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

[KaldeaSahaline]

Last week I needed like 90 tomes to cap. Instead of 2 Experts, I decided to run 3 skallas since I still am hunting the tank gear that I think was removed from the loot tables. When people say that people just "highlight the bad runs" and ignore the good ones, this is for you. This is right after I finished my expert roulette and Hells Lid took 32 minutes because of a NIN you couldn't believe unless I showed it to you. Full i340 and some i350, less than 2k dps overall.

The results are as follows:
Run #1:


Both DPS are approx. 320 ilvl. The healer is approx. i310. Good WHM.

Run #2:


Man, this run really drained me.

All 3 players were approx i330.

Run #3:


SMN was i340. SAM was i300 (weapon and most gear). SCH was i310.

Bonus round:

O6N:


Almost took me as long to clear on normal as it does on Savage...

You're both right. It depends on what your success rate is. If it's 100%, then you optimize for speed.

If it's not 100% (and yes, people do wipe on this stuff), trying to go faster is going to make it go slower.

That math changes between people, it's not something that has a single always correct answer when done in a vaccum. For example: Some people do the pulls between bosses 1 & 2 in Ala Mhigo as one pull. I do them as two, because I've had too many wipes caused by trying to do it as one and it's not a net gain for me.

Well you can still wipe a few times and not, and it still be a net gain. But that's just semantics lol.

As an experienced tank (and mDPS) I'm fairly good at judging ilvl into translated performance. I make mistakes, they almost never lead to wipes though. I can't recall the last time I wiped in a dungeon.

That feel when the drg dps'ing with you won't give you the Eye buff ever even when you hang around him despite being a caster T_T and instead rather give it to the tank who isn't even stance dancing on bosses

It is possible he knew that the tank who was not even stance dancing was doing the most DPS? I mean hell, I know I've asked for tether as a PLD all the time. In my Hells Lid example up above the DRG was giving it to the NIN and I said you're MUCH better off giving it to me. he obliged.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

I'll admit my style for dungeons as Red Mage/Black Mage is a little different.
For Red Mage I'll spam Scatter on mobs - to have largest impact of AOE with as little cool down as possible - and Ill throw in the fancy fencing spells you can fire off <conte? and that other one> - When its single targets ill spam Jolt/(redflower?) - when my mana gauge is 100/100 - I'll go postal with the spin attack which is insane damage to mobs - and if its a beefier monster ill start weaving black/white magic with dual cast. A typical Red Mage behaviorism I tend to "peel away" aggro like crazy off the tank which causes some challenges - if i kick the damage any higher ill end up attracting more attention to myself - but it works - and I don't get any complaints either - I still rank pretty high on the aggro generator behind the Tank so I try to be careful. (Likely due to the heavy ended Crit I melded into my Red Mage/Black Mage)

As a Black Mage ill spam Flare/ThunderIV/III with swiftcast/tripplecast wrapped in appropriately - The Tank these days is ALWAYS MOVING - so dropping anchor (leylines) to start weaving foul/fire IV/Blizz IV - is a waste of effort at best unless I'm sure I'll be there long enough to be worthwhile. So you'll see me go full bore at boss fights. I'm not the most efficient Black Mage..but I get the job done.

That said... Red Mage Arguably is the easiest caster really - and for people to do just fencing doesn't make any sense at all. At full enchanted status they do serious damage....other wise its just a bust. Half the time I wish the fencing skills would be locked out - but there are situations where a weak attack would be worth while at best.

So yeah...totally confused on that.

[Aeilyi]

When your family suddenly shows up at your door without warning to wish you Happy New Year but you're in the middle of a Deltascape V3 run so you had to leave and force quit the game. I'm sorry guys!!! T_T

[AxHell]

I just had the worst Aurum Vale session with my PLD.

So first of all I hate this dungeon and I had terrible memories of it when I played DRK (it was horrible).
So first room to first boss goes well except for that one BRD who wanted me to mass pull ? I said no because mass pulling in this dungeon is a death sentence. But this guy decided to aggro mobs I wanted to aggro, after the pack I aggroed.
Then I decided "Oh you want to play that game ? here let me aggro these ones too !"
He also thought it would be funny to stand behind me when fighting mobs with AOE attacks....I let him die

Anyways, the rest went well, got two comms and blacklisted that annoying person (to stay polite).

Also please...if you're a bard, stop aggroing before tanks do

[VanilleFang]

DO NEW PLAYERS UNDERSTAND MEDICA II?

I don't expect players who are new and level 50 to be experts at their job, but there was something I noticed yesterday...

I did trial roulette to grab the last 10 tomes i need for the week. I ran as WHM and got Big Keep. My cohealer was also WHM and I noticed almost instantly that they didn't have any idea what they were doing. As soon as 2 people took damage they would spam Medica II. They would cast it like 3 times in a row. It was... confusing. They did this though out the fight.

I then ran 50/60 as PLD and got Wander's Palace HM. My hesler was a WHM and they NEVER used Medica II. They would Regen everyone individually instead of just casting Medica II... It was really weird!

Both were sprouts so it's kind of understandable in a way but... It's just so weird.

[PandaMonium]

Yesterday after seeing all these threads about unlocking Balmung, I decided to dust off my Balmung toon to check how it goes on US servers and maybe to come back (I play on J). Logged in, got a "return player" status, queued for a Trial Roulette on WHM, got Steps of Faith. Well, should be a standard run. Zoned in, no one said "hello" or anything apart from some guy from Adamantoise who was mumbling something about Lalafel in his pants. Well... Then there was a 5-min discussion who will go for cannons. No one wanted to. Half of the raid was asking - who will go, another half complained that they wouldn't do that.
After about 6 min into this discussion, I logged off and went back to Belias.
Weird experience, I'd say.

[SeriousxSarcasm]

DO NEW PLAYERS UNDERSTAND MEDICA II? snip

Both were sprouts so it's kind of understandable in a way but... It's just so weird.

Uhh... to be completely honest I feel like most healers I encounter now have no idea what they're doing. My first guess is jump potions. They heal the way I healed when my FC was like "we wanna mount farm! Mandar yer the only one with a healer" (I am SMN main. I did the 30 quest to unlock SCH and never touched it again). And then was expected to jump into ramuh and keep people alive who didn't know mechanics. I just jabbed green buttons and prayed they did something useful. XP But that's in a premade, with friends who very obviously realized I was in the middle of a learning curve. I don't know what excuse these other people have lol, but I don't think they should be making random people suffer with their performance.

[Crysten]

I'm now at the point where the only jobs to get to level 70 are now my tanks and healers. Trying to get WAR to 70 so I can ding into my Byakko's axe.

i200 equipment. SMNs that don't Bane or use DoTs. BLMs that don't use Enochian, the mighty DRG that doesn't use Blood of the Dragon. People that don't AOE on speedpulls but insist you speedpull. Me being top of a parse on bosses. Just a few highlights I've had on the way from 64 to 65.

Every single time I've just bailed on these people and done my beastman dailies during my downtime. I don't regret it for a second. I have an instashing now and I'm going to abuse the hell out of it.

[Iscah]

It's nice when team mates are on the same page as you!

My first time in Sohm Al (Hard), playing as white mage. Both the DPSes went down very suddenly during the first boss fight. Obvious choice is to raise the summoner, get them up to full health and hope they're ready to cast resurrect on the other guy...

Sure enough, a few seconds later the monk has a raise status icon on them.

Everything is back under control. Thankyou summoner!

[SilverObi]

It is possible he knew that the tank who was not even stance dancing was doing the most DPS? I mean hell, I know I've asked for tether as a PLD all the time. In my Hells Lid example up above the DRG was giving it to the NIN and I said you're MUCH better off giving it to me. he obliged.

I was outdpsing everyone in the party by far so no.