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

[Mixt]

About half a year old story here.

Bard uses Refresh as aggro dump.
Healers run out of MP, asks for Refresh.
Refresh still on cooldown because it was used as an aggro dump earlier.
No healing because no MP.
Wipe.
Everyone blames the bard for being bad.

Try again.

Bard holds off on Refresh until the healers need it so the previous situation does not repeat.
Bard rips aggro, because tank is going full DPS.
Bard dies.
Tank blames bard for not dumping aggro.
Spirals into a wipe.
Everyone blames the bard for being bad.

Morton's Fork strikes again.

Bard asks if the tank expects him to hack the game so he has infinite CD's, because that would be the only way to conform to expectations.
Tank doesn't care he's asking for the impossible, the bard should DPS, help the healers regain MP and ALSO aggro dump, doesn't matter if cooldowns run out, do it anyway! Is also offended that the bard accuses him of demanding he cheats.

Tragic comedy ensues.

Meanwhile the spectators, including myself, are busy facepalming over the whole debacle.

[Lorgana]

Bard uses Lucid as aggro dump.
.

I refer back to my earlier quote about how this isn't a circular argument, if the bard is using Lucid as an aggro dump then damn, what a bard. He's clearly already hacking the game if he has lucid.

[Mixt]

It did cause a wipe though.

Morton's Fork is at play here.

Do or do not, it ends badly either way, all possible courses of action lead to the same terrible end.

And nobody thought to look at the healers who were running out of mana without Refresh to prop them up.

Maybe i'm getting the ability names mixed up here, let me check
Ah oops, Should be Refresh.
Fixed.

That's what i get for writing while half asleep and having not touched the relevant classes for several months.

[MoroMurasaki]

It did cause a wipe though.

Morton's Fork is at play here.

Do or do not, it ends badly either way, all possible courses of action lead to the same terrible end.

If you think the situations you've listed are realistic there is more at play here than a normal fork.

Maybe a fork made out of gold, titanium, sulfer, titanium and carbon?

[Lorgana]

All possible outcomes? I disagree, if the entire party didn't have autism then chances are everyone would have been fine.

Why did the healer need to use so much MP? Was it because this MRHAKERMAN bard kept standing in AOES like they were trying to collect vuln up stacks, or was the healer spamming cure 3 on single targets?

All problems in this game can normally be solved by not being a potato. But if you are a potato, well everyone needs crafters right?

[LittleChickenNugget]

This went from funny to just kind of tryhard pathetic at this point.

[Mixt]

All possible courses of action the bard as an individual could have taken.
And then all the blame gets heaped on him in the end.

Off course things wouldn't have gone so poorly if the healers weren't guzzling mana like crazy, but as the situation stood there was nothing the bard could have done, since it came down to dealing with aggro or the healers MP, and doing one prevents handling the other, causing things to go south either way.

Two choices that both lead to the same bad result is the definition of Morton's Fork as far as i understand it.
Throw in a heaping of scapegoating and overlooking the other factors at play and you get a real mess.

Even as a bystander, watching that go down is just painful.


EDIT: So yes, i made i mistake, i'm tired, haven't touched the relevant classes in a long time, and mixed up the names of two abilites that do the same thing.
I made a fool of myself, i get it.
Can we drop that part?

[Ilan]

It goes like this: First time I'm red I pop the thing, no questions because hey--it happens. Second time, I'm looking at gear and popping whatever I have, usually a defensive if the aggro skill is still on CD. Third time I'm looking at stances and what is actually going on. If its not tank stuff, I will probably suggest doing tank stuff (or give advice if it's just inexperience). This entirely depends on how far apart these happen. Because obviously, it's easier just to pop the thing. Being in a state of constant yellow is something I've come to expect nowadays and I don't waste my CD on it.

We'll have to agree to disagree there. Enmity skills for DPS are there for when the DPS have aggro and need to get rid of it. Just because they CAN be used to help the tank stay in DPS stance does NOT mean they're a tank buff (obviously it's a dick move to put Shadow Walker on anyone that's not a tank but the same could be said of Shirk and that seems to be the current go-to for 'punishing' people who don't fall in line). If this happens a few times in a duty and well within my CD window then yeah, I'm pressing the thing. However those weren't added to the toolkit with the intent to let tanks languish in DPS stance. It's there to help the tank by virtue of 'hey, here's this thing that belongs to you--please take it so I don't die'.

(Also, if Diversion is what Quelling Strikes used to be then it was never a built-in BLM skill. It was a skill we borrowed from Bards back in the day when cross-class was a thing. BLM's had no built-in enmity skills. -Just 3 defensive ones.)

Lucid is part of my mana management package. That's primarily what I use it for. Especially for SMN or RDM. I can be a little more generous with it on healer, as long as it's not SCH (which is one of the biggest mana-drains). In any case, it's not for wasting. It's for emergencies outside of that. The only real argument you have is with Shadow-Walker and Diversion because they literally ONLY affect enmity. And that's for melee/ranged. So yeah, asking me to sacrifice an essential part of my job's support infrastructure to help your role be more efficient is... just as bad as what you claim I'm doing by NOT DOING THAT.

If you're not using CD's to help anyone but yourself play more efficiently as you mentioned here: As tank I'm not hitting my CDs to help my healer, but because they're skills that I have at my disposal and that I personally want to make use of to play my class to the best of its potential, then explain to me why I'm suddenly expected to do anything less for my own class? Even if I was melee, having to constantly manage personal aggro because the aggro guy is busy not doing aggro is still a sacrifice and a distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing. Which is damage or healing. Or even tanking. (I have those. Not too good with them but I has.)

We are not here to enable any one class. We are here to get through content. Putting the burden of your job onto others so you can do a different one is not what anyone is here for (unless you planned ahead). And again, it's not saying I won't press buttons. It's saying I won't press buttons for YOU and only YOU (because you're obviously not doing that for me either).

I feel like people are trying to pass this off as the new meta party mentality. I'm down with being more aware of personal enmity. I'm not down with that as the expectation so a certain job doesn't have to do it's job. :/

Dude what the hell? You use Diversion and partly Lucid only for one reason and thats to NOT get aggro. If you get hate because you don't use it, every tank should let you die. You can write a whole Novel and your arguments are still not getting right because of it.

[Lorgana]

The argument here is basically

I don't want to use the tools I've been given to control aggro, as a result, the tank should play sub-optimally. If you think that this is the correct position then you are incorrect.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

All possible courses of action the bard as an individual could have taken.
And then all the blame gets heaped on him in the end.

Off course things wouldn't have gone so poorly if the healers weren't guzzling mana like crazy, but as the situation stood there was nothing the bard could have done, since it came down to dealing with aggro or the healers MP, and doing one prevents handling the other, causing things to go south either way.

Two choices that both lead to the same bad result is the definition of Morton's Fork as far as i understand it.
Throw in a heaping of scapegoating and overlooking the other factors at play and you get a real mess.

Even as a bystander, watching that go down is just painful.

Except this scenario will not happen with proper aggro management. Holding Refresh for healers outside of prog is simply catering to bad healers. More often than not, you'll lose a cast of it simply waiting around for that maybe scenario. It's the same nonsense logic as "hold Benediction for emergency!" Bards use Refresh at a point in their opener where it will always benefit the healers. They will then have Tactician for aggro throughout the fight. The only way they'll rip at this point is if the second tank isn't Shirking properly. And even that scenario is reserved exclusively for good BRDs who know how to maximize the job's opening burst.

Put simply, MP won't ever be an issue due to the BRD using Refresh in their opener nor will aggro be a problem unless someone else is doing something wrong.