It's time to revaluate paper crown battlementors

[Jojoya]

Adventurer in need is also good, but it's effect simply has nothing on what Mentor roulette has done for the game

You mean the increased toxicity from arrogant mentors only there for the reward and not because they're actually interested in helping other players?

Again, the best effect would be if SE set the default for roulettes so it would fill parties in progress first before forming new parties. Someone doesn't have to be a mentor or even be highly skilled to be the warm body to fill an abandoned spot in any of the duties with the exception of EX trials. Considering mentors seem to have made it a habit to abandon EX trials if that's where roulette puts them, they're not much use there.

[hagare]

You mean the increased toxicity from arrogant mentors only there for the reward and not because they're actually interested in helping other players?

Again, the best effect would be if SE set the default for roulettes so it would fill parties in progress first before forming new parties. Someone doesn't have to be a mentor or even be highly skilled to be the warm body to fill an abandoned spot in any of the duties with the exception of EX trials. Considering mentors seem to have made it a habit to abandon EX trials if that's where roulette puts them, they're not much use there.

then you can help fix the problem.
By being a mentor, if you aren't yet.
You want to help fight against bad mentors?
Be a good mentor. Be an example that inspires other people to want to be like you.

[Zarkovitch]

Oh boy idk how they can fix this tbh.

[Supersnow845]

You mean the increased toxicity from arrogant mentors only there for the reward and not because they're actually interested in helping other players?

Again, the best effect would be if SE set the default for roulettes so it would fill parties in progress first before forming new parties. Someone doesn't have to be a mentor or even be highly skilled to be the warm body to fill an abandoned spot in any of the duties with the exception of EX trials. Considering mentors seem to have made it a habit to abandon EX trials if that's where roulette puts them, they're not much use there.

You talk as if there isn’t a massive problem of people who ignore or are actively hostile to advice, your average EX trial in DF will have someone just pull the boss before you can explain anything

As for offering advice in the 3700 mentor roulettes I have collected data from I encountered 1254 zero DPS healers, for every one I sent the same thing “hey x just to let you know when the party doesn’t need immediate healing you can throw out a damage spell or two it can also make your job easier”, if those 1254 statements I got
-682 silence with no change to gameplay
-344 open hostility, passive aggressiveness or dropping from the instance with no change to playstyle
-125 silence with improvement to gameplay
-103 positive responses with positive change to gameplay

So around 18% of players improved as a response to the most benign advice I could possibly offer, it’s not mentors fault that the playerbase is so unwilling to accept any form of advice or criticism and instead labels everything as toxic

[Supersnow845]

I am a mentor and I don't respect mentors. I just witnessed one tell sprouts to take clemency, divine veil and cover off their bar because they're "useless." I really like the system but I wish it could be reformed in some way.

Like I mean lack of context but I understand their intent even if it’s a really flawed way to discuss it with sprouts who may not know, cover is functionally useless outside of the 82 trait that gives it a weak regen, divine veil is a very wonky tool even if it’s useful, like I know what divine veil works, if I see a PLD put it up I’m not gonna GCD heal just to activate it, and clemency is a tool for basically only if the healer is dead

So yeah that mentor is wrong but more so because they didn’t provide the context sprouts need, not because the advice is genuinely bad

[Midareyukki]

Be a good mentor. Be an example that inspires other people to want to be like you.

I bloody tried. But when people argue against you in Novice Network about the dumbest things just to confuse a sprout... or when people pick on semanthics because "oh your explanation was too vague\too broad, you're not referring to this one niche application" despite the fact that it's niche for a reason and likely only factors in when the sprout dives into Savage... which they clearly won't for a while given they're A LEVEL 11 MARAUDER WITH NOTHING ELSE LEVELLED UP...

Just... God, Novice Network can either be extremely good and well-rounded or people just talk out of their netherrealms. When I see people discredit Ninja entirely just because Forked\Fleeting got split... Suddenly we have a mentor that just went around telling people Ninja wasn't good at all and that sprouts shouldn't try it!

Oh and that's not even getting to the guys who if they take issue with you in any way will be petty and mass-report for no reason. Didn't happen to me, but jesus it happened to people I knew there and it was just dumb.

I can't inspire anyone if it's just going to be an echo chamber for the most nonsensical stuff possible. More often than not it's mentors vs mentors on some really awkward takes that just end up confusing the poor sprout who asked a simple question.
I mentored some sprouts in private, at least the ones who shared a world with me and clearly wanted to learn, and those turned out just fine. Some even beat Savage a month after. When I realized I didn't need to have a crown to do that, I just bailed.

[Supersnow845]

Telling people to take their skills off their bar isn't something that you need context for to have nuance.

I mean I would genuinely suggest sprouts take cover off their bar pre 82, it is a skill that got all its old uses ripped out, but like I said the mentor is wrong but you could have just as easily provided extra context because while their advice is flawed it’s based on a sound principle

[Midareyukki]

Telling people to take their skills off their bar isn't something that you need context for because there's no nuance to have.

Would you believe me if I told you that telling sprouts on novice network to read their tooltips was a point of contrition between mentors? Because it was....
Wasn't even to reprimand anyone or doing so out of frustration, just a footnote after a question was asked. And it was something along the lines of "Guys, this is for all of you now, but really try to read what your skills do. Because sometimes skills have extra effects that you're not aware of". Cue people agreeing, and then some stooges hard disagreeing, saying we shouldn't tell sprouts what to do. And then it just devolved into "he said, she said".

And then people bring up the ToS! FUN.

So if you told me that people argued over whether or not removing actually useless\overly-niche skills off their hotbars (provided an explanation is given) would cause an argument, I'd believe you no questions asked.

[Tlamila]

Like I mean lack of context but I understand their intent even if it’s a really flawed way to discuss it with sprouts who may not know, cover is functionally useless outside of the 82 trait that gives it a weak regen, divine veil is a very wonky tool even if it’s useful, like I know what divine veil works, if I see a PLD put it up I’m not gonna GCD heal just to activate it, and clemency is a tool for basically only if the healer is dead

So yeah that mentor is wrong but more so because they didn’t provide the context sprouts need, not because the advice is genuinely bad

Saying Cover is useless is stupid. It's very situational, but far from useless.
Divine Veil is a great skill, and you don't need to specifically cast to activate it, it will generally get activated by healers normal healing or after a certain level by your normal rotation.
Clemency is less useful, but healer being dead happens more oftent han people would like tbh.
I heard the other day someone also say they never bothered to unlock Passage of Arms cause it's not strictly needed.
At that point, if people stop using all these skills Paladin is just a lame tank with less personal mitigations than the other tanks and no group-wide mitigations whatsoever, what's even the point of playing it?

If anything an actually good mentor should explain how to use them, this one sounds very much not like mentor material. Which of course doens't mean all mentors are bad, just that the selction is poor and there are rotten apples in the bunch.

[Jeeqbit]

I remember the people who usually say Cover is useless is people who only ever do raiding, but there is a lot of other content like dungeons where you can save people, such as a healer, from dying. Clemency isn't just useful when a healer is dead, but when a healer is about to die and it doesn't look like they will save themselves, or to reduce pressure on them when they are overwhelmed from a raise with low MP and probably going to let half the DPS die. I've used it when a healer is trapped in ice and when an aoe cast is about to kill them. In that case it caused a savage run to clear because the aoe cast didn't kill them. I've used it when an aoe cast is about to kill the last surviving SMN or RDM so they can raise as well.

I use Divine Veil all of the time and the level 90 magic attacks activate it because they have heals. You can use Divine Veil to make the healer even more useless in the latest dungeon because it has a heal in it now. It helps when people have vuln stacks or in the Akh Morn type attacks that the latest extremes have.

I actually combine Passage of Arms with Reprisal and Divine Veil to create significant mitigation against Akh Morns, which prevents wipes when healers or party members are dead or have vuln stacks.