Thread: Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent. 2.0

Originally Posted by Packetdancer

I’ll admit I actually love the Ivalice raids, and I adore math robot. Both because that’s a unique mechanic, and because of his stupid adorable dance he’s doing as you return from the adds phase.

Usually his reputation is unwarranted, but there are those occasional runs that probably keep the legend alive.

My second favorite part of that run (of course losing out to sweet lala gratitude/pity) was math boss's rotating laser light show, where a precious darling sprout healer was hard-casting raise on someone who got caught in the first blast and immediately got obliterated as Mr. Boss Man kept turning. What can you do but laugh?

That's why alliance roulette is probably my favorite. Sure, I might get Labyrinth of the Ancients for the 5000th time, but sometimes I get peak and utter chaos, where half the fun is wondering which minor mechanic will kill half the raid. And also, imo, Ivalice raids are better, more enjoyable chaos than Nier raids because they don't have those stupid, awful, no good, very bad orbs that always nick me because my ping is total doggy doodoo (although I will admit, the music in Nier is *chef's kiss*).

Originally Posted by novamare

My second favorite part of that run (of course losing out to sweet lala gratitude/pity) was math boss's rotating laser light show, where a precious darling sprout healer was hard-casting raise on someone who got caught in the first blast and immediately got obliterated as Mr. Boss Man kept turning. What can you do but laugh?

I admit I have mild trauma associated with the stupid spinny laser mechanic. Not from math boss himself, but from his Bozjan critical engagement counterpart. You get the math test (now combined with Forced March, which is actually pretty cool)... and then he just goes into the laser spinny mechanic endlessly.

And I do mean endlessly.

When I was leveling PLD to 80 in ShB, I was in Bozja with a bunch of friends (because it was current content and full of folks!). And we got to do the math robot critical engagement... but as the spinning started, everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- save me died. I Clemencied myself healthy after the tankbuster, and then used Lost Arise to get up a healer and a red mage, and they started getting others up... and then they died, so I popped another stack of Lost Arise and...

Basically we chain-rezzed folks -- periodically losing most of the group -- until we had finally gotten the guy down. We managed to get everyone up (even if they died again) such that no one hit the 10 minute death timer, and to finish the CE. I was so, so tempted to just wall it at several points when I was the only one up, but because we kept almost getting the groups back up, people were in /say chat encouraging whoever was up at the time, so I just... popped more Lost Arise and we kept trying to recover.

It was longer than many savage fights I've been in, but that whole time was just one mechanic over and over and over and over. We nearly ran the clock down on the engagement, but we took the 'bot down in the end. And in that sense, everyone working together to try to get folks back up and recover with those down cheering on those who were -- at least for the moment -- back on their feet, it was a fun experience socially.

But every time we get to the spinny laser part of math robot in Ridorana, I have flashbacks to the endless repetition of that one mechanic... over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

Originally Posted by Packetdancer

I’ll admit I actually love the Ivalice raids, and I adore math robot. Both because that’s a unique mechanic, and because of his stupid adorable dance he’s doing as you return from the adds phase.

Usually his reputation is unwarranted, but there are those occasional runs that probably keep the legend alive.

They are alright. I don't mind doing Orbonne when there is an incentive to do it, like with the moogle event. I specifically like the boss Orlando Bloom. I've always thought that fight was fun, it was more enjoyable when it first came out though. What I like about that raid series is that the bosses actually talk, it makes for a more enjoyable experience overall, in my opinion. The voiced dialogue I mean.

I had two amazing Orbonne runs last night.

First run, a BRD in another alliance was lamenting the addition of Echo. So one of my friends piped up about how it would be fun to click it off. The BRD responded “already did”. Before we knew it, them and almost our entire alliance (minus the tank and one DPS) had also clicked off Echo. It was so awesome to see more like-minded people that didn’t like the buff, and I wish I could have commended all of them. I opted to comm the sprout BRD who was asking questions about what the Echo did, why it was added, what would happen if they clicked it off, etc.. After we answered them, they thanked us for answering their questions, and then immediately clicked it off.

Second run, Alliance B had a BLM that was AFK the entire run. In Agrias, they cast Fire IV maybe a dozen times and then just AFK’d. For the mini boss before TGC, I noticed that they were just standing there, so I targeted them and they immediately started casting Blizzard when they noticed I was watching them. For TGC, they went down and refused to raise the entire fight. One of their healers asked if we could wait so they could kick them for griefing the entire run, so a lot of us piped up about how we didn’t mind waiting.

Well, they saw us talking about kicking them and pulled. One person in Alliance C said “They're participating now, it’s not a big deal”, but people pointed out they had been AFK nearly the entire run. I proposed that we could always wipe on Ultima and take care of the problem, and nearly the entire raid unanimously started running into AOEs and things to kill themselves. The few that kept saying it “wasn’t a big deal for one person to be AFK” tried to pass Ultima’s DPS check, failed, and we got the kick passed right as the BLM ran forward and attempted to pull her.

Gotta love it. Nothing boils my blood more than seeing people AFK in duties and expect a free carry. I don’t care if it’s at the last boss, I will always say yes to a vote dismissal for such behavior. If you want to not participate, find 23 other people who want to carry you. I loved how most the raid banded together to get rid of the dead weight. No free Moogle Tomes for you, lazy BLM.

Originally Posted by TheMightyMollusk

If you go back after clearing the final boss, he's still there dancing away.

I have used Return many a time on the Ivalice raids at the end, when everyone's leaving. I'll go back and take screenshots in the early parts (I love the bridge into Orbonne), go look around for stuff like that...

Honestly, whoever did the design for the Orbonne Monastery approach really loved that scene. There are all kinds of lovingly-added little details you'd probably never spot just running across the bridge in the raid, that become easier to notice when you're standing around for 20 minutes doing screenshots.