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

[LalaRu]

"she" was the ninja dps and did not have any tanks lvled from what I recall. Her husband was the war tank.
Also, pulling big without using CDs is gonna get you blamed just as much.

My point is the tank always under pressure by the party for big pulls. When tank is not confident on that and still have to figure the correct use of skills and cd, will start with smaller pulls and then when s/he gets enough confidence, go all the way. But today, if you pull small, there always is someone 'smart' in party that decide to pull for you everything s/he thinks you had to pull, ending in a chaotic situation with the tank learning nothing because it is likely gone in panic mode and smashing buttons with all that mobs out of aggro.

[Mysterysword]

Sometimes, you run into someone that's just terrible. Like, say, a healer in Expert Roulette, who doesn't have Swiftcast and is wearing an ilvl 195 chestpiece. And left-side ilvl 230 gear.

And it sucks. But then you clear it, get out of there, and say to yourself, "Well, I'm glad I'll never see that person again."

And then the next day, you queue for Expert Roulette again, because you need your daily dose of scriptures, and you land in the exact same dungeon, with that exact same person, in that exact same role, with the exact same gear.

Thanks a ton, DF.

[Synrin]

Did expert, tank gets salty because of an accidental pull, says stupid shit, refuses to tank, the DPS decides they would auto attack this one boss, we kill it, tank decides he would kick the DPS because they weren't replying to their flaming, healer jumps on tank's side, the good DPS gets kicked for not feeding the troll. Please...

[Wyntir]

Did saint moccaine's, trying for glamour pieces, and got a tank that did the smallest pulls he could possibly do. His gear was fine, he just refused to pull anything. Literally all those single pathing monsters between the small mobs? He'd pull it and stop and wait for us to kill it. Every. God. Damn. Time. The one time he did pull 2 mobs together, after he gets it all grouped up, the BLM wanders off to the side to open a chest. He also poped no CDs, so I'm just sitting there spam healing him waiting for the BLM to decide its time to dps. ~.~

[Kallistra]

you land in the exact same dungeon, with that exact same person, in that exact same role, with the exact same gear.

Duty Finder's version of Yahtzee!

[Ignnis]

"she" was the ninja dps and did not have any tanks lvled from what I recall. Her husband was the war tank.
Also, pulling big without using CDs is gonna get you blamed just as much.

They probably think WAR is a bad mass puller because every time they do it it ends in disaster, a bad craftsman always blames their tools.

Also when it comes down to it all tanks can do big pulls, it just depends on the person playing the tank :/ I've maimed WHM for a couple of years and can say that each job is just as capable

[Faliandra]

My point is the tank always under pressure by the party for big pulls. When tank is not confident on that and still have to figure the correct use of skills and cd, will start with smaller pulls and then when s/he gets enough confidence, go all the way. But today, if you pull small, there always is someone 'smart' in party that decide to pull for you everything s/he thinks you had to pull, ending in a chaotic situation with the tank learning nothing because it is likely gone in panic mode and smashing buttons with all that mobs out of aggro.

from my experience, tanks that are insecure about mass pulls are pretty vocal about that. They will simply not pull big or if you ask them to, theyll say "ive never done this before" or "sorry,im not gonna do that".
But this guy went for the biggest pulls possible every single time and was really rushing it and it really seemed like thats what he WANTED to do and just expected me to keep up. Considering that i even tried to give helpful advice and
that we wiped like 3 times, you'd think that the tank could just speak up and say that he would prefer smaller pulls. It's not like they didnt talk at all :/ they also had like 1-2 other classes at 60 already, so they werent *THAT* new.
You'd think that if 2 people who have all classes at 60 with full 270 gear+ savage pieces tell you something you'd at least give it a try or BELIEVE us instead of holding on to their own opinion considering that their way just. didnt. work.
And no, we didnt boast about it to them, i just assume that people check those things out on their own...I do,at least.

They probably think WAR is a bad mass puller because every time they do it it ends in disaster, a bad craftsman always blames their tools.

Also when it comes down to it all tanks can do big pulls, it just depends on the person playing the tank :/ I've maimed WHM for a couple of years and can say that each job is just as capable

yea, i know that and I agree. Theyre all pretty much equally capable but some take more skill than other to pull it off. If I had been there with my WHM, things mightve been different because
a swiftcast -> Holy will prevent the worst due to the stuns while providing damage and knowing theres still the benediction "oh sh*t" button really helps. Even with the squishiest tanks around, my WHM easily pulls some somewhat decent dps.
Try to do the same as AST or SCH though in a lvl 50 dungeon with your limited options, its a lot harder and almost impossible if the tank isnt using dmg mitigating skills. (im open to suggestions...)

[LalaRu]

...But this guy went for the biggest pulls possible every single time and was really rushing it and it really seemed like thats what he WANTED to do

I just had take that inconvenience for a more generic thought about tanks, and yes, if tank isn't playing decently and his attitude is "I play as I want or gtfo", it clearly cannot be helped.

My personal experience as tank is when I am in a duty I don't remember, I do standard pulls in order to get an idea how much pull next time I'll be there, but it is very likely to get in party people in disagreement with my pulling and start doing that ahead for me. I found it just plain rude. And ofc me being kicked out if I decide to let them eat the mobs they pulled. But will not complain about it, just stating being tank requires some nerve and maybe this is one of the reasons there aren't many and dps will eat queues.

[Maerwen]

And then the next day, you queue for Expert Roulette again, because you need your daily dose of scriptures, and you land in the exact same dungeon, with that exact same person, in that exact same role, with the exact same gear.

I was helping my fiance level his BLM in Dusk Vigil at a time (we spam dungeons til we get the current level after using all available roulette). We had a MCH with lvl 35-38 gears. Tough run for me as a healer.

Two hours later, I tank Dusk Vigil for fiance (annoyed as a healer). We got the same mch with same gears.

I kinda giggled at the healer since I understand her pain.

[TruebladeNuke]

I don't often come in here to complain anymore as I've actually had very few runs that would be note worthy enough to post about in here. Just yesterday though, I finally had a run that I'd consider bad enough to at least get me to roll my eyes. It's far from the worst run I've ever had, and I doubt anything will top that Garuda HM run I once talked about in the Healer Horror Stories thread, but this deserves mention.

To set up the story here, me and FC friend of mine agreed to bring a DPS job that's really good about AoE with our PLDs for our next set of light grinding runs for our relics to help cover the fact PLD AoE DPS is almost non-existant. While I was looking at my MNK fists to be my first DPS weapon to i275 (I finished both my SCH and DRK weapons earlier), I took my SMN with instead, being oh so good about spreading poison DOT with Bane and them Deathflares. And so the process began. Then we get to the Expert Roulette we just had yesterday.

We find ourselves in Balsar's Wall with an AST and a BLM as our other companions. "An AST that'll likely be throwing out Balances left and right along with a ton of Flares and Fire IV's from a BLM? This run is gonna melt the enemies so fast." I thought to myself. But when we got to the first pull, I immediately notice that something is off. These mobs... aren't dieing as fast as they could be. Especially considering the gearing of the entire party. So after going through my opening rotation of poison control and getting a Deathflare in, I finally take a quick moment to look at our two random allies. I notice that the AST isn't DPSing. As someone who heals runs myself though with randoms frequently enough, I figure he's probably just gauging how good the tank (my FC mate) is first before deciding how much he can get away with Cleric Stance DPSing. And he must have liked the tanks performance because in later pulls, he got more aggressive about dropping Gravities, especially when my FC tank friend whipped out Hallowed Ground on some of them big pulls. (About 8 seconds of free time for the healer to just pour out DPS, woo!) During the same time I was checking out the AST, I note the BLM's aggro meter is lower then mine. This doesn't mean much at a glance though, as both BLM's and SMN's have access to BRD's "Quelling Strikes" which affects how much aggro we generate. It wasn't until we got the first boss that I finally noticed the problem. It's the BLM. They're playing... sloppy...

During the battle, he/she was attempting to cast Fire IV's with only a single astral fire circling them... ... wat? I may be no BLM main, but I've seen enough BLM mains at work to know that's not optimal. For awhile into the battle, their aggro was even lower then that of the AST, whose stances automatically lower the aggro they generate. I'd swear if the AST was trying any harder on their own DPS output, even he would have remained ahead of the BLM on aggro at almost all times. At this point, it became clear that I'm carrying this BLM on DPS output, as I was always ahead on aggro on literally everything we were blasting. (I didn't notice it at the time, but even my FC PLD buddy was carrying the BLM on DPS output on the bosses. More on that later) So various thoughts started going through my head on why the BLM is lagging behind so much. Was it server lag on his/her end? Trying to have conversations in their LS's and FC chat while fighting? Being intentionally lazy? I'm sure I'll figure it out down the road here.

For the entire rest of the run, it was basically like this. I couldn't help but notice that the BLM was constantly lagging behind on DPS output. But without knowing if they're being intentionally lazy about it or not, I saw no reason to call it out yet. (I know for fact that bad things happen for people at times via lag and what not, and that there ARE just players who have no idea how to put out the full potential of their job) It wasn't until we got to Mr. Sloppy himself that it all became clear. During the mass pull just before the final boss fight, I make a small humor comment about the joy of Hallowed Ground during such pulls and how they allow the healer to just kick back in Cleric Stance for a few seconds and go ham on their DPS output. (Which the AST was silently agreeing with, given the amount of Gravity spells going off) That's when the BLM makes this little comment:

"You don't even need Hallowed for that pull."

Our first thoughts between me and my PLD buddy are that this'll lead to something a little humerous. Even though we had already pulled Ilberd at this point, he takes a quick moment to type back:

"True. But what else am I going to use it for? Emergencies only? It might never get used like that. XD" (Which is true. On runs where I saved Hallowed Ground for emergencies only, I never ended up using it during most runs. What a waste IMO)

It was the reply the BLM made back at this point that led to why I'm making this post here in this thread: "I dunno. Get better at Sword Oath?"

At this point, my smile faded faster then you can say "Mayfly!" and I nearly dropped my controller to call out the BLM's BS for how lazy they've been the entire run and how my back hurts from carrying him/her. But the fight was already under way so I said nothing and continued to put the burn on Ilberd. At this point, the answer was clear. The BLM was looking for a fast carry and clearly being lazy. (The only thing the BLM was doing right was dodging mechanics, which is better than nothing) Lets get into the details here.

Nevermind the fact that said PLD friend IS in Sword Oath against the bosses and tossing out more Gloring Blades and Royal Authorities eh? Augmented with Fight or Flight no less. Nevermind the fact that PLD AoE DPS is lacking to begin with, and so you may as well get more milage out of each Flash by being in Shield Oath during initial mass pulls. Nevermind the fact that after he secured inital hate on the bosses with Shield Oath and about 3-4 swings of Rage of Halone, switches to Sword Oath, and doesn't lose hate the entire rest of the battle in Sword Oath. Nevermind the fact that I'm clearly doing at least 2x the damage on said bosses VS this BLM, who should be pushing out DPS to surpass me in aggro generation with Fire IV's. Nope. Lets just ignore all that and claim the PLD is doing poor DPS even though the BLM is clearly being lazy themselves. And as soon as Ilberd was defeated? Out the door the BLM went in literally 1 second, not even waiting around for the chest drop, clearly commending no one.

My PLD friend just laughs it off by pointing out that after securing initial hate with Shield Oath a few seconds into the battle, he IS switching to Sword Oath and focusing on DPS output with Royal Authorities and Goring Blade and that the Sword Oath icon is clearly displayed in the party menu. After grabbing the loot and me dropping a commend on the AST (Because he was a cool dude by comparsion to the BLM), my PLD buddy says: "If someone told me I was doing more DPS then that BLM on the bosses, I'd willingly believe them." Specifically mentions bosses, because anyone who's mained a PLD knows full well our AoE DPS sucks hard. (Please SE! Give us a spammable AoE attack already!) I did the math about our DPS output in the Battle Log after we got out of the run too, and yes, my PLD friend actually WAS pushing out more DPS on the bosses then the BLM. Do you have any idea how sad it is when a PLD is beating a BLM on DPS output on single target DPS?

This leads to the point I wish to convey. DPS players like that are why fewer and fewer tanks are willing to sign up for the thing that is "Duty Finder" and why the "Adventurer in need" thing is ALWAYS saying "Tank" these days, (I literally haven't even seen it say "Healer" in months now). DPS players like that are a plague to this community, and an insult to any other player who mains the job that they play. Heck, I heard my BLM crying over that BLM, and I'm not even a BLM main! I'm sorry Mr./Ms. "Carry me", but if you can't be bothered to actually try with your own DPS output, you have no right to call out anyone else on their DPS output. My SMN back hurts from carrying you ya know.

Players like that are why I feel it'll be one of the major things that leads to the mass tank exodus come Stormblood. Tank mains who are sick of dealing with players like that will just stop signing up for Duty Finder period come Stormblood (if they haven't already) and will demand gil for their services for AT LEAST the first few months. And I may very well be among them.