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

[AxHell]

Tanking stuff

When I tank on trash mobs I always use my tank stance (Shield oath / Grit) with CDs if there are more than 3. This works pretty well for me and the healer who is able to DPS a little but I don't mind them just healing me.

On bosses, I go with my tank stance with CDs but if I see that the healer's doing a fine job keeping me alive and that the boss doesn't do high damage that could dip my health below 50%, I try to switch to DPS stance to kill it faster while still popping CDs when I can.

But if things start to get dangerous I come back to my tank stance.

Up until now this always worked for me but I hope I'm doing the right thing

[Mhaeric]

When I tank on trash mobs I always use my tank stance (Shield oath / Grit) with CDs if there are more than 3. This works pretty well for me and the healer who is able to DPS a little but I don't mind them just healing me.

On bosses, I go with my tank stance with CDs but if I see that the healer's doing a fine job keeping me alive and that the boss doesn't do high damage that could dip my health below 50%, I try to switch to DPS stance to kill it faster while still popping CDs when I can.

But if things start to get dangerous I come back to my tank stance.

Up until now this always worked for me but I hope I'm doing the right thing

That sounds right to me.

Just one detail you might not be aware of is that Scholars have an ability called Excogitation that triggers on 50% health remaining or when its 45s duration is up. It's the one with a green icon. Scholars often purposely let the tank drop to 50% health if it is active since it heals them almost back to full. This can make it seem like a scholar is not healing you, but if that ability is up then they definitely are!

[AxHell]

Excogitation

I know about Exco, my SCH is at 70 and I use it when it's most appropriate. Though when I had a SCH in my party, I never got it very often.

Anyway thanks for the answer and the advice

[Mhaeric]

Though when I had a SCH in my party, I never got it very often.

D:

Quel horreur!

I always have it up when I'm on Scholar. It's my main healing spell even. I don't start a pull without it being in place, and if the duration ends without it triggering from hp it is immediately available to use again so I do. There's no reason to not use it on cooldown, except perhaps right before a long boss jump.

[AxHell]

D:

Quel horreur!

Well they were doing a fine job using their shields, the fairy and the bubble so I can see why they didn't use it that much.

The only times I got was when we were against a boss that did high damage or when I was pulling several packs.

Personally I use it when the tank pulls a lot or when there's lots of aoes or when the boss's really dangerous.

Mon bon monsieur

[Meui]

I cringe whenever I see my co-healer is an AST these days. 9/10 times they overwrite my AoE Balances. I've also noticed a trend where they'll pocket-buff one DPS (which is fine by me), but unless they wait for my party-wide buffs to go up first, that one card is going to get overwritten. I'm not about to make the party wait on buffs for one person, either.

I remember a little while back getting snapped at by my co-AST for overwriting their AoE Bole with Balance. I did, too. Not only because they kept overwriting everything of mine beforehand - but also because we don't need AoE Bole. Not in Weeping City during everyone's openers. They proceeded to get themself murdered and returned, I guess to spite me and make me heal solo. Turns out we didn't need them or their Bole.

I used to be so much more patient but those days are long gone. I tried that thing called communication, but most don't speak common sense.

[Avatre]

I cringe whenever I see my co-healer is an AST these days. 9/10 times they overwrite my AoE Balances. I've also noticed a trend where they'll pocket-buff one DPS (which is fine by me), but unless they wait for my party-wide buffs to go up first, that one card is going to get overwritten. I'm not about to make the party wait on buffs for one person, either.

I remember a little while back getting snapped at by my co-AST for overwriting their AoE Bole with Balance. I did, too. Not only because they kept overwriting everything of mine beforehand - but also because we don't need AoE Bole. Not in Weeping City during everyone's openers. They proceeded to get themself murdered and returned, I guess to spite me and make me heal solo. Turns out we didn't need their them or their Bole.

I used to be so much more patient but those days are long gone. I tried that thing called communication, but most don't speak common sense.

When I go into something as AST, and see that I'm paired with another AST, I try and watch what card they have held so that I don't override their Balance if they have it(unless I have a balance and theirs is about to run out of course).

As for common sense...it's a super power these days.

------------------

As for a story from me....went and did a Mentor Roulette(lately I have been getting mostly dungeons for this, and the VERY rare Guildhest). Ended up in a Sastasha HM, with 64min left on the clock. The whole party that was in there had Protect already on them with 26min remaining on it. My first thought was it was going to be a rough slog, especially since they hadn't even finished the first boss yet. My second thought was it was going so badly because of DCs...but there was only one right as the PLD pulled the first boss one of the DPS DCed. Boss took a little longer than it should have because of that, but aside from me dying while trying to get an Aspected Helios off to give regen to the party, it went down(PLD died like 1/2 second before the boss did). The rest of the run went super smooth with no deaths...so not sure what would have caused it to take so long.

[Kakiko]

I had some.. interesting runs yesterday.

Ran Susano Normal last night with 3 other members from my fc as someone needed to clear it for her MSQ. One member was my co-healer on SCH and I went as AST. The other people that loaded in included at least one mentor but no one else new to the trial. We had a PLD and a DRK. I hop on Diurnal sect and we start. Almost immediately I'm noticing that the PLD cannot stay healed - at all. Both my co-heal and I are topping them up from 30% almost nonstop (including with an Aspected Bene on them!) Eventually, my Essential Dignity is on cool down, we can't top them up quickly enough and they die. Not horrible, I assumed the DRK would provoke but nope. Next thing I know, I've got Susano fixated on thumping on me while I'm swiftcast raising the DRK and my SCH is keeping me alive. DRK takes forever to accept the raise, thankfully Essential Dignity is off cool down and we get them up quickly. No one else died, we didn't wipe there.

We did wipe, however, during the transition phase. Despite only one person being totally new, everyone seemed to want to run around and collect orbs like headless chickens. I'm popping my bubble to try to shield people because I'm assuming all the DPS are going to be focused on burning down the sword but no, we wiped.

I comment in chat that one tank has to run around counterclockwise to gather orbs and not let them hit the party. Everyone else has to just group up and DPS. Someone comments that that is the correct way, even in EX (which I've cleared multiple times). Off we go again.

Again, the same issues with the PLD but this time thankfully she doesn't die and we manage to make it through the transition.

The rest of the run went smoothly with one or two DPS deaths due to the aoe pools. I correctly mark the rocks each time, Earthly Star every time big aoe damage is coming, apply aoe buffs as best I can (I was pulling crap cards all run, only one Balance the entire time; nothing else but Spires and Ewers with an occasional arrow).

PLD continued to take so much damage. I'm not sure what was going on with them as I didn't get a chance to examine their gear or anything but I'm wanting to say they weren't provoking when they should have?

My SCH co-heal is a good SCH but this is not her best fight and so I did (she admitted) take on the majority of the healing because of it.

I know I did really well in that.

Zero comms.
SCH got all 4.

*sighs*

Labyrinth of the Ancients run went similar earlier in the day except we had a lalafell tank who kept deliberately trolling everyone. They would race ahead and pull every boss before the rest of the alliances were even in the area. At the Allagan Bomb, they pulled EVERY SINGLE ONE of the enemies and kited them around, causing a wipe. The last boss, they pulled the moment they loaded in and no one else was even in the arena yet. We wiped again because not everyone (including tank) got to the pads. Reset and tank did the same thing.

I went in as black mage for that run.

World of Darkness was next as Healer was in need in roulette and I wanted the gil. Co-heal was a WHM who did.. pretty much nothing the entire run except cast Stone and Benediction on me and kept trying to raise people I'd already raised (and I use a raise macro). I rescued people out of aoes throughout, applied buffs, raised my co-heal every time they died at the floating eyeball AND Cerberus, kept everyone else alive, rescued co-heal out of last bosses laser burst attack.

Zero comms.
I know, I know, comms are everything but damn.. :-/

[Issac]

comms

Playing on a JP server, I only ever get comms when I mess up. Why? No idea.
Otherwise I'm pretty sure no one gets them because they always leave so fast, hah.

[Avatre]

Playing on a JP server, I only ever get comms when I mess up. Why? No idea.
Otherwise I'm pretty sure no one gets them because they always leave so fast, hah.

That happens on all servers I'm pretty sure. There are lots of times when I'm tanking where nothing goes wrong in a run, everyone doing what needs doing, and I still get no comms(even doing large pulls without causing the healer much stress)