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

[drmambo1999]

Now that I have decent internet again I'm getting back into doing extremes. Been doing Ruby Extreme for a few days now off and on. Basically know the fight by heart. I'm the offtank (usually, and been doing it with a tank friend). I've seen enrage and know every single mechanic, rarely even getting hit by helioclaw. Still not cleared. Now why is that?

Pug DPS can never stay alive for whatever reason.

"This is an alt, I've cleared before"
"I've cleared before, just helping"
"I've seen enrage but I have no idea what I'm doing"
"Why did that redmage use displacement and backflip into the wall right as phase 2 begins?"

And then said dps, in one case a dragoon, keeps getting hit by iron chariot and dying. But hey they've cleared it and it's just an alt guys! I've given up clearing this since I didn't do it in the first few days and am just going to wait and see if we can finish making a static. Tired of doing everything I can correctly only for pugs to mess up. Well that and they can never agree on a strategy, or people subject a strat of their own in place of what a party finder says.

And the best part? Dragoon earlier says "god help me" about a strat despite being the alt of a cleared character that kept dying to iron chariot. If you're going to brag about your clear at least try not to get hit by avoidable mechs.

It's almost as bad as when I tried getting my Delta 4.0 savage clear after my static broke due to schedule displacement, and having a black mage run their flare all the way across the arena on top of me with my own.

I got really lucky when I joined my first practice party a few days ago. We cleared it before the time ran out. We wiped a few times but eventually got it. It was a nice learning experience but I was still iffy on some mechanics, do I decided to join with a buddy, another learning party.

This next party was a disaster... And it only seemed to get worse as people left and parties disbanded. We spent all day trying to clear for my buddy and never did. I at least felt very comfortable with the fight by the end of it all, but I had to leave him to clear on his own since I needed sleep.

He got a clear later thankfully and we started joining farm parties. I'll be honest, farm pugs were over all better than the practice ones, but they are still very much prone to wipes.

We did see a mount eventually that I was fortunate enough to obtain, but man has this particular ex primal raised the sodium levels inside me. Now to try and get a draggo for my friend... Lol

[Bright-Flower]

I haven't done RW EX, but I can feel the pain. I tried getting into pugging ex primals back in the Lakshmi/Susano days and while I did clear them, I got so tired of pugs failing the same mechanics. Be it not positioning yourself well with the cloud, or not running to hte other side when you had the lightning marker etc.

I'm not dedicated enough to commit to a static but don't have the patience for pugs so I just do the casual content.

[Anarnee]

So I queue up for Trial with one of my girls and get The Dancing Plague.

Woo... This will either go smoothly or badly. No inbetween for this one.

Everything goes clumsy up to the adds... People doing questionable things... like healers standing in the briars, and not standing in the water for the aoe fire stack.

We get to adds and the first phase goes fine.

Then the second phase comes.

I'm MCH. When I play ranged I always try to stay in melee range, for heals, and because generally I think dodging is easier that way.

I dodge out to get out of the huge stripe aoes and the big circles, and then I get the stack aoe. I'm in the center so I figure everyone can get to the stack, but after a pulse no one is coming my way, so I edge over to the two melee, hoping that the other ranged and the healers will come too.

Nope. Both melee are running away and the healers and tanks are just standing still.

I stop chasing them, but one of the melee dies with me. We do not meet the dps check.

One of the tanks asked what happened and so I spoke up.

"No one stacked, we lost two dps and didn't meet the dps check."

One of the melee, I think it was the NIN goes "I doesn't help that the stack was running around."

?!?!!!! I brought the stack to them and THEY WERE LITERALLY RUNNING AWAY?!

Then someone else goes "Bring the stack to melee so they can keep uptime"

Which... Is literally what I did only to have them RUN AWAY FROM ME?!

Someone else left and I quickly left too.

Ya'll know the mechanic, no one should have to chase after people with the stack marker. Your uptime means literally nothing if we die because you don't do the mechanic.

Either way I was screwed.

[Mesarthim]

Well... follow-up to the ruby extreme dilemma. Friend tried one last time to get me that clear (that they also got this morning along with one more of us). I went into it pretty... not positive. My hunch was true because our WHM we got apparently never saw past the start of phase 2... in a clear party. Then they also couldn't stay for more than 20-30 minutes because of course they won't in a (stay for a potential full lockout).

But my faith in humanity was partially restored tonight because our remade party got a bunch of cleared people. Even sympathized with my awful luck. We got the clear, and even cleared it an additional 2 times. My faith in drops though is another matter entirely when it's a RDM weapon, AST, and WHM. All needed by their respectively used roles in our party D:

Least now my party quality should shoot up now that I can participate in duty completes (or just make with cotank friend).

[KaleShibata]

Part of the reason I won't do any harder content past extreme, like savage. I wouldn't want to join a static for content like this either, personally. I just don't want to commit to a set schedule. I prefer to play when I want to play, treating it like a job just makes the game less enjoyable for me.

I have a similar issue. I don't want a static to treat it like a second job. i weant a group of people that just laugh it off and have fun trying to figure it out. treating it like a job is draining, and lets not forget how vitrol happy a number of players trying to get statics are. hell i still got all the 24 man raids to unlock and clear the omega weapon series (normal) and a number of other things. can't be arsed to do it because dealing with vitrol is a very tiring experience even if i don't get it.

Personally i wouldn't mind starting a static if i could get a more acceptable schedule of availibility. to be honest.

[Awful]

Ruby weapon all week has been draining at 52 totems X.X... it's the same thing we pull > Flexiclaw dodge the butt circles aaannnd 1-2 people die, okay that sucks get to our clock positions, people go "I didn't read PF are we rotating?" Yes. They don't rotate. I could go on but it's the same things:

-People standing in stupid dying during Undermine/Liquification
-Not on the right side of the claws dead
-Not making room on the sides so 1 person always dies
-Phase 2 people dying/healers not healing anyone
-People touching the head

I should just make this into a drinking game it's been horrible and 3 of my friends got their mount and i've rolled like on 3 of em I rolled a whopping 8, 12 ,30, but it's okay for the person whose been dead and then disbands PF to get it right? If there wasn't a checkpoint this would be even more insufferable.

On a positive note helped my friend clear E5S on a 0 chest this week but it was again PUGs that keep making strats complicated and not realizing what's being advertised, then they get upset and leave, I'm just glad I got em a clear and I'll hopefully be done getting the other 40+ totems I need.

[Rasikko]

Experienced something new in Holminster Switch...

I no longer even cant anymore. I had to grammatically botch that sentence to say that.

Thats right. I lost the ability to can and cant.

I outdps all as AST.

I wish I was kidding.

Come on man.., that run is already slow with every mob having boss-like HP..

[DumdogsWorld]

While some of the horror stories considering low DPS may have just been cases of legitimately bad players, I know I sometimes scratch my head at how much less DPS I do than other people.

My rotation maybe isn't fine-tuned to the extent that savage and extreme guides would like it to be, but I know for a fact that it is more than enough for something like Expert Roulette, or normal Trials Roulette. Way more than enough.
And my gear isn't bad either. I no longer have any pieces below i480 HQ, and I meld where ever I can.

I don't use a parser or anything, so I guess it could be prone to some error, but I constantly see some mage or something generating more hate than me via just standing there and popping the occasional spell.

I mean, it doesn't even seem to be a difference in player skill. I think factors like uptime are a huge factor in this regard. As a dragoon, my hits are powerful but with a slow skill speed as well as limited range, so I guess many jobs can simply attack an enemy longer than I can. But it still doesn't explain why some mages can literally just stand there while I'm paying attention to my positionals, using every ability in my kit, etc etc.

[Averax]

When i tell people i'll dance on their corpses if they don't dodge the marx smash on Engles, i mean it.

[SturmChurro]

I have a similar issue. I don't want a static to treat it like a second job. i weant a group of people that just laugh it off and have fun trying to figure it out. treating it like a job is draining, and lets not forget how vitrol happy a number of players trying to get statics are. hell i still got all the 24 man raids to unlock and clear the omega weapon series (normal) and a number of other things. can't be arsed to do it because dealing with vitrol is a very tiring experience even if i don't get it.

Personally i wouldn't mind starting a static if i could get a more acceptable schedule of availibility. to be honest.

Yep, that's how I would prefer to play too. I have actually been distancing myself from groups like that for the past couple years. I'd rather play with a select few people I know - if I play with anyone. To laugh it off like you say. I primarily play this game solo. A real guild, for me, has usually ended badly (maybe I'm the issue?!). Yeah, though "draining" is exactly how I would describe it. Like I actually have the time to commit... It's just some weeks, I don't want to do this or that on that set date. Some days I don't game, or I play something else, etc. I am very... inconsistent with my schedule, so rather than pull a group of people down, and make commitments I'll just keep playing solo.