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

[Otaru]

I have finally experienced what might have been the worst Castrum Meridianum run I've ever had, especially as a healer.

My bf just hit 50 on an alt, which meant time to run the two worst dungeons ever thanks to the constant cutscenes. Things started off fine, usual major pull to first boss, only the tank decided to pull all the way in to include the boss. That's fine, it wasn't too bad since it was easily burned through (even if his stop outside the boss room made me waste Shadowflare, but whatever, I'm used to tanks doing the stop and go between big pulls the instant people place down ground-based aoes like Shadowflare and Doton).

To keep from making this too long, the pulls following were a mess for various reasons (unable to heal because mobs weren't properly rounded up + all the aoe, just mobs all over the place because one tank decided to try and make one pull faster but died for it thus making that a waste of time, etc). And then there was the last bit with Livia.

One of the tanks started the fight before the outside mobs could be killed, while the other tank pulled said mobs all inside the area. Which they then pulled said mobs all over the place trying to load missiles, causing cannons to be destroyed and pushing the use of them back.

I've had the typical messy early morning CM run, and this one was far from being the typical messy early morning CM run. It really felt like this was a first time run for everyone there, and I would have understood if there were multiple newbies in the group, but there was only one person with the newbie bonus (as I only saw the bf get caught a bit longer in cutscenes due to having to manually skip them compared to everyone else who was in and out of the cutscenes immediately). And while I understand wanting to make the run go faster, all the pulls that were made in hopes of doing so only slowed everything down, especially at the end where those cannons are pretty much needed to progress the fight.

I have never left a dungeon faster than I did after it was completed. I can at least say the Praetorium run we had after went better, even if I did feel bad for the DRG that was constantly stuck in a cutscene and barely made it to experience some of the Ultima fight. I just would never wish that CM run on my least favorite person.

[mahariel]

During Stone Vigil (Hard), I accidentally miss-clicked my shadowflare on SCH and placed it entirely away from the mobs... and our tank moved the pull into it when they noticed. It was a really cute gesture.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

How I wish people would actually listen to advice.

Doing Shinryu EX with a friend the other day on healers as we both wanted practice, I told the tanks (PLD and DRK) no less than five times to Share/Hallowed/Living the respective Ark Morns. Did they? Nope. They either panic popped them at the slightest bit of damage or the PLD kept taking one without a single CD. At one point, we actually made a little progress through sheer luck but the DRK took aggro because he kept going into Grit despite being the OT. His reasoning? "I'm scared." Now I don't want to be too harsh since it was a practice party and I went in with no expectations but why can't people listen when you explain mechanics? Lord knows how many times I had to tell the DPS to get into puddles for Hellfire/Hypernova. Ironically, the one who failed it most often wasn't new to the fight be any means. I was in a "third phase" party with them. It was as you might expect...

[ChaoticCrimson]

Why use swiftcast? Just use the dualcsst proc to raise since swiftcast pushes back your dualcast rotation by 1gcd anyway, so it's not a gain.

Ah, well I'm still getting the hang of being in content where I can make use of Veraise. But I will definitely keep that in mind, thanks!

[Avatre]

Ah, well I'm still getting the hang of being in content where I can make use of Veraise. But I will definitely keep that in mind, thanks!

For my RDM, I actually took Swiftcast off my role skills since I found it pointless. The only time I would potentially need it is in 8/24man content where healers/most of the group are down. But at that point, the tank is usually getting slammed around, so I tend to throw the Vercure onto them, and raise a healer/help healers raise others with Dualcast Verraise.

[ChaoticCrimson]

For my RDM, I actually took Swiftcast off my role skills since I found it pointless. The only time I would potentially need it is in 8/24man content where healers/most of the group are down. But at that point, the tank is usually getting slammed around, so I tend to throw the Vercure onto them, and raise a healer/help healers raise others with Dualcast Verraise.

I have no experience as a healer (haven't even unlocked any of the classes yet...), so it's definitely been an adjustment for me since I got those spells lol. Getting into EX Primals and Omega Savage and doing learning parties is definitely proving to be good practice for using those skills for the party, though. I'll get the hang of it all eventually! Getting hands-on experience at messing stuff up is probably the best way to learn what your weaknesses are, after all :P

[Mhaeric]

Swiftcast has one use for a rdm that I've found: Using pre-pull to eke out a bit of extra front loaded damage in your opener by starting with an accellerated verthinder or veraero letting you squeeze in flche and contre sixteall in the same gcd. It just sits unused otherwise.

[Mhaeric]

That said, I've taken it off my bars since the same can accomplished with a self cast vercure prepull.

[Baalfrog]

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Or you could just hardcast aero/thunder with acceleration and save swiftcast for something else? Need to balance out mana? Swiftcast thunder/aero if you need some. Wanna do some extra dps? Swiftcast, on cooldown for non-dualcasted thunder/aero. Need to move and no dualcast ready? Swiftcast and then cast something. There, a few uses you could get out of it.

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What else do you take then? Most of cross classes are pretty bad. You really shouldn't need both diversion and lucid dreaming at the same time, apoc is only good if you actually use it (and know when to use it), addle is cool and manashift is cool to manashift the bard i guess, surecast is only good if doing Exdeath savage and Shinryu ex. I mean, if you need double aggro dumps and extra cds for your tank, sounds like have the tank is the problem and same can be said with manashift, if you need to use it on cd to healer then you just got a bad healer. But when it comes to dps, Swiftcast increases damage done if used proper, so I think its a good reason to pick it 100% of the time.

[ChaoticCrimson]

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This is all really great input! Though I feel like I've diverted from the main point of the thread towards RDM advice, so I apologize for that. Thanks all the same, though ^_^