Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Malicewolf]

6 mobs, if you're being fed TP, it is definitely better to do Death Blossom, and here's why:

Ninja's highest potency attack in rotation is 440 potency (DoT: Shadow Fang)
Death Blossom is 100 AoE potency. 100 potency per enemy. 5 enemies = 500 potency. Instantly better than Shadow Fang by itself, and this doesn't even take into consideration that it has to be primed.


Yes. Doton is great if it lasts until the mob dies - otherwise, Katon. And Death Blossom will outright wreck your TP if you're nto being fed. But you have a WAR using overpower, a MCH using AoE shots with TP turret, and a NIN single targetting things down who isn't even bothering to maintain Huton. in that situation, he was way underperforming and to be honest? This isn't kindergarden. We should be able to tell people if they can improve in some spots without these passive-aggressive victim routines.

Knowing the break point of your class for AoE isn't required knowledge - but if someone's offering you the info, don't get hyper defensive about it. People are way too sensitive about fair advice and it's getting tired how fast people turn to a victim routine like this NIN. You shouldn't have to baby feed someone information for fear of hurting their feelings. How do these people survive in the real world?

Not everyone is a quick learner. Me personally, I am. I know some people who simply aren't though, and that's fine. They take longer to figure things out. But no one likes being criticized along the way as they learn.

And sure, overall DPS is higher with death blossom. But you (tank) have to sustain dmg for longer period of time for all to die at the same time. Cause while you get high DPS on a parser, you're not actually killing anything. When simply taking one out quickly will also lower your incoming dmg. Now, i did forget you were a WAR, so the 3 AoE's combined, true, that is a decent combo. But regardless, I still don't think you were very accommodating honestly. Just asking if they wouldn't mind doing a Doton, then focus on death blossom would have been easy to ask for. But you guys decided to rip on her playstyle (well, mostly your gf). If I played with you (and you thought you were doing fine) and I suddenly said, "Hey! You suck, do everything better this way" I'm pretty sure you'd of gotten defensive as well. Giving advice and telling someone they're bad are 2 different things.

Once again, I'm not saying YOU were in the wrong here with how you worded things. Your healer on the other hand might as well have been holding a big "You suck, I hate you" sign above her head though. You decided to side with your healer/gf (don't blame ya) but what started out as helpful advice turned into ripping a player apart who doesn't know the class 100% yet.

Though, side note, does Death Blossom do "slashing" dmg? I would assume yes, but just thought about that. Never tested to see if it was actually increasing dmg for my death blossom's (Cause I honestly don't use it that much, Katon is more useful imo). And technically a well placed sneak attack would provide the highest potency at 500, but then if you put into the fact that a trick attack gives dmg vulnerability for 10 seconds, you can easy take HUGE advantage of that (and I usually focus on that). Combined with DE (prior to hitting with trick attack) and then timing with duality and dream within a dream (and aoelian edge), you'll produce FAR more damage. That enemy will practically be dead. I can take a good chunk of a boss's hp with this combo, let alone a trash mob target.

[bounddreamer]

Criticism, and being overly critical, would be saying "you are a bad ninja," or "what you are doing is terrible" or "you aren't utilizing your full toolkit and you suck" etc and so on. What I saw in the chat log was party members askin a NIN to use abilities that are in their basic (not expanded 50+) toolkit, and in response they got super defensive and derailed the encounter from there. If the NIN had reacted less defensively, it could have gone better for everyone.

And I agree with OP, there's way too many people who act as if you've said something offensive when you notice they're not using an essential skill and ask them to.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Criticism, and being overly critical, would be saying "you are a bad ninja," or "what you are doing is terrible" or "you aren't utilizing your full toolkit and you suck" etc and so on. What I saw in the chat log was party members askin a NIN to use abilities that are in their basic (not expanded 50+) toolkit, and in response they got super defensive and derailed the encounter from there. If the NIN had reacted less defensively, it could have gone better for everyone.

And I agree with OP, there's way too many people who act as if you've said something offensive when you notice they're not using an essential skill and ask them to.

Agreed. I read through the entire conversation and don't feel anyone was being rude to the NIN. Some people just need to grow a pair.

[autumn]

Two sets of advice above, which one's right? Both seem pretty legit to me with fair merits to either tactic but I don't play ninja as a main. Point I'm getting at there is do you trust someone you bump into in duty finder who tells you you're doing it wrong? Maybe you know someone who gave you some advice that said otherwsie so you thought that was the bad tactics to take. I've seen that happen before in duty finder and even within fc chat.

I have to say I'm with Malicewolf with regards to how it was phrased. I'm a big softie though :P. The ninjas responses weren't exactly constructive though on the other hand...I'd want to know more personally if I were them on the merits of that method over another method. Whether that involves further convo during the run, or research after online.

[AlphaFox]

We seem to be living in the age of "Be delicate or I sue" mindset.

[Eidolon]

"Hey! You suck, do everything better this way"

I left one passage highlighted because - I'll be honest, I find this a little bit closer to the absurd side. IN literal terms, all they typed was to use Huton and use AoE "Please" (though it was a plz, I do not feel that it reduces the intent to show a polite request just due to the reduction of letters, even though I goddamn hate that type to typing.)


No one's really asking them to be a quick learner though - just to be receptive to advice.

I feel like our biggest difference of opinion (Between you and I) is that you feel that people who offer advice, need to be as accomodating with that advice as possible, and really treat people with children's gloves. My girlfriend and I view it a little more that people need to be responsible, and make sure take accountability for themselves when playing with 3 other people online.

...

I believe you when you state that you are able to decimate a single mob in a very fast manner, vs. killing multiple mobs over a slightly more extended period of time. But let me counter your suggestions in a few spots:

1) If two members of the party are using AoE, and you are using ST because you "Want to kill that mob quickly", what you are effectively doing is reducing the damage potential of the entire party. You are taking attacks that would be hitting Mob#5 for 240 potency per shot (WAR overpowder + MCH Grenado shot) and making it so that it no longer hits this mob. What this does is reduces the effective output of the party, and ultimately makes the fight take longer - because all you've managed to do when others are AoE'ing is create a situation wherein their attack is no longer hitting that mob.

There was a topic on this not too long ago; you have to learn to spread your damage out in a scenario wherein you are doing large mobs.

Now, on a group of 3, you are 110% correct - it is a GREAT idea to burst down single mobs (Though as a DRG, I prefer to tab my DoT's around and use my main damage combo only when I have a Life Surge for a critical Full Thrust) and your damage is very indictive of that fact. I do not doubt for a minute that you could outright decimate a single enemy - but what's the point of killing one enemy in a group of 6 earlier than the other 5 while AoE'ing? You're just reducing how much your team does, and it becomes wasted potency.

2) By doing this method of single-targetting single mobs, you are effectively making the encounter take longer, because those of us who are AoE'ing, could've had those (Entire) mobs down sooner. This also means that, if you look at the fact that we have limited cooldowns, there's a certain duration that we can have mitigation up before we start to take unmitigated damage. Taking one mob out and making it so that the other 5 mobs are hitting me unmitigated for longer doesn't help out as much as taking them all out before my mitigation runs out.

Basically, the difference between the damage on the tank is negligible, so you need to focus on what will make it so that things as a whole will die faster. Don't worry - a tank shouldn't be pulling more than they can handle (And if they do, killing one mob won't really fix it.)

Which would you rather have
5 mobs doing 100% damage (500%)
or 6 mobs doing 80% damage? (480%)

...

As for your question of Death Blossom, I believe that yes, it is considered Slashing damage, but it is impractical to try to maintain slashing debuff on 6+ mobs. A well placed sneak attack means you didn't use Doton, which means you effectively lose 30 potency over 24 seconds, or a total of 240 potency per mob within the field. The break point for Doton vs. Sneak attack, in this case, is 3 mobs - or 720 potency.

[KaitlanKela]

Yeah.

Advice was offered. There was no harassment - no name calling or accusations. Only facts. You could sugar-coat it, but that shouldn't be necessary.

The Ninja broke the communication down 10/10. Could have been the ESL thing, though, so I do have some sympathy. For the sake of the run I understand the kick, though.

[Malicewolf]

Fair enough, I am more of an accommodating player. Giving out the blunt of things is often taken the wrong way because you can't express tone across very well. So it really becomes, what tone is the receptive person going to imagine from you. And that is usually more negative rather than assuming you meant butterflies and rainbows. I read your healer's tone as very condescending myself personally. As I already said, I don't think you were being rude yourself, i just think coupled with the healer's input as well, it gave an overall bad vibe though. The NIN was overly defensive, but also was unable to express themselves correctly as was said later. English not being your native language is a very frustrating aspect to deal with (not mine, but I can understand why it is for many). Nothing is worse than not being able to get your point across because you simply don't know the right words.

And yes, I would mesh my playstyle with my party. If I noticed a large mob pull and I have AoE efficient party members, I will also chip in that way. If I notice an overly confident tank pulling with a NIN and Monk combo, I'd be hesitant. That will not go well to burn down that mob, especially if the tank is a PLD (which I main and why I didn't quite think about you being a WAR). So for me, seeing a NIN and MCH combo to me means, do not pull big unless I see they are on point with their dmg rotations. Cause if they decide to try AoE'ing the mob down, i'll be popping all my cooldowns in the wait time (some twice). But it's always a team effort.

And yes, i would never try to put DE on every target for death blossom spamming. The mob would likely be dead before I got it all up. Was simply curious cause I never bothered trying.

And I have been in quite a few fractal runs where a WAR, SUM, (any healer) and NIN (me) combo was there and I decided to go full throttle ST dmg. And twice so far, the WAR tanks have been quite pleased with me doing this saying the run was much faster than usual (still weaving in katon's and doton's in between focusing on high ST dps). Only time I really death blossom though is when multiple targets have low hp left. But death blossoms with all of them at half hp, I can honestly take out 2 or 3 of them in the time it would take me to death blossom them down. Especially with raiton or suiton/sneak/trick attack (but this is with duality and DWD as well). So it really comes down to exactly how many are there and how much AoE is being produced by your team overall. So pretty much, if the mob is 5 or under, I usually go for the ST because it'll be a quick powerhouse burn on the last remaining. Not that hard to switch from AoE to ST burn. Granted, it is easier to F up a rotation on ST than it is to F up AoE spam. But I also want to keep my huton's up without wasting my mudra's on a new one.

But to each their own. The difference overall between 2 effective groups doing their different methods would honestly probably be a few seconds in dif

[Eidolon]

But to each their own. The difference overall between 2 effective groups doing their different methods would honestly probably be a few seconds in dif

Very likely, if a WAR tank or otherwise feels it went 'smoothly', it has less to do with your DPS and more to do with the Healer/Tank meshing together well. Do not take that the wrong way - I do still feel DPS is a very important facet to the trifecta, and thus why I feel that it is important that DPS be accountable for their rotations. However, a DPS's input only ever really affects one thing - how they might / might not rip threat, as well as how fast things die.


Hell, I've had people say I'm an awesome tank on runs where I think it went miserably (Dear god why am I getting two rotations of Vengence in? Things should not be lasting this long...)

However, I want to say - in the comp of You (NIN), SMN, WAR, (Healer), it is definitely good to go full-throttle ST DPS with some AoE. The difference of this comp is that you do not have a source of TP for your WAR and NIN, thus it becomes more effective to do AoE where possible and alternate in a ST rotation. As I stated, If you have someone feeding you TP, it is often best to AoE heavily.

Even with a SMN, you have to judge how fast things die vs. your TP. This is why as a melee dps or WAR, I will often use AoE down to about 500-400% TP when in the presence of AoE's / large pulls, and then switch to a sustainable ST* rotation tabbing my dots and using Geirskogul where possible. This allows me to get a burst of strong AoE out (my highest potency) and follow it up with high sustained damage. Hitting 0 TP is not good for the party, but again - that's in the presence of a SMN, and not a class feeding me TP.

Honestly, you even say if it's "5 or under, I g owtih ST burn" and I actually made very clear that 5 mobs was a break point for AoE DPS (6 mobs = you should be doing AoE, 3 mobs or higher = you should be using Doton not Raiton/Shuriken.)

Also, as a TP-using class, keep in mind that in the presence of a MEchanist/Bard who sings Paeon, it will more often than not be better to AoE if you're doing large pulls than to ST. Again, find that break point and stick to it. It's important for the overall damage.

[Niwashi]

No one's really asking them to be a quick learner though - just to be receptive to advice.

They likely wouldn't have gotten defensive if that had been true. Suggesting a better pattern was helpful, when it was said the first time. But your girlfriend didn't leave it there. She kept hammering on and on and on and on about how horrible the Ninja was for not playing the way she wanted.

If the Ninja is open to advice and willing to learn from it, that means that he could consider that advice, work out how to fit it into a combat pattern, practice it, and maybe by the next run or the one after he might be better for it. Expecting, on the other hand, for the expression of your advice to instantaneously change his whole gaming style mid-fight is demanding that he be an extremely fast learner (even, in this case, when the advice is in a foreign language).

In single player games where you personally control an entire team of characters, you may get to choose each and every action taken by any of them, but in MMOs, you don't. You play your own character and let other people play theirs. You can offer advice if you think it could help them to do better, but working out how to make use of that advice is up to them, not you, and you cannot expect it to always happen immediately just because you've issued your orders.

It was only in the second part of the conversation that your girlfriend turned to outright name calling, but she was already being rude well before that. The machinist in your party was right. She needed to lay off and give the Ninja a chance to work out the advice he'd been given. (Though with having finally left off that advice on such a hostile note, it was, by the end, unlikely he would take that advice anyway.)