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

[AxHell]

So yesterday at night I had the longest Susano normal run. I was on DRK, same as my co-tank, and the healers were 2 WHM and the DPS MNK and SAM. Nobody is new.

Upon entering, I noticed that my co-DRK had 4k less health than me so I decided to go MT. As I put on Grit and Darkside, they did the same. So I asked them if they wanted to MT, and they said that I could. I remained MT for the rest of the run.

So I pull and the fight goes smoothly...then the aoes happened. One WHM dies and 2 DPS follow. Nothing too alarming we can go on.

We get to the second phase with the QTE and everyone is alive. I grab the sword and while I do the QTE, I notice that my co-tank does absolutely nothing. Cue me and the rest of the team telling them to go grab the balls. And they still don't do anything.

Some DPS die and I'm really low on health so, as the second part comes, I ask for heals...which don't come. Mayhap they were trying to rezz people I don't quite remember but we wipe.

Second run, the same WHM and all DPS die to the aoes, and we wipe at the first part of the second phase.

I do a brief recap of what the most basic mechanics everyone has seen in every part of the game do, what needs to be done in the second phase, and reminded the healers that gosh diddly darn I need healing. I'll admit that I could have asked for heals more nicely but at this point I was kinda getting tired and annoyed.

I pull...and the WHM who kept dying to the tide pods aoes just rescued me and proceeded to just seat here and do nothing. So of course I was kinda tilted and called them out on that as there were no reason for such behaviour. They still die to the tide pod aoes though.

We manage to get to the third and final phase but people die to the purple aoes and we wipe.

After the rezz, the WHM who rescued me and kept dying left after talking sh*t. I was ready to do the same (without the sh*t talking) but an AST came in. Right after that, the rest of the team said they wanted to try one last time.

So I pulled for the fourth and last time. And the difference in performance was like day and night. No one died to aoes and all mechanics were executed perfectly.

We manage to kill Susano and it felt like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Everyone was happy and said congratulations. I was also happy to be free from these 45ish minutes of a fight that should have taken way less, especially with experienced players. Still I said congratulations and went to bed.

[Anselmet]

I guess growing thicker skins is a dead concept in this day and age. We gotta hit that report button just in case we can white night someone who may be offended in the future. Because that is logical.

[Kuroka]

I hope you got a DPS who actually did AOE!

He did, it was a rly nice smn - and it felt like the whm did even more aoe too, thanks to both of you <3

[HyoMinPark]

This entire argument about harassment is silly. If a person doesn't feel harassed, why should they claim harassment and report it? Crystal_Raven has no issues shrugging it off and it would be up to them to file the report. The GMs don't listen to third-parties. If the person involved doesn't feel harassed, then there's no need to report. Personally, I side with them. It takes quite a bit to rile me up enough to file a report over something, and I honestly find pestering them to report something they don’t see the need to report qualifying more under harassment than one off-hand, strange comment.

Just drop it and return to the Duty Finder stories.



I gots a DF story. My Twintania alt reached level 50 on BRD, so I started leveling SMN on her to continue the MSQ (she was leading up to Titan). When I finally got into there, I was sure my latency would get me punted off the arena (I've got a fluctuating 130~180ms on there since I'm in NA)...but instead it was the healer who was knocked off. And I got to keep the tank alive with SMN Physick for the last half of the fight lol. I've actually never had to do that before.

[Cincierta]

Just got out of a run while leveling up an alt as drg in Temple of Corn. Jimminy Crickets the tank we had. Party comp was SMN, WHM, DRG (me) and MRD.

Yes, MRD. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

I load in and take a look at his equiOHMYGODWHYISHISHPLOWERTHANTHEHEALER? I had to double check his gear...and realized the tank I had jumped ship from way back when while leveling ast on another alt had been reincarnated. All of it was between 10-28, his weapon being the highest. Spoodler alert: he never uses defensive cooldowns either, and only used overpower once per set of mobs. The poor whm tanked a good chunk of the dungeon.

I then check the SMN...oh that was a mistake...lvl 15 dungeon gear with lvl 20 hat and 35 junk weapon...I whimpered.

Our savior whm casts protect and the mrd runs on to facepull the first trashpack...and almost immediately dies before the whm could get off her first cure. Once the first pack is down, the whm begs for them to put on their tank stance, to which I point out it wasn't possible...since they had no jobstone. I think I felt her sense of dread through the screen, as she replied she'd do her best to keep him alive.

I'm like, 'uh...he gonna die.' Sure enough, third trashpack he's on the floor and I tank for a bit until he gets back up, and does not attempt to even get the mobs off me. The last two trash packs before the first boss were almost repeats because of how undergeared and stoneless the guy was. We get to the first boss and I warn people of the mechanics and oh good golly 85% of the tank's hp is suddenly nuked from a Triclip. He also dies to Doom...twice. Part of the fight I'm tanking and suddenly our smn gets the great idea to pull out TITA-oh no wait, it's just a topaz carbuncle...whom is left on Sic. Tank hands drop from the first boss chest, everyone passes and the tank immediately puts them on...to replace his lvl 15 Brand-new Gauntlets.

Hallway up to the second boss is more facepulling, but I'm guessing he discovered he could Tomahawk...and I realized he had not bothered to get his other jobquests done as I've yet to see a single Butcher's Block from him.

Second boss I'm basically riding my stun to keep Obliterate from piling on extra damage and alleviating stress on the whm, and the hallway up to the third boss is more difficulty on getting the heads onto the tiles, and it's at this point that our tank decides to play spin-to-win with the crocs, making them spray their rear orange goo everywhere, you know, the one that can almost kill you and stun you? Yeah, that. SMN and I get stunned once, smn almost eats the floor.

We finally get to the final room and I start to put the tablets on the scale...while the smn tries to do the same with the wrong ones. OH NO NO, we're NOT DEALING WITH MORE PAIN BUDDY. I quickly swap the wrong ones he tried to put up, only for him to remove one....asljkgdljgljlsjaja. I quickly put in the right one and smack that scale balance to open the door before he could try to swap out again. Final boss door opens and I warn them about the mechanics (verges go pew-pew, watch out). To help alleviate more stress on the healer, I try to burn down the verges along with the smn. We finally get lb2 and I pop it, and barely down the boss before the last two verges could wipe us.

I comm the whm before she could nope out of there (because good golly girl you carried that tank HARD), and tell our tank to not only get his stone, but to go upgrade his gear. I think I ended up getting the healer's comm from it.

[Kuroka]

Honestly theres a point were you either should just leave or kick him... wow...

[Wilford111]

I mean just because Square Enix allows being being banned for casually chatting doesn't mean it's right or ethical. That's why so many of us want them to go back to the old ToS.

[Rivxkobe]

Oh my, I have a story for you all. Sit down and get comfy because this is a doozy.

To set the stage:

Location: Snowcloak

Party
Me: SCH
Sprout DRK
Returning DRG
Sprout BRD

Part I: Welcome to Snowcloak

I came back to the game recently and have finally caught up on most things so I decided instead of Running around as SAM I'd switch and level some SCH, which I haven't really played much since ARR when it was one of the Classes I mained. Its level 52. I decide to run a 50/60 Dungeon for some XP and nostalgia-esque feels. As listed above I landed in Snowcloak, a dungeon I've run numerous times since its release.

We start with everyone but me watching the cutscene and then I get told someone hasn't completed it before so bonus. We say Hi and the like, I use protect and nothing else is said. The DRK runs off ahead and the Bard and I follow. The DRG doesn't move. The DRK wastes no time and grabs the first set of trash but he doesn't pull more, I'm assuming because we are down a guy. DRK does a poor job holding hate and is getting butchered so I end up tanking a few enemies. He never uses a single CD the entire run.

We almost get to the first boss before the DRG joins us.

Boss #1 or Some like it COLD

We get to the first boss and I'm focusing on keeping my DoTs up and healing when I notice the first Frost Bomb going off. It wasn't even damaged. I'm a little confused but I didn't see it so maybe no one else did?

Wrong.

Every single Frost Bomb gets ignored except for when I attempt to burn it down. Without Energy Drain Spam they go off before I can finish them so I give up on that after a bit. We get frozen... a few times.

The boss takes a while and everyone keeps ignoring the Frost Bombs. I hard focus on healing, hardly ever putting out DPS, Just as two Frost bombs are about to go off and I KNOW someone is going to go down, if not all of us, they kill the boss.

Awesome. But I'm even MORE confused at this point because, if you see the bombs going off why wouldn't you go to kill them? Maybe they just aren't good with adds, I'm not sure.

Part II: The Cold Winds of Snowcloak

After the boss we run out to the first enemy and the DRK grabs it. And then stands there. Tanking this one enemy. So, I guess he just wants to take it slow, he wasn't just doing small groups because no DRG? Ok, fine.

On the third set of trash the DRK and DRG stand and fight in the wind. I mention they should get out of the wind as it damages them, but they ignore me and keep doing it. Whatever I can heal through it.

The DRK continues to do it with the next pull. On the last pull they actually grab the mobs and run BACK INTO THE WIND.

No idea what was happening. Maybe they don't know English? I dunno.

Boss #2 or Slowballs

We start this fight immediately, the DRK gives me no time to inform of Mechanics or anything.

The first Spriggan spawns and it gets turned into a snowball. So far so good. I stay next to it to ensure I can hit it when needed. However, the tank pulls the boss to entrance door and points it away from the group. The BRD and DRG just start killing all the adds. Mainly focusing on killing the Spriggans, leaving the Demon-things to run wild because the DRK ignores them.

When the Yeti attempts to hit us with its AoE I hit it with the snowball to stop it. I let everyone know that they need to stop killing the Spriggans and they need the boss to use its breath attack on them to make snowballs. I'm still not sure if they know english but its worth a try.

This is when things get... weird. The DRK stops holding the Boss where he was and starts running around attacking the Spriggans. The BRD hard focuses the boss not attacking adds anymore, and the DRG runs around attacking everything. Only two snowballs get created during this time. The Boss is literally being dragged all over the arena now.

One snowball gets to be the maximum size and the DRK hits it immediately, which right after the boss AoEs. The other gets knocked directly into the Boss from across the stage by the DRG.

So... do they understand the mechanics and are just ignoring them? Hmm.

The boss ends up just becoming a game of DPSing the boss and Healing everyone as we gain Vuln stacks. The boss eventually goes down, but just soon enough.

Part III: Orange is the New Blue

Next set of trash pulls go... crazy. Everything that is Orange the DRK and DRG stand in. It just doesn't stop. I pop all my cooldowns as soon as they are available to ensure I keep everyone from hitting the floor.

Ice explosions? I'll take that. Cone AoEs? Sure, love 'em. They seem to just be straight ignoring mechanics at this point.

During the room where the enemies break out of the walls I am healing so much Eos and I are tanking half the mobs. DRG randomly goes AFK during trash pulls as well here. So, just me, DRK and BRD dealing damage and he is getting hit by every AoE that comes his way.

It takes forever but we finally reach Fenrir.

Boss #3 or Puppy Kisses

So, I was hopefully this was going to go well because there are no adds to deal with. I was not ready for this. I begin the fight by casting Protect because we have 2 minutes left. The DRG almost gets locked out of the boss area because he keeps going AFK.

The boss starts and the DRK starts running around with Fenrir following him toward the far right side. Icicles drop and I have to heal the DRG immediately because he stands in the AoE and almost dies. Then it happens again.

I stand behind the icicle and jump up and down, no one is paying attention to the text chat so I don't mention Mechanics there. Wind/Howl happens and everyone else gets frozen. DRG INSTANTLY dies to the pounce. BRD and DRK take the hit and survive. I pop Swift Cast -> Ressurection on the DRG and heal the team up.

DRG does not ressurect. He just lays there.

The rest of the fight is me healing, applying DoTs, and jumping behind icicles hoping they'll get the hint. They don't. Its literally, every other icicle drop, BRD and DRK get frozen, pounced on, then healed up.

No one else dies, thankfully, and the boss eventually goes down. I ressurect the DRG again and he INSTANTLY accepts it.

I leave and get 2 comms.

---

In conclusion, part of me almost believes that they all knew mechanics but were deliberately ignoring them for... some reason. I don't know. At least the damage wasn't so high I couldn't heal it, but it sure was hectic and looooooooooooong. I don't know if this really means anything to anyone, but I ended up healing over 610k HP with only a 19% overheal. As reference: I ran Hullbreaker Normal just a bit before this with a Tank that didn't run Tank stance for the first half of it, and was new, and the Octopus boss mechanics were being thrown out the window by them and the RDM (and I had to rezz twice) where I healed 350k with a 20% overheal.

Edited for words, clarification and corrections.

[Averax]

Shinryu in roulette. Shouldn't be a problem anymore, right? I admire your naiveté.

Half the group is new, get wiped away by the first wave because it was directly behind us and nobody saw it. Managed to pull it back together and rez everyone and get back on track until phase 2. Phase 2 we die because everyone was standing in the bad and getting knocked off by every other mechanic, i tapped my joystick during diamond dust and fell off myself, but it was over at that point anyhow.

The second healer leaves, but the tank don't care. He pulls right after we all got back up, i didn't even apply protect, get my aetherflow, or summon my fairy, and i'm solo healing at this point apparently. We all die again because nobody was ready.

I ask the tank to wait for another healer and he waits just long enough for me to be set and pulls anyway without waiting for a healer. Tanks are also squishy as hell, so i'm near constantly casting physick on them as they take poke damage. Every time i have to stop and heal someone else one of them almost dies. We nearly did wipe again because i was spread too thin with the new people dying and me being alone. Not even a red mage or a summoner to back me up, but the few remaining people alive managed to finish it before i bit the dust.

I understand getting impatient in a duty, but that is just beyond rude to do.

[AureliaF]

Ugh what a day in DF. I've not had DF issues to speak of for aaaages, and then today, I swear, it was like all the jerks were out in force. Been leveling AST all day, and had that annoying person that I posted about earlier in Halatali, then several more runs with issues varying from minor to major, and then just now, I finally decided to call it quits after this last run.

Cutter's Cry, I get in with a PLD, SMN, an archer (yep... at level 38+...) and me on AST. Starts off really shaky, the PLD seems super hesitant and unsure where to go, but that's cool by me, idm taking it slow. He's not sure what to pull and what to avoid, and messing up his Flash timing and whatnot, aggro's skipping around. But then after the first pack or two, the archer decides they're going to run around the whole room and aggro every mob in there. I can feel my blood start to boil and the SMN is healing them with Physick spam.

Finally the tank goes down because I'm splitting heals between all of us, and I ask the archer to stop pulling mobs, I'm polite about it. The SMN immediately jumps to their defense, and they're from the same server, so they must've queued together. They say, "we're here to level, stop skipping mobs" and "this tank isn't interested in pulling." Which I get the impatience, but let the tank figure out his pace please, ugh. I stupidly died on the sandworm boss because I was running across the arena to heal the two dps and got smacked by his burrow skill. I left shortly after. I never bail on DF, even when it's rough, but that's two in one day... I'm so done with DF for a couple days lol.

edit: I checked, and that archer is actually level 70, obviously just being an idiot and deliberately taking off their job crystal. /facepalm