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

[MilkieTea]

It was a normal run in the duty finder. But then i noticed that >>SHE<< healed me!

Cheers

Well that's gotta be fun!

[Ferra]

I'm going to make a tale out of this one. It went there.

The Mentor Who's Never Wrong

Queued for Ramuh EX. Understand that party finder is the preferred way to do this but hey, I'm a masochist. We get a Mentor for a tank. I know Mentors get meme'd on but I played with a healthy amount of helpful ones that were also nice to play with. I didn't think much of it.

MT (For Mentor Tank) starts explaining various mechanics...Kinda in a blob. It just seemed like random points being thrown together. Alright. We'll explain some things but it's almost 100% certain we will wipe first pull, it happens in DF. But they keep going.

3 minutes. 5 minutes. 8 minutes.

I didn't want to interrupt but we already burned a pull's worth of time and would like to get the show on the road...Or at least build some Echo. I ask that we go ahead and pull as the best way to learn is to do. Finally, we go. Other tank is a bit of a novice and runs into me down south of the arena, zapping me with Strike. We didn't make it.

As mentioned, expected, so I didn't think much of it. Explain to the other tank what's going on and go from there. Next pull however, I notice something odd: We had nine orbs just laying around. For those unfamiliar with the fight, the orbs serve two primary purposes: They're a tank mechanic they have to pay attention to in order to avoid being one shot, and they also increase the damage of Ramuh's AoE attacks: Thunder, Conductivity and I believe his close range AoE. Three or four laying around isn't a big deal but more than that, Thunder alone starts doing 5-7k which is almost impossible to survive through as often as he casts it. Conductivity becomes a one shot.

I would mention the tether mechanic in relation to orbs but for the sake of this story, spoilers, the tether ended up not mattering too much.

My strategy is to always leave three orbs for tanks but grab any spares so we can better reduce the amount of damage the party receives. I suggest this to the MT because I'd like not to get zapped fur 5-7K damage.

"No orbs are for tank" We're taking huge amounts of Thunder damage. "Overlap" ...No, they weren't overlapping, there were twelve orbs laying around. "Overlap lol" and then they start ranting about how they've done this fight so many times and they know the strats. Meanwhile I see two people get one shot while charmed by a singular thunder.

Hopefully this is alright but I'm gonna make a part 2 in the next post...If not I can make a TwitLonger or something I guess!

[Ferra]

Listen, orbs increase his AoE damage. We need to-- "LOL no it's only a little bit" It was like talking to a wall with an extra dose of density. I continue to try to persuade MT but eventually I'm like, "Alright. Fine. We'll do it your way."

The next couple pulls end in a similar fashion, mixed in with people evading Charmed folks while they have Thunder and some getting cleaved by going too close to tanks. We weren't making it past Phase 2...Heck I think we only made it to Phase 2 purely due to Echo. I admit I was getting a bit snarky over MT's attitude and said, "Huh. High single target Thunder damage." as someone drops from full HP to zero in a singular Thunder.

The MT starts the "WHY YOU SO SALTY XD" thing. I don't get mad or at least, not mad often. Frustrated, sure. Annoyed, absolutely. But this MT was the combination I hated: Wrong, and unwilling to admit it. Eventually I minimize the chat so I can focus on the fight because talking to MT was indeed frustrating me.

30 minutes, 25, 20...We're at max Echo and we start doing a ton of damage to Ramuh. This makes the fight go a lot faster but there's a problem with this: With so much damage you will often skip the Thunder after Chaotic Strike so you'll have no way to free two people before the charm. Then he Chaotics again at the start of Phase 2 and you have to deal with four charmed people instead of two. I open chat just enough to type in what I want to type in and--

MT jumps in. "No it's two charm per cast" Which is true. However I just explained that scuff happens to make it that four people are charmed in that unique instance. I ignore them and continue explaining what happens and he just continues to try to dismiss me while continuing the "you're so salty" with literal XDs, so many that I thought I was back in the early 2000s.

Eventually I just give up. A simple, "What is actually wrong with you." and I was over it. I just wanted to leave. They tried provoking me a few more times but we made no better progress than we did 20 minutes ago. I didn't say a single extra word. Upon leaving with our failure, "Huh, I know who's going right into the BL Dumpster."

Like I said, I don't believe in the Mentor meme that much. However, I will say the MT fit the bill perfectly: Arrogant, dismissive, provoking, and worst of all wrong. We died so many times to Thunder it hurts and if anyone picked up orbs at all they'd just snap at the person. Ramuh is a difficult fight if you're ignoring mechanics and that's what we were railroaded into doing for an hour.

That's all for the tale, had to let that off my chest.

[RobynDaBank]

Wholesome story! My partner is learning how to tank, and out pops Tam-Tara. I was on BLM, and the healer who joined was CNJ. Cheerfully they made it plain on the outset that they were new, and the other DD said that was no issue. I caught a moment between helping my partner and binding Blizzard II back in to say, "my fren here is a fresh tank himself" hoping to embarrass him in good humour.

I sort of dropped reading chat midway, but when I checked it towards the tail end it seemed that my fellow DD was giving both my partner and the healer nice little tips, like how to adjust damage with healing, how many stuns before DR, etc. At the end, now full of confidence, my partner laughed at me when I LBed on the boss and its adds while the boss was still invulnerable. Was great and comfy.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Quick question though, has anyone else been getting dc'd frequently lately on Aether ever since they opened it back up again, or is it just me?

No disconnects, but I've had a few lag spikes. Got into Emerald Weapon, saw the barrier drop and a tank run in; then everything froze for a minute and a half, and suddenly three people, including me, are dead on the floor with no idea what hit us.

[nebby00]

No disconnects, but I've had a few lag spikes. Got into Emerald Weapon, saw the barrier drop and a tank run in; then everything froze for a minute and a half, and suddenly three people, including me, are dead on the floor with no idea what hit us.

I guess I must be getting super unlucky then. I've been getting hit with major lag spikes that either cause me to die, or if I'm healing it causes other people to die because of the lag spikes, or if I'm super unlucky it freezes up in a minute long lag spike and I get dc'd. It's annoying, but not to the point that it makes it completely unplayable... yet.

Also, I have a recent tale to share once again!

Saint Morcianne Arboretum
Since I'm getting really close to maxing out yet another job with DNC, I queued for leveling roulette and got the Arboretum. It's me, a PLD, a NIN and a WHM. Instance starts and we head in, the sprout PLD who I'm assuming is an alt since they handled the first pull extremely well rushes ahead and grabs aggro on everything until they hit the wall, using mitigations as necessary. Me and the NIN burn the adds down without and problem and we start to follow the PLD only for the WHM to immediately leave when the PLD had grabbed the next set of mobs before the first boss which was odd.

After the pack was dead, we stand around for a few minutes, waiting for a replacement healer but eventually we just decided to trio the rest of the way. It went pretty smoothly, the PLD used Clemency and I used Shield Samba and the DNC's little heal buff (that I can't really remember the name of) as necessary. We got all the way to the last boss before another healer joined.

The new healer was a bit surprised at the progress we made and the party had a good laugh about it before we took down the last boss and went our separate directions.

Still wondering why the first WHM ditched after the first pull. The PLD wasn't doing anything wrong, in fact they were an excellent tank that I made sure I commended, so I'm still scratching my head about it.

[Cubsbane]

A bunch of little annoyances in my roulette today. (In which I was either GNB or MNK.)


- DPS pulling when everyone wasn't ready, almost causing a wipe one time because I was so stunned it took me a few seconds to grab enmity. (This also happened EVERY boss in WoD.)
- Clueless tanks trying to MT (why do you keep moving around. why is the boss facing the party.)
- Tank ragequitting despite being the one who messed up the pulls (they forgot tank stance then kept immediately running back to pull before waiting for healer to catch up, healer literally could not in time because they had to revive at start first)
- Regen healer not using any regens
- People ignoring simple instructions and instead going "I'm confused"
- Someone passing on loot that would be an upgrade for them (???)

And worst of all... I knew I should have stayed in the middle of the arena with my add on the first pull of WoD, but I brought it to the front anyway, which got me paralyzed and then subsequently frozen. Undoubtedly killed a few other people on my way out, too.

Knew I had to take a lil break then. Too many first-world FFXIV problems at once.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

It sure is fun when people decide "no, actually I want to MT".

Didn't have a lot of energy after work today for content, and I have no more MSQ to do until EW - so I decided I'd just get Tower at Paradigm's Breach unlocked on my alt, run it and hope for the tank chest + whatever music scrolls I haven't managed to send to her yet, then log off and catch up on some shows for the evening.

I skip cutscene and load in, gate drops, I check the other tanks to see if either have their stance on + how their gear is looking. Both are decently geared, but none of us have stance on... so I turn mine on as we're waiting for 9S to do his hacking stuff and give us the teleporter. We all get to first boss room, everyone moves towards where it'll spawn, fight starts and I've got aggro pretty instantly. I go through my entire opener, and am in the middle of my rotation, when the GNB apparently decides he wanted to MT and Provokes off me. I provoke back, but he just keeps doing it and, because his gear was better than mine (still slowly collecting tomes to move out of Exarchic), keeps gaining momentum during his No Mercy windows enough to yank it.

I get insanely irritated when people do this; someone clearly puts their stance on, pulls, and isn't instantly dying while pumping out their rotation, and for w/e reason another tank's ego gets bruised I guess?? and they just start a Provoke war. It's stupid and incredibly rude. Thankfully Jack's aggro bouncing around doesn't matter much since he's stationary and has no cleaves.

Oh, and they tried to kill me via running their TB into me after using Superbolide. Joke was on them though, since I just Hallowed through it even before they came over to me.

We get to H/G and I go right to grab Gretel as always. No issues during this fight, thankfully. The other PLD has yet to turn their stance on at all, which is fair.

I was more than a little annoyed at how much of an ***hole the GNB was during Jack, so I just leave my stance off for the adds after H/G... and guess what? He doesn't bother getting aggro on the Flight Units, one of which begins eating my BLM until I turn my stance on again to take it off them.

We get to Red Girl, my stance is off again. We're waiting for him to pull... and he's just standing in the very back of the group near the entrance. I see a DNC begin doing SS and twitching forward wanting her to be pulled. I look to the GNB-- nope, he ain't moving. Doesn't even have her targeted.

An AST pulls, she rushes forward to eat them, I throw my stance on and quickly take aggro and pull her to the corner. Aaaaaaaand - yep, he's Provoking her again and fighting with me for it! I turn my stance off, again, and just focus on my rotation. Luckily, I think I'm finally comfy with PLD! Felt like I did pretty good during Tower, despite it being my first time doing it on PLD.

Transcendence goes out, we pewpew our balls, pop back out... Red Girl's attacking my BLM. I wait. GNB is out along with the rest of his party, and he's attacking her, so why is she still on my BLM?? I throw my stance on YET AGAIN, Provoke her before she can do any more damage. Yep, you guessed it, he starts fighting me for her again. Also once again tries that Superbolide-then-stack-the-TB bull, which again doesn't go through since I Hallowed through it.

I also want to note that, the entire time this guy has aggro on anything, his health is falling like crazy and I genuinely don't know if he was just not using cooldowns, his healers were bad, or his healers were fed up with his bull and were barely healing him. Either way, I'm incredibly annoyed.

At least the idiot finally freaking pulled on his own when we get to False Idol. He nearly died like 5 times during Idol/Inflorescence though, but whatever.

I walk out with half of the loot drops though, including the Stubby minion which I farmed for repeatedly on my catboy and never got until recently. Slightly stings but this alt's loot luck has been kind of stupidly good, so eh. :|

After that annoying run I just smacked Titan 6 times to finish my WT up, did a Factory run for the last sticker and felt like I did real damn well considering I'm still fairly new to using PLD. (yes i know i said at the start that i had little energy for content. shhh. my brain fixated on doing wt so i wouldn't forget it)

People irritate the heck out of me though, good freaking lord.

[Cubsbane]

Oh my god that sounds infuriating. I've had tons of tanks refuse to pull and then immediately provoke off me when I do (why), but I've never had one actively try and grief me.

I also want to note that, the entire time this guy has aggro on anything, his health is falling like crazy and I genuinely don't know if he was just not using cooldowns, his healers were bad, or his healers were fed up with his bull and were barely healing him.

There's another possibility here: the healers assumed he wasn't tanking because of the times you had it, and focused on the rest of their alliance members. I find when I have to step in and grab enmity, my healers let me drop a bit before there's an "oh shit" moment. ... I have also had a few of these moments myself, when playing healer.

If I was healing and noticed my tank was griefing someone I'd probably silently throw my hands up, though, so you could easily be right there too lol.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

There's another possibility here: the healers assumed he wasn't tanking because of the times you had it, and focused on the rest of their alliance members. I find when I have to step in and grab enmity, my healers let me drop a bit before there's an "oh shit" moment. ... I have also had a few of these moments myself, when playing healer.

If I was healing and noticed my tank was griefing someone I'd probably silently throw my hands up, though, so you could easily be right there too lol.

Yeah, that's true - I know when I wasn't MTing, my healers were going hard on DPS, so maybe the GNB's were too. Either way, considering I used Clemency maybe all of twice (to pop Divine Veil, at that) and was barely ever low on HP vs. mister Provoke-happy GNB consistently being at half or below during bosses... yeah, idk. Something was going on.

I definitely know if I'd been one of his healers and watching that bullcrap, I'd have just flat out stopped healing him. Usually the only way to get people like that to stop is just letting them eat the floor and think about what they did.

Honestly though, I usually don't care about MTing or OTing anything. I'm perfectly fine being a blurps and mindlessly doing my rotation until the boss is dead, but when you have DPS and healers pulling the boss because you're too busy sitting there picking your nose or w/e, if I end up MTing so that they aren't being eaten, maybe don't fight me for it??? I legitimately do not understand people who have that kind of mentality and behave that way.

If you want to MT so bad, then pull in a timely manner and tank properly. Don't let someone else pull and establish aggro only to Provoke war with them and make everyone's time worse because you have an ego to stroke. :|