The Vent Tent - Poor PuGs and Other Terrible Tales

[Virella]

Final Steps of Faith.

 

That is all.

Healers make or break that fight.

 

Somehow, I did with together with another SCH. Goddamn last time I was so serious about was turn 13. We were virusing the Ankh Morn like ability, picking tank to heal in add phase ect. I was... happy, it is rare I see another SCH manually controlling their fairies. So we were chaining our Eos' abilities as well. Was so weird, having to run with 2x Eos with 2 SCH >_> Damage was so high, like damn.

 

Was fun though. Although we had an idiot by the name of very famous blood elf wow prince constantly dying in my party. He was the only one really who screwed it up. Might helped I've rushed it?

 

I tend to notice if you rush it asap, you tend to get the serious face players/raiders, unlike peaktime folk.

[Aaron]

Final Steps of Faith.

 

That is all.

Bruh Nidhogg hits hard as Fuck!

 

Never in my tanking career have a felt the need to fucking pop shadowskin AND a DA Dark Arts because that guy started breathing fire and smacking me

[ShoggMommy]

Run Ifrit with new folk (all sprouts). Tank won't flash or provoke or anything.

Ifrit runs around everywhere. I end up tanking it as an archer. I'm explaining things or trying to.

 

I tell them several times to kill the nail and explain why. They refuse to.

 

We wipe.

 

Second run. Tank refuses to do a single thing. I tank as an archer again.

The nail comes down I'm the only one killing it along with the dragoon. Barely get it done.

Still tanking as an archer. No one listens to instructions AT ALL.

 

I say "Limit Break" at 10% no one does, I'm dead. Healer doesn't res me or really do much at all.

 

They barely just eek by and I leave.

[Dat Oni]

LOOK.

 

AT.

 

THE.

 

FREAKIN'.

 

AOE MARKERS!

 

IT'S

 

NOT

 

HARD!

 

NNNNGH!

 

HOW DID YOU ACCURATELY QUOTE ME WORD FOR WORD DURING MY MULTIPLE ATTEMPTS AT FINAL STEPS OF FAITH?

[Aaron]

So who wants to hit up FSoF EX?

[Koro Dotharl]

Generally if there are new players with the sprouts next to their name a quick explaining usually let them know what they are supposed to do and they usually try their best to shine and improve.

 

But when I pug with "crowned" players, it usually means that I am going to be pushed to my limits (I tank and heal both, but rarely que as DPS) because they want to rush. They ignore basic mechanics because they either can't be arsed or they expect me to face-roll it as much as they do and when it turns out I can't, pug drama ensues.

 

So I personally came to expect bad behavior from veterans rather than new players. New players are often ignorant of the mechanics but a vet performing bad is..Often with the intent of being a burden on purpose and that is so, so much worse.

[111]

Holy fuck the new 24 main raid is rough with PUGs. 

 

I had three groups explode, before I finally went with my static's healer, and we buddy teamed. We must have pulled the other groups off the floor 2-3 times a fight. Still, we cleared it finally, so the last group of pugs was actually pretty decent.

[Virella]

For the Twelve-damned Dragoon who figured it was fun to get cleave by Nidhogg, not once, not twice, not thrice, but four fucking times, despite me spamming in party for him to get the fuck out.

 

[Momoka]

Not a PUG but. I was helping Nathan through the MSQ and got some of my friends from my FC to go to steps of faith with us. We clearly stated that we had someone new, and we were doing this to clear it for them, and to please be patient. Someone got upset at a lack of dps or who even knows what, and went on a semi-elitist rant, and then proceeded to personally attack the healer friend I had brought with me. I dont care how hot shit you think you are, if you think youre cool enough to berate my friends and my best friend for not being perfect? Theyre not the problem, you are. Get your elitist attitude out of MSQ dungeons and DF.

[Kellach Woods]

I'd like to say congratulations to the crowned bard for teaching the next generation of dragoons how to faceplant like a champ.

 

To put it in DBZ Abridged terms - WHY DIDN'T YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOODGE?!

[Aaron]

I'd like to say congratulations to the crowned bard for teaching the next generation of dragoons how to faceplant like a champ.

 

To put it in DBZ Abridged terms - WHY DIDN'T YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOODGE?!

[Kilieit]

For the Twelve-damned Dragoon who figured it was fun to get cleave by Nidhogg, not once, not twice, not thrice, but four fucking times, despite me spamming in party for him to get the fuck out.

 

 

I love that comic so much, omg. "Special stoneskin pls" has been my way of, during friend groups, ashamedly owning up to the fact I am dying a lot.

 

Yes. I am That Dragoon. Though it's almost exclusively because my PC is shit - I was astonished to watch someone's recording of a Void Ark run and learn that for normal people, if they are out of an AoE by the time the ground indicator disappears, THEY TAKE NO DAMAGE - on my screen I usually have to be out a good .5-1 seconds before it vanishes, or it turns out that the server thinks I was still within it when it went off. Likewise, the ground indicator usually appears .5-1 seconds later than it ought to - most of the time, I simply don't have time between the ground indicator appearing, and disappearing, to move out of the fire. Not without Sprinting (and even then sometimes not), and whether I produce 0 DPS because I have 0 HP or 0 TP is not a choice I really enjoy making.

 

I die a lot. Especially in Heavensward content. My favourite (least favourite) anecdote is the time when I died to every single add wall in the last boss of The Vault, because my FPS had slowed to a crawl and I would go from "no add wall on my screen" to "dead on the floor" in the time it took my screen to refresh.

 

Hello Brink of Death debuff, my old friend; I've come to talk with you again...

 

I've stopped using DF altogether for Heavensward duties because I don't think it's fair to inflict this on strangers. Which has halted my levelling to a crawl (can't use levelling roulette, and sidequests are soul-draining...) but what can you do that doesn't cost £1k of real life money?

 

...a new computer is now next on my list of planned major expenditures.

[Gegenji]

Got ARF for my Level 60 today and had a treat I just HAD to share.

 

Me as WAR, BRD, SMN, and SCH. Awesome, we can pull pretty quickly and get this done. I notice the healer is having some difficulty keeping me up so I slow it down a bit, and things are going okay. Then it starts getting interesting.

 

BRD makes an emote face about me "pulling too fast" and says that people are needing to regen MP and TP. Which is confusing to me, since we have two of the most MP-efficient classes and a BARD. I later find out why, after I start watching the SMN when he says he's getting low on MP during the first boss.

 

He's spamming Ruin III out of Dreadwyrm Trance. I point it out to him that he shouldn't be doing that, since the cost is way too high and to only do it while Trancing. The others agree while he keeps stating his costs 1k MP and he's going to do it because it's maximizing his DPS. And that the reason he's running out of MP is because we're "blazing through" (we weren't). He later tells me that since he's not telling me how to tank (after demanding I group things up so he can spread his diseases and the aforementioned "blazing through") I shouldn't tell him how to SMN - since SMN is all he's played and he's "never had problems before."

 

It gets better. I had an inkling before, but I didn't realize it until during the last boss. He wasn't even USING DREADWYRM TRANCE. At all. He'd get to three stacks and then LET IT FALL OFF. I try to make the point that he wasn't even trancing, which is CERTAINLY not "maximizing DPS"... but he ran for the portal out as quick as possible.

 

I don't even.

[111]

Holy fuck, I had the densest white mage ever in mentor DR. It was wanderer's palace, and I pulled half the mobs in the first pull. They were a little undergeared, but I wasn't so it ended up being fine. One thing I noticed though, is that they kept casting cure III on me when no one else was damaged.

 

I let them know that it wasn't a very good spell for solo healing, but no response. Then on the next pull, they spammed cure III again, ran out of mana, and we all died. I tried to let them know that cure III is not very good for single target but... well... you'll see.

 

 

 

I still don't understand how they can't grasp that cure III does not proc free casts off of cure. It gave me some amusement after the fact at least, because I got the level 10 guildleve afterwords, which takes like 90 seconds to finish.

[Aaron]

Least you didn't have a MNK at 60 that didn't know what Greased Lightning was.

 

Yes, those exist. Saw someone raging about it in reddit.

[ShoggMommy]

 

You really, unfortunately, seem to draw the weirdest most incapable people sometimes. *pat*

 

 

On my own rant for the day.

Boyfriend and I were running through VoidArk which can be full of derp sometimes.

This was no exception.

 

Dear whoever was clearing the marks that I was setting, and purposefully trying to screw the raid by stacking them in incorrect areas.

It's not funny. It's not cute. It causes confusion. And it damn near wiped us on garbage because everyone else got confused of what to do with the knots+marbols.

It sucks especially for new people because they have no idea where to go.

And removing them on Echidna to stick them all in the middle and to generally screw around is obnoxious. Tanks had no idea where to go, and I had to place them 12+ times because some silly bint kept removing them and sticking them in the middle upon one another.

 

You suck, sincerely irritated SMN.

[Valence]

I have been seeing a lot of new green sprouts over the time, especially recently, often as tanks, that well... Can't play their job properly. No flash, no aggro, no enmity combos... Well you probably have had to deal with that too. When you start getting into lvl30 dungeons or above, it gets really rough.

 

There is no issue with green sprouts not knowing their job perfectly, or being confused about their role. I expect that in low level dungeons (or even higher but still). You can't know your role like an expert in the first few weeks of play. You can definitely have trouble understanding how a tanking role in a traditional MMO is supposed to work because it's your first time, or for any other reason. Especially for tank roles. It's the most confusing one to get at first, especially as weirdly enough the tanking classes have the most difficulties to hold aggro at low level.

 

No complain about it.

 

Then you try to explain it to people, rewriting your remark several times to be sure it's not perceived as insulting or condescending, or just rude. You make everyting possible to appear friendly (and you are!). But they don't answer. They continue to fuck every encounter up to the point where you wipe against the smallest packs of mobs, because the healer gets interrupted all the time, or whatever.

 

You continue asking, offering help or advice, and they do as if you said absolutely nothing, or as if they speak another language. Fine then, you start using the autotranslate words and do actual, real efforts. Still no answer. 

 

Then you get to the point in Haukke when you have to type /return. They get stuck behind like we all did the first time. Fine. You tell them to type /return, not expecting much since they don't seem to be looking at their party chat. 

 

And suddenly, they use it.

 

Seriously man. Stop taking people for idiots.

 

So many of those. Grow some guts and say you are inexperienced. It's not the end of the world.

[Kilieit]

I signed up to Sastasha in-progress (as SCH - this was a terrible mistake; never queue sub-20 dungeons as SCH if you have CNJ/WHM available. Lesson learned.) to try and help a friend whose healer had AFK'd. I hoped and prayed I would get into my friend's group for an easy run.

 

My prayers were not answered. They were not answered at all, my friends. In fact, I think Oschon was listening in on my prayers and silently noting how to spite me in every way possible.

 

So I zone in. It's two DPS in what I can only assume is a pre-made, given the fact they haven't just quit. They're at the second pull and one of them evidently just died, because she's stood next to me as I zone in. What... what happened, I think, that could possibly cause the tank and healer to quit after the second pull? I learn this isn't actually even the second pull entire; one of its mobs is gone already. What...

 

I don't have time to finish forensically investigating this mess, because we get a tank. Great, I think, barring the DPS being absolutely ridiculous we can get this done and all go home.

 

Assuming this was my second mistake.

 

So while the tank picks up the mob, I do my usual routine of... well, no, wait, I can't throw {Eye for an Eye} on the tank, because for some stupid reason I don't have it yet, even though literally any archer or lancer can cross-class it for themself if they want to. I figure he'll probably be okay, top him up, leave Selene with him, and run off to check the note. "Green," I say.

 

I realise the tank is on much lower HP than I had expected, even with no E4E. What?

 

Oh. He's run off. Away from Selene and into another trash pack.

 

Okay.

 

I fetch my faerie and sprint to catch up, topping the tank up and-- oh, wait, immediately gaining aggro from one of the mobs. What? He's been taking them for several moments already, surely he should have picked them up... whatever, I heal-tank the damn thing while the DPS take them out one after the other. I watch the tank over the next few pulls to try and figure out what's going on - he's not using Unleash. At all. He's cycling through mobs one at a time, doing the 1-2 aggro combo, and then... sitting on his thumbs, I guess? Because it takes him an age to get through all of them, even on small pulls. Selene is tanking now. She's better at it than this guy.

 

We get to the first boss (holy shit, you guys, I've written ~5 paragraphs already and I'm only at the first boss) and the DRK runs to - blue. Um. Okay. "I said green ;P" I say in /p while running to green myself. It's just happenstance that I got their first and activated it first that means the tank doesn't trigger a trap. There's then an awkward ten seconds of the DRK spinning in circles, and both me and the PGL (the leafling ARC is silent throughout this entire run, btw) start running towards the switch, until the DRK finally triggers it.

 

I regret not having {Esuna} (even Selene's cleanse is locked out at Sastasha level) because just about everyone stands in Charged Whisker. Whatever. I figure the DRK is probably new to the class, the leafling is probably a genuine leafling, and the PGL is just a bit slow 'cos it's Sastasha and who cares. I can deal with that.

 

...yeah, we carry on, and I notice the PGL is pulling aggro a weirdly large amount? Apparently the DRK noticed, too, because they started passive-aggressively marking the mobs. (They're still not using {Unleash}, by the way.) Only... the PGL is already attacking the correct mobs... and is still ripping aggro.

 

Mmhmm.

 

The DRK starts, um, charging off very confidently towards side rooms, and OH HELL NO. I am not doing a full clear with this group. So I take his lead, in a way, and start equally passive-aggressively placing waymarkers to put us back on the main pathway. It works. Oh, but what's this? Do my eyes deceive me? No, he bloody well did it again.

 

He's still not using {Unleash}...

 

...no, my friends, he has cross-classed {Flash}.

 

At this stage I am pretty sure the tank is a) an asshole b) trolling us. I signed up to help my friend in Sastasha, and instead I ended up as an unpaid babysitter for this guy's jollies for half an hour. I fear my resentment was beginning to show openly in /p, because - no, wait, this was perfectly justified. As we make the approach to the last boss (me, the PGL, and Selene are still basically tanking, btw) the DRK runs over the line and triggers the boss cinematic. By the time I'm cancelled out of it, DRK is on 10% and oh yeah, did you know the fence of the Sultana's Lap breaks line of sight? Because it does.

 

(Me) thanks for locking me in a cinematic and LoSing me mid-pull

 

I am so ready for this dungeon run to be finished, you guys.

 

But no, this guy has one last hurrah to throw out. The adds spawn; all of them immediately aggro on me. I run towards the DRK. A useless endeavour. Not even a cross-fucking-classed {Flash}. I am trying to heal, but I'm being interrupted at every cast, and now so is Selene. And the DRK has this wonderfully helpful contribution to make:

 

(DRK) ignore adds

(DRK) burn

(Me) please tank the adds then

(DRK) scrub

 

I am so glad he left before anyone could potentially give him a commendation.

 

Saving grace:

 

(Me) lol what a horrid tank

(PGL) hfc i know

(Me) did you see

(Me) he had cross classed flash

(Me) incredible

(PGL) like jfc learn your job

(Me) at least we got through it

(PGL) that is very true

(Me) have a good afternoon/evening both of you

(PGL) you as well

 

And a single comm, presumably from the PGL. (ARC still silent.)

 

I think I've had my fill of pick-up groups for today...

[Aaron]

Cross classed flash made me burst out laughing like omfg

[ShoggMommy]

You, my dear- have more patience than I do as a healer. I would have probably said screw it and left.

[Aedan Marceaux]

I signed up to Sastasha in-progress (as SCH - this was a terrible mistake; never queue sub-20 dungeons as SCH if you have CNJ/WHM available. Lesson learned.)

 

While the rest of your story was entertaining, this very first line confuses me. Why would you go as any other healer class when with SCH you literally let the faerie do all of the work for you, effectively letting you become a third DPS... Or even just a lazy shit that watches YouTube while your faerie does all the work.

 

I mean...once WHM has regen, then yeah I personally switch over. But SCH all the way as, again, the faerie can literally take care of the healing while you sit in cleric stance and DPS the whole time.

[Valence]

I got into a Qarn run today as a DPS. We got with a shy tank that wasn't talking much, and didn't activate darkside. The AST healer immediately got a bit pedantic, telling him to put it up right asap (there is a way to say it...). That's okay.

 

Then DRK starts dying to bees. I wonder why, start thinking that the tank is not really good, aided by the fact that the heal tells him now "how are you level 60 and forget about darkside, and don't use your cooldowns". So as I wasn't especially paying attention to the tank cooldowns and all as a BLM, I see the other DPS NIN complaining about us not focusing the bees. 

 

I say "you can totally survive bees here" which is true, as long as your HP is close to top.

 

I regretted after that to have taken the heal's side (ambiguously) when we got to the first boss. The heal was actually not healing at all and DPSing. He didn't even reprotect the tank. No wonder the tank was dropping and we wiped eventually.

 

So yeah, I understood that instant that the heal was the kind of petulant idiot that thinks he knows everything but is doing a shit job.

 

Why did the tank die to bees earlier? The heal was not healing much, and certainly not keeping stoneskined or close to top health.

 

We kicked the heal soon after.

[Kilieit]

I signed up to Sastasha in-progress (as SCH - this was a terrible mistake; never queue sub-20 dungeons as SCH if you have CNJ/WHM available. Lesson learned.)

 

While the rest of your story was entertaining, this very first line confuses me. Why would you go as any other healer class when with SCH you literally let the faerie do all of the work for you, effectively letting you become a third DPS... Or even just a lazy shit that watches YouTube while your faerie does all the work.

 

I mean...once WHM has regen, then yeah I personally switch over. But SCH all the way as, again, the faerie can literally take care of the healing while you sit in cleric stance and DPS the whole time.

 

At Sastasha, I can cross-class Protect or Cleric Stance. Most groups prefer you to use Protect and throw a hissy-fit if you don't.

 

Selene's signature abilities are also locked out (Sastasha caps at 18; she learns her third ability, the AoE cleanse, at 20). Which means no cleanse, and no speed boost.

 

Whereas CNJ/WHM has Protect and Cleric Stance and Medica and Esuna, all natively, all available in Sastasha, and, last but not least, you can cross-class {Eye for an Eye} (which you don't get as SCH until ACN-34).

 

So yeah that's why. Especially when the chance is so high during early dungeons of getting a brand-new, shiny, Genuine Leafling group who are going to cause a lot of problems just by virtue of never having done it before. If you're queueing specifically for Sastasha (and/or Tam-Tara), I don't think I could recommend taking SCH if you can go as CNJ/WHM instead.

 

I play SCH because I enjoy its versatility - but the level sync in Sastasha preserves absolutely none of that versatility whatsoever.

 

---

 

I say "you can totally survive bees here" which is true, as long as your HP is close to top.

 

I regretted after that to have taken the heal's side (ambiguously) when we got to the first boss. The heal was actually not healing at all and DPSing. He didn't even reprotect the tank. No wonder the tank was dropping and we wiped eventually.

 

Yeah... the bees are technically surviveable, I guess, if you're a tank with full VIT, decent gear, on full health, and with defensive cooldowns up.

 

I think it's best to just keep the tank topped off as a priority, treat them as instant-death mechanic, and have a happy surprise if they aren't.

 

If the healer was blaming the tank for dying to bees but wasn't keeping them topped off... the healer can jog on.

[Aedan Marceaux]

I signed up to Sastasha in-progress (as SCH - this was a terrible mistake; never queue sub-20 dungeons as SCH if you have CNJ/WHM available. Lesson learned.)

 

While the rest of your story was entertaining, this very first line confuses me. Why would you go as any other healer class when with SCH you literally let the faerie do all of the work for you, effectively letting you become a third DPS... Or even just a lazy shit that watches YouTube while your faerie does all the work.

 

I mean...once WHM has regen, then yeah I personally switch over. But SCH all the way as, again, the faerie can literally take care of the healing while you sit in cleric stance and DPS the whole time.

 

At Sastasha, I can cross-class Protect or Cleric Stance. Most groups prefer you to use Protect and throw a hissy-fit if you don't.

 

Selene's signature abilities are also locked out (Sastasha caps at 18; she learns her third ability, the AoE cleanse, at 20). Which means no cleanse, and no speed boost.

 

Whereas CNJ/WHM has Protect and Cleric Stance and Medica and Esuna, all natively, all available in Sastasha, and, last but not least, you can cross-class {Eye for an Eye} (which you don't get as SCH until ACN-34).

 

So yeah that's why. Especially when the chance is so high during early dungeons of getting a brand-new, shiny, Genuine Leafling group who are going to cause a lot of problems just by virtue of never having done it before. If you're queueing specifically for Sastasha (and/or Tam-Tara), I don't think I could recommend taking SCH if you can go as CNJ/WHM instead.

 

I play SCH because I enjoy its versatility - but the level sync in Sastasha preserves absolutely none of that versatility whatsoever.

 

While I understand the bit about people throwing a hissy fit when you don't have protect, the rest still makes little difference, imo.

 

It's Sastasha... you don't need Eye for an Eye... nor a cleanse. (OR for that matter, protect really, but yeah...)

 

Selene or Eos both have Embrace out the gate and that's really all you need. They go around hugging people who are hurting while you're placing your dots and spamming ruin.

 

As opposed to being on CNJ where you, personally, are spending time casting that cure, fiddling with switching in and out of Cleric Stance, and casting a DPS spell somewhere in between.

 

I mean, it's neither here nor there as it's only Sastasha normal... but SCH still, in my opinion anyway, wins out over CNJ/WHM at that level.

 

This is coming from a person that much prefers WHM out of the healing classes. For what little that matters.

[Kilieit]

(snip for length)

 

While I understand the bit about people throwing a hissy fit when you don't have protect, the rest still makes little difference, imo.

 

It's Sastasha... you don't need Eye for an Eye... nor a cleanse. (OR for that matter, protect really, but yeah...)

 

Selene or Eos both have Embrace out the gate and that's really all you need. They go around hugging people who are hurting while you're placing your dots and spamming ruin.

 

As opposed to being on CNJ where you, personally, are spending time casting that cure, fiddling with switching in and out of Cleric Stance, and casting a DPS spell somewhere in between.

 

I mean, it's neither here nor there as it's only Sastasha normal... but SCH still, in my opinion anyway, wins out over CNJ/WHM at that level.

 

Yeah, I think this is a difference in playstyle. Personally, I queue as healer because I enjoy healing - I find it satisfying to have tools to solve problems, and frustrating when literally every single one of those tools is arbitrarily taken away from me. "This makes it easier for you to DPS" isn't something that makes a healing class appealing to me, like, at all.