So what do you do exactly when the DPS in the party are bad?

[Coatl]

You log on to do some expert. Weekly reset means fresh new week to cap some tomes! You que in as white mage, your favorite role!

"It's looking like a good run!" you tell yourself as you instance into Skalla. Next to you is a Paladin, a Ninja and a samurai. You see the Paladin smile and wink at you, before running off to grab the mobs. We're having an AOE DPS bonzai party at nine 'o clock with everyone invited! As soon as the tank stops you start sliding into your groove that'll bring the house down. Swiftcast, cleric stance, thin air, peace of mind aaaand....Holy spam! Haahaa, White mage is OP suckers, read it and weep.

But something is amiss. The enemies that should have died from the combined powers of your party's DPS are...alive. They are very much alive! Ok, that's sorta bad, since Healers and tanks only have so many cooldowns to keep this sorta party going. You recoil in horror to see your Samurai and ninja single-targeting a single add among the dozen swarming the tank. You ask them politely to consider AOE dps when there are a dozen things in their proximity to deal damage to.

The Samurai stops performing any actions and takes two telegraphed aoes to the face and dies but still manages to get his final words out..

"u dont pay my sub noob"

...

Obviously a very elongated rant, but seriously what are you suppose to do as a healer when your tank tries to do his job optimally but the DPS just don't follow suite? I've been in this situation every other run of expert roulette it feels like.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I just continue on doing the dungeon with my current role and not give the bad dps my commendation. Dishonorable mention of not giving the dps my comm if I happen to be the only dps player of the two who does AOE attacks during big pulls.

It shouldn't be a surprise that most dps players don't use their AOE attacks during large pulls. The times when healers don't supplement dps when there is no healing needed exacerbates the situation of the overall low dps.

[Selova]

I have yet to experience one of the legendary-single-target-let's-make-this-20-minute-dungeon-into-a-hour-long-dungeon groups and hopefully I never will. It's definitely a awkward spot to be in and for the life of me cannot comprehend how people are apparently unable to mouse over their ability icons to understand which abilities are aoe and which are for single target by reading their tool tips, but clearly that is asking way too much of someone. I honestly feel for any tank or healer that ends up in these groups. Kudos to you, seriously. As someone that is adept in the able-to-read-tooltips department i can assure you that not all of us floor loving dragoons and other people of the "stick them with the pointy end" variety are this inept. Godspeed, I commend you for your diligence and perseverence. *Tips Hat*

[Paladinleeds]

Well given his response, he was being rude and hostile, so the Samurai should have been given the vote kick. Going back to this image that I posted in another thread:


The Samurai was free to say that, but the rest of the party are equally free to vote to show him the door. As for the ninja, no response, so maybe he could have been coerced into it better? Who knows.

[Xerek]

Votekick. Yes, on other threads I argue it's hard to say if someone is lazy, or if they're doing their best and that's just the best they can do. But in this case, they opened their mouth and their reply made it clear. You don't pay their sub? Well, they don't pay yours, or the tank's. DPS queue is brutal. A couple kicks and lengthy requeues might get them to rethink their attitude.

[F_Maximillian]

Sigh and keep going or you'll wind up with a forum post about harassment for asking them to do their jobs. That's what I do when I bother doing roulettes. :\

[Venoshock]

I ask them to step t up whether it be 'please AOE on big pulls' or flat out 'step up the dps a bit please' if i get no answer, i'll say it again and if nothing has been improved on I votekick and it will always go through (I'm always with my girlfriend or a friend to make sure of that). If the be rude back, Votekick immediately. DPS that don't AOE during big pulls piss me of the most, some classes have AOEs available in fucking copperbell mines, no excuses, gtfo.

[Claire_Delacroix]

I try to apply the same philosophy I apply IRL when it comes to pointing out shortcomings: if it's not something that can be fixed in five minutes, I don't bother.

For example: I had a healer in Brayflox yesterday that kept casting Medica over and over - even when I, as the WAR, was doing perfectly fine, health-wise. I told them as nicely as I could that they don't have to use Medica if everyone's doing okay. I also told the NIN that they will do damage if they attack from the enemy's rear, as this NIN kept sitting right near the front of the boss alongside me.

Those are things that can be fixed rather quickly. But if it's something as difficult to pinpoint as what you perceive as low DPS? No point in saying something unless you can constructively offer advise on what they're doing wrong. If you can't help them get better, then telling them their DPS is too low is pointless.

[Neri]

It's only expert dungeon though, I don't really expect anything much from there...but I hardly ran into any problem you had. Different datacenters are different I guess.

[Tint]

if the dps is too low i just lean back and do a half assed job myself by stopping all dps actions.

but if someone calls me "noob" after i was asking politely for some aoe attacks, i'll initiate a vote kick and when the party don't accept the kick i'll leave.