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

[Xion136]

Ran Alliance Raids roulette the other day as RDM, got a diva tank in my group (who wanted to be carried, I guess...) that I called out a few times.

I first noticed the distinct absence of tank-like behavior in Mateus when the Azure sky worms popped up and DPS was tanking ours (primarily me). It's easy to get confused in the shuffle so I didn't pay much attention to where the tank was. Hashmal is Hashmal, so I didn't care who was tanking the sand spheres, though I once again noticed no actual tank was getting aggro.

When we got to the bit with the chimeras and the demon, we once again appeared to be sans tank, although he had been initiating ready checks and countdowns quite actively. This time I swung the camera around and spotted said tank dancing at the starting spot. Once the fight was over...

Me (party chat): [Tank], what precisely are you doing? Because it's not tanking.
Tank: Oh, someone canceled my countdown.
Groupmate: Um it was a 30 second countdown. Do something shorter next time.

We moved on to the next fight, Rofocale, and now I'm keeping a close eye on our tank because of the above. Once again, he is not tanking...so of course I take it to alliance chat to very blandly note that our tank was not tanking (after the boss did some ping-ponging). His response this time, for everyone to see:

Tank: That was an early pull. I don't tank early pulls.
Alliance member 1: who doesn't tank early pulls lol
Alliance member 2: That's okay, we have a tank who will.
Me: Our tank does not appear to tank anything.
Tank: I tank everything lol I'm just being a dick
Tank 2: Sorry
Tank: Oh no, [Tank 2], you're doing fine.

Our tank finally starts tanking. For a while I was worried he'd just be dancing at the beginning the whole time, but he ran into the add area and started playing properly. When we got to Argath, what happened? Our beautiful special snowflake diva initiates a ready check, then when another tank started a countdown, he pulls the boss.

Me: I thought you didn't tank early pulls.
Tank: My bad, I pulled before I saw the countdown start.

No one else said anything for the rest of the raid. Fortunately everyone was competent so we didn't wipe at all and got out in a reasonable amount of time.

I'm sure snowflake tank has something else going on in his life but the hypocrisy and juvenile responses to tiny things were just aggravating as hell.

Yeah not all tanks from Mateus are that terrible. As a Mateus tank main that almost hurt to read. My God.

[JohnnyDevo]

First go around, tank does the countdown pulls and almost immediately I'm pulling right off of him. Whatever pop Lucid Dreaming, still have threat issues so then I pop Diversion as well.

red mage's opener does 310+310+420+350 = 1390 potency in just the first gcd of the fight. You should be popping diversion 1 second before you start your veraero cast, and it will last all the way until right before you cast ver-holy, but at that point there should be no aggro issues.

Honestly the only reason red mage needs diversion is that opening instant, because lucid on cooldown for mana takes care of all further aggro issues. Otherwise, diversion is for not pulling hate on fresh adds.

[MoroMurasaki]

I just wanted to let you know that due to RDM being heavily front loaded damage wise, it's probably best to use diversion in your opener before any damage dealing spells are cast. My typical opener is Swiftcast + Acceleration at 9 seconds till pull, with Diversion being pressed 1 second before pull starts. Once pull starts the first damage dealing spell out is Veraero or Verthunder for the guaranteed proc. The reasoning behind this is that Diversion only helps you to not generate hate, not to remove hate you already have (unlike Lucid Dreaming). Due to the way it functions there is no downside to using Diversion during your opener. Not blaming you for the situation though, as it sounds like the tank you experienced may have lost hate anyway. However it certainly will reduce instances of pulling hate during RDM opener.

You are 100% correct on using Diversion in your opener but rather than burning Swiftcast pop Acceleration at ~10 seconds (I do 11, but I'm a dirty early-puller) then Diversion at 6 seconds and start hardcasting a Verthunder (or Veraero, your choice) then you can use the dualcast that procs to cast the opposite spell. This is 620 potency right off the bat plus 22 mana, 1 guaranteed proc for whichever spell you hardcasted and a 50% chance at the other proc as well.

From there on it's business as usual (either Fleche and Contre or Pot and Fleche, depending) and so on.

[WaterShield]

You are 100% correct on using Diversion in your opener but rather than burning Swiftcast pop Acceleration at ~10 seconds (I do 11, but I'm a dirty early-puller) then Diversion at 6 seconds and start hardcasting a Verthunder (or Veraero, your choice) then you can use the dualcast that procs to cast the opposite spell. This is 620 potency right off the bat plus 22 mana, 1 guaranteed proc for whichever spell you hardcasted and a 50% chance at the other proc as well.

From there on it's business as usual (either Fleche and Contre or Pot and Fleche, depending) and so on.

That makes a lot of sense. Kinda embarrassed that I missed that (self taught on rotation/opener). I assume that I would continue to use Swiftcast + Veraero / Verthunder whenever Impact, Verstone, and Verfire are down (with Swiftcast up)? I haven't run the numbers, but tool tip reading leads me to believe it's a good practice.

Thanks for the tip

[MoroMurasaki]

That makes a lot of sense. Kinda embarrassed that I missed that (self taught on rotation/opener). I assume that I would continue to use Swiftcast + Veraero / Verthunder whenever Impact, Verstone, and Verfire are down (with Swiftcast up)? I haven't run the numbers, but tool tip reading leads me to believe it's a good practice.

Thanks for the tip

Essentially, yes. The priority for what to use is basically Impact when it's at about 8 seconds left -> Ver-procs -> Swiftcast as close to CD as you can manage. In my opinion holding Swiftcast for movement or because you have enough procs to get to 80|80 isn't bad but some people say otherwise.

I tend to prioritize Swiftcast for necessary movement first and proc fishing below 60|60 or so but it's also a nice mana balancer (or unbalancer if you hit exact numbers like 81|81 so you can get to 81|92 with a guaranteed proc from a finisher) so use it as you see fit. Using it as close to CD as possible is almost always a gain.

Happy to help!

Edit: of course there's nothing wrong with using Impact when it has more than 8 seconds left. The idea is basically letting Impact fall off is always a dps loss so if you keep chaining your other proc spells and never missing a proc eventually you basically burn your impact proc to still gain the mana from it. There is complete math for this on the RDM Balance discord as well as the RDM guide on the Moogle Post site if you're interested in specifics.

[Rymm]

You ever had to heal one of those runs where you can tell the tank is trying but the whole time you just keep whispering under your breath, "Lord, give me patience."?

Had a tank pulling 2-3 packs at a time and didn't bother to pop a single cooldown. Dps didn't seem low, but it was still taking things a while to die and I eventually ran out of CDs and couldn't keep the tank (or the dps who kept eating AoEs) up and we wiped. I asked tank to use a few of his own CDs like Rampart, Sentinel, Bulwark, etc. We go again and this time the tank popped all of them... at the same time. (－‸ლ)

Not what I meant, but A for effort.

(This was in expert roulette, mind you. And no first-time bonus.)

[Kuukyo]

Played in PoTD with 3 other players: a Monk, a Samurai, and a Black Mage as another DPS Black Mage in floor 70 (not speed running floor). First floor got an instant mimic and I got pox in the end; I expected everyone to actually focus their attack when their teammate encountered a mimic (neither got aggro from nearby mobs), and only the monk and BLM with me focused the mimic. Few floors later the SAM and BLM got pox and instead of using potion to survive, they waited for the pox to drain their hp and died, expecting us to run all the way across the dungeon to use the cair of return (few deaths earlier were reasonable since they were at low health and the pox was at 6-7 mins but later on the pox lasted only 1-2 min and SAM didn't use potion to stay alive, making us ran through 5 rooms to use cair of return. The monk got angry and cursed the SAM as soon as we finished the boss. Phew

But as the rant goes on, I notice that most players I encountered don't seem to make any uses of potion. I mean, many fights in dungeons where the healer died but the boss is at low health = high chance to win, nobody actually use any sustain skills / potions to stay alive, and thus another 5-10 mins fighting the boss depending on ilvl. A habit from playing PoTD and HoH I developed is whenever the healer is dead, you have to rely on yourself in survival chances or someone with heal/raise skill that *knows* what they are doing. Teammates not using potions in winnable situations makes me upset a lot.

[SaitoHikari]

Joined a Suzaku EX farm party, bore witness to immediate drama between the two tanks in the party because someone thought they were being a smartass about joining the party as a Gladiator and that 'it wasn't ticked off and it let me join'.

[OurMom]

nobody actually use any sustain skills / potions

A lot of people still have no clue what sustains, echo drops, spine drops, etc are.

[Aster_E]

A lot of people still have no clue what sustains, echo drops, spine drops, etc are.

Ironic as at least half of them are a staple in FF games.

I know that I, for instance, keep a supply of HQ Echo Drops (because shorter arbitrary recast timer) on hand for whenever I run PotD or HoH. Sustain potions too, though it's easier to forget those exist. If one of my healers/casters hits a pacify/silence trap then I pop the Echo Drop and move on, hitting Esuna on party members if I have any that are affected until the necessary debuffs are gone (like Pacify on Drgs or Tanks, Silence on Black Mages, both on Red Mages). But I'm not most people, so... *shrugs*

On an amusing note, though: I've used Esuna as necessary and seen other healers cleanse the other debuffs. =p