What makes a good mentor?

[technole]

One who actually doesn't display the sword icon and can be helpful on their own terms.

[Hestzhyen]

Well with this attitude...I don't believe when people asks those questions they are not "stupid"
and even if it's like "CAN'T YOU LOOK IT UP!?" Kinda the reason they have us Mentors.
People wanna socialize instead of reading it off the internet. A lot of people make friends of Novice Chat.
Shows that us mentors care about our newbies and want to help them personally.
That's the whole point of Mentoring.

You also seem defensive towards Lyrai's response and it no way did I see her being condescending or pompous.

I'm not going to derail this into a personal argument so I'll just say my bit and be done with it. I've been told I come across as aggressive when I think I'm being neutral and this is probably one of those times. If I come across as gruff then that's just how it is- but we all come across differently to different people. I've never ate a penalty to abandon a duty even if I hated every moment of it, I try to explain mechanics if people want me to (and never spoil it for people who want a blind first run), and even if I get frustrated I do my best to keep it civil and at worst just ignore the antagonists. Might not be the pinnacle of Mentor behavior but that's as good of a baseline as any I think. If I'm in NN I'll answer some questions too. I'd never be able to be a teacher IRL because they can't just ignore different people asking the same easily-researched questions over and over again, but as a Mentor I can let other people answer if I'm just burnt out from seeing "What's PotD?" for the tenth time in an hour... some people even make macros so they just hit a button to provide an explanation when one of those ultra common questions come up. We can rely on each other, which is nice. I don't think I'd want to be a Mentor if it meant being a lonely beacon for every newbie question under the sun- sometimes I just don't want to feed people answers any more.

To that end, if you're going to put the crown on you should be ready to help. If you aren't feeling particularly helpful, take it off. I've had mine off for the past few days since I've been stressed IRL and didn't feel like being under pressure to guide newbies and answer every question- I haven't been rude, disruptive, or deadweight- just quiet and willing to let them figure things out for themselves. I think a lot of people just put the crown on and leave it there no matter what kind of mood they're in which is how you hear horror stories of sproutlings being traumatized by the people who are supposed to be helping them. You should never be a jerk of course, but if you're not in the position to be a stellar example of the playerbase, then just turn it off. No one expects flawless play or knowledge about every single facet of the game from any one particular mentor, but they do expect to see a role-model for attitude and behaviour. If you can't bring yourself to be a cheerleader or a fount of wisdom then you should probably return to being a regular player for a while.

FWIW I think SE should consider revoking crowns for people who repeatedly set a bad example. It's impossible for them to preemptively vet who's suited for the role and who isn't personality-wise, but they can certainly revoke the status and access to the Mentor-specific awards if there are enough complaints about a person's behaviour.

[Avatre]

One who actually doesn't display the sword icon and can be helpful on their own terms.

This.

The only time I display it(since I believe it's automatic...I have my name hidden on my end so don't see it anyways) is during Mentor Roulette.
I will always offer help if people ask(and I can type it faster than others) when asked, but if nobody asks, then I won't say anything because you never know if they want to run it blind or not. Only exception, is multiple wipes to the same thing.

[LineageRazor]

Gonna have to disagree. You have no business teaching about something if you don't know what you're doing, good attitude or no. Obviously good attitude and good aptitude are ideal but I'd rather take the stoic, frigid teacher that is giving me accurate information over the smily cheerleader one that's hit or miss with their advice.

Coldness is not the problem, it's impatience. Too many mentors give up on a group as "unteachable" FAR TOO SOON. A mentor needs to be supportive, never bail on a group regardless of how "hopeless" they might seem to be. A mentor who doesn't know the fight isn't going to be any worse than one that leaves outright after a wipe or two. At least, as long as they're aware of their lack of knowledge and doesn't try to pretend that they know it when they don't.

[ilea]

Mainly, I think a good mentor is somebody who knows when it's time to put on the crown and when to take it off. You don't queue into Mentor Roulette if you're not ready to offer explanations or be patient. You also don't let yourself get spoiled by easy guildhest runs, and then pitch a fit if you happen to get Shiva EX.

IMO the most important quality a mentor should have is letting people make mistakes. Given how most of us are veterans of the current content, it's easy to want to bombard sprouts with mechanics or tips as soon as you load in. Unless someone asks, though, you really should let them experience the mechanics on their own for the first time.

There was a Garuda EX run I had where the other healer ditched after 4-5 wipes. Everybody else (I think 5 others were new) stayed, and I did my best to explain where we were failing while waiting on a new healer. Everybody got their clear on the next pull, and I think seeing their excitement outweighed the frustration.

[SuperZay]

I have a mentor mount and let me tell you, this game has so much anti-mentor mechanics. You can explain the fight however you want, but you can not teach people to dodge landslides and not fall off in Titan Ex. You can not teach undergeared people to do high dps in strict dps checks in Urth's Gift when the boss casts Shin-Zanetsuken. You can not teach foreign players to understand basic English (ok, this one is Chaos DC specifics). So many times when you have little to no influence on result. Thanks god we didn't get Savage raids in mentor roulette, and adding trials like Ramuh Ex was a mistake already, they are not puggable, they are not clearable, it's a static difficulty content if it's not unsynched.

[Catwho]

Long time mentor here (1.0 and alpha tester... I hit mentor status within a day or so of it being introduced.)

A good mentor pays attention to the party, watches and observes, and tries to help people figure stuff out on their own before intervening. Good mentors also immediately own up to their own mistakes, and laugh off mistakes in lower level content if someone oopsied and failed a mechanic (thinking of stuff like the Doom squares in baby Temple of Qarn.)

A bad mentor will not really make any attempt to teach or coach, but will yell at people for mistakes that seem obvious to a veteran but are still new to a sprout.

A good mentor seriously acts like they are an ambassador for the game, doing their best to present the helpful and friendly part of the community. Bad mentors almost seem to be willing to deliberately chase new players off.

I seriously love coaching a willing, brand new player through a dungeon or a fight. If I can show how much fun I'm having, I hope that it encourages the new people to stick around for a long time.

[Paladinleeds]

5.3k character message incoming

I must say, pre-SB, I did a mentor roulette where I had to kick one of the tanks. The reason being: They were warrior, and had not levelled gladiator up beyond 15 for the job stone, so didn't have Provoke. There were tank swap mechanics involved. We had about 7 attempts before we realised without them having provoke we were going nowhere with the fight.

I ended up initiating a vote kick, but before I did, I explained to level gladiator to 22 for provoke, since they will need this as a tank. That without it, people will rage at them, and they won't give them advice and support like I did. I felt so bad for vote kicking them, but there were other newbies wanting to progress. That being said, Stormblood fixes this bullhockey, since for the stuff where that'll be needed, you're given access to all your role skills, and you can swap them out for the fight as needed.

So I would add, have a basic rudimentary knowledge of all classes. You don't need to have top tier DPS with them all, but understand the basic gimmicks of the job (such as form shifting for MNK, mudra for NIN, ice/fire shifting for BLM, etc). Use this to help guide people to get their knowledge down of the job and help learn how to play it. For example, this will help with the fabled "ice mage" I hear about but have yet to see. Because Umbral Ice gives back mana, they understandably think to stay in that so they never run out of mana. Not the right way to play, but I can understand why they come to the deduction that they do. So I'd help them understand.

IMO the most important quality a mentor should have is letting people make mistakes. Given how most of us are veterans of the current content, it's easy to want to bombard sprouts with mechanics or tips as soon as you load in. Unless someone asks, though, you really should let them experience the mechanics on their own for the first time.

As a kinaesthetic learner myself, I do believe in letting people have at least one go at it blind. I'll say "Alright, let's give it a try, I'll cover any missed ground after". I believe that trying to do things blind (at least at first), is great, as it helps commit it to memory. But I might just be basing that off my learning style too much. Of course, if someone is really struggling, I'll watch their performance in more detail and help pick out their mistakes and how to learn from them. But I won't be condescending about it, I'll feed everything as suggestions in a "Have you tried this?" manner. I find they more often than not garner a positive response, because you're leaving them feeling in control.

I have a mentor mount and let me tell you, this game has so much anti-mentor mechanics. You can explain the fight however you want, but you can not teach people to dodge landslides and not fall off in Titan Ex. You can not teach undergeared people to do high dps in strict dps checks in Urth's Gift when the boss casts Shin-Zanetsuken. You can not teach foreign players to understand basic English (ok, this one is Chaos DC specifics). So many times when you have little to no influence on result. Thanks god we didn't get Savage raids in mentor roulette, and adding trials like Ramuh Ex was a mistake already, they are not puggable, they are not clearable, it's a static difficulty content if it's not unsynched.

I want to get Ramuh Ex in Mentor Roulette. I want stuff that challenges me. But I still would consider Ramuh Ex puggable. They were designed to be puggable. Savage and Coils however were considered the content for statics. Hence they don't appear in roulette. But I do feel they need to incentivise running those synced, though I digress here.

That being said:

• You can help make it easier for people to be aware of landslides and to move out of them (you can even use Rescue if needed to give them that extra nudge, as a healer).
• The high DPS check of Zanketsun-Shin... well the tanks can go into their DPS stance, healers can pump out DPS, etc. Since there's no damage to tank or heal, they can help push out the numbers. Sure, the DPS should be pushing their numbers, but at the same time, this can help even out the playing field a little. I do agree though, that the ilvl is too low for Urth's Fount. I think a bit like Gordias Savage, it was slightly overtuned.
• For foreign players, my stance is to use Bing Translate (where possible). Now if they're using a language where the character set isn't available in game (such as Arabic), then I'm at a loss. For those, I'll try my best, possibly set up a temporary Discord for it (which does support Arabic), and communicate stuff that way.

A good mentor pays attention to the party, watches and observes, and tries to help people figure stuff out on their own before intervening. Good mentors also immediately own up to their own mistakes, and laugh off mistakes in lower level content if someone oopsied and failed a mechanic (thinking of stuff like the Doom squares in baby Temple of Qarn.)

A good mentor seriously acts like they are an ambassador for the game, doing their best to present the helpful and friendly part of the community.

Yep. Even when the crown isn't on, I will try to be a force for good. It can be frustrating though when there's zero progress being made, and I think that's tied in to my Myers-Briggs personality type (Architect, aka INTJ). I do my best to work around it, but I also make sure I know my limitations. That being said, I will try to phrase things in a positive helpful manner. And I will psyche and rally people up to hit their own IRL limit break.