Hydaelyn Role-Players

I admit, I did not play FFXI. By the time I got around to that game it had become a mountain that I didnt particularly wish to climb. So if that lack of experience is hindering me, hopefully I can catch up.

I have a major dislike of grouping in this game thus far. I find it chaotic and lacking any form or semblance of design. I've tried leve groups, I've tried duos. The one thing I noticed is that everything is over so fast that any form of tactics are essentially rendered moot.

Players and monsters both hit way too hard. I was at an area, competing for spawns with another player, eventually we were both bored and decided to go after some harder enemies. My damage, as a gladiator, was finally going to result in a decently long fight, perhaps 2 minutes or so....until he hit me and took half my health away. So to find a decent fight with a partner in my opinion was not going to happen.

Next I tried leve questing. Even at 5 star, most of the leves were a complete joke to a group of 6 level 9-14s. I was a THM at the time and healing with sacrifice was an exercise in hell given the mosters agro jumping, the massive dmg intake by everyone, and the speed with which everything died. I cant help but wonder how I am suppossed to function as a healer when I gain nothing in the way of rank points for casting a self based AE heal, which is honestly the only way I've found to deal with the incomming dmg to the front line fighters, let alone the archer who must be coating their arrows with a potion designed to entice any enemy into humping their leg (I assume thats just a bug), I'll be trying Cure from now on in the hopes that it works a bit better.

Obviously, I must be doing it wrong. Thus, I am here to get some idea of what I'm doing wrong, I figure most of the players I run into are likely FFXI players, and perhaps I simply dont get the mentality of players zerg rushing back into the fray with the weakness debuff still on them.

So, how does one group or duo successfully?

Actually your not doing it wrong. Healing skill is borked.

getting Conjury or Thaumaturge skill points via healing and buffing isn't exactly borked anymore. The spells have to be casted WHILE combat is engaged, and completed before the mob dies. For healing, you need to heal them for a decent amount of your heal cap. My cures do 250, and my sacrifice 153 + regen, if I heal for less than 100 I don't get points for that person. I've gotten anywhere from 50 to 170 skill points for a heal per a person healed pending the amounts. But yeah, trying to do it in leves is a pain, the mobs are either a joke, or to hard to kill. Me and my friends have found the best way is to get a group and grind things that don't die easy, like Gaint Crabs.

Edit: Also, team functioning well is always a help. It is possible to manage aggro in this game, I've a gladiator I'm with often enough that can hold a mob through three magic users spamming cures and nukes, and an archer spamming arrows. Its all about letting the tank build up some hate before swooping in.

You just have to let him get off his big agro move, which is annoying for him to even do, since it requires him to block, and he doesn't always block...

Grouping Post 20 is the only way to get some decent SP gain. This game gives a certain % bonus to your SP gain the more people in a group, so you have to pace that with how fast you can kill a mob because killing a mob too fast results in less SP gain for everyone. It's the same as FFXI, its all about knowing what monsters will reward your group with challenge and SP gain. Duoing/trioing crabs in Limsa can last you 15-20 and most high level players right now got there only via grouping.

Make sure your tank knows not to hit his taunt at the start of the fight, because the mob will not have a hate table, everyone needs to take part in an action while the mob is engaged, then taunt will generate a ton of threat.

Still havent had much luck on the grouping (trying to hit that elusive level 18 THM for the debuffs before I switch back to Gladiator). Any particularly good targets to hit at those levels? I tried the Bloodshore Bells, which had whupped me good solo, but they now conned blue with a partner and didnt do much for sp gain. I was afraid to go after anything much tougher for fear that the gladiator I was with would be beaten down faster than I could heal. I kinda miss having mobs seperated into Solo category and Group Category.

Seems the vast majority of players are so obsessed with leves that they dont do much of anything else, and the few that have strayed off the leve path are....a little anti-social?