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

[hydralus]

Just got into a daily trial with several level 70s who didn't know to not stand right next to the main tank. 4 people were welcomed to cleave-city.

[AmemeAmeklin]

I decided last night that it would be a GREAT idea to get more tomes by loading in trials. The screen goes black and then fades into that most dreaded of visages, Shinryu.

Aiiiiiieeeeeee!!

But then I notice that at least 5 group members are sitting there watching the cutscene.

AIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!

It turns out one skipped the cutscene quickly so it was actually 6. Of the 6, 2 were just on alts. So I was like, 'oh my god if you're actually new please speak up,' and it turns out that last 4 were genuinely new, including my co-tank.

You'd think this would turn out to be a horror show, but SPOILER it didn't, because the half of the group that knew the fight teamed up to spend at least 5 minutes explaining mechanics to the newbies, and at least one person was warning or reminding during the fight about certain mechanics (like water puddles during Hellfire, active time maneuver). As I told them in the beginning, I didn't expect us to clear first try but we would all try our hardest...

At this point I'll just point out that in my experience, the quality of your PUG's first time fight is very, very heavily dependent on a) the veterans being patient enough to sit and explain, b) the newbies being patient, eager learners who listen to the explanations and try their best to do it, and c) the explanations have to be good, concise, and pinpoint the parts of the fight that will give the most trouble.

Thanks to all the veterans of the fight who pooled our knowledge together (since I didn't remember everything, the fight has so many freakin mechanics) to explain, and to the newbies who did their best to learn, we cleared on the first attempt. It started getting kinda dicey at the end, but our DPS was on point whenever the tail hit the platforms, my newbie co-tank managed to stick next to me for most of the Ahk Morns, healers were on the ball, and we managed to pull off a first try clear.

Honestly I was kind of expecting to be at it for multiple tries so I was pretty happy we did it. Anyway if you were in that group last night, GOOD FREAKIN JOB! Because 2 were also on new alts, that meant only 2 members of the PUG were technically overgeared (since you can't get all that fancy Reach gear until after this fight) while the rest were...uh...likely close to minimum ilvl (didn't look). We did FANTASTIC!

[RicaRuin]

Aery. Nice Dungeon, I like it a lot. I am on Tank, a friend is accompanying me as Black Mage. Someone is new, apparently the Healer - but he does great, and even bought Level 56ish Gear from vendors even if he would get some via MSQ later. Still, Mobs take forever to die, and I wonder. And then Nidhogg happens - DPS is way too low, you know how it goes, Add Phase is a disaster. I take a look around and notice the other DPS - a Level 57 Summoner, with Gear that... uh... he had parts of the Ironworks Gear, not augmented, the weapon was a iLvl 115 NQ one... and the right side... grey accs, 40 and below, and the crowning: the Ala Mhigan Earrings. One ring was blue and 50, rejoice - the Ironworks Tank Ring. As Caster. Alright, maybe he didn't know, I tell him - and while we wipe on the orbs not being destroyed in time, SMN decided to educate us that we are all wrong and Gear does not make a difference. Eventually, we cleared, but... just have some chat logs to leave an impression. I pity the poor group that gets him in the Vault.

The sad thing? He had a Level 70 Paladin.

Blue = BLM Friend; Green = Healer; Red = the fabled SMN

[BillyKaplan]

Horror story

The thing is, those earrings don't even help with exp in the Aery because the buff is only up to 50... so even their one excuse for it doesn't hold water.

[Dreggit]

DPS is way too low, you know how it goes, Add Phase is a disaster. I take a look around and notice the other DPS - a Level 57 Summoner, with Gear that... uh... he had parts of the Ironworks Gear, not augmented, the weapon was a iLvl 115 NQ one... and the right side... grey accs, 40 and below, and the crowning: the Ala Mhigan Earrings. One ring was blue and 50, rejoice - the Ironworks Tank Ring.

I would hazard to say that at most, cap level gear from a prior expansion should only be taken 3 maybe 4 levels and no more than that. (3 levels for base cap IL gear and maybe 4 If the gear is upgraded) If anything stormblood shows the huge ramp up in stats between small item levels that do a wealth of good for you. (Which by the way, I can only wonder how IL 440 will look stat wise)

There really needs to be an IL requirement for all co-op duties, yeah, perhaps it'll gate people and it will require people to farm more gear for a little longer but it is always frustrating in a 4 man when a party member isn't up to par in gear. For roulettes, like the leveling roulette, it should have a floating IL requirement based off of your current highest level dungeon duty. It really breaks the ebb and flow of the game and if you're farming for glam or cards, (as I do) repeated instances of picking up slack can really bring down your experience.

[BillyKaplan]

On the matter of ilvl, I had a tank in Tam-Tara who used the left side Strife glamour set. He had the least HP in the party, including myself the BLM, and the healer. I stopped ripping instantly when I pointed it out to him and he started running OOM every pull spamming Flash, to the point I Mana Shifted him. Also Diversion and Lucid Dreaming on frigging cooldown.
His last words were "it was a breeze!"
Sure it was. You were carried. All my admiration to the healer who only let him die once, and even that was to something I'm pretty sure he could've avoided but didn't.

Remember that quest that said you had to have ilvl 5 before moving along? Good times.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Aery. Nice Dungeon, I like it a lot. I am on Tank, a friend is accompanying me as Black Mage. Someone is new, apparently the Healer - but he does great, and even bought Level 56ish Gear from vendors even if he would get some via MSQ later. Still, Mobs take forever to die, and I wonder. And then Nidhogg happens - DPS is way too low, you know how it goes, Add Phase is a disaster. I take a look around and notice the other DPS - a Level 57 Summoner, with Gear that... uh... he had parts of the Ironworks Gear, not augmented, the weapon was a iLvl 115 NQ one... and the right side... grey accs, 40 and below, and the crowning: the Ala Mhigan Earrings. One ring was blue and 50, rejoice - the Ironworks Tank Ring. As Caster. Alright, maybe he didn't know, I tell him - and while we wipe on the orbs not being destroyed in time, SMN decided to educate us that we are all wrong and Gear does not make a difference. Eventually, we cleared, but... just have some chat logs to leave an impression. I pity the poor group that gets him in the Vault.

The sad thing? He had a Level 70 Paladin.

Blue = BLM Friend; Green = Healer; Red = the fabled SMN

I really want to take every example similar to this and slap the devs across the face until they finally have the good sense to put a damn ilvl restriction on Leveling Dungeons.

[Aster_E]

I would have booted that Smn, personally, and not let them get a(nother?) pass on leveling content without learning such a simple basic of how the game works, but that's my jaded ass. This isn't Carry Fantasy, people.

[Mixt]

Finally killed Savage Omega/O11s.

The way it happened was kinda funny though.

Due to a number of death's near the end DPS get's slowed down, and the boss is at about 0,1% HP when he finishes his enrage cast.

Everyone is all "NOOOOOOO!" in the chat as the screen goes black.

Then all of a sudden instead of the fight restarting the cutscene of the boss breaking down plays, so everyone is all "Wait what?" before bursting out laughing.

I can only speculate that he died to DOT's moments after wiping the group, but before the instance could reset itself, so the game registered it as a kill even though we were all dead.

Has anyone else here ever had this happen to them?
I know an FC mate of mine had it happen on A12s back in the day, Alexander kills them all, only to drop dead itself before the wipe registers.

[Kuroka]

Well its the nice variant of the old "i was out of the aoe but still died" game, happens, its just rare as the timing is hard...