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

[Ashkendor]

A DF tank reminded me on Midas floor one this morning why I prefer to go in on any job but tank unless I'm queuing with a tank I trust. Queued as PLD with a healer friend because my static is having me switch to MT so i figured I'd start running PLD and practicing MT more often. We got to the double fausts and I said I'd take East Faust. The DRK said "I'll take both" and without waiting for a response, pulled. They grabbed Hummelfaust too and by that point I was feeling pretty superfluous. So when we got to the floor of the Clevering and they asked MT/OT, I was honestly pretty checked out, like, really, now you want to ask? So I said it didn't matter and of course they chose to MT. Despite me feeling pretty bitter the run went decently well aside from a misplaced glopgloop until the DRK failed to see a Boost and got 4 stacks of vulnerability. "Take him," they said, so I did, saying in aside to my WHM, "NOW they want me to mt?"

Why is this a trust issue? One tank tanking both is a perfectly legitimate strategy. Just Sword Oath and enjoy. :3

And really, any smart tank would ask the other tank to MT if they picked up four vuln stacks.

[bounddreamer]

Why is this a trust issue? One tank tanking both is a perfectly legitimate strategy. Just Sword Oath and enjoy. :3

I wasn't there to "sword oath and enjoy."

Pretty much every week since Midas release I've gone in with a co-tank and we each take a Faust. It would have been better, in my eyes, if the other tank had said "I'll take both, okay?" Then waited for confirmation before pulling. The way they did it completely disengaged me. Also, being on PLD and them on DRK, I'm pretty sure it would have been more damage for them to go dps stance, not me, if they wanted one tank to do all the tanking.

It was the whole epeen mentality from the 24-man raids and I'm not there for that.

[Ashkendor]

I wasn't there to "sword oath and enjoy."

Pretty much every week since Midas release I've gone in with a co-tank and we each take a Faust. It would have been better, in my eyes, if the other tank had said "I'll take both, okay?" Then waited for confirmation before pulling. The way they did it completely disengaged me. Also, being on PLD and them on DRK, I'm pretty sure it would have been more damage for them to go dps stance, not me, if they wanted one tank to do all the tanking.

It was the whole epeen mentality from the 24-man raids and I'm not there for that.

Actually DRK yields the highest MT DPS because they can proc Low Blow and Reprisal. Honestly, there's no reason whatsoever to tank them separately. If you're that intent on it, you're going to have to queue with a co-tank as DF generally seems to solo tank it. Even then, if you don't stack them you may get bitched at. It has nothing to do with epeen and everything to do with your wanting to go against what's become a generally accepted strat. It's like how some data centers used to pull Bone Dragon all the way North in LotA while others tanked him in the center; both are viable but trying the alternate one on a data center that didn't generally do it that way led to a lot of drama because that wasn't what the vast majority of people were going into that encounter expecting.

In any case, MT isn't some position of glory; it's just another job in the raid and from one PLD main to another, you can't always expect to MT even if you are a paladin. There are always going to be portions of encounters (or entire encounters, for that matter) that you don't even need a second tank for, especially once you overgear the content. Ratfinx himself can be solo tanked if your healers are on top of things and your tank is sufficiently geared, though I generally only do that in a premade because if the healers are asleep at the wheel it's a very fast way to wipe as you then have an embiggened boss punching your DPS in the face.

[Quor]

On my 41 NIN with a 38 AST friend last night. He wanted to do a quick leveling roulette before he crashed for the night. Much to my surprise, instant queue. Even more to my surprise, it's Cutter's Cry. I haven't been in Cutter's Cry in almost two years (took a 1.5 year break).

DRK tank, with MCH and NIN for DPS and AST healer. I main WAR and AST buddy mains SCH. First pull, DRK just runs in (no Unmend) but quickly uses Unleash. He manages to snag all the mobs, but....there's no Grit. So a few hits from me, a heal or two from my buddy and some shots from the MCH and aggro is everywhere.

Second pull, same deal. I type (Grit) into chat and, to my surprise, the DRK obliges, and activates Grit. Ok, whatever, we all forget sometimes. Well, things went rough to put it nicely; the DRK was having mana issues, and the positioning of mobs, especially before the first boss, is key, and he was not positioning them well. Thanks to sand pillars and Shrapnel explosions, we actually wiped right before the first boss.

Friend and I are understandably frustrated, but also morbidly entertained by how unequivocally bad things are going. To be fair though, we cleared first boss w/o too much trouble, as the DRK was able to hold single target aggro no problem, and the MCH and I handled the adds w/o incident.

Shortly after boss is done, the MCH asks everyone what their mains are. We all reply, with the DRK saying that he is a DRG main. "Oh" I think to myself, "that kinda explains it." It's a bit rough up until the second boss, but no more wipes and we manage to take down the second boss w/o too much difficulty, just the MCH dying once to some errant aoe.

All along this time, I notice that the DRK is more or less Provoking on cooldown, even if he currently has aggro on that mob, so after we clear the next pull after the second boss, I ask if the DRK wouldn't mind a tip on using Provoke. He responds with something along the lines of "this is my first tank and I have no idea what I'm doing so any help is welcome."

Huh. Never heard that before.

Ok, so I oblige. I explain to him how Provoke works and the best way to utilize it (gives aggro equivalent to current max aggro on mob +1, so follow it up with a threat move asap), the general rule of thumb for opening on a pack of mobs (Flash/Overpower/Unleash equal to the number of mobs in the pack) as well as when to renew it (you'll get a "feel" for it after some practice, but Unleash every 2-3 WS combo chains is a safe bet for starters) and, in general, marking targets that use AoE attacks as a priority makes for a much easier/smoother time while tanking. The DRK quite eagerly lapped it all up, and expressed his gratitude for the tips.

By. The. Twelve. The entire rest of those trash packs prior to the final boss were like butter. He would go in, shoot an Unmend, then follow right into 2-3 Unleashes. He'd do an aggro combo, top off his mana a bit with Syphon Strike, then Unleash again, until we were down to one mob, then he'd just aggro/SS them.

We get to the final boss and I ask him if he's ever done a relic for a job at level 50. He says no, I explain the basics as a tank for him (lots of weird angled aoe, and if you see "Ram's voice" or "eyes turn blue" then gtfo of melee range) and we go in and one-shot it. The MCH and DRK both thank me and my buddy for our patience and for my advice, and I got the warm fuzzy feeling of seeing someone openly admit they had no idea what they were doing and then showing a willingness and ability to learn, and then going and putting new knowledge to use almost instantly.

After seeing all that I just logged off for the night, because there was simply nothing better that could happen.

[whythehate]

So did my a5n run today, on faust only myself and one other dps 4 digits, our sch pulled 600 and he had 2 dps below him >.> far below..

Really surprised the main boss didn't reach enrage, like is that even possible?

[Selli]

Had an awesome ST today. Loaded in to this madness:

All the BLMs. \o/

We were joking around a lot the party was totally awesome. We were on the 2nd or 3rd boss? (I forget which exactly) and my boyfriend comes over and he just starts laughing. I gave him a really weird look and he was just like, "HEAL-ARY CLINTON! AHAHA!" And the party had basically the same reaction when I told them while on the way to the next boss:


Best ST ever. :') Still laughing.

[SaitoHikari]

I jumped into Trial Roulette, ended up getting a 0 minute in progress. I was like 'okay so a healer ditched a party, no big deal.'

I load into the instance to find out it's Bismarck story mode, and half the party is already gone. Amazing amounts of 'what the flying [censored] happened here' entered my mind, although it was more of a rhetorical thing as I knew people are jerks. Especially considering one of the people remaining was new. I tried calling in my friends but it turns out that the appointed party leaders weren't turning on recruitment, thus constantly sending my friends to parties that weren't already in progress. Everyone eventually left until it was just the newbie and myself, and he turned on recruitment, letting everyone come in.

We proceeded to destroy Bismarck for him, but seriously, people are such jerks. Bismarck story mode isn't even hard.

Bonus: One of my friends DID get into another 0 minute in-progress party while attempting to find mine, where he found the entire party randomly suiciding off of the platform.

[Whiteroom]

WoD weekly.

DRGs and Mentors dying to almost all mechanics.


Stereotypes exist for a reason.


LOLMent.

[FinaSel]

Frontlines Routlette. I and just one other healer (scholar) are in the party. One tank, rest are DPS.
I'm thinking, this is going to be a pretty good group. Seems balanced. I see some familiar faces.

But when we get attacked, I notice that the only people's health increasing are the one's I'm healing. But the scholar is right there! (Marked with "Bind Target" for easy identification)

I'm trying desperately to keep the entire group alive. I get slept. I didn't want to use purify right away, especially since the other healer is right next to me. No Leeches. After a few seconds which seem like an eternity of watching my teammates's health go down, I use purify. Of course, get slept again immediately. Scholar is doing nothing. This happens again several times. Absolutely no removal of negative effects even once.

We came in second place, with me doing over 650000 healing and the scholar doing less than 150000. I still have no idea what that scholar was doing.

[Meimi_chan]

Leveling roulette as a machinist (level 43), I get Stone Vigil.
Party composition: DRK, WHM, DRG and MCH.

The first pull at the start seems to go smooth.
Second pull, tank pulls the 2 sentinels and the small group. Wipe.

Tank and healer starts angrily accusing each other for the wipe; tank saying that he never had problems while doing the pull and telling the healer to git gud, while healer was accusing lack of cooldowns.
Dragoon and I stay silent (because I honestly was too focused on trying to burn down the pack to check what other people were doing).

Vote kick for the healer starts, I vote no but it goes through anyway.

So we are twirling our thumbs in wait for another healer, after a bit a WHM joins and we can continue.

Tank dies again at the first pack after the first boss because, I assume, he los the healer with walls.
I was expecting a storm again, but nothing happens and we continue the run.

Still doing big pulls, I see tank's hp running up and down the whole time.

In the last corridor, he grabs all the sprites and sentinels. I use LB, and then we kill everything.

Last boss! Finally!
Healer starts to throw snowballs at everyone (/throw emote while being on snow).
Tank actually died at some point because of that, but never said anything. So at this point I thought that they knew each other.

Boss dead, I am level 44 and confused about the whole run.