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

[Kakiko]

My EB partner and I decided to do Skalla a couple of times to see if I could get my caster coat which I still have never seen drop despite, I'm sure, 100+ runs. It's to the point now that I don't have to move with Kelpie's push/pull (I pop Surecast and never get flung around), I know which aoes I can eat safely and which I need to gtfo of. On the last boss, I know where to stand and when to aetherial manipulate out of the way of his tail or spit moves. I could do this dungeon in my sleep.

We ran the first time, no problems. Partner was tank and we pulled big and everyone kept up. Things melted quickly even though the SAM we had was only just at ilvl based on his gear. I massively outleveled him there and so it was no surprise when my aoe rotation was hitting 10k+. No biggie. He did well and we survived everything easy peasy. Healer kept up (an AST) and fed me Balances and Arrows when they could. They were putting Boles on tank and giving SAM the spears for Crit. Everything went swimmingly.

The second time, we had a RDM and another AST. No one was new. We received no notice saying someone hadn't completed the duty. On the first trash pull, I ran up too quickly and hit leylines too fast and realized then that I was a bit closer (as in, almost right on top) to the pack than I usually like and I had to dodge a few overlapping aoes. I ate one or two single aoes with not a big drop in my health. AST stayed in Noct and shielded, which was fine. Until after that first trash, AST decides to type into chat "Kiko!!! stop standing in aoes!!"

I ate maybe 2 and didn't drop below 50% health in doing so. But, ok. Before the next pack, he types "dammit!" and I thought that was a followup to his previous comment. Whatever. We're not slowing down and I don't have time to keep melting things and typing "I got this." Before Kelpie, he says "one sec" but EB partner didn't see it and I didn't say it in time on VC before he pulled the boss. AST was literally right at the entrance.

AST decided then to just not join the fight and instead keep typing:
"dammit wasn't to you"
"it was to my controller"
"but you took damage"
"you were too close to aoes"

Well now the barrier is up and our healer isn't with us so I'm not about to stop and chat with him while we're a man down. RDM did their best to keep us healed; tank used Clemency on me a couple of times, and I used Drain. Eventually (and longer than usual) we down the boss and I say "it's ok I got this!"

What happened for the rest of the dungeon can only be said to have been done out of spite.

AST pulls a Balance? RDM gets it.
AST pulls Bole. RDM gets it.
AST pulls Arrow. RDM gets it (why?! They have dual cast!)

AST doesn't put out any Aspected Helios.
AST only spam shields me.

The pull leading up to the second boss we do as a giant pull and caster LBs it all. AST figures that out, lays down Earthly Star while tank is trying to gather everything up. Before tank can even begin to move them all to the star, AST types "please get in the circle. It's there for a reason." >.> Tank moves and I LB, easy peasy.

Second boss, I did avoid the aoes. One of the conal aoes though I ate because I knew I could not get to safety in time (I was at the end, at the widest portion and no one was within range of aetherial manipulate because the AST was sticking to the RDM like glue) and so I'm not going to stop my Foul cast to make a futile attempt to run out of the way and get hit anyway. I see AST draw a Balance and gives it to themselves.

This went on the rest of the way. The entire way, I was avoiding 99% of the aoes; I ate one that caused Heavy and (not surprisingly) AST did not Esuna it off me, so I ended up eating another one because I couldn't get out of the way. At the last boss, it got even worse. AST wasn't shielding me except occasionally. They were healing the RDM (who incidentally was eating more tail swipes, and got hit with Confusion, more than I did). I was zipping around the platform when necessary between leylines or aetherial manipulating to safety. I shielded myself when I knew I couldn't make it to safety from the proximity aoe.

I see Balances, Boles, Arrows, Spears, all going to RDM. Not one to tank or myself. Healer is healing Tank, and then just starts spamming Aspected Benefic on me for the shield.

Again, the entire dungeon I tried to avoid all the aoes as best I could (and way more than I usually do; no healer before him has said anything and have simply adjusted with me being moderately immobile and moving only when I 100% have to ((tail swipe, spit attack)) ) but I know that at ilvl 355 (or thereabouts) there are a lot I can safely eat without dropping below 50% health. I moved as much as I could but in the end: I am a black mage. I hate saying "healers adjust" but I'm not ending a Fire 4 or a Foul cast early to avoid an aoe that is going to hit me for 5% of my total health and risk not getting the cast off at all, or having to transpose quickly into UI to reset my enochian timer thus losing Fire 4 uptime. Maybe if I had an Arrow card that would have been easier to do, but they were giving them all to the Red Mage.

The kicker was, this AST has all casters at 70. They play a lvl 70 black mage (although maybe not their main?). Surely then, they knew for sure which cards to give to black mages and how immobile they sometimes are. All of that fuels my belief that their behaviour throughout the rest of the dungeon was out of spite because I wasn't moving constantly like the red mage was (because I can't).

In the end, the Red Mage got both my comm and my partner's comm. I walked out with one comm and...

I got the freaken caster coat. The only time I have (literally) ever seen it drop and it's on that run and I win it with a roll of 66 against another caster.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Skivvy]

Skalla always has the best stories

I see Balances, Boles, Arrows, Spears, all going to RDM. Not one to tank or myself. Healer is healing Tank, and then just starts spamming Aspected Benefic on me for the shield.

I could be mistaken, but this part makes it seem like the AST didn't quite understand their cards or was just being lazy,. Again, I could be wrong - AST and I didn't click well, despite my getting it to 70 - but shouldn't they have been converting a lot of those cards to either Royal Road or Minor Arcana?

[Leadleaf]

well... this is a... wut episode. I'm lvling pld and loaded in Gubal HM. Healer was a lala, and after I pulled the first mobs one of the dps says : "hello sry i will leave because i dont raid with lalas". And proceeded leave. I was like........ wtf?

Based.

I remember last gubal hm I did for my ast anima.. one sam that had happy feet infront of every mob (including cleavers), a blm, and a mentor pld. Managed to see Behemoth's meteor... no big deal, until everyone else died to it including the sam that dash'd immediately after my rescue. Surprised I still managed to salvage a win.

[kidalutz]

Sooo on an alt... doing.... Satasha of all places... healer is mentor, yes a mentor immediately they start facepulling from the new tank who was obviously a new tank makes me have to pinch heal to keep up the tank and the healer because the so called healer just wont stop the entire run... it goes painfully slow... finally beat the boss I gave my com to the tank and I got commed twice. all in all it was a painful lesson in why people get salty over crown wearing mentors.

[Kakiko]

*snip*

If the AST was simply throwing Balances and Arrows to the RDM, or throwing weird things to the tank and myself (like spire to me, and arrow to the tank), then I could possibly see it as an issue of not understanding their cards. But Bole is the one that reduces damage taken by 20% and that one is almost always given to the tank, with a few exceptions (tank already has one and there's a melee in party). I've never given it to ranged (or caster) dps because they shouldn't be taking that much damage to necessitate it.

As for royal roading: Some ASTs do royal road in 4-man but I tend to find that I don't unless I happen to draw a Spire, already have something good held (like Balance), or can't use Minor Arcana so I will RR Spire and then throw up what I have held in my spread assuming it'll be beneficial to everyone. This AST was not royal roading anything. When I say only the RDM was getting cards, I literally mean only the red mage was getting cards.

[Sylvina]

I was in Ex roullete with a friend, we got a random dps and healer who proceeded to pull mobs to the new tank who said she was not ready for them. When we asked them to stop they proceeded to hurl insults and be generally rude. My friend reported the incident, and we left that trash party.

Seriously dps and healers should not be pulling. ever. TANK pulls however much theyre comfortable with.

[Sylvina]

Sooo on an alt... doing.... Satasha of all places... healer is mentor, yes a mentor immediately they start facepulling from the new tank who was obviously a new tank makes me have to pinch heal to keep up the tank and the healer because the so called healer just wont stop the entire run... it goes painfully slow... finally beat the boss I gave my com to the tank and I got commed twice. all in all it was a painful lesson in why people get salty over crown wearing mentors.

As a crown wearing mentor who takes the crown seriously and tries to be as helpful as possible, I find that sad.

[Avatre]

As a crown wearing mentor who takes the crown seriously and tries to be as helpful as possible, I find that sad.

Sadly, a lot of the people wearing it openly are only in it for the mount.

[Sylvina]

Sadly, a lot of the people wearing it openly are only in it for the mount.

I don't run mentor roullete often becuase I'm afraid I'll get one of those trials I never got the chance to practice well and am still unable to teach mechanics in, like Sephirot or Zurvan Ex. I just help new players when I meet them in game.

[Avatre]

I don't run mentor roullete often becuase I'm afraid I'll get one of those trials I never got the chance to practice well and am still unable to teach mechanics in, like Sephirot or Zurvan Ex. I just help new players when I meet them in game.

I always admit when I get one I'm not familiar with and say we can learn/re-learn it together.