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

[HyoMinPark]

snippy snip snip

I am the friend in question here. And this run was indeed horrible. And I had a difficult time recovering from how disastrous it all started out. The rest of the run I just couldn't focus no matter how hard I tried.

I don't understand why everyone thinks that everyone wants to/enjoys learning things blind (something one person in the alliance said). Some people may, but it's exactly that. SOME PEOPLE. Not everyone. Like Forte said, not everyone learns from watching videos. I am an example of this. I could watch videos all day, but until I experience a fight and the mechanics involved, I won't know what to do. I appreciate it when people explain fights. I don't like going in blind. And I genuinely believe that our new SCH wanted our help. Why should I be kicked for wanting to help people?

How would explaining the ENTIRE RAID in a short, 1-2 minute period be efficient? How can you expect anyone to retain such an overload of information? Snippets, while they may take more time, are better in the long run because it's easier to process smaller chunks of information rather than one large one. And yeah, some people may be able to remember an entire run-down of a dungeon or raid, but you don't want to assume that EVERYONE can. Remember what happens when you ASS-U-ME.

This is extremely discouraging, especially since I just became a mentor (read: just now got my crown, and decided not to hide it, as I initially wanted to do). I don't see why I should be kicked from a raid for wanting to do my job as a mentor and help someone. I also don't understand why people act like this. This week in particular has been full of bad people in DF. Rude people. People rushing ahead. Tanks that look like they picked their gear blindly from a hat. It's making playing FFXIV exhausting, and I really don't want it to be that way. It's supposed to be something fun for me to do after work to unwind. Instead, it feels more like a chore.

Worst part, my healing boots STILL didn't drop, which means I need to go back in AGAIN. And I'm honestly scared to because of the way the last few runs have been.

Btw, they eventually did wait a *little* bit longer as the raid progressed for us to explain. And each time they held on and didn't pull too early, we didn't wipe. Every time they pulled early--WIPE. So tell me again how explaining mechanics at the beginning of the fight is useless and a waste of time?

[Joe_Schmoe]

Cutter's Cry with a mentor who doesn't mentor the sprout tank (he just wanted the title. I asked), who really didn't have a clue what he was doing. It's like running Satsasha all over again. I had to make a very difficult decision on who to kick (it ended up being the tank. The show must go on I'm afraid :[ ). I guess a pipe dream update I got in mind would be that if your mentor status is on, mentor roulette replaces the standard leveling roulette, an effort to keep mentors honest. Definitely should've just ran FATEs instead :/

[Chiramu]

Cutter's Cry with a mentor who doesn't mentor the sprout tank (he just wanted the title. I asked), who really didn't have a clue what he was doing. It's like running Satsasha all over again. I had to make a very difficult decision on who to kick (it ended up being the tank. The show must go on I'm afraid :[ ). I guess a pipe dream update I got in mind would be that if your mentor status is on, mentor roulette replaces the standard leveling roulette, an effort to keep mentors honest. Definitely should've just ran FATEs instead :/

What was the sprout tank not doing for you to kick him? Cutters' isn't very difficult to tank.

[TankHunter678]

-snip-

The only time I have encountered Ozma doing meteors during pyramid was that 1 run I had where we had such slow DPS that we got Hellwind on Forgal... 4 times.

It feels to me that Ozma either switches forms at specific time intervals or casts meteors at certain health intervals. So when the fight progresses at I guess the expected speed you almost never see meteors during pyramid. Only when the fight is going super slow have I ever seen meteors combined with pyramid.

As for assimilation, it actually surprises me how many people do not know that the way to remove the debuff is to look away from ozmashade. You look away to dodge, but if you could not dodge it (such as flying through the air) you can remove it by looking away till the debuff is gone. I guess they put in the mechanic that way as a safety mechanism since it would not be fair to have a entire flying alliance get assimilated.

[Joe_Schmoe]

What was the sprout tank not doing for you to kick him? Cutters' isn't very difficult to tank.

Only used flash one time, hitting abilities at random, popped all his CDs the moment they came up, even when fighting 1 monster, occasionally running around like Benny Hill. Basically all the things you don't want to do when tanking. I asked the mentor if he was gonna mentor this guy and he was like "Nooooooope". Died/wiped until after 2nd boss when I had to make a decision.

[TankHunter678]

Only used flash one time, hitting abilities at random, popped all his CDs the moment they came up, even when fighting 1 monster, occasionally running around like Benny Hill. Basically all the things you don't want to do when tanking. I asked the mentor if he was gonna mentor this guy and he was like "Nooooooope". Died/wiped until after 2nd boss when I had to make a decision.

You could have told him the basics of tanking that you see other tanks do. If he was willing to talk then you do not need a mentor tag to inform him of what he can do to do better.

[Singularity]

Had meteors during Ozma's tetrahedron form yesterday, was expecting the awkward situation you described with the bleed AoEs. Turns out it stops casting that until after the meteors have landed.

There isn't a mechanic in this game that, when handled correctly, will just randomly screw you over anyway. SE's testing is at least better than that.

[Joe_Schmoe]

You could have told him the basics of tanking that you see other tanks do. If he was willing to talk then you do not need a mentor tag to inform him of what he can do to do better.

That would've taken too long, at least as far as actually sitting him down and showing him positioning, what button to push when etc. Again, it wasn't like he needed only a pointer here and there. He needed to be taken aside and actually have tanking explained to him, to get him out of solo questing mode. Not something the rest of us - and most certainly Mr. Mentor, who just couldn't be bothered to do the job he signed up for - had time to do. We are trying to get a dungeon done after all.

[FinaSel]

Just had one of those Duty Finder moments.

Had a tank who was in Halatali for the first time as a tank. (But not a new adventurer.) That's fine. But then I realized he couldn't speak the language of the other group members, even though he queued for that language. Okay...well...that's... "whatever, as long as we do fine." I thought.

I've done many beginner dungeons with first timers and have very rarely had problems. (Only one other time comes to mind.)

The first pull goes fine.
The second pull, the tank gets too close to the bombs in the room and pulls all 5 mobs. Some mobs are attacking me and the summoner and the tank doesn't take them off. So now I'm healing 3 people.
Tank dies.
I can't use Raise during battle yet, so the summoner uses Resurrection. Tank comes back. I heal him. Cast protect, we kill the remaining mobs.

Tank stands around for a while saying nothing. O-kay...
He goes to attack the next set of mobs.
I know he is in a weakened state from dying earlier, so I watch first couple of hits before using Cleric stance. He seems fine. I heal him to full and then switch into cleric stance to drop Aero once or twice.
As soon as I switch into cleric stance all 3 mobs hit him at once and he goes to about 10% HP.
Wait for cleric stance cooldown to come off and switch back. Begin casting Cure, but he dies again.
Summoner uses Resurrect again.

Should I not have tried switching into Cleric stance? Maybe. But the first few hits looked fine, and the simultaneous attack by the 3 mobs was unexpected. I've definitely dealt with stickier situations.

So the tank goes "Heal pls". It's the first time someone has ever said such a thing to me. (I can understand English well enough, so I was okay. Not sure about other members though.)
I was SO tempted to say "Don't pull 5 mobs at once "pls"." But I didn't...... well I guess I did now.

So everyone was silent and we continued. But the tank continued to go afk randomly and not attack the next mob after one died. Just standing there doing absolutely nothing.. I tried poking him and still no movement.

So because you died once due to your own fault by not handling hate and poor positioning, and died a 2nd time due to being in a weakened state and my miscalculation (yeah, I did make a mistake), it gives you the right to go super slow and hold everyone else up? Very very rude, unthinkable, behavior.

When the tank's HP got below 50% he would start running around in circles and towards me. Because running towards me is going to make my heals go faster?

So the summoner was getting annoyed at the tank's lack of effort and tried pulling one set of mobs.
And the tank did absolutely nothing. Just stood there and watched as I heal the summoner.
Finally, the tank picks up the targets, but again due to poor positioning, pulls another group of mobs. Miraculously, I was able to heal him to survive the onslaught. (Weakened state had worn off.)

Right before the final boss, the summoner has bad positioning and 2 bombs attack her. The tank does absolutely nothing to pull them off. I use fluid Aura on one of them to push it toward the tank. Still no effort to pick it up...

The other DPS, a dragoon, doesn't move out of self destruct and instantly dies. I kept the tank and summoner alive. While the dragoon is running back, the tank begins laughing at the summoner.
(I doubt they know each other since the speak differently languages.)

Also, the summoner didn't seem to know to destroy the tiny flames that approach the first and last boss, so the dragoon was doing it.
I was told to "heal pls", so I focused mostly on just that. Healing. And only dropping DoT at the beginning and only DPSing when there was one mob left.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

That would've taken too long, at least as far as actually sitting him down and showing him positioning, what button to push when etc. Again, it wasn't like he needed only a pointer here and there. He needed to be taken aside and actually have tanking explained to him, to get him out of solo questing mode. Not something the rest of us - and most certainly Mr. Mentor, who just couldn't be bothered to do the job he signed up for - had time to do. We are trying to get a dungeon done after all.

"You need to use Flash at least twice, preferably three times then use <insert enmity combo> to maintain aggro."

That didn't take long to type.