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

[EorzeaHero69]

Report the Mentor......GM's don't take kindly to mentor badged people doing that.

She said she did that after being kicked.

[Nestmile]

Queued for Skalla as a BRD to help a tank friend finish capping Creation before reset. Get in with a mentor MNK and a... SCH, I think? So we go off to kill trash, and I'm AoE'ing my little heart out -- and we get to a point where I'm running on empty with TP (after using both Tactician and Invigorate) and things are still alive. Which is... strange. I look at the MNK's TP bar and it is, of course, almost full. No AoE going out from him. Bluh. Whatever. This continues up to the first boss, so I ask my tank to hold on for a sec and make a simple request to the MNK: "Hey, if you're not going to AoE, could you at least toss me a Goad? o:"

No response. So we pull the boss. And it is dying suuuuper slowly. About halfway through the MNK just stops moving for a bit to type something entirely incomprehensible into the chat -- literally just random letters. Then a moment later, "srry wasn't paying attention. u can ask for it." Which... is fine. I dislike having to stop to ask for Goad, but I'll do it if I have to (and, in fact, I basically just did!). So we continue on, boss dies eventually. Then a moment later the MNK says "i don't think i like ur comment" and leaves the party.

Like... ??? I didn't even say anything back after they said I could ask for Goad. Why would they apologize for not paying attention and then decide later that I was being rude and leave? So weird. I really don't feel like I was particularly in the wrong for asking either. I didn't call them trash or command them to Goad me or say that they absolutely needed to be AoEing or threaten to kick them or anything.

We got another MNK after that and everything was fine, so no huge loss. Just confusing.

[Seryne]

Been leveling an alt because lull between patches makes me make bad decisions. Dinged 60 on her not long ago so I've been unlocking and running stuff for completion and tomes.
Did Sohm Al HM few minutes ago. Me as a RDM, a PLD, a WHM, and another RDM was the group.
Tank does big pulls so I AoE away. I notice stuff is dying kinda slow so I watch the other RDM. They aren't using any AoE. At all They never used it throughout the entire dungeon despite the big pulls. Hell, they never even used their melee combo.
Worst part? They were 70 in everything and a mentor :/

[Anarnee]

snip

I think my soul just left my body.

[Seryne]

I think my soul just left my body.

I think I died a little inside while I was in there ngl. I would have said something but I was scared they would have gotten mad since my alt still has her beansprout.

[Kakiko]

I also did potd early this morning with my fc leader/friend. We queued for 91-100. I'm working on DRK and he's BRD. We get another DRK (one we had actually done the previous floors with) and and Rogue, I think. All I remember is that the other two were pulling rooms that didn't need to be pulled (portal was open, no chests that were tantalizing in those rooms).

Get to floor 99 and portal opens but other DRK sees a room FULL of baddies and just starts going ham. We don't have a raising, I'm low on Sustain, and no one in the party can do any sort of heals. Didn't have a Rage either. So, BRD and I hang back. I tell DRK in party chat that there's no need to clear that room. The response I get was "lawls is tank scared?"

No, tank isn't scared. Tank is smart. The portal is open. There's nothing in there worth dying over. Wiping in there would make the whole run a waste of time especially because no one will get XP if the party wipes.

DRK laughed "wittle tank is just a wittle baby. Should toughen up!"

The DRK lived through that room they pulled with the help of the Rogue and we move to the boss. As I'm trying to type out what they'd like our strategy to be since we have no healer and two tanks, DRK runs ahead and pulls the boss. I follow up and drop grit seeing as I figure she wants to MT. I've never done this before so I might have been wrong but I'm trying what I hope will work. Then the adds spawn and rather than letting the DPS and me handle them, she begins moving Nybeth around to grab the adds as well. I try saying "tank leave adds" her reply is "tank gets all."

In the end, she kited Nybeth around as much as she could, with all the adds that showed up. Every time I laid down salted earth, she'd move them away from it. So it's no surprise then that we wiped.

The other DRKs words to me "lol lala tank cant handle it."



The next time we went into potd, we just did 51-60. He went as healer this time. We got two dps who would just fight enough until the portal opened and then head for it and wait. As I'm running to follow behind, I triggered a monster trap and got nabbed with like 6 or something. My friend, healer, stayed and helped meanwhile the other two could see us being swamped and just literally sat down at the portal.

Definitely some of the worst potd runs I've had in a while.

[Anarnee]

I would have kicked that DRK asap. WTH! That sounds awful.

[KaivaC]

Was hesitant to share this because I share a good portion of the blame in my Aery run earlier. At this point, I’m starting to get comfortable dropping into DPS stance for boss battles – not too keen on dropping it for normal mobs just yet. Probably won’t ever be that comfortable. Anyhow, popped into the Aery largely to pick up gear and because I had just reached that level on my PLD – unfortunately, a huge chunk of my right side was still ilvl90…thought it might’ve been fine since Sohr Khai wasn’t that bad. Man was I wrong…

Or was I?

Spawn in and the party is myself, a WHM, and two SAMs. All three from Mateus. So I automatically feel like I’m on the spot.
First pull, grab all 5 enemies leading up to the first wall, in tank stance, and I’m holding off on popping rampart until I finally grab the last couple of enemies at the end. Immediately pop Rampart, start hitting the combo I’m getting used to – Flash, Rage of Halone, Flash, FoF, Total Ec…

Oh wait, I’m dead.

Their auto-attacks shred me apart. It was odd because I’ve healed tanks in worst gear than what I had as an AST in the same dungeon…while I was still learning AST. So I make a comment in chat – ‘I guess no big pulls here’
The SAM who was in the same FC as the WHM told me that big pulls are fine, but what’s not fine is sprinting out of the healer’s range.

Fair enough, except I didn’t sprint at all. I just ran and grabbed mobs, and even stopped at the first set just to apply a Flash before moving. I will defend myself if I think It’s necessary, so I told him that I didn’t even sprint. And then nothing but silence. Pull the first set of mobs, and I’m getting shredded even with rotating cooldowns, and throwing convalescence on with those. I’m too busy watching the AOEs around me to pay attention to what the healer is doing. But the time we went back to the next group of enemies, I had to pop a Hallowed Ground (at less than 500HP, after having used most of my usual CDs and even Bulwark).

I don’t do anymore large pulls after that. Get to the first boss, and after a couple of enmity combos, I switch into Sword Oath, pop a convalescence + Anticipation (since that was what I had at the time), and I notice that I’m not getting healed. It was maybe 30 seconds into the fight and I’ve been avoiding the AOEs – just as the timer for Anticipation was about to wear off and I was about to throw on Sentinel, boom…I had my second death.

At this point, I decide no more stance dancing, just stay in Shield Oath for the rest of the dungeon. Of course, I’m wondering what’s going on with the healer, but I’m also thinking to myself, ‘Damn, I’m a horrible tank…this is why I quit tanking in the first place because I will not ever be good enough.’

Even with me staying in Shield Oath, I died a 3rd time. THIRD TIME?! What happened, you may ask? Well, you know that pull when you’re picking up the tiny dragons, while another dragon periodically spits fireballs on the path? Yeah, well, while we made our way through the final set of those tiny dragons, one of the SAMs intentionally pulled one of those sleeping dragons. Not by getting close to him, oh no…the SAM hit it with a damn Enpi. You know, the ranged attack? So I had to pick that up, in addition to the tiny dragons there.

What happened? Not even Hallowed Ground could save me. That was my third death. I honestly was hoping they would kick me after this. I don’t rage quit in a dungeon, but after that run, I sure as hell wanted to quit tanking permanently. Not even joking. It would be one thing to point this at the WHM, but yea, I share some of the blame too. Ilvl90 in The Aery…I lost my damn mind.

Oh, and yea, literally nothing was said in chat after the very first wipe. Not a single word. We killed the boss, I got my shield, and we all went about our merry way.

[Frizze]

Anyhow, popped into the Aery largely to pick up gear and because I had just reached that level on my PLD – unfortunately, a huge chunk of my right side was still ilvl90…thought it might’ve been fine since Sohr Khai wasn’t that bad. Man was I wrong…

Or was I?

Im tempted to put most of the blame on your healer here. Let me start with a disclaimer though: It is always a good idea to have up to date gear. Ok, now that thats out of the way, lets look at your case. So going by what you said, im working under the assumption that your left side gear(armor) was closer in level to the dungeon and that your problem pieces were primarily jewelry. If that isnt the case, then take all this with a grain of salt(a thought exercise). A quick pop over to the database tells me that an i90 tank necklace(allagan, heros, direwolf or HQ crafted - in other words, any type you would likely have) has 15 Vit on it. The best version available at your level(the actual aery drop, the dreadwyrm or the augmented ironworks) have 27 Vit. Looking at the bracelet stats, its identical - 15 Vit at 90 and 27 as highest available(i didnt bother to check any other pieces, as im sure ill see the same). So your lacking jewelry probly lowered your Vit pool roughly 50-60 points(the change in secondary stats is negligible). I dont know the translation of Vit to HP off the top of my head, but if we figure 25 points per(my instinct says its probly less - maybe even half that) that means your max HP was 1500ish points less then it could have been. How many extra hits would that be the aery? Like 2? And since jewelry doesnt affect your defense rating i dont think we can assign much more value to what you lacked in gear.

On the other hand, the story you share doesnt make it sound like the healer was really overwhelmed by how much damage you were taking(2 or 3 extra hits worth of hp doesnt sound like it would have saved any of those deaths). It sounds more like they were just not healing you(or if they were being overwhelmed, it was the type of overwhelmed caused by DPS being slow to kill things and resources eventually running out). Were they distracted by something(FC chat or RL maybe)? Was their gear substandard(or possibly broken)? Were they new at healing and didnt want to admit it(leveling potion and/or some understanding friends can get you a long way before you have to actually know what youre doing - on any class really)? Did they start DPSing and forget that they needed to heal sometimes? Were these bored people who decided to troll some poor tank? Only those 3(and potentially even only that healer) know this answer, as you yourself said you were too busy with everything to have paid attention to what they were or werent doing.

So in summation, id say that maybe 5-10% of that trouble was on you. Lesson learned about low gear(vault is typically the gut-check dungeon in that range, so try to get some upgrades on the way). As a non-tank, i cant offer advice or useful critique on rotating cooldowns. But it sounds pretty clear that youre trying to improve(and indeed, you describe changing your approach to meet what that group was bringing) and thats all i ever ask when im teamed with someone new to the game or someone working on a class they havent mastered yet. So... probly dont give up tanking quite yet. Just be careful who you tank for.

[KaivaC]

snip

Oh my god...I mistyped again. I meant left side. Damn me typing this up at 2am my time. I'm not sure what gear the other 3 had - I only know that the WHM and one of the SAMS (the one that said something to me) were in the same FC. I do question the healer though because there were some parts where they healed me just fine, even on an accidental big pull. But just to cover my bases, I'll probably grind out Sohr Khai before I move on to the next dungeon - I'm mostly just trying to hit 70 so I can get my Omega gear over to this job.