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

[MilkieTea]

I had this one healer in a Stone Vigil run who had literally accidentally removed LD from their bars at some point, gone on a break from the game, came back, and had forgotten it existed. Yet his use of Freecures and so on was actually so on-point that we still speedran the damn thing, although with me actually being under pressure for once as a tank (and him milking every bit of his mana he could). One of the most fun runs I'd had in a long time. I almost regretted that we found out what the issue was and thereby allowed him to Cure II spam and, thereby, me to go back to normal well-performed-but-not-remotely-scary-or-exciting tanking. At least on the last boss I still got to play around with actively dodging Frost Breathand LoSing Rime without uptime lost -- you know, the other little joys in life.

See, I wouldn't have minded if they were, well... not even good at their job just doing the basics. They didn't even use their freecure procs, and I've no idea how they were OOM constantly since the tank barely had health when they did manage to cure him.

Was this recently? I ask because I'm least comfortable tanking and usually ask for advice from the party while doing it. So, it could have been me.

Recently yes! But it might not've been you, the tank wasn't a lala

[Dogempire]

I had a Delubrum run earlier where I would constantly die at the start of fights because the boss was aggroing onto me, by the time we got to the 3rd boss I was not happy in the slightest about it, so being reasonable I gave it a couple GCDs before I popped noble ends and then reassemble lost slashed the boss, nope, took aggro the second I did that and the tankbuster marker appeared on me.

Me being thoroughly fed up with this at this point just decided "Eh, if I'm going to die then I'm going to get a point across" and pointed the tankbuster at the entire raid, didn't kill everyone but I think I got around 12-15 people with it. After that I didn't have aggro issues with the last boss.

I don't know why I have such rotten luck with tanks in Bozja content, but it's really not making it any easier to play a non-tank when you're pulling aggro as a DPS because people can't be bothered to turn on stance.

Seriously, I've pretty much developed my own self-defense mechanism when I pull boss aggro on a non-tank where I basically pop sprint and run the boss in circles, which makes it nearly impossible for melee dps to get full uptime on the boss when they're not standing still for casts, usually someone gets the point and provokes it off, but sheesh is it annoying when I have to do it.

I might just have to bite the bullet and go back to tanking because at this point I don't trust a pug to tank a ham sandwich

[Kacho_Nacho]

Recently yes! But it might not've been you, the tank wasn't a lala

Ah, it wasn't me then. Kacho has always been a lalafell.

[MilkieTea]

I come again...

Part of the reason why I'm having more-than-often bad runs is because I'm leveling my alt classes and spamming dungeons. This means that I'm doing anywhere from 10-20 a day, and at least one of those is bad.

Anyways.

The scene: Cutters Cry.

Me, another DPS, and a tank and whm. Tank is doing alright, white mage is... acting weird. Popping regen on me when I'm at full health, running into walls, that kind of weird. They also... didn't use esuna. Like. At all.

We wipe to the last boss 4 times because the healer refuses to use esuna OR step in or out for violet or blue. I crashed so I only got the last of the messages, but....

[Cincierta]

I had a Delubrum run earlier where I would constantly die at the start of fights because the boss was aggroing onto me, by the time we got to the 3rd boss I was not happy in the slightest about it, so being reasonable I gave it a couple GCDs before I popped noble ends and then reassemble lost slashed the boss, nope, took aggro the second I did that and the tankbuster marker appeared on me.

Me being thoroughly fed up with this at this point just decided "Eh, if I'm going to die then I'm going to get a point across" and pointed the tankbuster at the entire raid, didn't kill everyone but I think I got around 12-15 people with it. After that I didn't have aggro issues with the last boss.

I don't know why I have such rotten luck with tanks in Bozja content, but it's really not making it any easier to play a non-tank when you're pulling aggro as a DPS because people can't be bothered to turn on stance.

Seriously, I've pretty much developed my own self-defense mechanism when I pull boss aggro on a non-tank where I basically pop sprint and run the boss in circles, which makes it nearly impossible for melee dps to get full uptime on the boss when they're not standing still for casts, usually someone gets the point and provokes it off, but sheesh is it annoying when I have to do it.

I might just have to bite the bullet and go back to tanking because at this point I don't trust a pug to tank a ham sandwich

If it makes you feel better I ended up tanking Avowed as NIN because the three tanks in our raid died due to mechanics. Oh, and speaking of tankbusters, did you know if you're at full health and have a duelist pot on, you can survive that plus a couple autos with Shade Shift and Bloodlust on? I learned that the fun way.

Oh, and another thing about tankbusters: Please, tanks, I know those strange markers over your head confuse you in the Nier raids, even the ones that have a single-target on JUST the three tanks in your raid, but please for the love of the Twelve: STOP CHASING PEOPLE WITH THOSE TANKBUSTERS. You kill people this way, including your healers. They. Are. Not. Stack. Markers.

I had one just earlier chase me with his tankbuster in my party and I desperately ran away. He did this not once, not twice, but 7 times the entire raid. I do not want that kind of hug, that hug WILL KILL ME as I am not the big-girl tank, I'm the squishy healer trying to keep your booty alive. If we're dead, you're dead.

Oh, and use a mitigation for those tankbusters. You'll eat a lot of damage, but you'll live and we healers will get you back up from low health. Though if you eat 5 vuln stacks like that one tank I had earlier on Red Girl you're not gonna live unless you use your invuln. Yes, your invuln. It exists for a reason.

[ItMe]

An FC member just sent our discord the story of a beautiful run they had helping our pal through their first run of Castrum Lacus Litore and (with their permission) I just have to share it.

Oh man you guys, you haven't even heard about the Castrum Lacus Litore that [redacted] and I went through after you hopped off.

We hopped into Bozja to grind some mettle and get EXP for our characters. While we were in there, some very salty people were bickering in chat about their previous CLL run. Maybe that should have been a red flag, but eventually it popped again and we hopped in.

The first obstacle was simply finding a group. People were sniping invites left and right. We managed to pull in two other DPS, but then the LFG messages stopped coming. Eventually a healer settled into our group and that was us. Four DPS and a healer.

We get past the first boss after a somewhat messy but not terrible encounter and move onto the prisoners section. I called southeast for our group in chat. Had a slight blunder where I accidentally said "SW" and the immediately corrected myself, but I made it very explicit that we were going southeast (since another group was going southwest anyways).
And then another group followed us.

Okay, so one of the sides was not cleared (despite every side having been claimed in chat). We lost a prisoner. No big deal. But then it came time to press the buttons. The other group who had followed us fucked off somewhere else. We still needed to kill our boss. Four DPS and a healer. I put out a call asking if a tank could help us out. No response. All the other buttons were pushed. Finally I was just like "Fuck it" and tried to use death on the boss (didn't work, tragic). Eventually we got it down.

We move on to elemental balls boss and...ho boy. It wasn't a particularly hard combo of elements, but when the first set of meteors dropped, a lot of DPS were dead. A meteor exploded, killing most of the DPS (including our entire party) and it wasn't looking good. But hey, a lot of healers survived. We coordinated in chat to point out people who could rez. A couple healers were brought up. I was like "Hey I'm a red mage, I also have Cure IV equipped. Pick me up and I'll rez spam.

The healers were kind enough to rez [redacted], who was probably way more bewildered about that than any of us. Because despite doing an amazing job, tragically dancers can't rez.

A few more meteor phases happened with too many people dead. We fully wiped, had to start over. Things were a bit cleaner the second time around, but we were pushing the clock.

We get to the final boss, and someone goes "Let's just free for all Lyon!"
As in, let's not make a group. Anyone who wants to go up can do so.
To no one's surprise, the top group wiped. The time they were hoping to save by not making a group caused us all to wipe again. We had 10 minutes left in the instance.

So we regroup. People are taking their good sweet time trying to figure out what to do. Eventually they scrape together an actual group to go up and do Lyon. By the time we pulled, we had less than 8 minutes left.

The top group managed to not die this time. They came back down safely. But then it became a DPS race. A lot of people were still dying to Dawon's jumps.

We beat Castrum Lacus Litore
With 5 seconds left on the clock

[ICountFrom0]

Far better story then the time the clock hit 0 on my group with 00.5% left on the bar... I like how thier one turned out better.

[Xtrasweettea]

I had a Delubrum run earlier where I would constantly die at the start of fights because the boss was aggroing onto me, by the time we got to the 3rd boss I was not happy in the slightest about it, so being reasonable I gave it a couple GCDs before I popped noble ends and then reassemble lost slashed the boss, nope, took aggro the second I did that and the tankbuster marker appeared on me.

Me being thoroughly fed up with this at this point just decided "Eh, if I'm going to die then I'm going to get a point across" and pointed the tankbuster at the entire raid, didn't kill everyone but I think I got around 12-15 people with it. After that I didn't have aggro issues with the last boss.

I don't know why I have such rotten luck with tanks in Bozja content, but it's really not making it any easier to play a non-tank when you're pulling aggro as a DPS because people can't be bothered to turn on stance.

Seriously, I've pretty much developed my own self-defense mechanism when I pull boss aggro on a non-tank where I basically pop sprint and run the boss in circles, which makes it nearly impossible for melee dps to get full uptime on the boss when they're not standing still for casts, usually someone gets the point and provokes it off, but sheesh is it annoying when I have to do it.

I might just have to bite the bullet and go back to tanking because at this point I don't trust a pug to tank a ham sandwich

I run into those quite often when I go as a DPS as well.

Second to last DR I did I tanked almost every boss as a DNC. Meaning that, I, a DNC, was pumping out more damage and enmity than all but one MNK and SAM.

I just tanked stuff until I died from tank busters. The only boss I didn’t die from TB was Trinity Avowed, thanks to Lost Reflect.

Unlike you, I didn’t attempt to “teach a lesson” and MPK the group. I didn’t pop sprint and run around to ruin everyone else’s time. It was easier to just own the run and tank for the sake of everyone else instead of being passive aggressive.

DR at the current lifecycle is a complete crapshoot on the quality of players. You know that signing up for DR. You know you may not get a run with healers (had plenty of those) and runs without tanks or Blue DPS (had plenty of those too). If you were able to tank as a DPS, then it proves that tanks are not needed in the first place.

If you want a guaranteed tank that is present, but you don’t want to tank, use PF. You’d probably get better quality people anyway.

[Cincierta]

My brain still hurts from the run I had yesterday.

My FC mate and I learned that I can heal carry 22 people on my back as whm in WoD. He ran on PLD, I came on WHM. First boss was a mess with the other two tanks trying to voke war Mango Bango and killing several people; Dragon was a mess because another voke war between tanks before my FC mate could get it away from everyone else; and Doggo, oh god doggo...

Because no one got into the belly, Doggo started building haste stacks like no tomorrow. I had to sacrifice my FC mate tank and go into the belly, and only 5 other people actually decided to actually get mini'ed and get into the belly. Even though I said in alliance chat to get mini'ed first, people STILL WALKED OVER TO THE NOM PILE AND GOT NOMMED TO DEATH.

And all of this was on top of the fact my co-healer wasn't really doing any healing other than Ruin 1 spam stuffed in with some side helping of Succor. Get freshly revived? IMMEDIATE RUIN 2, eats a raidwide and immediate ded.

Cloud Gal didn't go much better either, and a few times I had to solo heal quite a bit for my party plus a handful of other people. My brain still hurts and I need some aspirin.

Edit: just got out of 80 roulette and got Grand Cosmos with a GNB tank that used a whopping total of 3 defensive cooldowns the entire dungeon. 2 Ramparts and 1 Nebula. Thankfully he did not mass pull and was a fresh 80 but holy shit. That was absurd to heal.

[Dogempire]

I run into those quite often when I go as a DPS as well.

Second to last DR I did I tanked almost every boss as a DNC. Meaning that, I, a DNC, was pumping out more damage and enmity than all but one MNK and SAM.

I just tanked stuff until I died from tank busters. The only boss I didn’t die from TB was Trinity Avowed, thanks to Lost Reflect.

Unlike you, I didn’t attempt to “teach a lesson” and MPK the group. I didn’t pop sprint and run around to ruin everyone else’s time. It was easier to just own the run and tank for the sake of everyone else instead of being passive aggressive.

I mean that's fine for you, I don't believe in enabling the habits of a bad player by letting them kill me repeatedly through laziness to press a single button, but you do you.

If you want a guaranteed tank that is present, but you don’t want to tank, use PF. You’d probably get better quality people anyway.

There were at least 4 tanks in the alliance, including 2 in my own party, when you choose to sign up for a raid as a tank job I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to have to turn on stance and you know, do the job your role is meant for.

Let's be real here, tanking is the easiest it's ever been because you're literally handed a toggle that guarantees you generate more aggro than anyone except other tanks, and you're also handed a baseline 20% damage reduction on top of all the various mitigation skills and defensive options accessible in Bozja, I don't know how you can be any more catered to but still be scared of the boss.