Learning Experiences

[Soldowner]

Hello, everyone! This is a bit of a look in to practice runs, mentalities (again), and future content.

For the past three days, I've been grinding until my eyes turned red from the hours of tedium, and today was the day I was able to take on Garuda-Normal. My first run, of course, ended in failure as my entire group was filled with new-comers, me included. We eventually made tactics together, and they worked just fine, but our equipment broke before we could finish it. It was a decent run.

My next run was with a guy who claimed to have ilvl97 gear...whatever that means. My gear wasn't all that great considering I was using level 40 gear to fight Garuda, but hey, at least it was aetherial. After one attempt where this guy ran out of mana, I was suddenly called out on being unable to tank, or being too stupid to do it since we wiped before the second phase had begun. Yeah...I was kinda unsure of my ability to tank afterwards.

My third run was the last one. We won, even with everyone being newcomers again, and with all the crap gear I had. We worked together, traded knowledge with what we knew about the run, trusted our healer, trusted me and we cleared Garuda normal with all of our crap gear intact, and everybody alive. I didn't change anything I did. I did what I learned from the first run, and now I find myself confused and scared to proceed with the rest of the story content.

I don't wipe often, and when I do, it's because of a lag spike. Is everybody with all this "ilvl" stuff going to be just as rude or untrusting of me because I've never done content before? Is everybody going to be that condescending? If so, I request the assistance of those more experienced than I.

I'm approaching the end of the game, I'd think, so...what do I do? What do I need? Is there some basis I'm supposed to follow? Any help at all would be appreciated, so I don't end up looking like a fool when people need me most. And then there's the fact I don't even know if I can proceed if people are just going to call me out on being "too stupid to tank" when I play this game for one reason. I just wanna have fun with what I do, not be pushed around by somebody with too many hats for their own good. I feel like running the final dungeon is going to break my enjoyment for this game if everybody acts like that one guy...and to that end, that's why I want you guys to help me, and tell me what I need and need to know!

[Raeanya]

I'm also on Famfrit. I've had a few situations where rude players tried to blame their own shortcomings on me. I'm not the best player out there, but I know what I can heal through, and what I can't. It has been my experience that a healer needs a good tank, and a tank needs a good healer. Look me up in game, I will do what I can to help you learn. Too many people play the game so selfishly that they just want to get through their runs for their roulette bonus as quickly as possible instead of trying to help newer players learn and enjoy the content.

[Soldowner]

Yeah. even though I haven't played since the beta, I think I quickly learned that lesson when I got back in to the game. Back in the beta, everybody was rushing to do everything as quickly as they could...same with early access, and I was the same, but now I see how much teamwork is needed later on. Without synergy between the healer and the tank, something is bound to go wrong. In my opinion, their relationship is always the foundation a team is built on...or at least, a light party. I haven't done any 8-mans yet, so I can't speak for that grouping.

[Kerberon]

Just a question, were you dodging slipstream? It's a cast that does a lot of damage in a straight line at you, but doesn't have a ground indicator like most things you've gotten used to up to this point. This means you need to be watching her cast bar. This isn't really a case of needing better gear but needing the fight explained. If you were doing that and using your cooldowns, then the person was just trying to pass blame. If you weren't doing the above they were still rude but that is what was going on to set it off. Hope that makes sense.

[Soldowner]

I didn't dodge it during my first run since I didn't even know what it was, but I quickly learned. I got hit by it once during my second run during a lag spike, but I survived it just fine. I admit, I needed extra healing during that time, but it was just once. It missed every other time until the healer just decided to stop healing me and focus on the DPS.

[Kerberon]

Yeah they were just trying to pass blame then imo.

[Roarey]

I am truly sorry that you had a bad experience, sadly my best advice is to find a way to brush it off. I have posted about the need for the decent group mates to stand up against bullies and I still completely support my view. If we all work together to squash the negativity and rudeness, our game will improve vastly! But in the meantime, do not start to doubt yourself and your abilities due to rude people. This forum has some wonderful tanking and/or all jobs threads....giving advice or guides to help you get more confidence in the day to day skill usage, fight positions and gear suggestions.As someone that recently leveled both tank jobs to 50, I feel for your pain completely...there were days that I just couldn't find the desire to click that duty roulette button to roll the dice on a nice group, or a bunch of meanies. (this is even after leveling all other jobs already). Stick with it, ignore the haters and lighten the mood of your groups, you may have dps or healers that are as bruised and broken as you feel, but above all do not take it personally when some person decides to be a jerk.

Kudos to Raeanya for offering her aid in this matter...take her up on it, friendly and supportive people certainly make dungeons much more fun!

[Niwashi]

My next run was with a guy who claimed to have ilvl97 gear...whatever that means. My gear wasn't all that great considering I was using level 40 gear to fight Garuda, but hey, at least it was aetherial. After one attempt where this guy ran out of mana, I was suddenly called out on being unable to tank, or being too stupid to do it since we wiped before the second phase had begun.

He was bragging about how over-geared he was, but ironically the people who feel the need to do that are effectively saying that they're so bad at their job they don't know how to run a dungeon unless everyone is as over-leveled and over-geared as they are. You were "bad" only in that you weren't over-geared enough to make up for how badly he was playing. If he said you weren't tanking well enough, that usually means he was drawing aggro he shouldn't have, and you weren't able to keep it off of him. It wouldn't have been an issue if he'd been properly managing his aggro in the first place, and letting you do all the pulling.

(Of course, I wasn't there, so can't be sure. It's entirely possible that you were also doing something wrong yourself, but the fact that you could complete it with a group of other newcomers more easily than with this over-leveled guy points to the scenario I just described as being much more likely.)

[Roarey]

He was bragging about how over-geared he was, but ironically the people who feel the need to do that are effectively saying that they're so bad at their job they don't know how to run a dungeon unless everyone is as over-leveled and over-geared as they are.

^This
Yesterday, an impatient blm duty roulette into Navel (HM), demanding an immediate pull before buffs or mt/ot choice. He said "I am ilevel103, I will carry you all!" He proceeds to strike before the tank even tried for aggro. nd then he gets knocked off on the 2nd line attack! LMAO! Gear means little without skill
It is hard to maintain tank aggro against a lot of scaled back ppl for roulette, especially if they decide to rush the process and attack first, or not on the target set. Aggro is not just the tanks job, as any good dps and healer know and work to limit the incidents. I never want to see the mobs with red buttons next to my name, unless I am the tank.

[Urthdigger]

By the way, ilvl means item level. Past 50, progress is measured in terms of the average item level of your gear. That said, it doesn't help when doing low level content where gear is synced down.