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

[TSLsmokey]

Bismarck EX.
RNG bad luck

Oh I know your pain. Got a 98 on the Boreas whistle... lost to a freaking 99.

[SahreeYurblu]

So, I got Never(ever)reap and at the final boss, the push back flings the tank and the other dps off the island. I BLM tanked it and figured I'd see how long the healer and I would last. I managed to take down all the adds, we both stayed up and finally killed the thing. FELT like it took FOREVER, but we cleared it. I got one single solitary comm. I'm gonna cry.

Thanks Meson'fi from Jenova. Hope you got the other 2, you definitely got mine.

[Mysterysword]

Did you know it's possible to lose all the islands at Hraesvelgr? No? I didn't either. Then I found out.

I decided to go Expert roulette as PLD, and I'm ilvl 210 on that job. Hardly ideal, but PLD is safe-mode tanking anyway. I load into Sohr Khai, and there's a WHM, a MNK, and a BRD, with about 13k, 16k, and 15k HP respectively.

Nonetheless, we don't exactly have any AoE specialists here, so I'm pulling small groups, making sure to cycle cooldowns. The WHM could very easily have just popped Medica II, Regen, and Asylum on me, then slapped on Cleric Stance and gone to town on the mobs.

Of course this doesn't happen. It's DF. It doesn't help that these DPS aren't exactly stellar at their jobs either. Because it took 16 minutes just to get past the moogles, with 1 wipe. At moogles.

As we go on, this WHM continues to not use Regen, just standing or jumping around casting Cure II. Their Cure II healed for 5.6k or so. They kept casting it when I was at around 19k HP, when I have a max of 22k. When I pointed out that they were overhealing and that I'm doing everything I can to give them leave to DPS, I get told "Ur too weak". Right. They're too busy jumping randomly around to DPS, because my gear is too weak. Great. One would've thought that, with all that free time to jump around, they could've kept us alive at the moogles too, but oh no. Jumping around is absolutely crucial to the WHM playstyle. They obviously can't keep their feet on the ground for too long, or everyone will be killed by evil bamboo tentacles!

Long story made short, that run took almost 50 minutes of pain, and I learnt that while it's very easy to carry a bad tank in that dungeon, God can't help you if the DPS and healer have their heads lodged firmly up their asses.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

So... the other day, I had quite the experience with Weeping City. We start off with the first boss, who is taking a surprisingly long time to kill. We narrowly avoid a wipe but move along to Forgall. And here is where hell begins. No one grabs any of the zombie adds on two separate attempts, which naturally leads to two wipes when they explode. People start quitting as per usual, and this time we get to the Succubus and co. phase. Again, the tanks decide to not split them all apart. Even worse, the overall DPS was so low, we failed to kill them all fast enough. Another wipe. Fourth attempt comes along and our tank dies... which makes me, the Dragoon, suddenly aggro hate. What does the other alliance's DRK do? Not turn on Grit and just lets me keep Forgall the entire time. I popped Foresight, Second Wind and Bloodbath-- the healers we spam healing to keep me up for a solid minute and the tank still wouldn't take hate. Like... why? Honestly, I'm baffled how long I lasted tanking; kudos to my healers on that one. I finally died after Hell Wind because the healers just couldn't handle all the damage going around.

We did, somehow, actually clear with like 25 minutes left. But not before a 9% Ozma wipe just because. Still amazed by how bad those tanks were. The armour is a lie, people. DRGs are still squishy. We don't like tanking ;-; Although it was kinda thrilling.

[Yudzster]

RNG Stuff

I feel you, i once rolled 99 on Markab Ramuh's pony, it's the only pony i liked, i had this grin on my face and after a while i didnt hear the victory fanfare theme when u get sumthing, then it turns out i rolled 99 on GREED instead of NEED

[Aosha]

Sohr Khai terribleness

Oh this just has me laughing and crying. That WHM was apparently an utter moron. Not because of overhealing, that could just be chalked up to lack of experience (I mean, I only figured out Cure II was not my primary healing method around the time I was farming Ifrit HM), but because of... everything else. "Hey you could easily do DPS." "Nah man ur to week I neds to jump arund to kep u heled." I can understand healers not being comfortable to DPS. But just jumping around doing nothing productive instead and then giving BS reasons for not DPSing is not an acceptable alternative. :/
On another note, WHM does actually have great AoE DPS potential, MNK is probably the best melee for AoE, and BRD isn't too bad on that front either. Not that it matters at all, if the group was that bad. Can't really get any use out of those Aero IIIs and Holyspams if you're just jumping around like a monkey on caffeine. :P

[Mysterysword]

Yes.

See, I once went into Sohr Khai as a little AST, with an ilvl. of 213 or so. I had to heal a WAR who was wearing broken jewellery. We still made it anyway. That WAR only died once, just as Hraesvelgr did. That's how I know how easy it can be to carry a bad tank with bad gear.

I also have WHM at 60, so I knew exactly what this WHM had in their arsenal that they most decidedly weren't using. They never once used Assize, for one. I only saw them use Asylum once, at the last 3 mobs just before the second boss. In fact, they never once used a single offensive skill. I don't think I ever once saw them cast Cure either, it was all Cure II. Because healing abilities that cost you no MP are just sooo passé, don't you know?

As for AoEs, well, when the first group took so long to die, I wasn't feeling confident that they could or would step it up if I pulled more. With a WHM doing nothing but spamming Cure II, they would've run out of MP long before the DPS got done killing a large pack.

I learnt to avoid Cure II spam very early on, as a weak little CNJ in Brayflox's Longstop, healing an equally weak little MRD. That wasn't a pleasant run, suffice to say, but I learnt the importance of MP management as a WHM, at least. Didn't learn the importance of WHM cooldown management until I landed myself in Aurum Vale, though.

[Aldebaran92]

I think I just hit a new low for DF stupidity. 60 roulette, get Fractal. I wave, someone else says hi, then we're on our way. The DRG is afk, doesn't matter, Gravity spam pretty much reks the first few trash packs. The tank types "He's having sex with hes boyfriend", and I just say "o.o", cuz how do you respond to that? Then when we're waiting at the first boss, I try to initiate a kick as soon as the 5 minute window is up. Guess what pops up? "Another vote kick is already in progress". Then I'm booted. Seriously, WTF?

[Aosha]

conversation continues

Oh, so when you said "no AoE specialists" or something like that, you didn't mean the jobs, but the people. Gotcha, my bad.
And really, no Assize? Wooooooooooooow, that's like the best ability ever. Can I change my previous "apparently an utter moron" into something more severe?
Also when I said I didn't learn Cure II wasn't my primary heal until 50s, it was more that I used both cures mixed together, with Cure IIs always when they would not overheal (read: still too friggin much). Still terrible for MP, just not... quite as bad as it may have originally sounded. Looking back I wonder why nobody in DF ever mentioned what I was doing wrong...

As an additional note to your original post, I've actually come dangerously close to running out of islands at grandpa dragon. I think we had 2 islands left at the end, lined up perfectly to be blown up. It was the run I tanked with a lot of Sword Oath having no aggro trouble... Doing max number of damage comboes on bosses... And I'm not even a good Paladin... *shudder*

[synesthetic]

Looking back I wonder why nobody in DF ever mentioned what I was doing wrong...

Because people don't want to talk,
don't want to help, don't know how to help, or are afraid to help,
or don't care or notice and just want to get out of there with as little effort and trouble as they can.

I'm usually in the "afraid to help" category. If I do try, or someone else in my party tries, to give some advice (as civilly as text will allow) to someone who badly needs it, the most common responses I see are silence, or "no one else has a problem with [how I play]". Which I take as a more kindly-worded "stfu, i do what I want", which I also sometimes see. Other times, people get insulted by the implication that they're not perfect. Or something.

It's been extremely uncommon to find someone who is actually receptive to advice and tries to get better at the game.
Bottom line is that people generally don't want your help.


I'm curious how much of it is because the game is online, instead of being face-to-face. I read an article a while back that mentioned how this woman was harassed through twitter by a guy who'd insult her while masquerading as her deceased father. She eventually wrote about how she felt and how what the guy did was affecting her. The guy saw what she wrote and personally apologized to her, explaining how he did what he did because he didn't really see her online as a person, and so it didn't register that she was another fellow human being who would be hurt by what he did.

Which reminds me of a couple of experiments done by Dan Ariely and described in his book, Predictably Irrational. First off, there was an experiment where he'd stick stuff in the fridge at an unmonitored location, where students going about can store their food in between classes. When he stuck soda in there, people stole it all of the time. Which figures, because people always eat your food from the fridge even if your name is on it. But when he stuck a dish with money on it, no one touched it, ever.

Then in another experiment, people were tested on their likelihood to cheat if they could get away with it. So people were given an exam where you fill out bubbles for your answers, self-grade your answers, then get like a dime for each correct answer. It turns out that people are generally good and want to do the right thing.
But then they changed the experiment such that instead of getting money in exchange for your answers, you're given tokens. And then just a few feet away, you exchange those tokens for money. Suddenly a lot of people cheated and reported getting more answers right than they should've, so they'd pick up more tokens than they should've. Just that slight dissociation made more people okay with it. They're not stealing money if they choose to lie, they're just stealing tokens.

How little it takes for people to stop recognizing when they're dealing with money or people and throw the morals they would've followed out the window.