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

[KaivaC]

Let me preface this by saying the party I had in Sirensong sea was great - I really don't have any complaints with the party and I would love to queue up with you again.

That being said, if you try to check me, make sure you have your facts right first. I'm a Xaela - I bite. xD
So, entered this duty as a PLD, had a WHM, BRD, and I believe a NIN with us. Everything is going pretty well past the second boss. After we deal with the undead adds immediately after the second boss, I decide to just pull the final three enemies (I'd been switching between light and moderate pulls because the BRD was new). Got the two dogs and the phantom thingy on me, and the WHM does what they do for mobs and Holy spams the hell out of the group.

Problem is...that one attack the phantom does that sleeps everyone. At this point, because of the Holy spam, the phantom is now immune to stun. I try anyways and see that the phantom just ignores my shield bash. Then I get slept. Then comes the AOE, which puts me under 3k HP. The next auto-attack kills me.

While I'm making my way back, the NIN tells me I should've stunned him.

-_-

Really? Like we didn't just see the WHM go Holy nuking the adds?

Other than that, fun run. Just that tiny bit of annoyance, which is gone now that I've posted

[Kakiko]

I had an ..interesting.. Skalla run tonight wherein I used the vote dismiss function for the first time. Normally, I can ignore when people get uppity, but I don't take kindly to being insulted.

I queue for Expert Roulette and, of course, it gives me Skalla. Warrior, RDM, WHM, and me on BLM. I'm getting to like Skalla, given how many times you get thrown into it, and I'm getting pretty familiar and decent with the run. I'm confident with it and I feel I do well. I admit that I do parse to make sure I'm keeping up with everyone else and to try to continually improve. I don't care what someone else is doing, just my numbers.

So, we all say hi and we start. Tank runs ahead towards that first pack and RDM and I follow. WHM follows up until that little corner before the stairs and they run towards the corner, sheath their weapon and stand there. O...kay. Tank, at now 60% health, takes the pack up the stairs to the next group (maybe not seeing that the healer wasn't with us?). RDM and I follow. Swiftcast - Thun 4 from me and I start into my aoe rotation. I'm looking at my numbers and I'm seeing 4-4.5k. Not bad, I'm happy. Healer finally runs up the stairs, no apology, and then fairly promptly dies.O_O o..kay.

We finish that pack while the healer is returning and move to the next one. I abstain from aoeing until tank has all the flappy flaps because I don't want to pull aggro. I thought tank had everything, but they missed one which aggro'd to me. No biggie. I run towards tank to try to get it off me. Meanwhile, RDM is using Scatter while I'm doing my aoe rotation and avoiding the line aoes underneath me. I do not get hit by them.

WHM runs up, to the side, I think sent out a heal or two to the tank and then [i]sheathed their weapon and stood there. This was what was posted in chat:


We made good time from start of the dungeon to the pack before Kelpie, which is when the healer put that into chat. Kinda rude but.. RDM didn't respond to it and I can see them using Scatter, plus things are dying pretty quickly.

WHM then runs ahead to the boss while we run behind. Tank grabs Kelpie and WHM sheaths weapon again and stands there. I go into my rotation, not entirely noticing what WHM is doing other than I'm noticing them sheath again and turn away from the boss while the tank's health is depleting. RDM and I get hit with the target and successful move to corners to drop the puddles. We handle the push/pull mechanic well because of it but somehow the RDM did die, not sure how. WHM swiftcast+Raises them, I think sent out a few Cure 2s, and then sheathed again. RDM and I again get targeted for the puddles but this time we flubbed and went towards the same corner without enough time to correct. Not a big deal since WHM can top us up - except they don't. Kelpie casts Pull, I get thrown to the side by the puddle aoe that we improperly placed, survive the Pull mechanic, and am expecting to see some sort of aoe heal go out since we're all suffering..and nope. Torpedo - and I die just after getting off a Foul and RDM (I think) managing to kill boss. Fun. Ok. I return to start point since WHM is making no move to Raise and we're close enough to the beginning that it's not worth taking weakness.

This is what follows in chat:


We've moved past Kelpie and into the trash packs with the hands. That first pack where the first chest is? WHM runs up to the corner, stands there, sheaths weapon again and that's when the chat starts. I'm doing my aoe rotation and it does not include spamming fire 2 and flare (although both are part of the rotation). I tried my aoe rotation and the one the healer suggested (fire 2 spam and convert; no idea how they expect me to regenerate mana that way?) and not so surprisingly, mine did twice as much damage and didn't have the downtime. I started the vote to dismiss and it passed just as tank pulled and of course, he dies. Tank gets salty, RDM apologize, and I say I'm not sorry but by that time tank had left and we had a new healer.

I can't decide if we were being trolled (both tank and healer were from the same server, but I'm not sure if they were in the same FC as I can't find the tank through the lodestone) or we just got a really awful player. Definitely soured my mood for a bit, but after that we got a good tank and competent healer.

[Urthdigger]

I got a Doma Castle on SAM and got a DRK who just could not keep hate at all. Their gear was a little underleveled and they began by trying a large pull and promptly dying. Afterwards they stuck to small pulls, but they lost hate quite easily. This isn't me tooting my own horn, any competent tank has no problem keeping ahead of me, the guy was just that bad. We eventually make it to the first boss where I predictably wind up pulling hate partway through the fight and eating a tankbuster to the face. Third Eye only goes so far. One raise later we continue, and at this point I've gotten a little grumpy.

Tank grabs the mech, I run up to it... and /sit. I just sat there, occasionally moving for AoE, until it hit 80% HP, and only then did I jump in. I eventually swapped to doing the Manderville while I waited instead. I fully admit I was being a dick, but even this barely kept me from tanking the fights myself. Then on the final pull before the second boss he dies, and we have another party wipe.

At this point the tank starts going off on me, saying that monsters need to die faster and it's entirely my fault for dancing off to the side. I inform him that I was doing that to give him a lead, and he just gets more belligerent, yelling that it's up to me to use diversion and manage my own enmity, not his fault. Never mind that Diversion is not Shroud of Saints, it doesn't dump my enmity, it makes attacks deal 50% less enmity for 15 seconds every 2 minutes, AKA only able to stay up 1/8th of the time. It's not a magic pill to fix all my enmity problems.

Anyway, he leaves and we got a better tank who actually enabled me to play to the best of my ability. Yay.

[KaivaC]

snip

Even undergeared, it's not that hard to go into grit, hit unleash twice, spam abyssal drain. Was he in grit? Was he just spamming his dps combo on one enemy?

[Frizze]

-Skalla story-

Its downright uncanny how often the people who are the problem(or at least arent helping with it) are the first to complain. But enough about them. Youve got me curious about your AoE rotation for BLM. Ive played around with a couple variants and read a little of the theorycrafting, but id very much like to hear your version. I tend to use the version that goes Opener(i use a couple different openings depending on the pull and my cooldowns) F2 F2 Flare Flare Trans Foul T4 B4 F3 repeat(sometimes without the F2s depending on pull size), but im always interested in what other people come up with!

[Zefiris]

My dungeon 2018 started almost all in progress o.o

Leveling: Dzemael Darkhold, first boss. Tank and healer news, perhaps because that other dps quit. Anyway, 1 wipe each boss besides 1 in trash mob (treacherous toads), but we finished dungeon.

Expert: Temple of the First, was between second and final boss. Fast and easy. Perhaps other dps only had dc.

50/60: Stone Vigil HM, was in second boss (need use cannons). Perhaps other dps quit after 1 or 2 wipes, not sure. But we had sucess.

So I go dungeon lv61-69 to Wondrous Tails and catch Sirensong Sea also in progress. Was last pull before first boss. Those 3 people sometimes stopped quiet, but I imagined they were of the same server/FC and were explaining things to healer (new). I never complained and only waited. My patience was rewarded with 2 commendation

[SenorPatty]

Even undergeared, it's not that hard to go into grit, hit unleash twice, spam abyssal drain. Was he in grit? Was he just spamming his dps combo on one enemy?

Most likely.

The common problem I've seen with drks in sb dgns is that I feel they come in with a dps mindset so they focus more on some single target combo leading into bloodspiller than their aoe enmity moves. They'll usually just use maybe one unleash and very rarely AB then they get frustrated at everyone else for ripping hate. They tend to bring up how they used to have no problems keeping it (read: any pre-50 dgn) and soon ragequit or kick.

Some of these drks just fail to realize that every other job have very potent aoe capabilities at that point and it's in their best interest to spam some aoe enmity moves a tad more before going into single target dps.

[Lord_Zlatan]

DRKs that suck stuff

Just started seriously getting into DRK. Only level 60 now, but come on... is anything more fun than plunging into an enemy, hitting unleash, then dark arts + dark passenger and then using blood price to get all ur mp back?

Not sure if the base mechanics change in SB but I've rarely lost hate on anything with that setup

[Avatre]

The common problem I've seen with drks in sb dgns...

I love hitting Unleash once, then going into Dark Arts and Abyssal Drain, after popping Blood Price and Rampart(or Dark Mind/Shadow Wall...whichever isn't on CD), then using Quietus when it is available, and continuing the DA+AD spam until I can't. Also using my other CDs when needed(rarely need to use Living Dead these days since healers seem to be on point with DPS and healing).

...

Typically, Unleash 2-3 times for larger pulls, and the spam of DA+AB for HP recovery. Throw down Salted Earth for DOT puddle, and blood gauge filling(you can fill it quite quickly in large pulls - 2 times usually in pulls of 8+ enemies) along with Blood Price(I always have this on CD if enemies are still alive) and Rampart/Dark Mind/Shadow Wall as needed.


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As for a story, got into Rabanasty last night on my DRK. 42min in progress. Thought I was joining a shit show. Boy was I wrong. They had already started the final boss when I was joining, and the arena had already locked. So I just sat and watched the show(got a few nice screenshots as well). They clear it, open the chests, I get my loot(pants for my NIN), and the weekly clear bonuses. To my surprise...I got a commendation for not doing anything. Easiest Rabanasty run I have had since it was released.

[Kakiko]

*snip*

Well, they were just rude to begin with, but oh well!

As for my aoe, it's one I found on a reddit thread for 4.0 rotations but now I can't find the thread to point you in that direction >.<

Anyway, my whole aoe rotation is: bliz 3, enoch, bliz 4, thun 4, fire 3, fire 2, flare, convert, flare, transpose, repeat (with the exception of convert b/c it'll be on cool down), and using Foul and Thun 4 when they're up (Foul when you're in Umbral ice, of course)

I've used this one for a while, and I've never had anyone say 'hey, try this or that' before (I suppose that's not to say they haven't thought it and just didn't wanna cause a fuss). I'm going to try yours and see if I like it any better. I seem to do okay with this one but if I can improve, I'm more than happy to do so!

Edit: Forgot to ask, what's your opener? Because obviously if I just do F2, F2, Flare, I has no MP left for another flare lol