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

[Mysterysword]

Cutter's Cry on my DRK, I honestly don't even remember what the other party members were, except for the SMN DPS who got snarky with me after I died to a bomb's suicide (thought it would die or I could stun it before it finished casting, neither happened, I panicked and derped). I'm not given time to respond because I D/C as I'm running back from the start point.

It takes me a while to get back online, because my connection is being aggravating and throwing system errors at the launcher, in my face. But it was definitely less than 10 minutes later that I finally managed to get back on. I load up... and I'm standing in Limsa Lominsa.

Well, I sure hope they enjoyed waiting for a replacement tank. As for me, I queued up again, popped almost immediately again, land in Cutter's Cry again, and proceed to tank it almost flawlessly despite it almost being 4 in the morning. To my second party: if you're reading this, you guys were great and I wish I could've given you all the comms for not quitting when our lag killed us all those times at Chimera.

Another time, in Qarn normal as WAR, I get a SCH as healer. Sure, nothing wrong with that, they put up Protect and have Eos out as usual, so I start my first pull.

Except... they're casting Physick on me with Cleric Stance on. No DoTs or Ruins that I could see... just Physick. It's nothing too bad, considering Eos is also there to help heal, and I figured maybe they just forgot to take it off or something (god knows I run into so many healers in the 40-50 range who STILL don't know how to properly stance-dance). I'm not truly bothered by it, but I do ask, purely out of curiosity, why they're healing in Cleric Stance.

As it turns out, all their extra stat points are in INT, to give them better DPS as SMN. Sure, nothing wrong with that, I know I've faced that debate myself, and I play and enjoy both jobs very much. But still, I point out that with their gear, swapping INT and MND means they're still healing with less MND, even with all their points in INT. They claim that at Qarn normal levels, their INT and MND are rather close to each other anyway.

So I finally bring up the point that Cleric Stance not only swaps your INT and MND values, but also decreases your healing magic and increases damage dealt. And then the SCH says they didn't notice that part of the skill description.

Honestly, this so far has been a rather civil conversation, so I'm kind of baffled, but not angry or anything. I simply ask them to do a test cast of Physick, with CS on and off, and compare the two numbers. They see their mistake, acknowledged it, fixed it, and thanked me for setting them straight. Being able to recognise your own mistakes and fix them is a rare skill in DF, so I just accept it and move on.

But I am still curious, how they could have possibly gotten CNJ far enough to get SCH unlocked and still not know what CS does. I don't say anything about it, just look up their player info, further into the run.

Level. 60. WHM. A level 60 WHM. Who did not know that Cleric Stance nerfs your healing. I didn't mention it at all for the rest of the run, but after it was over, I found myself staring blankly at the screen and questioning my life choices.

[OmegaStrongtan]

Wipe 3 times on Hummelfaust. It did not actually better on the Goblin Boss. It was one of the rare day where i was GLAD to log off and go to work...

[ArikDimas]

So, I just got out of a Castrum Merridian run for my story roulette, and one of the tanks has made me very confused. At the second boss, the Magitek Vanguard, the Drk tank had to go use the bathroom, so our War goes to tank the boss and I quickly grab aggro from him so I use Quelling Strikes to lower my enmity gain. After the boss I decide to check his gear because I'm assuming he's leveling warrior and just wanted to check what he had. i60 Weapon, i90 artifact helm, i90 hq body, i120 poetic gloves, i120 poetic waist, i115 hq legs, i120 poetic boots. Odd level disparity, but ok, lets look at his accessories and OH GOD WTF IS THAT? i130 poetic slaying necklace, i130 poetic CASTING earring, i120 AIMING shiva ring, i130 poetic CASTING ring, and i130 poetic HEALING ring. I wanted to call him out on his load out but I didn't want to start drama in the dungeon run, so after losing all 4 cannons to the first set of adds, not even the colossus after them, I check his search info. 51 PLD, 19 PGL, 51 WAR, 51 DRG, 34 ARC, 3 Rog, 60 WHM, 60 BLM, 60 SMN/SCH, 60 DRK, 60 AST and 60 in all crafting professions and 60 in all gathering professions except Fishing, which was sitting at 58.

[Sentaryuu]

Because of lots of rain, lightning, and thunder (not heavy though) going on for like all day and most of yesterday (and probably will for the next few days), I didn't get to do much today. It kept nocking out my internet connection. >.>

This morning, (was able to get Trials and Vath done) I queued for Expert as SCH. Almost get the 2nd boss of Antitower when I lag and everyone dies. As I returned to start I disconnect and could not get back in. Internet cuts out. Didn't get to play again till like 8pm. Was able to get my Expert done then, but as BRD instead in case it happened again and well it did when I tried doing my lv60 Roulette as BRD. Had gotten Abortorium. During 1st Boss, I lag and disconnect once again. Internet cuts off again and it just now came back right before maintenance. >.> Boo. The runs would have gone fine if that didn't happen. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to do more.

So I apologize to the groups that I disconnected in. Can't control what the weather does. Hope ya'll got your clears. o/ Sometimes I hate the rain...

[Izularia]

Decided to do Expert Roulette as Bard. I wanted to do what I always do with trash mob groups: Buffed AOE damage! Fine. I used everything as usual until I noticed that the tank dragged all the mobs out of Flaming Arrow. At first, I was like "Welp, maybe he didn't notice it, no problem!"

He did it every single time... So I asked him "Why are you dragging the mobs out of my biiiiig flaming circle?" His response: "Too much damage..." Huh? That confused me a little. He had every tank on 60, shouldn't he know that that circle isn't dangerous for the group? I deciced to clear things up, though.
"Don't worry, the circle is not gonna hurt you Tank the mobs within this area."
"I know, but you do too much damage with it. I can't hold aggro this way. Please stop."

Okay. Good to know. I even used Quelling Strikes whenever it was available. I will stop doing DMG next time, so you can hold aggro, since you obviously can't with your iLvl of 214.

[SecretCrowds]

Had an encounter this morning that made me laugh.

I was doing Void Ark through the Duty Finder. Now, the final boss, Echidna, has the "4 arrows" aoe similar to Thordan where everyone has to stack together to share the damage. Throughout the encounter, everyone was stacked loosely behind the boss. Then came the moment where a player was targeted by that aoe marker. Everyone instinctively moved in closer to the center of the room to stack properly.

However, that player either panicked or didn't know what to do. He started running away from the raid. The situation that followed was even weirder. Everyone, miraculously, decided to try and save him by running after him together, instead of leaving him to die. So what we got was 23 players chasing after 1 player who refused to be saved. It was hilarious watching that scene. It was like a scene out of a movie where the protagonist is being chased by an angry mob.



We were only trying to save you.

[vanitaslaughing]

Seeing as I didn't have my shaft from A8 today, I queue. Two scholars. Okay, isn't that bad, this fight is basically tailor-made for scholars anyway, this'll go smooth!

It didn't. Tanks are faceplanting after every single tankbuster, even though they did their darned best, doing almost perfect tankswaps and all. Party HP is getting ridiculously low. I just noticed that out of the corner of my eye but didn't pay it much mind. Phase 2. Both tanks with weakness. The one on my robot dies - suddenly I'm drg-tanking that bot. Goes well for... 10 seconds. I even popped foresight, but I'm not a tank. Faceplants. Party hp STILL dangerously low.
We kinda scratch by - party and I now noticed one sch is literally only in cleric stance dpsing.

"Start healing!!" the other sch says, basically, since they were solohealing it up until now. "Why aren't you healing!?" one of the tanks chime in. "Heal wtf!" a dps.
I'm dead on the ground again, second wind, bloodbath and life surge can only get you so far when youre down with weakness.

We make it to Brute Justice. Finally the scholar responds, still in cleric stance, merrily doing nothing but broil and reapplying dots...

"I'm just here for the music "

Entire party goes nuts. Everyone has weakness at this point, I even entirely stopped trying because I just straight up couldn't believe that shit, so I facetank the floor again (I normally am nigh unkillable as dragoon, as long as I get basic healing after party-wide damage...).
Of course we wipe - to enrage, rather than everyone dying. That solohealing scholar did their darn best.

One of the tanks starts basically yelling at the cleric stance scholar in French. Someone initiates a vote dismiss for said tank (I assume it was CSSCH). Doesn't go through. Vote Dismiss for CSSCH - goes through. I offer requeueing as healer, but a split moment we get a new heal; again a scholar.
We go again, down it immediately on first try with no issues (although I botched a dodge and got damage down :B silly me)

New scholar asks why we didn't have a healer after the clear. They sounded so honestly surprised, and we told them what happened. I also got my shaft, so hey! All's well that ends well!

"I'm just here for the music" is going on my duty finder top 10

[Zadocfish]

To be fair, the music for that part is great.

[bounddreamer]

Last week, I ran Midas with my static co-tank. We tank-swapped on all the floors and fights that required tank swaps.

This week, I went in with some other tanks and M1, no tank swap. The OT outright stated he would not do tank swapping. M2, begrudging tank swaps. As in, he took it when the healers yelled at him. M3, "I'm not swapping, you're the MT." And earlier this week when I was helping some people with their M4 clears, the MT said "I don't need to swap, just OT until the adds."

These fights are designed for tank swaps. Why not tank swap??? Maybe this has been a thing with all groups, maybe I'm only noticing this week, but it seems strange to me after doing everything smoothly with my co-tank for the past two weeks.

[vanitaslaughing]

Never said the music wasn't good, but dpsing through the entirety of phases 1 and 2, long before the music even plays? I do love this music as well (I myself burst into loud laughter on skype with the friends who tried taking me through it, and then got hit by something stupid because I was a loudly laughing first-timer), but... straight up not healing at all for the entire fight is kind of... irresponsible? If you deliberately wanna wipe a party on duty finder, sure, fine, go ahead. But don't be surprised if people are gonna get really really mad because they just want their drops, and not getting a newbie message usually means everyone does their job at least partially... that guy wasn't healing at all until everyone had weakness/brink of death.

That other, actually healing scholar earned their commendation so hard because we actually lived until enrage thanks to their valiant efforts.