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

[Tridus]

In that context though: what the hell is it with people being so undergeard lately?! Or is it just my/our bad luck?
Me and a friend did 50/60 roulette today - got KoL, hes on his paladin, I'm (still) a samurai. We get a scholar (level 55) and a RDM (level 60, with samurai at 70) - I examine both, as a main tank I've made that a habit so I know

Alliance roulette has made it easier to get from 50-60 and 60-70 without running other stuff in between, which seems to have had the side effect of people getting fewer dungeon drops along the way. I've seen it too. It's frustrating since a vendor will give you what you need really easily.

[Kakiko]

Two stories, and sorry for the wall of text.

On the topic of gear:
I landed in The Vault yesterday morning through roulette on my DRK. Greeeaaat. *sigh* Anyway, things were going well until the first boss and both the WHM and I kinda flubbed up the orbs. She had the marker on her as well and we were too close to each other and the orbs and.. die. No biggie. We come back, blaze through that boss and I happened to say in chat "everything in here hits like a truck." One of the DPS in the group says something to the tune of "everything hits like a truck when you're in Ironworks gear. You should have better gear by now."

My tank has all augmented ironworks on. I looked at the lvl 58 gear, but the vitality stat dropped significantly on it. Maybe I was mistaken though? I mentioned to the DPS that I was told this was the best gear until lvl 60, and that I'd been told the same for BLM to which the DPS said "tanks are different." True. And I'm still learning. They said their friend went through the Vault in Ironworks and "it was a struggle the entire way." I said we'll just see what happens then!

The rest of the instance went by easily. I did smaller pulls through that hallway because of my gear and because healing in there can suck, but we made it through to Charibert unscathed. No one even died on Charibert (that I can remember). DPS left quickly, I comm'd the healer and I ended up with 2 comms myself.

I went to Idyllshire and checked out the goblin vendor for the lvl 58 gear. I bought it all (much to my purse's dismay!) and went to select "Recommended Gear" and... no changes recommended. Even though the lvl 58 had higher defense, and a higher ilvl, the system still suggests my Augmented Ironworks?

Is this accurate or should I, in this case, ignore the Recommended button and use the lvl 58 gear?

On the topic of this thread, though:

I log in this morning (early morning, like 7 a.m. b/c my sleep schedule is weird and I slept all day yesterday) and decide to get something to eat and then maybe do my Expert roulette for the day.

I get into Ala Mhigo and see that level sync notice (sigh). Oh well. It'll be an easy run.

Group consisted of PLD, AST, DRG and me on BLM. We wipe on the first pull. No idea how, but all of a sudden I notice that every enemy is locked onto me and everyone's dead. Then I die. Hm. Ok. Try again. We survive and make it through to the Scorpion boss. I've been toying around with his tail target thing; choosing to just stand in place until I see it lock down and then I'll move, rather than kite it around. So I did that several times and we burn through him quickly.

The next area, the hallway leading to the steps, courtyard, and the other steps, with the gorillas and the dogs is next. The tank does an odd pull; rather than breaking it up into 3 pulls, he does two but doesn't bring the dogs or first gorillas into the courtyard, but stays on those steps. Which means I'm dodging the aoes everywhere and as BLM that makes me sad lol No one died, and we burned through them fast. I'm doing my aoe rotation, same one I was doing when I got insulted by the healer in Skalla the other week and my parser (for my own benefit) is showing 4k.. in Ala Mhigo.. with the lvl sync..

We get to the creepy boss and all goes well until I unfortunately die. Healer and I overlapped our markers and when I tried to reposition, I was on top of the aoe the boss threw out when it disappeared and my marker disappeared. Dead. No biggie. Get brought back asap but we're not going through this boss quickly. It's taking about twice as long. He gets to 4%, I see the DRG dead, not sure if AST has swiftcast off cool down so I LB the boss and that takes care of him. Everything else is fine until the final boss.

Just before the boss even puts those swords down both the DRG and the AST are dead. It's just the tank (Paladin) and myself. I'm totally expecting a wipe here, but I focus on the swords and I'm using manaward when it comes off cool down, potions when it's available, and the PLD is using Clemency. Get the boss to down and I LB2 it and voila - we beat him. Just the two of us.

Definitely heart-pounding moments and I walked away with all 3 comms from everyone on different servers.

[Avatre]

Just before the boss even puts those swords down both the DRG and the AST are dead. It's just the tank (Paladin) and myself. I'm totally expecting a wipe here, but I focus on the swords and I'm using manaward when it comes off cool down, potions when it's available, and the PLD is using Clemency. Get the boss to down and I LB2 it and voila - we beat him. Just the two of us.

Had a similar thing happen when I was still maining DRG. SCH and other DPS died, so it was just me on DRG and the PLD killing him. Cleared it, and got two comms(SCH and I queued up together), while PLD got my comm.

[Tridus]

Two stories, and sorry for the wall of text.

On the topic of gear:
I landed in The Vault yesterday morning through roulette on my DRK. Greeeaaat. *sigh* Anyway, things were going well until the first boss and both the WHM and I kinda flubbed up the orbs. She had the marker on her as well and we were too close to each other and the orbs and.. die. No biggie. We come back, blaze through that boss and I happened to say in chat "everything in here hits like a truck." One of the DPS in the group says something to the tune of "everything hits like a truck when you're in Ironworks gear. You should have better gear by now."

My tank has all augmented ironworks on. I looked at the lvl 58 gear, but the vitality stat dropped significantly on it. Maybe I was mistaken though? I mentioned to the DPS that I was told this was the best gear until lvl 60, and that I'd been told the same for BLM to which the DPS said "tanks are different." True. And I'm still learning. They said their friend went through the Vault in Ironworks and "it was a struggle the entire way." I said we'll just see what happens then!

The stuff that drops in the Aery at 55 can be upgrades on Augmented Ironworks. The chest for example has more defense and more VIT. At that point they're not huge differences (like 10 defense and 1 VIT).

Anything from the Vault at 57 is likely an easy upgrade. The chest has 230 defense, which when the ironworks has 167ish is a huge increase. That matters far more on tanks than anyone else because tanks are getting hit a lot more often. It's the same deal with the level 58 vendor white gear, except it has less VIT while having far more defense than Ironworks. But the 4 vit is a bad trade for 60 defense at that level. Recommended gear seems to ignore defense entirely which is why it doesn't pick that up.

Anyone who tells you that Ironworks is the best gear until 60 is wrong. It's the best gear until 55 and drops off after that into kinda sorta adequate by 59. It's even more pronounced in Stormblood. Tanks that wear the 260 Shire gear into Doma Castle and Castrum Abania are making life a lot harder on their healers than someone who got drops out of Bardams or visited the vendors.

[Avatre]

Anyone who tells you that Ironworks is the best gear until 60 is wrong. It's the best gear until 55 and drops off after that into kinda sorta adequate by 59. It's even more pronounced in Stormblood. Tanks that wear the 260 Shire gear into Doma Castle and Castrum Abania are making life a lot harder on their healers than someone who got drops out of Bardams or visited the vendors.

The augmented Ironworks/Shire gears might not be best, but they can still carry you to 60/70 if you are using your toolkit well. And that's from experience with bad luck on roulette dungeons(usually dungeons WAY below my level), bad luck with RNG, and not always having gil to spend on new gears(don't craft, don't really hunt much, or do maps)

[SenorPatty]

The augmented Ironworks/Shire gears might not be best, but they can still carry you to 60/70 if you are using your toolkit well. And that's from experience with bad luck on roulette dungeons(usually dungeons WAY below my level), bad luck with RNG, and not always having gil to spend on new gears(don't craft, don't really hunt much, or do maps)

If you're gonna stick to shire gear till level 70, then please do the playerbase a favor and stick to lvling in siren/shisui. Anything further afterwards is purposefully asking other people to pick up the slack.

[Avatre]

If you're gonna stick to shire gear till level 70, then please do the playerbase a favor and stick to lvling in siren/shisui. Anything further afterwards is purposefully asking other people to pick up the slack.

Tanked, and healed, Doma and Castrum in 90% Augmented Shire. Smooth runs throughout.

[Kakiko]

Thank you for the replies! I haven't gone into the Aery yet as tank; I'm still definitely dealing with tank anxiety and whether I'm doing well or not, but I'll go into it today. Like I said, I bought the lvl 58 stuff from the goblin trader in Idyllshire and the defense is much higher, but the VIT is a bit lower. Is it worth it to keep that stuff or focus on farming the Aery? I also have the chest piece from The Vault.

[ChaoticCrimson]

I mean, you could run Doma and Castrum with Augmented Shire gear, but why would you? You could at least run Bardham a few times first and get some upgrades, and there's plenty of vendor gear. That's not even to speak of the gear that the story tosses you, too. You're really just inconveniencing yourself not taking advantage of all those resources, but to each their own I suppose. Beyond those points, all I can say is you probably won't win any popularity contests with your fellow party members if you jump in undergeared.

[Avatre]

I mean, you could run Doma and Castrum with Augmented Shire gear, but why would you? You could at least run Bardham a few times first and get some upgrades, and there's plenty of vendor gear. That's not even to speak of the gear that the story tosses you, too. You're really just inconveniencing yourself not taking advantage of all those resources, but to each their own I suppose. Beyond those points, all I can say is you probably won't win any popularity contests with your fellow party members if you jump in undergeared.

Commendations, and smooth runs, always speak for themselves. But again, I will state it requires good use of your entire toolkit and knowing when to adjust what you are doing.