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

[MagicAura]

snip

Did I do the right move or am I just overthinking it?

I'm not sure whether you asked them to wait at the end before typing detailed information but unless someone asked me specifically to stay back, I wouldn't have done so. Also I don't think trying to make them change their rotation mid-run would have had the desired effect as it would have had the effect of singling them out (plus changing your rotation even if it's wrong isn't something that can be done on the spot). I suppose you could ask generally if people are okay to use AOEs or you pull less and that would have given a hint and potentially a start at a conversation.

BLM especially if you go just by the tool tips can be very misleading as the raw potency of the lowish level AOE spells is small. When I started playing BLM a couple of months ago, I remember thinking they aren't worth it and it took someone to actually point to me that there is a specific rotation that needs to be done to get the damage out. Funnily enough that person actually asked me to stay at the end of a run that I thought I was doing really well and explained about the rotation. I'm grateful he didn't try to do it mid-run as it would have been too embarrassing. Also I've only levelled up BLM up to level 60 so far, so I need to pick it up again.

In all it's okay to talk to people provided they want to listen but it takes some work to make it work.

[ckq53]

Well, if you tank Nero at the door in the electricity, you can 100% avoid all knock backs by putting your back to the wall. The damage from the electricity is negligible, so there isn't a reason to tank him in middle of the room.

Until you get a run like I did where I pulled him to the door in the electricity and had kept getting rescued out of it by the healers... I was about to rake my monitor and keyboard off onto the floor!

[Mirhd]

You're putting too much stock into this. Tank stance on or off doesn't matter for an off-tank since either way there's the potential for an extra button press. If they keep it off and they have to pick up hate then they just need to turn the stance on and provoke. If they keep it on and they notice they're creeping up on MT and might take hate then they Shirk once and be done with it. Don't bother with worrying about whether or not the other tank has a stance up.

Ignoring that I already mentioned turning stance on and taunting, it absolutely matters. For example, when Angra, Copied Factory enemy tanks, etc., are beaming half the alliance? Shirk isn't even an option there as you still can't use it on tanks in other groups, unless they stealth patched that in and I missed it. That's the big reason I typically don't run with stance on in alliance raids, because I've seen that happen more often than I'd like. I only bother with stance if there are adds to pick up or the other two tanks die.

If I'm not main tank, I will wait until about 5 seconds into the fight, then turn on tank stance. Then I will shirk the MT on cooldown. Normally prevents me from pulling aggro.

See, if people actually did this (in 8 mans, anyway), it wouldn't be an issue. What I've often seen however is the target of the boss ping-ponging back and forth. At that point I just think fine, whatever, take it.

[Mhaeric]

Ignoring that I already mentioned turning stance on and taunting, it absolutely matters. For example, when Angra, Copied Factory enemy tanks, etc., are beaming half the alliance? Shirk isn't even an option there as you still can't use it on tanks in other groups, unless they stealth patched that in and I missed it. That's the big reason I typically don't run with stance on in alliance raids, because I've seen that happen more often than I'd like. I only bother with stance if there are adds to pick up or the other two tanks die.



See, if people actually did this (in 8 mans, anyway), it wouldn't be an issue. What I've often seen however is the target of the boss ping-ponging back and forth. At that point I just think fine, whatever, take it.

My comments were mostly directed at your initial statement of "Why is it that people always activate after I do?" The answer is because it doesn't matter. Using tank stance as a form of tacit communication only works if everyone is on the same page and that's not something that should be expected in a DF. There's no point in worrying about what the other tank is doing with their stance, particularly since you stated that your position is to let the other tank keep hate if they take it. If there's no tank war happening there's no problem, so the only thing your complaint is really about is your expectation that other people communicate MT/OT tacitly via stance. Other people might have different expectations like whoever has the most HP tanks or PLD makes a better OT than MT so they should always be OT if possible. It's nice if both tank's tacit expectations happen to line up, but it doesn't matter one whit if they don't because both tanks have solutions to easily manage OT enmity whether their stance is on or not.

As for your example in your response, your original situation wasn't an alliance so I wasn't commenting on them. I will note that it doesn't really change anything of note because by your admission you can just turn stance off if someone else takes it or just leave it off entirely. There's no tank war happening unless it's between the other two in which case it's not anything you need to worry about.

[TheMightyMollusk]

If I pull and then the other tank puts their stance on and decides they want it, I'll usually just let them have it. I'm here to fight the boss, not the other person.

Unless they start windmilling the boss because they think they're funny. Then I take it back.

[Ursa_Vonfiebryd]

Did I do the right move or am I just overthinking it?

You absolutely did the right thing. Single-target BLMs have become an epidemic and by saying nothing, especially to someone who simply doesn't realize that AoE attacks work the way they do for a reason, this behavior continues unchecked.

BLM has one of the highest learning curves of the jobs (IMO, anyway) so single-targeting large mobs, Ice-mageing... These are things that should be pointed out. Even if they don't necessarily respond in that instance, at the very least they have to acknowledge the fact that they were doing something...not wrong necessarily but odd or differently enough that someone else noticed.

I learned the best lessons about playing various jobs by complete jerks. I don't condone being a jerk but those people actually made me look at my playstyle and make it better (some even told me what I needed to do to make that happen).

So kudos to you for trying to make a better BLM.

[Frizze]

So i had a run the other day. It was about 30 minutes before i was supposed to go to bed, so i decided to try and get in a high level dungeon for Khloe. I que expert, thinking to myself that if the que takes too long ill just bail. DPS says 10 min wait. Cancel, que lvl 80 to check the wait and get an instant pop. Feeling ok about getting to bed on time. Load into Amaurot. Im on BLM, looking at DRK, WHM, with co-dps being a BRD watching cutscene. New player message - obviously bard. Healer says theyre kinda shaky, so tank says theyll take it easy. Ok, so i set my expectations to slow and easy. Bard says nothing, and we take off. Trash pulls are a little slow but im not really paying attention to the others yet, just doing my aoe rotation. First boss. Everything is kinda slow. Healer isnt casting many attack spells, but they are doing something so it shouldnt matter much. Im not a bard expert, so i only really know how to check for two things(you know, other then are they dead). Are they attacking consistently, and are they keeping a song going. The answers to both questions was no. There was a noticable(sometimes 5-10 seconds) delay between attacks that i could see, songs were on maybe 1/4 of the time... and does bard still have any other buffs? If so, they didnt get used. On top of this, the bard is really bad at dodging attacks. We wipe on the first boss, because the healer goes down trying to raise them(poor meteor placement didnt help) and the boss had too much HP for me and the DRK to tackle(it was still at like 60% when the healer died). We run back, pull again. Meteors are a little cleaner, healer doesnt get caught out. There might have been a moment when they decided not to raise the bard to focus on healing. We get through. Now im watching the party for the next set of trash. Bard seems to be alternating between heavy shot and quick nock. Dots are on... sometimes. One song got played a single time between the first two bosses. Bard also isnt dragging tethered enemies into the group, which me and the healer were both doing. Healer was holding back at first, but started tossing in their Holy spell when they were comfortable that the DRK was doing fine. We have a LB up from the previous boss, so i decide to hold it for the 3rd wave on boss two. We get there and go. Boss vanishes and the waves start. Bard is standing off in a corner, sometimes dodging attacks. Anything tethered there needs either us to drag the rest of the murder ball over or me to switch and single target it off him. I wonder now(as its never occured to me before this instant) if those are transferable tethers and it might have been quicker for me to just intercept it and drag it with the others. Anyway, drop rocks, boss comes back. Burn it down. It gets bigger then ive ever seen, but i burst it before its cast finishes. On the way to the next trash pull, the tank compliments me on the LB use and tells the healer hes been doing fine. We continue to one pack at a time our way to the final boss. As we get there, bard says they need to afk a min for a phone call. So we wait. It was 4 or 5 mins, then they hop on the trampoline to the last boss. We run in and get started. At no point have they asked for mechs(at this point all theyve said is the afk thing), so none are explained. They get caught by an apoc cast and die, but they did see what the rest of us did and tried to dodge it going forward. They also continued to get caught in basically every aoe, and to attack slowly while only using a small portion of their kit. When therion makes his last leap forward im a little worried about how much hp it has left. At some point the healer gets caught in something. Bard is down. I realize a little too late the situation and die before i can trigger LB. DRK fails at about 7% boss health. We run back. No one is complaining, because clearly we can get that little bit more and win this pull. Bard isnt moving from starting block. I have noticed that all 3 are from the same server, but they arent acting like a group so i dont think they were together. After 3 or 4 minutes i ask if they were on the phone again. Healer/tank dont know. Two minutes later, they finally say something. "Sorry, its my first time here and kinda hard on satellite. Im on the phone with paramedics, my father fell down and they had to help him up." They finally join the group. We pull again. Fight is about the same. At a certain point i think the healer gave up on resing them. But they kept themselves up, and this time we got those extra 7% for the victory. I left with one com(my guess would be the tank, as bard was still in cutscene when i left). Total time of the run: 51 minutes. Woof. So yeah, i went to bed late.

Side note to a bard from exodus(who probly wont ever read it): When real life pops up, everyone understands if you need to bail and re-que later. Im happy we got you passed the dungeon and hope your father is ok. Yes, my post is fairly critical of your play but obviously you were distracted(and i have no idea what kinda lag you would have playing on satellite). If my descriptions sound like your typical play though, maybe look into your bard rotation. There seemed like there was room for improvement.

[Flay_wind]

It's weird how bad runs can feel so different.
Doing my roulettes on my DRK. Trials is Crown of Immaculate. First phase goes okay. Then in phase two somehow everything went to shit and people started dropping dead. RDM helped with raises i was throwing TBN around like it was going out of style, but seeing our Scholar surviving with less than 1000 hp after the TBN felt great and in the end we pulled through.
Then to balance out the good i zone into O11. You know where the groups go to die. Half the group was new including my co-tank, who absolutely insisted on being the big dick MT. Provoke on cooldown even after 5 deaths. No defensive cooldowns. Also ate vulnstacks like they were in all you can eat buffet. As a result they died to the Mustard Bomb from full health even after i put TBN on them. Despite my best efforts healers still died quite regularly and from the looks of it only me and RDM remembered how Larboard/Starboard works. It was a godawful mess and the "i am the greatest tank in the universe" had the audacity to type "we did so little damage" in the end. Yes. Because being dead and getting raised reduces your damage. Being dead and getting raised multiple times reduces your damage even further.

[kelevra13]

I get copied factory. I got 90002d right as the boss started the floor mechanic for A. I get back to the exact same mechanic. lol
Fast forward to Engels. I see the three tanks with tankbuster icons and two move away. I try to find the 3rd one when bam, we get hit by the missile. Okay, new tank probably.
Add phase. One add is near ours. People type in chat to separate them. The other tank won't pull theirs away from ours. Our tank, probably confused or too focused on the add, doesn't pull ours away too. We wipe. Some guy votes abandon (really? on one wipe?) and leaves (really? you'll take a penalty when progressing it would've been faster?).
Okay, second time goes smoothly. Tanks run away when they have the icon. Add phase again. I finally find out who the new tank is. It's alliance C's tank. Coz they were tanking OUR add while our tank becomes OT for our own add. C manages to kill theirs w/o their tank. Okay, 9S. During the second marx phase, alliance C's tank draws aggro and doesn't move the boss. A chunk of them died or were really low. We finish w/o wiping to 9S regardless.

People, whether you're new or not, or have/haven't read/watched a guide when you're new, please read the chat from time to time.

Oh, and I finally got a proper no DC/lag and no death run for rabanastre on my mnk.

[Callinon]

People, whether you're new or not, or have/haven't read/watched a guide when you're new, please read the chat from time to time.

No kidding. I wonder sometimes if this is just because the default UI has such a tiny chat window and these players just never did anything about it. It'd be very easy to miss something that small when you're focusing on your hotbars.