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

[Denji]

Last night I ended up leaving a Twinning after the first boss because the healer was purposefully opening up the tanks on the side, even after I said it's possible to complete it without opening them. The sprout in there I can understand opening one or two by accident....but the healer opening them by moving so their AoE definitely would hit it? Yeah, I'm out. Don't need to run things where people are purposely making more work.

i'm thankful that boss is at the start because it immediately lets me know if i should just leave. if it were accidental or they were learning (and mention this) i'm willing to overlook it but there comes a point where people just open every tank, drop the fire aoes spread out and in frustrating places and then refuse to stack where i just give up, leave after the fight and begin crafting instead while my roulette is on cooldown.

[Packetdancer]

It helps to be leveling deeps actually, it helps lots. I know when someone is going for positionals, when they are in burst, and when I am free to turn a boss or when I should not.

Agreed, and underlined -- twice -- for emphasis.

I think that deciding to level everything to 80 during ShB vastly improved me in various roles. Already having been a healer main I think helped a lot when I was starting out with tanking. Tanking, I think, also made me a better healer. Leveling all the DPS jobs gave me a better internal understanding of keeping the boss positioned consistently to allow for melee positionals (and not pulling the boss out-of-range of the ranged DPS), etc.

Everyone's gonna have some jobs they like to play more than others; I will probably never enjoy Black Mage, and (somewhat to my surprise) I've discovered that I prefer melee DPS and tanking to ranged DPS of any form. (Though my heart remains a healer's.)

But leveling at least one of every type of job, even if you don't decide to take everything to cap... that'll help you with the other jobs. Leveling a melee DPS, a ranged DPS (and maybe one of ranged physical and one of caster), a healer, and a tank is probably one of the best ways to improve at any of those roles you're interested in, because you'll develop a better internal understanding of how the other roles rely on whatever role you're playing.

[Avatre]

i'm thankful that boss is at the start because it immediately lets me know if i should just leave. if it were accidental or they were learning (and mention this) i'm willing to overlook it but there comes a point where people just open every tank, drop the fire aoes spread out and in frustrating places and then refuse to stack where i just give up, leave after the fight and begin crafting instead while my roulette is on cooldown.

I went and worked on EW shared FATEs while my roulette was on CD. Didn't even do all my roulettes last night due to it though...so I didn't meet my goal of getting PLD to 90 last night. Tonight I finish the last level and a half...no matter what

[RobynDaBank]

Yesterday Hippokampos: amazing, no wipes, no deaths.
Today Hippokampos: holy carp why did I die to literally every mechanic especially that damn big cataract head?!

I can't understand why I did the fight worse than my first attempt.

[Rowde]

My general mental-checklist when tanking trash pulls is:

1. Can I move out of the orange without significantly shifting the mobs? Yes? Then shift the minimum needed (and ideally shift back afterwards).
2. Are the mobs probably going to die in the next 5-7 seconds, and I can survive this damage? Yes? Then just mitigate as best I can and eat the damage; the mobs will be finished off shortly and there's enough time to heal on the way to the next pull, and moving enough that the mobs might move out of DPS AoEs is counter-productive.
3. Does the healer seem to be really struggling for whatever reason? (Poor resource management, having had to spend all healing resources on a DPS standing in bad and eating damage like they're at a county fair pie-eating contest, lack of understanding of their healing kit, etc.) Yes? Then make it easier on them and shift out of the orange, even if it means shifting the mobs around.
4. Conversely, is the healer really good with their kit and has me as a tank feeling functionally immortal? Yes? Pop a second cooldown if applicable and hold my ground while laughing maniacally to myself. (That last bit may only apply when playing WAR or DRK.)
5. If none of the others are true, can I move a tiny bit so I only eat one orange blob instead of three overlapping ones or whatever? Yes? Then shift to take the minimum number of hits.
6. Failing all else, just move entirely out of the bad.

It's generally not so much a conscious choice to run down the checklist, that's just sort of a summary of what I know goes into the gut feeling of "should I stay or should I go now" when there's a marker proclaiming that the Bad Stuff goes right here under me in a trash pull. So far, this has generally served me well.

(Boss fights are obviously different, because generally in boss fights you're meant to move out of all the Bad Stuff.)

First question should probably be: Are there any additional Debuffs from taking a hit? While trash pulls don't usually have Vuln stacks, some do paralyze, stun, damage down, vulnerability up, or a variety of DoTs. If any of that will happen, should avoid it.

[Packetdancer]

First question should probably be: Are there any additional Debuffs from taking a hit? While trash pulls don't usually have Vuln stacks, some do paralyze, stun, damage down, vulnerability up, or a variety of DoTs. If any of that will happen, should avoid it.

I'd say that those aren't common in trash pulls, but yeah, that's a good clarification. I tend to just sort of mentally treat any trash pull with special mechanics as its own special case, rather than the generic "these things do damage in varying quantities".

If we're trying to make it include all special-case trash pulls, I'd add that there's some scenarios that should also be addressed with interrupt (like the Fuath mobs in Dohn Mheg opening the pull with a cast of Watering Wheel) or stun (like the Dohn Basket's Straight Punch attach, which is a mini-tankbuster under normal scenarios and turns into an actual tankbuster if the Fuath isn't interrupted and gets off Watering Wheel to buff the basket at the beginning of the pull) rather than 'dodge' or 'eat the damage'.

Sitting there and eating a buffed Straight Punch from the basket is gonna make your healer have Big Sadness (or possibly Much Surprise if they don't know how the buff and attack work, so don't expect a tankbuster randomly in the middle of a trash pull), regardless of how well you're positioning the mobs and dodging out of the Bad.

[Rinhi]

I think that deciding to level everything to 80 during ShB vastly improved me in various roles.

I really, really wish other omnijobbers would put in the same effort as you (or me pats myself on the back)
the amount of people I've seen lately that just put in zero effort into playing their (leveling) classes, especially 'easy' ones like SMN, BRD or RDM, is stupendous
you have people with every class at 80 and many at 90 who do nothing but single target (and cuss anyone out who asks them to AOE), tanks in 80+ dungeons who AOE once and then basically go afk, which means that the dps' and healer will steal the aggro after a while

at this point it's become a joke in my fc and data center discord I'm in that any roulette I'm doing will be cursed and they've dubbed them rinhlettes and you know the worst part, and I'm legitimately not joking?
whenever we queue up together, at least 2 of the daily roulettes will be genuinely cursed, 1 hour CT raids, 30+ minutes in 10 minute leveling dungeons, toxic mentors, alliances griefing, sprouts who get angry at advice, everything
some of them are straight up not queueing for roulettes with me anymore

[Chie_M]

Yesterday Hippokampos: amazing, no wipes, no deaths.
Today Hippokampos: holy carp why did I die to literally every mechanic especially that damn big cataract head?!

I can't understand why I did the fight worse than my first attempt.

I did the same when I got P4N on roulette earlier. Kept dying or misreading the telegraphs -- haven't ever died on that fight before, and today I just left my brain at the door, I guess. At least I finally got Nosferatu... :sweat:

[SenorPatty]

Agreed, and underlined -- twice -- for emphasis.

I think that deciding to level everything to 80 during ShB vastly improved me in various roles. Already having been a healer main I think helped a lot when I was starting out with tanking. Tanking, I think, also made me a better healer. Leveling all the DPS jobs gave me a better internal understanding of keeping the boss positioned consistently to allow for melee positionals (and not pulling the boss out-of-range of the ranged DPS), etc.

Everyone's gonna have some jobs they like to play more than others; I will probably never enjoy Black Mage, and (somewhat to my surprise) I've discovered that I prefer melee DPS and tanking to ranged DPS of any form. (Though my heart remains a healer's.)

But leveling at least one of every type of job, even if you don't decide to take everything to cap... that'll help you with the other jobs. Leveling a melee DPS, a ranged DPS (and maybe one of ranged physical and one of caster), a healer, and a tank is probably one of the best ways to improve at any of those roles you're interested in, because you'll develop a better internal understanding of how the other roles rely on whatever role you're playing.

There was a newbie here on the forums and he made this thread, explaining how he first played a tank, then he leveled up a healer and he finally understood why tanks pulled wall to wall. Like the revelation at how boring it was to heal single pulls blew his mind and that he could never go back to single pulls as a tank now. He then added how it helped him do better mitigation as a tank too.

I'm not saying I cried-cuz that would be exaggerating-but it was such a magical moment in the forums. Imagine: a sprout who wants to go beyond his comfort zone and expand his horizons. Beautiful.

[Lium]

PSA. In the second boss of Stigma Dreamscape, during the dots mechanic, please spread out when you line up with your corresponding dots. When you don't it kills whoever is standing next to you.

I died twice to this because one other person wouldn't line up correctly.