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

[Ersilon]

Last night, wife and I did leveling on our mains of SMN and AST with a FC mate's DRK. We get the Vault and a newbie black mage. Things are doing decently until we wipe on the second boss. During the run back, I get a nice little mini-freeze on my computer, and my ping starts to go a little haywire, but nothing unmanageable. We down the boss and get to Charrybutt. I ask if the BLM knows the fight and he tells how he mostly knows what to do because his last group here was a fail group but had made it this far. I give a quick explanation and we go in. Charibert's rotations screw up my lag something fierce, and we get down to one and a half orb left, wipe. Round Two, DRK buddy's helping the BLM kill orbs while I'm teamed up with the wife to kill them; she and I get four down and they only get two, so, wipe. BLM is also complaining about lag, especially around the double row of knights. I tell them I'm going to re log and hope it kills my lagfest, and it does temporarily. Still a wipe, DRK says the DPS is too low, next thing I know, we're getting a greeting from a new BLM. Seeing 30 minutes left on the timer by this point, she asks what happened, and my DRK buddy explains that the sprout BLM's damage was too low for the fight. We proceed to clear it, no problems.

I know that a lot of the stories we get in here are people picking on sprouts, or others defending them, but this guy simply wasn't pulling his weight. I feel bad we didn't get his clear for him, but for a fight like Charibert, everyone in the party needs to give it their all, especially if they're not synced. I didn't check the guy's gear, so I honestly don't know if that was a factor or not.

[Nestama]

Just now, Palace of the Dead Floor 81-90. Had a BLM who had no idea how to BLM at all. For the first few monsters, they would cast Flare, at 100% MP AND without Astral. Told them not to do that and they stopped doing it. From then on, their rotation was mostly Fire III spam, Blizzard III spam and maybe Thunder II spam. I wanted to say something, but... it's late and I just did not have the energy to call them out on their badness.

He's had two tiers to learn the basic level 60 rotation (I'm assuming he started at Floor 51, rather than learn the class from the ground up) and instead chose to stick with a level 38 newbie rotation without even looking at his other abilities, nor watching what the other BLM (me) was doing.

[dragonseth07]

Just now, Palace of the Dead Floor 81-90. Had a BLM who had no idea how to BLM at all. For the first few monsters, they would cast Flare, at 100% MP AND without Astral. Told them not to do that and they stopped doing it. From then on, their rotation was mostly Fire III spam, Blizzard III spam and maybe Thunder II spam. I wanted to say something, but... it's late and I just did not have the energy to call them out on their badness.

He's had two tiers to learn the basic level 60 rotation (I'm assuming he started at Floor 51, rather than learn the class from the ground up) and instead chose to stick with a level 38 newbie rotation without even looking at his other abilities, nor watching what the other BLM (me) was doing.

He's probably sub level 40 in the main game, and couldn't figure out how high level BLM plays just from PotD. It's hectic and fast-paced in there.

[KohnaGreystone]

What I do in this Case ... Vote Kick, directly, without Hesistation, even telling that Gladiator to "Git gud". Seriously...
In my Opinion this is even Harassement and Hindering the Gameplay of other Players because Gladiator exactly knows this on his own.

Quite Funny, this is not a single case, last Week I encountered two Lv.60 Players with no Job Stone. Justice happened that's all I can say.
If Players hover around Lv.60 and are DPS Classes and pull of 200-300 DPS, this just a No-Go.

I dunno why we're giving this guy such a hard time, he made it to a12 without a job stone...

On that note,
I tried this out myself and I'd like to let you all know that no job stone isn't as hard as it sounds. In fact, it's more fun imho. Raging Strikes + B4B + Straight Shot + Internal Release + Berserk on a marauder is like a godsend.

[Mysterysword]

I can dodge everything in A12, everything, except the absolutely unavoidable things like Mega Holy and Temporal Stasis. My #1 cause of death in A12 today: Mega Holy after getting hit with Blazing Scourge, or a Temporal Stasis, and I would've survived Mega Holy if not for the fact that I received no heals after the aforementioned unavoidable attacks. Or healers trying to rely on AoE heals to cover it, but said heals, more often than not, don't reach me because I'm a BLM.

It's also nice how Manaward will actually protect me from most of these attacks as well, but it sucks how long a CD time it has.

Highlights from A12:

- Running to the side to dodge Gravitational Anomaly, and then dying to tankbuster because the tank turned him right in my direction.
- Going into Temporal Stasis while watching Alexander Prime at 1% HP, then right afterwards killing him with a Swiftcast Blizzard IV while on the run.
- All the BRDs who refused to sing Foe Requiem, even in DPS check phases. In fact, there was a BRD who had Mage's Ballad up, throughout every DPS check there was. With 2 BLMs in the party. Watch us cri everytiem.

Despite all that, finally won the last shaft I need for the casting coat.

[HyoMinPark]

After doing some grinds for the new relic step (already 30/50 and hoping to finish today or tomorrow), started on floors 51-100 for PotD. Got an awesome group for 51-60. And we got so many rages, we were able to rage almost every floor! XD it was great! Having a lot of fun today!

Also had great groups in my roulettes I did before they reset. Everyone is full of positive energy it seems! (At least, the people I run into!)

[Maerwen]

I know that a lot of the stories we get in here are people picking on sprouts, or others defending them, but this guy simply wasn't pulling his weight. I feel bad we didn't get his clear for him, but for a fight like Charibert, everyone in the party needs to give it their all, especially if they're not synced. I didn't check the guy's gear, so I honestly don't know if that was a factor or not.

Chances are, it might be his gears. I run Vault as either one of 3 healer class and I don't DPS during Charibert fight if party taking too much damage and we don't wipe.

[lvlagmarink]

On that note,
I tried this out myself and I'd like to let you all know that no job stone isn't as hard as it sounds. In fact, it's more fun imho. Raging Strikes + B4B + Straight Shot + Internal Release + Berserk on a marauder is like a godsend. dat fell cleave tho

You should also take note that the gladiator doesn't have any other classes unlocked, which means he lacks cross class skills.. it's really a self-imposed challenge

[Jpec07]

Cross-posting from the Tanking Horror Stories thread. So this is one that taps on the fears that a lot of nervous tanks entertain.

I'm extremely late to the party when it comes to Weeping City of Mhach. With my FC, we basically skipped most of the 3.3 casual progression because none of us really liked the gear, and real world things kept us away. Now, though, we're playing and very much enjoying 3.4--and we all agreed that Weeping City was worth at least trying for glamour (the gear is very pretty).

We've run it a few times with varying degrees of success, namely because even this late in the game, some people still don't know the mechanics (to be fair, we didn't fully understand them ourselves from MTQCapture's guides until we actually experienced them). After four clears, I decided to try main tanking it. Neither of the other tanks in the group seemed to mind this development, and so we went through the raid. Arachne Eve goes down without a hitch. A few people die on Forgall, but we recover and get it in one shot. Ozma is the smoothest time I've faced that encounter. And then we get to Calofisteri.

Calofisteri, for those who might not have fought her, is a very challenging boss to tank--not because of damage, but because group success hinges on your every decision and move as a tank. Because of Haircut, it's best not to move her around, and while some strats say to turn that side of her away from the raid, that sort of thing puts even more pressure on the tank.

As we approach the fight, people begin discussing the mechanics for the new people. It comes up to see if I should tank it, and people give me their confidence, because we'd gotten through the first three bosses with ease. I'm effectively volunteered on a vote of confidence. And so after a ready check, I countdown and begin. Because of Haircut, I know to keep her in place, and to face her the same direction, so for the first part of the fight, I keep her in the middle, facing due north. Some people are hit by Haircut, but this is on them--the boss is not moving. Everything seems to be going fine.

Until she does her first Depth Charge.

For some reason, my brain lapsed over this mechanic, and I made the rookie mistake of running to her, instead of pulling her back to the center and pointing her north again. But by the time I realize it, she's against the wall, and she's in the phase where she starts casting Haircut again. I do my best to keep her facing one way, and to not move her, but then her bulb AoEs go out. I move to avoid, not realizing she was going to cast Haircut again, and I immediately see the entire platform light up in that telltale orange.

I screamed several profanities in real life, and apologized immediately for my mistake.

And then the group began to tear into me. It wasn't directly at me, but several comments went out about "crappy tanks" and "never had a run like this," and "now what did we learn, folks?". I didn't keep the chat log, but the passive aggressive berating was on a level I haven't seen since I quit WoW. It frankly left me on the verge of tears.

I dropped group, left the game, shut down my computer, and spent the rest of the night a blubbering mess, because I'd messed up, and my single mistake had caused the group to wipe. And playing on my anxiety, they hated me for it. It was the first time since I tanked my first dungeon in WoW that I ever considered putting down the shield and never tanking again.

I recovered after some conversations with friends and a good night's sleep, and I've read quite a few guides on tanking the encounter after the fact, so I've got my confidence back, but that experience jarred me.

Not asking for pity with this, as I made a mistake that wiped the raid, but this is what truly qualifies as a tanking horror story in my mind: a group comprised of graceless, tactless members, who express confidence in you, only to betray you by jumping down your throat for making a single critical rookie mistake on a boss you're still learning.

[Taika]

And then the group began to tear into me. It wasn't directly at me, but several comments went out about "crappy tanks" and "never had a run like this," and "now what did we learn, folks?". I didn't keep the chat log, but the passive aggressive berating was on a level I haven't seen since I quit WoW. It frankly left me on the verge of tears.

Hey, thanks for sharing the story and welcome back from your break! It's really awful when you make an honest mistake in a responsible role and then people start shredding you apart. I hope other people would step up in that situation and call out that horrible behaviour. This happens very often in this particular fight and it's never the end of the world. And making mistakes is just a part of gaining experience, learning and becoming a better player! I'm glad you're feeling better now and I hope you'll be back tanking the fight in no time.