPS#1, then that means you're not getting commended, especially the last one. And if nobody did a good job for no good reason, then commend nobody. I can forgive a weak tank if they've tried, a DPS who wants to be better, or a clueless healer who doesn't give us a hard time for no good reason as I try to help them, and if the rest of the party is straight up terrible for no good reason then I'm commending the aforementioned player.

[Ironos]

I wish, a good tank/healer combo can do EX arboretum in about 12 minutes. This took us almost 30.
Tank never went below 90% health and healer was always full mana =/

I don't think you're considering how much the DPS matters in those 12 minute runs. If the DPS is bad, then it's going to take 30+ minutes no matter how much the tank pulls. Even longer, possibly. Honestly it requires all 4 roles to be good to get quick times. A good tank/healer combo can't magically make up the DPS of 2 dedicated DPS roles. I've had some pretty bad DPS, one who even claimed that their role wasn't essential, so they can just cruise by while you try... Needless to say, they were promptly kicked.

[FunkyBunch]

Ironos, it doesn't require all 4 roles to be good to get quick times.
But poor tanks are the only factor I see in the doubling of dungeon times. Because I'm a DPS.

Fire 2 and Flare (double Flare when Convert is up) makes short work of all enemies. Doesn't really even matter that much if the other DPS is bad. One more rotation usually.

But when you have a tank doing the minimum pulls you're doing 2.5 times the number of encounters or more in the Arboretum (even in the beehive where there are two single enemies, we stopped on each ;_; ). The number of enemies doesn't affect the kill time of the encounter when you're a BLM.

[FunkyBunch]

I'm just saying that with the first two pulls I can tell you if it's going to be a quick run or an agonizing one. I don't need a good DPS, I need a good tank.
And as a Tank, you don't even need the DPS to be that good, they just need to use AoEs. Just grab the max pull and go.

And I'm also just trying to point out that there are terrible tanks out there. As evidenced by two of my EX clears this week. If I have a slow run, it's the tank. End of story.

For example, last week, a pally friend, a whm friend, another FC friend and I cleared Expert in 18 minutes. The catch? The FC friend had to bail and we did it with just the three of use after the first boss. Boss fights took a little longer, but it's the pulls that matter.

[Ironos]

snip.

Okay? Your anecdotal story proves nothing. I mean, if we're going with anecdotes, then I had a BLM once who insisted on only using single target attacks on mobs of 8+. So yeah, you do need DPS to be good. And by good, I don't mean "ehrmahgerd savage dps or gtfo" I mean knowing the basics of your class and situational awareness, which is more rare than you'd expect. Also, you cite that you did it with a premade and friends, I'm talking more DF randoms. No duh that if you can pick and choose your group you can get good clear times with a DPS down...I'd hope you could.

Edit: I had to throw this in there. In my experience, a lot of DF DPS have the mentality that they can (and often do) get away with the bare minimum. And I'm willing to bet those runs would've gone maybe 6-8 minutes faster if you had another competent DPS with you. In my runs as a PLD, I've had some 30 minute runs and some 12 minute ones. Believe or not, I had a 35 minute run with double SMN...so no, it's not "Bad tank = slow run, end of story."

Edit2: Sorry, in retrospect, this response may have come off as a bit aggressive. I did not intend it that way. I just wanted to say that bad DPS can make a run just as slow, if not slower, than a slow tank. The fact that you have the ability to make up for the lack of performance of the other DPS is commendable to you, but you have to think that the run could be going even faster if they were pulling their weight. Now, imagine if both the DPS were slacking...

[Twilite]

Fire 2 and Flare (double Flare when Convert is up) makes short work of all enemies. Doesn't really even matter that much if the other DPS is bad. One more rotation usually.

It's only when convert is up when Fire 2 rotation feels worth doing. Come on now, I was a career BLM. Nothing sucks more than carrying another DPS as a BLM, you can't deny that. The job(caster jobs in general) just ain't made for that.

[Februs]

And we can say the same about tanks and healers. We all have to deal with it lol. You guys aren't as good as you think

Oh, trust me. I know. One of the reasons I have only Drg at 60 is because I can't stomach watching someone else butcher my main jobs. That being said, I don't see Tanks or Healers standing in stupid nearly as often as I see Dps. I used to attribute that to positional requirements and cast times, but after I leveled my Drg (which I initially did back when their combo bonuses were still tied to proper positioning) it was thrown back into mystery, because it's really not that hard to dodge.

Most of my commendations as DPS were either by being a great guide/help, making excellent use of my supportive/healing abilities and evasion, using LB as soon as possible more than once(never vs last boss if I'm not melee, unless melee is dead), and/or in rarer occasions dealing excellent damage. Sometimes I get the feeling a good bunch of them are before the others didn't do so well.

I typically base my Dps commendations on how many CD's I had to burn during mob pulls. If the Dps are slow and I have to use extra CDs in a prolonged fight, no Dps comms. If they're fast though, I'm more than willing to hand out a Comm to the dps (sometimes just for the sake of variety), but then you have the additional challenge of figuring out which Dps are the most worthy of that comm, which is hard to do without some mystical way of determining which one had the highest Dps output.

Healers get comms based on how well they kept me alive. If I have to nerf my Dps to focus on mitigation because the healer is struggling when they shouldn't be (or prioritizing personal Dps over healing), then they don't get a comm. If they efficiently keep me alive without the need for me to nerf my own Dps or pop additional CD's. They get a comm. If they can do that while Dps'ing as well. I'd give them two Comms if I could.

Tanks I'm a bit stricter on, since I main Tank. I sometimes focus target them to keep an eye on their CD rotation to see if they are worthy of the comm, and I judge them based on how smoothly they handle each pull, positioning, defensive Cd's, and offensive contributions to the Dps. Considerate Tanks get more credibility than self-proclaimed badasses, but I only comm them if they are doing it all right (within reason).

[FunkyBunch]

It's only when convert is up when Fire 2 rotation feels worth doing. Come on now, I was a career BLM. Nothing sucks more than carrying another DPS as a BLM, you can't deny that. The job(caster jobs in general) just ain't made for that.

With 3+ mobs it's more DPS for F2+Flare than any other rotation. And with 6+ mobs it's just more efficient because you're killing 6 mobs in the same amount of time as it takes you to kill 2.5.
It always sucks when you're carrying someone else. But a full AoE rotation helps make up for a terrible other DPS. The better the other DPS the smoother it goes.