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

[Haprimac]

Joined a leveling roulette in-progress and get to Vault with a salty samurai and red mage.



In Ser Grinnaux fight the samurai doesn't run, but walks to the boss, doesn't even autoattack, just stands around and gets hit in the face by the straight-line attack that creates a black hole behind the player. And of course upon Faith Unyielding (or whatever it's called) she got knocked into the portal. I was like... well, I'm doing more dps than she, and I'm not gonna waste MP on an obvious leech.

We continue with the next corridor, the samurai more interested in blaming me for her death than actually contributing anything. The red mage isn't doing much better, so basically me and the tank carry their butts, until I decide I've had enough and would rather not deal with this crap past midnight. Both dps were mentors. Colour me surprised. </sarcasm>

[SenorPatty]

Joined a leveling roulette in-progress and get to Vault with a salty samurai and red mage.



In Ser Grinnaux fight the samurai doesn't run, but walks to the boss, doesn't even autoattack, just stands around and gets hit in the face by the straight-line attack that creates a black hole behind the player. And of course upon Faith Unyielding (or whatever it's called) she got knocked into the portal. I was like... well, I'm doing more dps than she, and I'm not gonna waste MP on an obvious leech.

We continue with the next corridor, the samurai more interested in blaming me for her death than actually contributing anything. The red mage isn't doing much better, so basically me and the tank carry their butts, until I decide I've had enough and would rather not deal with this crap past midnight. Both dps were mentors. Colour me surprised. </sarcasm>

Another black stain on mentors who actually try to be helpful. Over a literal playstyle difference that honestly doesn't matter a LEVELING ROULETTE of all places as long as you can heal properly no less. And the icing on the cake was over someone who just joined an in-progress.


Some people make my head hurt.

[Maverick_Haas]

Okay, first post here. So I started my first run on "The Orbonne Monastery." I don't know much about the run, because I'm not a big fan at looking at guides for normal duties (not savage/ultimate/BA). Mostly because I don't like to outright spoil fights and learn as I go. I really only look at guides for obviously hard dungeons that usually require prog parties to learn and document. However I will ask for mechanic tips in fights, because some mechanics, like the second boss in this duty, have some unclear mechanics if you're new (shield on judgement, sword on barriers/shielded monsters). After a run, I generally pick it up quickly, but sometimes I like to not be confused. So I asked...

The first response I get is, "Didn't you watch the guide video?" Well, again, I don't watch guides for normal dungeons, it ruins the surprise of bosses and I prefer learning as I go. I finally get some mechanic advice, which was great. I still failed some of the mechanics because sometimes not everything is as straight forward as it seems, however some people proceeded to bash me because of it. Generally, I can take this, but the thing that peeved me the most, was the mentor in my party kept harassing me afterwards. Once I get comfortable with some of the boss mechanics, I may do a callout/suggestion, because I wasn't the only one who previously failed mechanics. When I do this, the mentor again harasses me. This mentor blamed everyone every time they failed/died on a mechanic that wiped or killed several people. He never gave out suggestions, or helpful advice.

We got to the third boss (The Lightning God iirc), after the first wipe, I got a handle on some of the mechanics. I was actually leading the group (people following me) before we decided to abandon. This guy still proceeded to harass me, saying things like, "Oh, now you know the mechanics huh?" I've not once reported someone for being toxic, generally because I understand people have bad days, I do too. However the Mentor tag shouldn't give you that much leniency. A Mentor is expected to, if not be helpful, at least not be toxic. Sadly, the only person I've ever had to report. Mentors need to be held to a higher standard.

But what are you're thoughts on this? Should I always look at guides, even from simple dungeons? And if I don't, do I deserve to be bashed, even by mentors, for asking for mechanics advice?

[Seraph522]

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Unfortunately, there are all too many mentors in the game who've only gotten the status for the crown symbol next to their name, and don't actually care about helping out others. Reporting them was the right move, regardless of whether or not they were a mentor - that's pretty clearly harassment, and you shouldn't have to put up with that.

As for the questions re: guide videos and such, I personally look them up if they're available before jumping into most content (unless it's brand new content without guide videos yet or I end up in it unintentionally, via a roulette or something), but I don't expect anyone else to have watched them outside of Extreme content or higher. Most content is easy enough that you can get through it without the videos. And in alliance raids like Orbonne, things tend to end up enough of a chaotic mess anyways that one or two players not being familiar with the mechanics usually won't lead to a wipe, so that mentor shouldn't have been blaming you for everything, especially if you went in as a SAM, as one DPS won't cause wipes unless they intentionally aim to do so.

[Ceridwenae]

But what are you're thoughts on this? Should I always look at guides, even from simple dungeons? And if I don't, do I deserve to be bashed, even by mentors, for asking for mechanics advice?

I'm with Seraph522 on this one: I'll personally look stuff up beforehand if I'm going into a specific instance but don't expect others to. Because I'm not one of those people who'll always pick stuff up straightaway (or even on a second or third attempt), it really makes sense for me to do so. It absolutely terrifies me if I get something blind (I will never forget you, Rabanastre, nor the awesome lala who seemed to be my pocket healer for the run!). If you know you're like me, and can run into issues doing stuff blind, then it's better to be smart and look it up ahead of time, or run with people you know well.

However, to me it sounds like you're not like me at all! It sounds like you're an asset to a team for the ability to pick stuff up on the fly. They're just bashing you 'cause they're jealous. Besides, if an entire raid breaks because one new player out of three alliances doesn't pick up some mechanics, I can't help but think it's not the best raid design, no one should really consider doing it through DF or PF, and what the heck are the 23 other people doing anyway? Perhaps they should all have watched the video too?

Meh, don't worry about it. Not all mentors are arses, and if it feels like you want to watch a video before you go in again, do it - it probably won't hurt, and you've had a blind run, sort of!

[Maverick_Haas]

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*EDIT* This board is a bit old.... It killed my last message that I typed up.... yay for no caching.

Well, I did complete another run. The Lightning God boss went very well this time. This may sound like bragging, and maybe I am, but I tend to be very good at learning things quickly, especially for mechanics that are similar. The last boss, of which I did not know the mechanics outright, was also a clear due to the fact the mechanics are similar to other bosses I've fought. Also watching other players do some of the mechanics once or twice, you really know what you gotta do. I cleared the last boss without dying, and dodging mostly all the mechanics.

As for the mentor stuff. I like helping people understand mechanics. It only takes about 3 minutes to write out the tricky mechanics of a boss, and even less than that to read and understand. Even if you've cleared a boss/dungeon, it always helps to review mechanics, always. The funny thing about my first run, people had to start explaining mechanics after our 3rd wipe, when we could have done that right from the beginning and maybe actually cleared the boss.

[CodingSession]

But what are you're thoughts on this? Should I always look at guides, even from simple dungeons?

No, you don't. My policy is very similar to yours: run everything blind except Extreme/Savage. Most mechanics in this game have very obvious tells (AoE markers, stack markers, debuff descriptions, etc.), and those that don't can easily be figured out after seeing them one or two times.

[Limonia]

Okay, so, yesterday me and my boyfriend did our weekly Orbonne Monastery run. We queued as healers, I as WHM and he as SCH.

The whole run went quite well. Some DPS died often to failed mechanics, where we couldn't really have done anything. You know how it works. xD We just got them up immediately every time someone died. We healed and shielded and were still able to dps quite a lot.

But then came the last boss. People fail again, we get them up quickly. Then the stack mechanic where everyone has to stand in the bubble and has to get healed by us.
We had the worst lag ever. I casted Medica II, my boyfriend casted Succor. I was waiting for the add to appear to hit Assize. Nothing? He wanted to use Indomitability but Aetherflow wasn't up, apparantly also because of the lag. I casted Medica but it seemed to have gotten interrupted, as we saw in the video he recorded on PS4 after the fight. Intuitively after my Assize I casted Stone IV twice because usually we have time to dps during the add before we have to heal again, but then I noticed how all out HP were so low and then it was so late. I started to heal, but well...
So there was lag PLUS bad reaction by us because we were really caught off guard there. Our group died of course.

Happens. But some of our group quite angry about that. No matter how well we performed during everything before that in the run, it was all for naught because of one mistake. Very nice. Snarky comments like "you have to heal btw" and "why you no heal?" or so in bad English (and writing my name in chat wrong again - no one ever sees there is an L in it). I apologized, and said my heals didn't get through, and apologized again.

What annoys me the most is that when the DPS mess up mechanics it doesn't matter, even if it happens multiple times during a run. But when a tank or a healer messes up and multiple members of the party die they always get called out for being the worst players ever.
I mean, every time a DPS gets one-shot by a messed up mechanic I could also say "you have to do mechanics btw" and "why you no dps?!", but I don't because I'm not such an unfriendly person calling everyone out for any mistake they make.
But we are assumed to be stupid for it even though we didn't mess up during anything that happened before during that run...

[tdb]

But what are you're thoughts on this? Should I always look at guides, even from simple dungeons? And if I don't, do I deserve to be bashed, even by mentors, for asking for mechanics advice?

I don't usually read or watch guides either. I've done most of the Stormblood dungeons and trials blind. For 4.5 I had finally caught up with new content and was able to do Orbonne and Ghimlyt on release day, before any guides were even available. Basic AoE attacks and stack markers are clear enough that I can do them off the bat. For more complicated mechanics (like various markers above players' heads where you can't know beforehand what they do) it's usually enough to see them once or twice to get the hang of them.

I'm fairly tolerant of first-timer mistakes from others too and will often offer a bit of advice after a wipe. I do expect people to learn and improve though. Fortunately a 24-player raid usually has enough smart people that repeated wipes to the same mechanic are rare, and in 4-player dungeons I (as a healer) have enough power to compensate for a lot of mistakes from others.

[Bearded]

The only encounter so bad that it is of note was a roulette in which I (once again) found myself in Haukke Manor. I was dragoon, we had a arcanist/summoner and a conjurer/white mage. The tank was a gladiator. Right away we noticed that they were either very poor at keeping emnity and seemed not to be trying to generate any additional emnity. They were also taking an extreme amount of damage - like one hit would be in excess of 25% of their HP. The healer was in constant heal mode and despite that the tank died - oddly enough the rest of us did not on the first tank death. During this moment I checked out the tank and they were in level 15 gear - not even green or pink. No wonder they were taking loads of damage and not able to be effected as they were woefully undergeared for the level of the content.

I asked if they had any gear closer to the level of the duty as they were so poorly geared - no reply. They ran off into the next mob and promptly died. They then proceeded to say they are unhappy and ignored all the suggestions that what they need to do was get better gear not try and try and try. They then started the petulant child and said "well kick me" they knew we could not as we were not that far into the duty. We vainly tried to continue but to be honest it was simply not worth the effort as having an ungergeared tank is actually worse than no tank at all.

Vote abandon after the next encounter.