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

[Cenerae]

Um, you're saying he only turned Darkside ON when he was DONE with a pull?

I mean, I get the basic concept of turning Darkside on and off between pulls, but I've never done it myself... just kept Darkside on indefinitely. Activating Darkside costs MP in the first place, so I always thought that turning it off and on would utterly defeat the purpose. Is that how it's supposed to be done? Flipping on and off? I honestly don't know.

I'm going to assume he meant that Darkside was turned back on after he was done *pulling*, ie, rounding up the mobs.

Which makes a certain degree of sense in experts given we usually run a fair distance before stopping when mass pulling them. Though considering Blood Price would generate pretty much infinite mp against that many enemies, I'm not sure if it really matters.

edit - and I was too slow. D:

[Mysterysword]

Once you turn on Blood Price the cost of reactivating Darkside is negligible. When you hit that first mob with Unmend and start gathering the trash, Darkside begins to drain your mp. So if it's a long pull like gathering several packs in Xelphatol or GGL Hard, you're saving mp in the long run.

With that many mobs, I found that turning Blood Price on made the cost of keeping Darkside on negligible. In some situations, I found myself regaining more MP than I could even use, so saving MP isn't that much of a concern for me when I'm already hitting my cap even when spamming Dark Arts. Not to say I've never dropped Darkside due to lack of MP, but I've never found it a big enough problem to have to flip it on and off constantly.

I can't say if I'd find it a problem in Xelphatol or GGL HM since I haven't started tanking those dungeons as DRK yet - not too confident in my ability to hold aggro with just the first PotD weapon - but I never found it difficult to keep Darkside up constantly in Hullbreaker HM, Sohr Khai, or any dungeon before that, with the sole exception of Praetorium, because that dungeon forces me into battle mode constantly as DRK.

[Yeol]

Stone Vigil

This dungeon taught me a lot and made me look at the game in a different way.

1- I learned about Jobs.
2- I healed large pulls for the first time.
3- It made me decide to level Warrior as my first tank job.

I was level 41 Archer (I know /shame) I really had no idea about the job system until someone said in chat after a wipe "You might want to unlock Bard" after the tank had said said "We have an Archer who isn't using any Dots". This made go and search a lot about my class Archer and how to unlock its' job BRD. Also did some heavy research about rotations and how to play BRD. It made me look at the game in a completely different way and I started to take it more seriously. Eventually did raid/Savage with BRD.

Leveling SCH as my first healer and tank said that he will do large pulls. I know this dungeon very well and there has been many wipes due to large pulls, you can imagine how panicked I was. Surprisingly, I did it. It was my first attempt to heal large pulls and it was went very smoothly. Tank was supper good with his CDs I even had time to dps. Tank was WAR and at that time is when I decided to level WAR as my first tank job. He left a really good impression about WARs for me.

Now each time I end up in that dungeon, thoughts of the 'old me' cross my mind and it puts a big smile on my face to see what I have become.

[AlphaFox]

When it comes to the long pulls I usually keep it off till I am about halfway to the last group then pop it, right before I jump into the last pile blood price and my DEF boost come on. I do agree with turning it off during long pulls as it is wasted and most times I have found turning blood price on at the start isnt worth it as not all mobs will contribute.

[Vidu]

Ravana NM in trials - great, thats the one we're all waiting for on that roulette, right? - I'm on scholar. The first odd thing I notice: That bard there... with their Kinna-bow... is dealing less damage than I am (and isnt singing Foes, but who does that today anyways, right?). They're also the first to fall off, right after the phase transition, shortly to be followed by the warrior - which leaves us with only the french paladin who figures it would be a good idea to waste our lb as a tank and to stack those purple aoes with me - I die, whm tries to raise me, but that kills the tank, we wipe.

...someone leaves and I take my chance to give that roulette a second try. Titan HM, smooth as butter.

[Fluffernuff]

With that many mobs, I found that turning Blood Price on made the cost of keeping Darkside on negligible. In some situations, I found myself regaining more MP than I could even use, so saving MP isn't that much of a concern for me when I'm already hitting my cap even when spamming Dark Arts. Not to say I've never dropped Darkside due to lack of MP, but I've never found it a big enough problem to have to flip it on and off constantly.

I can't say if I'd find it a problem in Xelphatol or GGL HM since I haven't started tanking those dungeons as DRK yet - not too confident in my ability to hold aggro with just the first PotD weapon - but I never found it difficult to keep Darkside up constantly in Hullbreaker HM, Sohr Khai, or any dungeon before that, with the sole exception of Praetorium, because that dungeon forces me into battle mode constantly as DRK.

The thing with flipping it on and off is, well, a couple of things. ultimately, if you end each pull with enough mp, it makes little difference, but the dropping it between pulls lets you be a little more loose as the pull ends.

You see, depending on how long youre running for a pull (Xeph/Gubal for example have spread out pulls), Darkside is ticking at your MP while your MP regen is hindered by combat. if you're running for too long, you've now spent more MP running than the cost of darkside in the first place. Combine this with the fact that having darkside off means you get the MP regen out of combat AND the regen in combat while you're rounding the mobs up. depending on how much mp you had, you can put up darkside at 75%+ mp compared to possibly 50%+ mp.

That is especially nice when you have a holy happy WHM because you have the chance to save your BP instead of burning it to get enough AoE aggro.

you can do either/or, honestly, but I think dropping it between pulls is an overall net gain... so long as you remember to flip it back on. I forget lots of times

[lvlagmarink]

I just had A11 run as a dragoon where i'm pretty sure every players in that run was trying to kill me..
So we had a semi half afk blm who randomly casted fire III, thunder III and blizzard III and would randomly got back to his senses and did echonian rotation..
A dragoon and a ninja who despite blm was semi afking for half of the fight, their aggro meter was behind blm' in serious mode..
A dark OT who let me tanked EDD
And a whm who would used single target cure II to top up photon..

The overall dps was so low that we saw photon in phase 1 in every attempt we took.

1st try, I died from eternal darkness because i was the only one whose hp didn't get top up, due to that single target cure II I had around 10ks Hp thx to max pot and second wind, but those werent enough, i got raised but died soon with prey blaster due to healers didnt bother healing/shielding me and we wiped on propeller wind due both healers got confused.

2nd try tank and hm healer failed to board cruise chaser, tank respawned, whm got raised.. but we wiped from lacking dps on lazuli, eternal darkness hit for 19k damage and this would be the very first time i've seen this happenning.

3rd try I got marked again with prey and died per usual.. second wind and pots couldnt save me.. I got raised and 2-3 players died from proppeler wind fiasco including the whm.. we were stuggling until EDD spawned and i was the only dps alive with EDD having 67% hp left I used LB lv 3 on EDD to prevent self destruct.. both tanks and some dps put some comment like "...", "lol?", "O.o", "why"?" Which I believed was directed to me.. soon after that the main tank cleaved me with the circular aoe and we both died, at out clear, only scholar and OT was alive...

At least I won my spring with 45 loot power..

[Texa]

Ran Aurum Vale as Scholar and the tank didn't believe me when I said I didn't have a single target regen.

[Ninster]

Had some fun moments today. Level 60 roulette, after a missed queue (sorry folks) was Neverreap. Eww. But everyone was really good and it was smooth, except for the part where the poor bard used repelling shot on the wrong side of a wind sprite on the last boss. I know how it feels, bro. /comfort

Then mentor roulette put me in A5 as bard with a dark knight, a warrior, 2 scholars and 3 summoners. I felt as if so many eyes were piercing my soul, waiting to see if I was a Foe's Bard or a mute. Probably the best comment though was "if tank loses Eye for an Eye then we suck".

[Mysterysword]

Ran Aurum Vale as Scholar and the tank didn't believe me when I said I didn't have a single target regen.

Sounds familiar, maybe that tank was talking to this guy.

Also, Ramuh HM, in which I ended up tethered to other people no less than 4 times in a row. Thanks, RNGesus. Can't believe I forgot about that time you threw 3 out of 6 meteors on me in T9 either.