When do the training wheels come off?

[Lmcgyver]

Lol , my bad, I kind of left that out but yeah I would use blizzard 3 and fire 3 to go back and forth.
Didn’t feel the need to add that since I felt it was standard knowledge for BLM lol. Didn’t mean to confuse you.

No problem; I thought that might be the case, but when it comes to rotations you can never be sure - it's always better to list it out fully. I can at least confirm now your issue was the Hearts though, as you would have indeed used them through casting 3x Fire II before Flare.
By the way, if you are using Blizzard III for changing to Umbral Ice in your AoE rotation, it's worth noting that Freeze now does the same job as Blizzard III, but better when it hits 3+ targets.

[KageTokage]

I'm not the sort to call people out for playing a class wrong unless they're doing something seriously wrong (IE, SCH not using their fairy, tanks not using tank stance), but they sure as heck won't get a commendation if they're, say, a healer not DPSing at all.

Dumped that novice network trash though on it, worthless chat spam. Anyone new reading this don't bother with Novice Network.

This is kind of a poor generalization to make because the NN environment differs drastically on different servers.

On Cactuar, if people ask questions they'll without fail be answered within a minute or two, irregardless of whatever other silly discussions may be happening at the time.

I do know from server hopping how toxic and spammy the NN on other servers can be, though...

[AngeliouxRein]

No problem; I thought that might be the case, but when it comes to rotations you can never be sure - it's always better to list it out fully. I can at least confirm now your issue was the Hearts though, as you would have indeed used them through casting 3x Fire II before Flare.
By the way, if you are using Blizzard III for changing to Umbral Ice in your AoE rotation, it's worth noting that Freeze now does the same job as Blizzard III, but better when it hits 3+ targets.

YES!! I just discovered that freeze does that. I kept thinking I would lose it if I went straight to freeze. At least now I know why fire 2 is not needed.
I don’t run into a whole lot of black mages so I don’t get chances to see how they do their rotations. Doesn’t help that when I do see them they usually just do single target rotation. But I am happy about the tips you gave and at the same time I have to apologize if I’ve derailing this thread a bit D:

[Rhais]

Yes, but it's optional. Or i am mistaken about that?

You aren't, all you are required to do is talk to a person in the hall of novice, you don't have to go through it at all though. I don't know why so many people believe making that mandatory will somehow make the majority of the playerbase competent in endgame anyway, it wouldn't change a thing.

[Alexandre_Noireau]

Never.

Level 80 dungeons are exactly the same as level 30 dungeons. And all content.

This game has no difficulty curve, just 4 difficulty tiers.

1.- Boring. (90%)
2.- Boring with more than 30 imputs per second. (5%)
3.- Actually engaging. (4%)
4.- Stupid. (1%)

[Tigore]

@ Alexandre

I am not sure if I am understanding what you mean. Are you honestly trying to say something like The Sunken Temple of Qarn (35) is the same as The Twinning (80)? The Twinning final boss places tons of fire on the ground and expects you to read what few safe spots there are while keeping players spread out the best they can. Sunken Temple's final boss just wants you to kill the statue add on a switch and for DPS to enter a square zone to kill certain adds.

As for some other post debates, I am also puzzled by the thought of using AoEs being harder than single target. In some cases, we are actually pressing less buttons to do AoE. The player just has to know it's best used at 3+ targets.

[Berteaux_Braumegain]

After getting told "I know what to do, you dont have to tell me this/that, you dont pay my sub", even veterans lose the interest to teach others. Beside, if you were to teach every bad player in your daily roulettes, you wouldnt manage to finish your dailies. And sorry - but someone who works and has a rl and only a few hours spare time, this cant be done with everyone. Beside there are friends and FC mates/newbies that need the same help, why would you help randoms which will disappear after the dungeon clear or actually ignore your messages in the chat?

And the problem isnt really about explaining boss mechanics, everyone got their own pace and learning those patterns/puzzles is pretty easy, mechanics are the less evil here.
But I believe some really think, teaching roles/jobs can be done between the pulls, and thats really naive. There are many things new players dont know, even more if they never played a MMO before. Damage mitigation with buffs, healing over time, damage over time effects... AoE potency scaling up at 2+ mobs already, weaving your OGCD skills between every GCD skill... All these things take more time than "hey I will bomb you with information now and you'll definetly get better after!".

This information has to be in the game first. If new players still have questions or struggle with stuff, they still have the chance to ask other players/friends/FC members.

Reminds me of when I was new and I kept wondering why people were talking about pounds in chat. It wasn't until later that I realized people were telling me to use Limit Break.

[Zhamkyong]

You aren't, all you are required to do is talk to a person in the hall of novice, you don't have to go through it at all though. I don't know why so many people believe making that mandatory will somehow make the majority of the playerbase competent in endgame anyway, it wouldn't change a thing.

That's why i said what i meant: It's the responsibility of each player in the end. The tools are there but if a player wants to be carried or be lazy no matter how many you throw at him, he will do nothing to change his playstyle. That's why i call The Steps of Faith an aberration, it was that kind of barrier you need to apply that kind of challenge the game needs at some point. But it got so watered down that instead of a challenge it's a joke. It became a joke the moment they nerfed it, come to think of it.

[Kaethra]

Never.

Level 80 dungeons are exactly the same as level 30 dungeons. And all content.

This game has no difficulty curve, just 4 difficulty tiers.

1.- Boring. (90%)
2.- Boring with more than 30 imputs per second. (5%)
3.- Actually engaging. (4%)
4.- Stupid. (1%)

This is pretty accurate.

There was a point in time when the regular dungeons were a bit of a challenge in 2.0. But since then, our potencies have gone up each expansion and its rendered alot of these dungeons trivial because of it. I do remember running Stone Vigil and normally having to Sleep one of the large birds in the 3x pull or watch your tank get wrecked. Or switch from AOE to ST on the sprite pulls so they don't Blizzardx3 your tank to death.

Right now dungeons from 15-60 could do with a bit of scaling, increase mob hp by 25-40% and their damage by 10-20%. And have a bit more restrictive item lvl scaling when you're scaled from a higher level. For example, if you're doing Auram Vale, you should be scaled to item level 45 or 50, not any higher.

I also believe any content not in the current expansion should have item level scaling to 5pts higher than its minimum (or its level if it had no minimum). I like the idea of getting better gear to make things easier, but we can have that for current expansion stuff. Take off those benefits for old content and let us have our nostalgia back. And I don't believe everyone would struggle, they would simply adapt, as they did when all the content was current.

[Forever_Learning]

Ah yes, the era of 2.x. When Swiftcast required you to get THM to lv32, leaving many healers without it. The time of Brayflox status struggles for SCH, WARs without Provoke. Hell, I'll take you way back: Pre-2.2 WAR. That just sucked.

X| So many deaths.

Needing THM for swiftcast or anything else like that was a normal part of the game back then. In order to even unlock a job, you needed one class at level 30 and a separate one at level 15 - which is why my maurader is level 15 and never touched for years. If someone didn't do that, and remained as say CNJ until level 50 - as much ridicule as you give someone today without their soul stone.

Healers without swiftcast?

More like any level 50 healer without swiftcast would be kicked from any party and told to go level up THM to get swiftcast, which wasn't difficult to do nor take very long; probably as long as it takes to go from 1-50 today.

Brayflox? I was a scholar in ARR, you needed to blow your CDS, and basically spam heal to keep the tank up. It was easy. The scholar having issues were the ones who wanted to spend all their time doing DPS and just let EOS heal, so when they actually had to prioritize healing, or spend a fight doing nothing but healing, they would fall apart.

Ultimately, you've described how some players back then were very bad. Competent players had little issue with ARR, we pugged coil.

My alt is both a returner and a new player. I actually want the new player one back.

Dumped that novice network trash though on it, worthless chat spam. Anyone new reading this don't bother with Novice Network.

Another posted already responded, but I will also say that my time with the novice network on Gilgamesh has been great.

I returned in February, but because I haven't reached level 70 yet (too distracted by all the side content), the novice network has become my defacto FC and I absolutely love it. EVERY SINGLE QUESTION is always answered, or there is a major attempt to answer it. I feel I can ask anything, without fear it will be considered too stupid. They've spent time explaining rotations to me, game systems, basically, whatever I ask about. When people arent asking questions, people chat, yes, but the minute there's a question, everyone goes into answer mode.

I also know Gilgamesh is one of the more "hardcore" servers, so that may have an impact.