Request for general advice for being good at playing

[NessaWyvern]

General advice as to how to improve?
Hmmm... Well, I got this advice around a year after I started playing, and it's the one that has helped me the most.
If you are on PC, and you click all your abilities with a mouse, stop it and start using keybinds. (I used to be a clicker >.>).
Keybinding all my abilities honestly helped me get better than anything else in this game. It takes a few days to get used to it, but it's worth it. You are able to see more on the screen, (since you have to look at your hotbar if you are mouseclicking, keybinds free your eyes) and you use your abilities faster than if you individually click them.

If you already use keybinds, disregard this advice :P

Had a run as a NIN on Ravana HM in which I didn’t think about Diversion – that was definitely on me, because eventually when the main tank died, I was next on the aggro list and got hit with the cleave. The rest of the raid wiped shortly after that, and I got hit with the blame on that one for even having aggro in the first place. I apologized and told the raid that I would pop diversion, since it was honestly my mistake for not doing that. Got kicked before the next pull.

Eh, the way I see it, if you were that high in the aggro list, it just means you were probably doing the most dps (yes I know there are other factors in play when it comes to enmity).
But, like everyone else has said, it's really not your fault with what happened. Of course a dps will get aggro if the OT fails at getting the boss, after the healer/MT fails at keeping the MT alive. Sure, it's a good habit to pop diversion, but it isn't really needed if the MT and OT are doing their job. You popping diversion would have probably just shifted ravanna to the next DPS anyway, and the outcome would have probably been the same.

I can't really talk about the phantom train, since I haven't done savage, but those people sounded pretty nasty. And detrimental to their own efforts as well. Spending time making a player feel bad and trolling them would not help them get the clear in the slightest.
Edit: re-read this, they were doing this on normal? O-o W-why....? Most people wouldn't care too much about people's rotations, let alone someone delaying trick attack in this duty, and yet they still berated and trolled you for this? I don't even....

My advice to you?
Just keep your chin up, being too worried about what others think will distract your mind from playing your best.
And those players in that ravanna party and phantom party? They weren't worth you caring about them. Honestly, they were pretty terrible people.

[Rhus]

Meh, Stuff happens. I've ripped aggro from tanks before as has everyone. Not your fault the healers couldn't keep the tank alive and you were next on the aggro list. What was the second tank doing? Not stepping up that's what. Someone needs to be second and if it's not the second tank it's going to be a healer or dps by default. Just a bad group, nothing you could do and what you technically could have done, you're aware of and have already learned from that.

Second group sounds like they were trolling you. Shirking you for attacks and rescueing you into mobs. Surely that's reportable? Nothing you could do there since those players went out their way to target you for their silly troll games.

Just put it down to a bad run, move on and hope for a better run/group next time.

[RiyahArp]

You cannot improve over things you were not at fault for. This is just the anxiety talking, the first thing your inner person does when under stress is blame themselves, even though it's not rational to do after all. This is because in both cases you received pretty big stressors due to the actions of others, which were totally unwarranted. It's normal for people to die if the main tank goes down, even if the OT tank recovers; it's not a criminal offense to delay a trick attack in hard mode. But because the stress is making the fight or flight response of anxiety, you can't really look at it rationally until it wears off.

Once it does then you can look at it dispassionately. Ironically I find that trying to reassure myself while the stress is happening...why am i freaking out, its not my fault?....doesn't really work either. You kind of realize the anxiety reaction from stress just colors your mind a bit until it wears off. I'm not a professional, but I do suffer from it some, and I had to learn that when it happens, it does that.

IDK, the main thing I worry about is if ppl are harassing you more than anything.

[Moogly]

Problem is, I have runs, which I will mention in a second that make me wonder what more am I able to do. Posted these in the DF vent thread, but just to add some context, I’ll just tldr it here. Had a run as a NIN on Ravana HM in which I didn’t think about Diversion – that was definitely on me, because eventually when the main tank died, I was next on the aggro list and got hit with the cleave. The rest of the raid wiped shortly after that, and I got hit with the blame on that one for even having aggro in the first place. I apologized and told the raid that I would pop diversion, since it was honestly my mistake for not doing that. Got kicked before the next pull.

That happened to me countless times : dying immediately after the MT died as I was 2nd on aggro list.
Never got blamed or even criticized for it....
In the right mind of most players, why would a dps even be blamed for such a reason ?!!
I would rather blame the OT for not handling it !

Are you telling us the whole story there ?
Because the way you tell people things can earn you a kick, even if you're in the right or even if you're the top dps...

(obvious pull) rescue used again to troll people... oh and I thought that was just me exagerrating things lol !

[SenorPatty]

Kaiva, you really need to stop beating yourself up for things that are not your fault and/or partially your fault. I stress partial here because group content, especially of the 8man kind, EVERYONE has to do their part. Just because people decided to make you their scapegoat of their mistakea doesn't mean you have to shoulder this.


Please, for your own sake, don't go this dark path again.

[Fhaerron]

Also make use of your blacklist. You have it for a reason.

When there is toxic people I put them on it, when I join a PF for farm speed runs (so not practice or 'normal' runs) I also blacklist people who don't know what to do and decided to join farm run (duty completion check doesn't help because many people get boosted).
Like the people you just described I would put the whole group on blacklist.

Ignore them, blacklist and move on. They are not worth your time.

[SannaR]

Like everyone else has said you can't improve yourself when you get a group of mean people. Just ride the current wave of mean people until it's over or grab some friends or FC mates for a bit. I'm not sure what causes these waves of people to appear in the DF more often than normal. Of course tomorrow there should be a lot of forgiveness since it's patch day.

[Deathgiver]

I mean it's nice and all that everyone's trying to be supportive, but op asked for advice on how to improve . . . Telling them they perfect as is is both disingenuous and unhelpful to the op. Without knowing what you want to "main" my only real tip would be to focus on just a couple of classes to master. Part of growing as a player is moving beyond focusing on your rotation so that you can learn to adapt to fights better (mistakes by others or yourself, new mechanics, adapting the dps rotation for a specific encounter). You seem to play pretty much all your jobs, but none of them to a really high level. Once you improve your situational awareness, you'll improve your play overall. That being said, the ravana group was a bunch of jerks, and i think you may have had some wires crossed / misunderstanding with what happened in your o5n group.

[Fhaerron]

I mean it's nice and all that everyone's trying to be supportive, but op asked for advice on how to improve . . . Telling them they perfect as is is both disingenuous and unhelpful to the op. Without knowing what you want to "main" my only real tip would be to focus on just a couple of classes to master. Part of growing as a player is moving beyond focusing on your rotation so that you can learn to adapt to fights better (mistakes by others or yourself, new mechanics, adapting the dps rotation for a specific encounter). You seem to play pretty much all your jobs, but none of them to a really high level. Once you improve your situational awareness, you'll improve your play overall. That being said, the ravana group was a bunch of jerks, and i think you may have had some wires crossed / misunderstanding with what happened in your o5n group.

Op is posting on an alt or plays on an alt. Anyway the poster is not the 'real character' so you don't really need to stalk his lodestone character.

'How can I improve' is really hard to answer without more info. Explaining rotation for example won't help because he knows all that.

In what the OP said there is nothing to improve on. He did nothing wrong. Sure he could have used diversion (and DPS need to use their enmity reduction tools so tanks can DPS stance longer if DPS players are catching up on the tanks shirk/vote enmity), but then the boss would have just killed the other player next in the enmity lists.

Op has knowledge and can play, but in this post the only conclusion is that he ran with bad toxic players that should be put on blacklist and forget about.

[whiskeybravo]

First off, who tf is actually concerned about the trick attack in 05 normal mode. Got nothing left to do so you're getting your oranges in.. normal mode?

That aside... Didn't you recently just come back from a break? It's only natural to be a little out of sorts til you get your feet back under you. I recently was helping some friends out with o6s, trying to get them a clear. Now I've been killing o6s since week 2, but hadn't ran anything much in the last few months so I was a bit rusty. One of the runs, the second time we got earth/fire paintings, I got my fire res, I jumped in the ship and went and waited by the boss for mechanics to resolve. When suddenly for some unknown reason I decided to jump ship. Hopped out of my plane and raw-dogged the earthquake damage. I think that one ended up being a 2-3% wipe.. Shite happens lol

As for advice, my advice, would just be to keep running stuff. You're not going to remember or realize every minor detail/adjustment for each of the fights the first time around. Not the second, and probably not even the third. It takes practice and repetition to get all those little details down. At the end of the day, if you are scrutinizing yourself and trying to find ways to improve, it speaks much more about your character than someone who is not. So while it may be tough you just gotta brush off the critics and keep doing your thing.