A Different Way to Play

[PArcher]

I can tell you right now, if you tried to go into an EX Primal farm or into Coil as an ACN with Topaz...if the leader thinks you may have been doing something and mistakenly clicked go he would ask you to change to SMN with Garuda or Ifrit. If you say you want to go as ACN, you'll almost certainly be kicked. If the leader feels you're a troll or just is not in the mood to put up with your BS, you'll get kicked and blacklisted, and likely your name will spread to others he knows to not let you into parties.

If you're trying to cover for healers with your spells, you're wasting your DPS and frustrating the healers, especially those who know the fights extremely well and how everyone should be. You can cause DPS checks to be missed or phases not to be pushed in time, neither of which is a good thing and, if it doesn't cause an outright wipe, just adds to healer stress (and the stress of the party as a whole)
Using Topaz (or Titan) is akin to you saying that you're needed to keep the party alive (nevermind the fact that the pets cannot Provoke and don't have terribly good AoE aggro); you lower your DPS to focus on keeping your pet positioned and holding aggro. Then there's when Topaz does steal aggro and throws the boss in circles, ticking off melee who can't get positionals off and healers who can't actually heal the pet reliably (I'm sure you ask the healers to heal Topaz too when it has aggro).
Pretty much, you're telling your healers and/or tanks that they're bad, can't be trusted, and that you are here to save the day. Which is a very bad thing to do, considering DPS are common enough that you are entirely replaceable almost at a moment's notice.

As for the big reason why you will always fail (and you will) at using Topaz in any serious content? DPS checks. Pretty much, by doing that, even without the "my heals/tanks are bad" covering you like, you're asking to be carried through content, forcing others to make up for what you do not bring to the fight. And unless you're paying some millions of gil, people don't like to carry randoms through stuff.

If you're in a group that allows you to use Topaz, fine, go have fun. In the DF or in someone else's PF...you're not getting any sympathy for your actions

The "I play as I want" excuse (and its is purely an excuse) only goes so far...and group content is not where it flies, where "majority rules" is the rule to live by (with randoms anyway). Sure, you can try to play as an ACN with Topaz, but its just as much the group's right to tell you they don't want you because you're failing at your role. You'll never be able to match a SMN in terms of DPS, and won't be able to fill any other role without royally ticking off other people.

Are you sure an MMO is right for you?


EDIT: Here's something you likely have no idea about: there are several end-game tank killers that either outright kill pets or completely ignore pets. Now, the latter doesn't mean the pet eats it to no effect, it means the attack pretends the pet doesn't exist. Look at Turn 11 for a good example; Main Head/Secondary Head will never target a pet, and if you have no Provoke ready that means that whoever is hit with Headlights will die, which gives stacks of Damage up to the boss. And since the attack does a base of something like 8K-10K on a tank...an ACN is highly unlikely to survive it (probably has a base of 13K-15K for a caster, without Headlights) should they cross-class Provoke.

[dughug]

Job crystals were meant to be used. There is no advantage of NOT using them. End of story, irrefutable, done. Thank you.

[wicked-one]

I really don´t understand why people play as Class rather than a job.

Besides the amount of lost Skill points (which ok, can be compensated by gear when not in endgame terrain), the funny cross-class-skills never live up to the loss of the unique job abilities the crystal offers...

Building an allrounding arcanist might be fun, but you swim through WoD probably more carried than contributed, commendation ... well i wouldn´t count that as an "Thumbs up, you were awesome"

[BlueThunder]

BAHAMUT misspelling aside, you cannot compare the Crystal Tower Raids to the Coils.

A single man in WoD counts little, and I can tell you right away your contribution overall in those runs as an ACN is almost nothing, despite what you may believe.

Attempting any of the endgame (specially Phoenix and Bahamut as an ACN will immediately get you kicked out of the group. Every role in those fights needs to exploit themselves to its fullest, and you trying to go in a middle ground will simply gimp the progress by miles.

Not to mention those who posted before me are also right: Topaz/Titan use in group content just calls for a flame war with the tank.

[Kitfox]

DPS is love. DPS is life.

Please have DPS.

[Ashkendor]

Honestly, it's great that you're enjoying the game in your own way with your group of friends. My friends and I do some crazy stuff too. We sometimes run dungeons with silly things like SMN + 3 SCH, or full raid alliances with 21 SCH/3 tank or 21 tank/3 healer. The thing is, you can get away with those things when you're just horsing around with your friends, or at least with a group of people that are privy to what's going on and are agreeable to it. I'll be frank with you - if an Arcanist joined one of my Coil or EX primal parties, I'd ask them to put on their soul crystal. If they refused, I'd simply kick them and possibly blacklist depending on whether or not their response to the request was rude or confrontational.

Basically, when you playing the game your way impedes me playing the game my way, something's gotta give. If it's my party, it certainly isn't going to be me. There's no reason that a random person in PF should take along someone that is purposely gimping their damage that way. You even further compound the problem by using Topaz Carbuncle instead of Emerald, losing even more damage and being a nuisance to the tanks. It's not fair to the other players in the party to have to pick up slack for someone that's just not going to perform well. It's no different than joining a farm party for content when you're just barely at item level - if people feel like you are holding them back or they are carrying you in any way, they're going to end up removing you from the party and replacing you with someone that carries their weight.

When you do go into endgame content, you aren't there to be a jack of all trades. DPS classes are there to perform mechanics and deal damage to the boss until it either it dies or the raid wipes. Tanks are built to tank. If you get a bad tank, you don't assist him with Topaz Carbuncle. You teach him or replace him. Healers are built to to buff and heal. If you get a bad healer that can't keep up, you don't use a gimped DPS as a buff vending machine. You teach him or replace him. If you get a DPS that isn't even using a soul crystal... well, you replace him with one that is. You need to do your job to the best of your ability or there simply won't be a place for you outside of your group of friends.

[Shuon]

Personally i think there is nth wrong with playing it however you like.

Yes as others have mentioned you probably arnt gonna survive other raids bla bla bla but honestly if the group you are with is OK with it and the teak dynamic works then why not?

Your concern might be that if you go into harder content some teams might not want you, and you need to learn to deal with it.

[Dualblade]

If the group you are playing with (whether its friends or df or whathaveyou) then hey, go for it.

That said, Jobs outclass the classes in every way, even with more limited cross-class options. The only one I've heard of that could be viable was MRD, and even then if I'm correct WAR as it is now outshines it anyways (I think it was back during just 2.0 when it did, and by 2.1 it stopped outside maybe PvP. I honestly don't know.)

[abzoluut]

I understand and appreciate the creative mindset of the OP. However, this is yet another reason why we need a DPS meter (for everyone). Some people just have no clue.

If you "make it work", it's because 4 and 24 mans' difficulty is below average. You basically get carried. Have everyone go w/o their job crystal in a 24 man in i90, then go with a job crystal in i90. Complete different story.

The only time I've tried it was with my Marauder in T10. While that actually increases DPS, it was easily doable because of everyone being overgeared. It would not work at much lower item levels without having healers spamming you with cures.

[Zfz]

When I was leveling my WHM, I ran into two ACNs who loves to help out healing.

To be honest, in both cases I was at first slightly offended and then just wrote them off as newbies. During leveling content, especially at lower levels, one heal usually can fill 50% of the tank's HP. On top of that, only a few particular mobs have burst damage so it's extremely easy to predict incoming damage and heal efficiently, so I stance dance and heal to minimize overhealing while not letting the tank drop below 50% (unless the tank is extremely undergeared, then it's another story). But these two ACNs would step in and cast Physick when the tank dropped below 80%.

The truth is, healers don't need the help in dungeons most of the time. When healers need an extra hand, it's almost always because someone is not playing properly (i.e. not ducking AoEs, over-taunting all the time, etc.); but even then, often it only requires the healer to put more emphasis on healing and cut back on DPSing to fix it.

I don't see a problem with playing dungeons and Crystal Tower stuff as a class. But I do see a problem if it is "justified" with action that isn't needed.