The Vent Tent - Poor PuGs and Other Terrible Tales

[Warren Castille]

You can sacpull nearly every dungeon with some room by a gate to dump aggro. It's really convenient if you get people who don't mind doing it through like, DZ or something. Of course it means no one gets EXP, but hey, sacrifice pulls. You can knock DZ and AV down to sub-15 minutes if people don't mind skipping out on it all.

 

HW is pretty good about walls or gates requiring kills. Hell, most of the post-2.0 dungeons were.

[Rising]

As a healer, and someone new to the game, I appreciate a tank that doesn't chain pull. Even more, I appreciate one that can flipping hold aggro. I know better than to have regen on the tank before pull, and I usually wait for him to start taking some damage before casing my first heal. Still, there are tanks out there that can't hold aggro on more than one mob. Granted they may be as new as I am but still, it's frustrating.

 

I'm still trying to figure out buff/debuff/class icons, and the fact that I have to search for what may be a dispellable debuff in the same line of class icons and buff icons is infuriating. I have trouble with the UI, and in particular the target & party frames. I'm still learning the class and the game. The GCD kills me. Cast times kill me. I miss my Disc Priest. I'm only level 41 WHM (my first char. I don't have multiple chars or classes) but I think I do a decent job. Only wipes have been due to tank failing mechanics. 

 

I know I need to improve but god bless those kind tanks that explain boss fights (I always let folks know i'm new at the start) and keep an eye on the healer!

[Valence]

Having tried tanking on the first half levels (meaning, before the job and below lvl30), it's actually a nightmare to correctly hold aggro at such low levels. Either you get overgeared DPS that no matter what you do, will deal more enmity than you. Or just DPS that don't focus fire.

 

At such low level, there is not much rooms for mistakes when dealing with enmity sadly. I think that the game is a bit unforgiving and weirdly designed around that by the way. It should be easier to tank in low level dungeons, not the opposite. Not that your life is threatened or anything, but doing your job can be a nightmare. And it's not going to get any better the more end game gear will get powerful.

 

And I'm not even speaking of the enmity UI that is a joke, pure and simple. It starts showing you that you lost aggro when you already lost it. It's stupid as hell, unless you start rotating continuously between all the mobs to check their individual enmity gauges under every player name. Super user friendly that is, especially when you are doing your rotations.

 

In any case, I am a main WhM/heal and trying my hand at tanking made me see a lot of things under another light.

 

It should get better now that you are lvl41, and get better and better. Most of the retarded/horrors tend to happen at low level, either from inexperienced people that discover their jobs, or high end players that don't want to bother to pay attention to actual roles.

[Leih]

Dear DPS I had in one of my groups today:

 

WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO GO FOR THE ADDS, GO FOR THE ADDS! 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Did a sunken temple twice today. First team was alright. Second team? Dear heavens... We got wiped. 5 times. In SUNKEN TEMPLE and no one was new to it! And I kept yelling, since I was the tank, for them to GO FOR THE DAMN ADDS in the last boss over and over again. There were so many of those bright rays that my eyes actually started to hurt, so I had to do tank and DPS. Ugh... I don't want to see how much armor damage I have to pay now...

[111]

Dear DPS I had in one of my groups today:

 

WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO GO FOR THE ADDS, GO FOR THE ADDS! 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Did a sunken temple twice today. First team was alright. Second team? Dear heavens... We got wiped. 5 times. In SUNKEN TEMPLE and no one was new to it! And I kept yelling, since I was the tank, for them to GO FOR THE DAMN ADDS in the last boss over and over again. There were so many of those bright rays that my eyes actually started to hurt, so I had to do tank and DPS. Ugh... I don't want to see how much armor damage I have to pay now...

 

Well, one fortunate thing (or unfortunate) is that armor damage in this game is actually more based on enemies killed than wipes.

 

You lose a few percent on a wipe, but killing enemies actually breaks your armor faster. (This can be seen in fights with lots of high level enemies like Gordias 2. So wiping a lot doesn't actually cost you that much money (Unless you wipe a lot and then have to kill the same enemies over and over).

[Warren Castille]

I think it's based on experience. Killing lots of lower level enemies won't dent your armor, but doing a couple of expert dungeons will shred it like no one's business.

[111]

I think it's based on experience. Killing lots of lower level enemies won't dent your armor, but doing a couple of expert dungeons will shred it like no one's business.

Yeah something like that.

 

I remember back in the day when enemies in higher dungeons only gave you 10-15 gil at a time, and repairs would cost 2000+ gil. At the 2.0 launch, they actually expected people do do leves for money, so they could repair their gear for expert dungeons and raids. 

 

Lol Yoshi-p please.

[Warren Castille]

I think it's based on experience. Killing lots of lower level enemies won't dent your armor, but doing a couple of expert dungeons will shred it like no one's business.

Yeah something like that.

 

I remember back in the day when enemies in higher dungeons only gave you 10-15 gil at a time, and repairs would cost 2000+ gil. At the 2.0 launch, they actually expected people do do leves for money, so they could repair their gear for expert dungeons and raids. 

 

Lol Yoshi-p please.

 

It was one of the most 1.0-styled things in the game. Enemies in dungeons originally didn't even drop money, did they? Or it was only humanoids and only like, 1-10 gil? The game's economy was pretty fucked until like, 2.08 because there wasn't any real way to make money, and repairs to keep playing were bleeding non-legacy servers dry.

 

It was an amazing time to play the game. People were doing sac-pull strategies through Wanderer's Palace because it did less damage to your armor than killing things did (oh also it meant you could clear it in around eight minutes, I'm sure that didn't hurt either). This was back before there was even a roulette mode, so capping your 300 tomes every week meant hemorrhaging out thousands of gil.

[Rising]

Dear DPS I had in one of my groups today:

 

WHEN YOU ARE TOLD TO GO FOR THE ADDS, GO FOR THE ADDS! 

 

Thank you.

 

 

Did a sunken temple twice today. First team was alright. Second team? Dear heavens... We got wiped. 5 times. In SUNKEN TEMPLE and no one was new to it! And I kept yelling, since I was the tank, for them to GO FOR THE DAMN ADDS in the last boss over and over again. There were so many of those bright rays that my eyes actually started to hurt, so I had to do tank and DPS. Ugh... I don't want to see how much armor damage I have to pay now...

 Yes. I noticed a ton of spikey damage in that dungeon, but silly dps didn't go for adds and I ended up doing it. Much Cleric stance-dancing!

 

But, I've noticed that if a tank marks the groups, most dps seem to pay attention to it. It does help. I've had some great tanks, and some terrible ones. So saying it's hard to manage aggro is relative. I've had exact same classes in the same dungeons, yet had one be amazing and one horrendous. But I guess the same should be said about everyone. The dps that stands there doing nothing, or worse, pulling adds can ruin a group as well as a bad healer or tank.

[111]

I think it's based on experience. Killing lots of lower level enemies won't dent your armor, but doing a couple of expert dungeons will shred it like no one's business.

Yeah something like that.

 

I remember back in the day when enemies in higher dungeons only gave you 10-15 gil at a time, and repairs would cost 2000+ gil. At the 2.0 launch, they actually expected people do do leves for money, so they could repair their gear for expert dungeons and raids. 

 

Lol Yoshi-p please.

 

It was one of the most 1.0-styled things in the game. Enemies in dungeons originally didn't even drop money, did they? Or it was only humanoids and only like, 1-10 gil? The game's economy was pretty fucked until like, 2.08 because there wasn't any real way to make money, and repairs to keep playing were bleeding non-legacy servers dry.

 

It was an amazing time to play the game. People were doing sac-pull strategies through Wanderer's Palace because it did less damage to your armor than killing things did (oh also it meant you could clear it in around eight minutes, I'm sure that didn't hurt either). This was back before there was even a roulette mode, so capping your 300 tomes every week meant hemorrhaging out thousands of gil.

 

Yeah, I miss certain aspects of it though. Like the dungeons were hard enough that some groups would actually fail and disband on things like demonwall. 

 

The Relic weapons quests were short, but difficult. It was a different philosophy. Instead of getting the number of some token from 0 - 1000 or whatever, you just had to grind hard primals until you struggled your way through. It was just a grind that didn't have a ticking number next to it. 

 

I'm not sure if people have just gotten better though. Sometimes it's rose tinted glasses, everyone was really bad at 2.0, including myself. Fights like Sephie hard seem like a cakewalk compared to something like titan hard, but that might just be because everyone is just better. I'm not sure if titan hard objectively had harder mechanics.

[Warren Castille]

It's the slow burn. Titan HM was legendarily difficult because of a couple of reasons: First, the server state was fuckawful so lag was legitimately a killer if you weren't pre-moving and had the fight memorized. Second, gearscore didn't exist as a displayed number yet and a loooot of people were going in severely undergeared, thinking their AF was sufficient (it's not). It was also the first fight to have legitimately-punishing mechanics for everyone: Weights did immense damage to players, upwards of 50% of your HP depending on your class, Landslides perma-KO'd you off of a ledge, and mountain buster was still scary when your tanks only had 5-6k HP. It required intelligent mitigation and reflexes that nothing else in the game asked for by then, and while Ifrit and Garuda both had their challenges in their patterns, Titan just eroded parties past the point of being able to carry the dead because of how Tumult just lasted longer and longer.

 

New game, new mechanics, new players. What a wonderful time to be alive!

[Kilieit]

Dear Costa FATE parties...

 

Please tank Cancer further up the beach.

 

That is all. Thank you.

[111]

It's the slow burn. Titan HM was legendarily difficult because of a couple of reasons: First, the server state was fuckawful so lag was legitimately a killer if you weren't pre-moving and had the fight memorized. Second, gearscore didn't exist as a displayed number yet and a loooot of people were going in severely undergeared, thinking their AF was sufficient (it's not). It was also the first fight to have legitimately-punishing mechanics for everyone: Weights did immense damage to players, upwards of 50% of your HP depending on your class, Landslides perma-KO'd you off of a ledge, and mountain buster was still scary when your tanks only had 5-6k HP. It required intelligent mitigation and reflexes that nothing else in the game asked for by then, and while Ifrit and Garuda both had their challenges in their patterns, Titan just eroded parties past the point of being able to carry the dead because of how Tumult just lasted longer and longer.

 

New game, new mechanics, new players. What a wonderful time to be alive!

I wonder how we would have done with something like Sephirot or Ravana hard back then?

 

Would it be the fight everyone thinks back on with a mixture of fondness and ptsd? It's sort of interesting that unlike most games, MMO's are often a limited time experience. People who missed say, first coil, can never really have that experience again.

 

It's gone forever. 

 

Appreciate the game today (including the bad pugs), it will be a different one tomorrow

[Warren Castille]

I also wonder how the game would be different if we'd gotten something more complex over Titan as he existed. I really do think that Titan HM was the perfect storm of prior experience and sudden demands, though: Much less telegraphing and much more lethal circumstances, especially when it came to dodging Weight of the Land on old server infrastructure. Ifrit charges broke targeting and let you scan the outside for where it would be and fire plumes followed the basic in/out pattern. Garuda's Mistral Scream also breaks targeting for a jump and follows the same pattern every time, and other than handling the sisters and not Wicked Wheeling the entire raid the fight was a much less crazy dance.

 

Titan had a pretty intense Heart Phase since the lethal mechanics don't stop for it, plus dealing with jails and losing either healing or DPS, plus healers needing to be ready to erase the debuff associated, plus stomps, plus landslides, plus bombs. Post-heart you've got 60% of the fight left and everything intensifies, and stacking weights (the most common method to know where to run) meant not dodging on time was an instagib for anyone standing in the puddle. Add in additional bomb patterns and it was very easy to not see the rotation Titan goes through, because you're constantly on edge trying to not die to the next thing. Now it's all old hat, and we know all of his telegraphs or the order he uses abilities, but he was one hell of a breaking point for folks to get ready for Coil.

 

That's not even going into the first encounter in Coil. No Caduceus, but the first encounter. Now you had mandatory silences that punished you so hard for missing them, on top of the rest of the song and dance...

 

I think 2.0's endgame had a decent curve to bumping up difficulty. It could have been smoother, sure, I do kind of fondly remember finally busting those barriers and getting clears. It was a lot different than the assumed HM wins we have now in the story (though I will say the Bismarck encounter brought back the familiar feeling in the first few weeks of the expansion).

 

/me sips lemonade in his rocking chair.

[Virella]

Bismarck? I thought Ravana was a massive pain in the ass to clear it the first time. Domri and I had to beg Barengar to come tank it with us, because goddamn, tanks who derped wiped the whole group in his aoe cone :l

[Warren Castille]

Bismarck? I thought Ravana was a massive pain in the ass to clear it the first time. Domri and I had to beg Barengar to come tank it with us, because goddamn, tanks who derped wiped the whole group in his aoe cone :l

 

Yeah, I'm a tank. My problems usually stem from DPS who don't know their priorities from a hole in the wall or people who couldn't activate the barrier to stop the island from getting wrecked.

 

Ravana butterflies were the only part DPS could fuck up, outside of otherwise being bad at avoiding damage. Tanks who eat all three parts of his dumb spinny cleave grate my patience, though.

[Aaron]

It's the simple mechanics that fuck people up for some odd reason.

[Warren Castille]

It's the simple mechanics that fuck people up for some odd reason.

 

Case in point: Got Dragon's Neck (with Graeham!) in Trial Roulette yesterday. Half of the DPS were all Mentor-tagged and nobody absorbed water as an imp or stopped gigasnort from going off.

 

I swear to the Twelve that tag is just a warning sign, like bright colors in nature.

[S'imba]

I think dps fucking up mechanics has a lot to do with people being lazy, or not wanting to hurt their dps. So they ignore mechanics or expect someone else to do them. Though I guess I'm a little biased from dps who rush ahead to pull before the last enemy in a mob is dead to keep their dps up.

[Warren Castille]

Monks are the only DPS I don't mind running ahead to maintain stacks. Everyone else should know better than to pop cooldowns at the end of a pack!

[Delilah Scythewood]

I think dps fucking up mechanics has a lot to do with people being lazy, or not wanting to hurt their dps. So they ignore mechanics or expect someone else to do them. Though I guess I'm a little biased from dps who rush ahead to pull before the last enemy in a mob is dead to keep their dps up.

When I mained Monk (goodbye 5 years of playing DPS classes) I was always very cautious when it came to DPS mechanics or when you had to stop at a certain point. So much so that sometimes my party would yell at me because they'd want me to try and sneak in another whack or two and I'd go 'newp'.

[Aaron]

That moment when you're in a 8 man party and all 4 dps expect another dps to do certain mechanics while they get off on their dps numbers.

 

Looking at you, Alexander.

[Gegenji]

That moment when you're in a 8 man party and all 4 dps expect another dps to do certain mechanics while they get off on their dps numbers.

 

Looking at you, Alexander.

 

I can top that. I was doing LotA on Tuesday because I'm crazy and am working on my third Anima. And ONE skeleton was killed (by my part of the Alliance of course) before the Bone Dragon was killed and the rest rushed in and killed basically the entire Alliance. So only only an offtank and a single DPS were actually trying to deal with mechanics while everyone else thought they could ignore it.

 

Then again, this was also an Alliance with one of the groups actively trying to troll by not standing on the pad for the Atomoses and telling the group with the invulnerable one to hurry up. And two or three of them spamming the bongos sound effect ten to twenty times in a row apparently at random. Probably one of the most obnoxious LotAs I've had in quite a while.

[Warren Castille]

Final Steps of Faith.

 

That is all.

[Eses Fafa]

LOOK.

 

AT.

 

THE.

 

FREAKIN'.

 

AOE MARKERS!

 

IT'S

 

NOT

 

HARD!

 

NNNNGH!