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

[KaivaC]

It's crazy how many familiar names from the forums pop up when I'm in the roulette. At the very least, at least they know how to play. These last group of players...

Between the legendary ice mages I've been running into in the Stone Vigil (yes, that is a plural...the last one I ran into in the Stone Vigil didn't even use B3...only Blizzard with the occasional Fire spell here and there), the healers that don't want to heal, and the tanks that randomly drop their tank stance in the middle of a pull...it's been interesting to say the least. I just finished a crazy run in the Stone Vigil as a MCH, and was the last one standing with the final boss at 2%. This was the second pull on the boss. The first one? For whatever reason, the tank faced the boss right at us - right as he did his ice breath cleave. And then blamed us for standing in the way. Even though for most of the fight, he was tanking near a wall and we were in the huge open space behind the boss. I don't remember what happened on the second pull, only that the healer was the first to die, followed by the tank and DPS during a dive.

Weird runs on Stone Vigil lately.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I tanked a Rabanastre run as Paladin. Most of the teammates in my party were good. Some were new, but learned pretty fast.

There was one bard who did make good use of her ability to move and attack at the same time, but kept on getting knocked out by pretty much any hard-hitting mechanic. Some examples include the bubbles in Mateus, pretty much most of Hashmal's mechanics, Figure 8 from Rofocale, and dodgeable aoes and the truth/lie mechanic from Argath. She ended up releasing from the Hashmal and Argath fights. Our team pretty much carried her for most of the run.

[Usho]

I tanked a Rabanastre run as Paladin. Most of the teammates in my party were good. Some were new, but learned pretty fast.

There was one bard who did make good use of her ability to move and attack at the same time, but kept on getting knocked out by pretty much any hard-hitting mechanic. Some examples include the bubbles in Mateus, pretty much most of Hashmal's mechanics, Figure 8 from Rofocale, and dodgeable aoes and the truth/lie mechanic from Argath. She ended up releasing from the Hashmal and Argath fights. Our team pretty much carried her for most of the run.

Did she at least thank you for the carry? Sounds like she got hit with almost every boss's mechanics in rabanasty.

[Mesarthim]

Just got a nice dose of sprouts being rude to the tank (me) in Wanderer Palace normal. New healer was under the impression Tonberry Stalkers could be tanked (spoiler: They can't be, let alone be targeted). After the second boss I had a nice 40 second long heavy and the dps ran ahead and pulled. Meanwhile my request for an esuna got mocked by the healer with similar phrasing because I didn't tank the stalkers.

They tried to book it to the exit when I asked for them to not be rude and corrected them on Tonberry stalkers. I got my sentences off in time. And they wonder why tanks are usually in short supply.

[silverlunarfox]

2/3 Tanks I find nowadays seem to have no idea how Provoke actually works, apparently believing it's just a straight enmity gain.
Most of them respond well to an explanation, but I do have to wonder why this happens. Should the tooltip be reworked? Would that "hall of the intermediate" thingy alleviate it? Who knows...

I've been noticing this on top of tanks using it in their rotation, which really strikes me as odd. I don't know why theyre doing it, the tanks i've had have never been in danger of losing aggro when using it.....Perhaps a rewording of the ability would help.

[Saphri]

Peloton is not a necessity; all it does is increase movement speed, and it does not work while engaged in combat. I would also advocate to not keep your offensive songs on a macro; sometimes macros can fail to go off properly, and a BRD’s song rotation does not necessarily mean that you use them after the other ends—what I mean by this is typically Army’s Paeon is clipped at 10 seconds remaining to re-enter your Minuet+Raging Strikes phase on single-targets.

Macros in general are not designed well for battle jobs, so it would be best to start weaning yourself off of them.

I've been seeing that about Army's Paeon in the other forum. Fortunately, I can cut it short with this macro and go straight to the next one (currently set as Wanderer's Minuet). I also have an alternate way to launch the songs individually that includes an announcement to the Party of which one I just launched (i.e. "Casting Mage's Ballad..."). I could try doing that again I suppose.

[Saphri]

As a PLD tank I have resorted to using a macro when the final boss of a dungeon is at 30% HP and limit break bars are full. Macro: "It's over 9,000!!! Punch it in the face with limit break!" since I have noticed a trend of DPS not using LB or waiting till 5% to use it.

Also if it has a full bar and is almost to the 2nd bar but boss will die before the 2nd bar fills up, please use it anyway!

After my macro though DPS use it immediately which is fantastic

If I have a LB charged early in the boss fight, I'll use it because there's a good chance it will recharge before it's over (I've gotten off as many as three). If it's closer to the middle or end, I've had party members tell me I should hold onto it until closer to the end of the fight.

[KaijinRhada]

If I have a LB charged early in the boss fight, I'll use it because there's a good chance it will recharge before it's over (I've gotten off as many as three). If it's closer to the middle or end, I've had party members tell me I should hold onto it until closer to the end of the fight.

This happened the other day when I was tanking Dzemael Darkhold. Some bard got super uppity with a dragoon for using LB2 before the end of the boss fight, saying it was ill-used, and essentially resorted to L2P attacks. I countered that the real waste is using it on the last 5% of a boss fight, when during its cast you could conceivably kill the boss in the same amount of time. To the best of my knowledge in the past few years, LB damage isn't affected by the percentage of health any given mob has, so if it isn't being used to bypass mechanics, just give'r, since it will still take off the same amount of health.

Too bad the bard left before I finished my explanation, good riddance though.

[Vidu]

I've been seeing that about Army's Paeon in the other forum. Fortunately, I can cut it short with this macro and go straight to the next one (currently set as Wanderer's Minuet). I also have an alternate way to launch the songs individually that includes an announcement to the Party of which one I just launched (i.e. "Casting Mage's Ballad..."). I could try doing that again I suppose.

If you dont mind me giving some advice here: Its irrelevant for your party which song you're using, so no need to announce it in party-chat. Personally I'd find that more annoying than helpful. They all offer the same initial buff for the party, the only thing that differs is Troubador (called like that? The thing that gives more HP/defense/magic defense) and you have to use that skill before it matters.
So all you do is clutter the party-chat with information no one needs.

And you just shouldnt use macros to "chain" battle-skills. Period.

Useful macros as bard, if you really want to use some, would be announcing the use of Refresh/Tactian (and how long its gonna be on cooldown) or - as a stretch - the buffs you can put on the tank.

[BillyKaplan]

Solo healed Tsukuyomi NM. I always dread getting it in roulette, but most of the time it's fine because my co-healers do their job right. Not this one. Repeatedly went OOM casting Gravity on the adds and only stopped after I called them out on it after the second wipe. We cleared after that.