Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent. 2.0

[Imora]

Problem with bardams is the first pull is full of caster mobs imo. This leads to taking more damage than usual.

[Stanazolol]

This sounds a little similar to a leveling roulette AV run I had a few days ago as Sage. The tank decided they'd run right headlong into the center of the big room, wiping us all. It was pretty quiet from there on but your story reminded me of that run.

In some of my runs, a sprout dps or someone wont follow me hugging walls and will pull half the first room, or unnecessarily pull everything before the second boss. I dont umderstand this, if youre new to a dungeon, just follow the tank, especially if it seems like they know where they are going. Use sprint, dont pull anything the tanl doesnt.

Another pull that seems unnecessarily difficult is the last marlboro room. What i like to do is aggro the seedlings, pull the forat goldvine and run straight to the second goldvine and point them both to corner. What i want to happen is the dps kill the other fruits i cant reach while i tank the goldvines and corner fruits. A good group seems to do that by default, but so many people fuck that up, I started just tanking half the room at a time. Im not really sure what the average player expects to have to do in that room.

[novamare]

I’ll admit I actually love the Ivalice raids, and I adore math robot. Both because that’s a unique mechanic, and because of his stupid adorable dance he’s doing as you return from the adds phase.

Usually his reputation is unwarranted, but there are those occasional runs that probably keep the legend alive.

My second favorite part of that run (of course losing out to sweet lala gratitude/pity) was math boss's rotating laser light show, where a precious darling sprout healer was hard-casting raise on someone who got caught in the first blast and immediately got obliterated as Mr. Boss Man kept turning. What can you do but laugh?

That's why alliance roulette is probably my favorite. Sure, I might get Labyrinth of the Ancients for the 5000th time, but sometimes I get peak and utter chaos, where half the fun is wondering which minor mechanic will kill half the raid. And also, imo, Ivalice raids are better, more enjoyable chaos than Nier raids because they don't have those stupid, awful, no good, very bad orbs that always nick me because my ping is total doggy doodoo (although I will admit, the music in Nier is *chef's kiss*).

[Packetdancer]

My second favorite part of that run (of course losing out to sweet lala gratitude/pity) was math boss's rotating laser light show, where a precious darling sprout healer was hard-casting raise on someone who got caught in the first blast and immediately got obliterated as Mr. Boss Man kept turning. What can you do but laugh?

I admit I have mild trauma associated with the stupid spinny laser mechanic. Not from math boss himself, but from his Bozjan critical engagement counterpart. You get the math test (now combined with Forced March, which is actually pretty cool)... and then he just goes into the laser spinny mechanic endlessly.

And I do mean endlessly.

When I was leveling PLD to 80 in ShB, I was in Bozja with a bunch of friends (because it was current content and full of folks!). And we got to do the math robot critical engagement... but as the spinning started, everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- save me died. I Clemencied myself healthy after the tankbuster, and then used Lost Arise to get up a healer and a red mage, and they started getting others up... and then they died, so I popped another stack of Lost Arise and...

Basically we chain-rezzed folks -- periodically losing most of the group -- until we had finally gotten the guy down. We managed to get everyone up (even if they died again) such that no one hit the 10 minute death timer, and to finish the CE. I was so, so tempted to just wall it at several points when I was the only one up, but because we kept almost getting the groups back up, people were in /say chat encouraging whoever was up at the time, so I just... popped more Lost Arise and we kept trying to recover.

It was longer than many savage fights I've been in, but that whole time was just one mechanic over and over and over and over. We nearly ran the clock down on the engagement, but we took the 'bot down in the end. And in that sense, everyone working together to try to get folks back up and recover with those down cheering on those who were -- at least for the moment -- back on their feet, it was a fun experience socially.

But every time we get to the spinny laser part of math robot in Ridorana, I have flashbacks to the endless repetition of that one mechanic... over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

[RobynDaBank]

Ice Mage on AoE, rank III spell spammer on ST in Castrum Meridianum today, hehe.

[AnotherPerson]

Bardam's mettle: sprout tank asks whether I want single pulls or double pulls. I say Wall to wall pulls because no one is new to the duty, and he goes "a tank's dream".
I notice his mitigation is a bit lacking in the big pulls and he doesn't position the first boss at all, so I just do a bit more GCD healing. No wipes necessary.

Final boss comes, and the tank and the MCH gets confused by the boss's skill ( I expected that would happen, so I spent the GCD while turned around to GCD shield everyone). The two confused players run to DNC. I debate whether I should pull the tank over with Rescue to reduce the burden on the DNC taking autos from the tank, but then remembered the DNC has Shield Samba, Second Wind, and Dancing Waltz up, as well as full HP + Eukrasian Prognosis shield, so it's fine. At worst, she can take some autos and heal allies instantly with Dancing Waltz. I even became more assured of the fact when I saw the DNC just continue to DPS and not running like a headless chicken as the telegraphed Feathercut animation plays out. She must be waiting for MCH to get near the safe spot and simultaneously to activate Dancing Waltz twice due to being in close proximity with MCH - thereby healing them for 700 potency for the auto attacks the tank and MCH will do to her and dodging the AoE. Genius. The DNC will know what to do, especially since they were aware of turning around to dodge the confusion mechanic.

As I say that, DNC immediately gets hit by the telegraphed Feathercut several times after the MCH and tank gets closer to her, losing 7.9k hp and putting her at 10% HP.
0.5 secs Me: realizing DNC isn't paying attention by letting herself get hit by that many feathers.
0.7 secs Me: realizing DNC must have panicked after seeing the tank and MCH run towards her, causing her to step outside of the safe spot
0.9 secs Me: realizing DNC forgot they have potent healing skills and will probably forget to press them to save herself from auto attacks
Me: Oh shit.
1 sec Me: trying to throw a Druochole to save her, but she dies just as the skill heals her.

Then I regret not using Rescue on the tank so the DNC survives the potent auto attacks, and regret more that I expect DPS to save themselves. I gotta remind myself DPS only thinks about using Second Wind and other healing tools only after they die. Not before. No self preservation...

[SturmChurro]

I’ll admit I actually love the Ivalice raids, and I adore math robot. Both because that’s a unique mechanic, and because of his stupid adorable dance he’s doing as you return from the adds phase.

Usually his reputation is unwarranted, but there are those occasional runs that probably keep the legend alive.

They are alright. I don't mind doing Orbonne when there is an incentive to do it, like with the moogle event. I specifically like the boss Orlando Bloom. I've always thought that fight was fun, it was more enjoyable when it first came out though. What I like about that raid series is that the bosses actually talk, it makes for a more enjoyable experience overall, in my opinion. The voiced dialogue I mean.

[HyoMinPark]

I had two amazing Orbonne runs last night.

First run, a BRD in another alliance was lamenting the addition of Echo. So one of my friends piped up about how it would be fun to click it off. The BRD responded “already did”. Before we knew it, them and almost our entire alliance (minus the tank and one DPS) had also clicked off Echo. It was so awesome to see more like-minded people that didn’t like the buff, and I wish I could have commended all of them. I opted to comm the sprout BRD who was asking questions about what the Echo did, why it was added, what would happen if they clicked it off, etc.. After we answered them, they thanked us for answering their questions, and then immediately clicked it off.

Second run, Alliance B had a BLM that was AFK the entire run. In Agrias, they cast Fire IV maybe a dozen times and then just AFK’d. For the mini boss before TGC, I noticed that they were just standing there, so I targeted them and they immediately started casting Blizzard when they noticed I was watching them. For TGC, they went down and refused to raise the entire fight. One of their healers asked if we could wait so they could kick them for griefing the entire run, so a lot of us piped up about how we didn’t mind waiting.

Well, they saw us talking about kicking them and pulled. One person in Alliance C said “They're participating now, it’s not a big deal”, but people pointed out they had been AFK nearly the entire run. I proposed that we could always wipe on Ultima and take care of the problem, and nearly the entire raid unanimously started running into AOEs and things to kill themselves. The few that kept saying it “wasn’t a big deal for one person to be AFK” tried to pass Ultima’s DPS check, failed, and we got the kick passed right as the BLM ran forward and attempted to pull her.

Gotta love it. Nothing boils my blood more than seeing people AFK in duties and expect a free carry. I don’t care if it’s at the last boss, I will always say yes to a vote dismissal for such behavior. If you want to not participate, find 23 other people who want to carry you. I loved how most the raid banded together to get rid of the dead weight. No free Moogle Tomes for you, lazy BLM.

[Padudu]

Wait, you can CLICK OFF THE ECHO?

[HyoMinPark]

Wait, you can CLICK OFF THE ECHO?

Yes, you can!!

I really want to get a PF for minimum item level, no Echo Orbonne. TGC won’t be the same since they nerfed him, but clicking it off does make the AOEs less cheesable again.