The Vent Tent - Poor PuGs and Other Terrible Tales

[Aaron]

In any case ima vent about the game uninstalling when I put the thing in rest mode. Fuck you man, now I gotta wait several hours to redownload it.

 

... I... what? How did you manage that?

Idk the game uninstalls randomly for PS4 players if you put it in rest mode and god forbid the dog accidentally yanks the cord out while he sleeps under the table.

[Yian Kutku]

In any case ima vent about the game uninstalling when I put the thing in rest mode. Fuck you man, now I gotta wait several hours to redownload it.

 

... I... what? How did you manage that?

Idk the game uninstalls randomly for PS4 players if you put it in rest mode and god forbid the dog accidentally yanks the cord out while he sleeps under the table.

 

Known issue, yes. Official Lodestone post, although it's annoyingly terse and doesn't really say anything we don't already know.

 

Square Enix claims it's Sony's problem.

[Charity322]

I'm going to vent about these stupid DDOS attacks. One of my friends can't even get into the game because of them. And they appear to be unstoppable. DX

[Desu Nee]

I just want a goddamn susanoo weapon is that too much to ask

[Unnamed Mercenary]

I'm going to vent about these stupid DDOS attacks. One of my friends can't even get into the game because of them. And they appear to be unstoppable. DX

 

That's....sorta the point of a DDoS attack. But if you're friend can't login, I think there's something else going on there. a DDoS is a form of denial of service. Basically, groups of likely virus-infected computers were ordered to spam connections at either specific SE servers or the datacenter in general. This basically eats up bandwidth at the least and can crash servers if they make it past firewalls/routers. Typically, they slow things down or max out connection limits, which creates horrible performance for people connected. But that's the thing. One can't "fix" a DDoS attack. You either get stuck waiting, try to change IPs, or wait for the source to be found and shut it down. For companies (like SE and the one I work for), this usually means the first thing as changing the IP isn't sustainable. And waiting for a botnet to either get "found" or for legal action to happen is pretty...unlikely. Eventually, firewalls do get put in place to block known bad traffic, but it can take a lot of time to determine which connections qualify as "bad" when there are often hundreds of thousands of them.

 

Your friend would probably be better off running a trace route to the Aether datacenter (or datacenter they play on) to see if there's a particular path that's bad. It's usually a mark of poor internet service or faulty hardware.

[Yian Kutku]

Just went on a Syrcus Tower run, my very first. Fairly good Alliance, no salt, mechanics explanations in Alliance chat, everyone pulled their weight.

 

Except for one person on our team, Alliance C.

 

She was a Ninja, level synched down, so she's at least 50+. She has a sprout icon. She did a bit of emote spam whenever we stopped before a boss, as well as pop several of the Magicked Prism stuff, but I didn't really think much of it. She also tended to wander off on her own instead of staying with our team, but maybe she's new.

 

As the run went on, I noticed that she was taking a curious amount of damage. She was pretty much the only person in the entire Alliance who needed to be rezzed, multiple times. I assumed this was because she was one of those players who didn't bother to move out of avoidable AoEs.

 

Finally, at the last boss, after spending most of my GCDs trying to keep her up, I decided to examine her gear.

 

 

 

That's the Best Man outfit. It's not a glamour. It's the actual Best Man outfit equipped.

 

I don't even know.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Just went on a Syrcus Tower run, my very first. Fairly good Alliance, no salt, mechanics explanations in Alliance chat, everyone pulled their weight.

 

Except for one person on our team, Alliance C.

 

She was a Ninja, level synched down, so she's at least 50+. She has a sprout icon. She did a bit of emote spam whenever we stopped before a boss, as well as pop several of the Magicked Prism stuff, but I didn't really think much of it. She also tended to wander off on her own instead of staying with our team, but maybe she's new.

 

As the run went on, I noticed that she was taking a curious amount of damage. She was pretty much the only person in the entire Alliance who needed to be rezzed, multiple times. I assumed this was because she was one of those players who didn't bother to move out of avoidable AoEs.

 

Finally, at the last boss, after spending most of my GCDs trying to keep her up, I decided to examine her gear.

 

 

 

 

That's the Best Man outfit. It's not a glamour. It's the actual Best Man outfit equipped.

 

I don't even know.

 

That's pretty amazing. I hope someone lets her know about the glamour system. Luckily, hitting minimum item level will pick up and she won't be able to progress much further, even with i130 gear.

[H.H.]

i have raised more as a rdm than i ever have as an actual healer

[Aaron]

I'm a DRK, I was meant to take the pain and endure the suffering alone not fucking use Blackest Night on others to save them from the suffering I endure.

 

I am not Itachi the fuck? I don't wanna mitigate 20% of my hp I live to embrace the agony.

 

Also RDM & SAM are trash. Filthy DPS. 

 

(I'm joking, but I will never play either Dx)

[Gegenji]

i have raised more as a rdm than i ever have as an actual healer

 

To be fair, it's almost stupidly easy to just toss out a Verraise as your Dualcast spell. I've actually raised both my tank and my healer in a 4 man run gone bad by Dualcasting the first Verraise and Swiftcasting the second. Plus, RDM is insanely MP efficient so you're never really hurting for MP.

 

The only thing you might be missing in tossing out the Verraise is another Verstone or Verfire Ready proc. Oh no.

[Gegenji]

Oh, just to add a bit of venting of my own to this thread...

 

I think I came across my first obviously bad instance of someone who had used a jump potion.

 

Was doing 50/60 Roulette on RDM, and got the original Wanderer's Palace. Yay! AoE central with me being able to spam my Doublecast Scatters! ... Or so I thought.

 

Before we even pull, the DRK is barking some strange orders ("Don't run ahead." "Let me pull.") and those sorts of things. We just tell him to pull big because we had a good AoE group and he, thankfully, does so.

 

... but he doesn't use Unleash. At all. He continues to try and single-target damage when he has groups of 6+ enemies sitting on him. Or, sitting on him until anyone else does anything else to generate even the slightest bit of threat. I don't remember how the conversations that followed went exactly (this was last week or so and I didn't bother committing it to memory), but... I vaguely remember how it went.

 

At some point - a couple pulls in or so - I throw something out akin to "Hey tank, you have an AoE aggro move. Please use it." I forget if he ignores me at first or if he responded right away, but at some point he counters that he's level 60 and he got dropped to 50. Which... shouldn't matter, right? DRK "gets" Unleash at level... 16-ish? He should have it.

 

So by the first boss we (the other members of the group get in on this too at some point) are in this big debate with the guy. Use Unleash; "I don't have yet." Yes you do it's level 16, "DRK got changed with SB." No, I'm both looking at a wiki and I'm talking with a friend on DRK and you should still have it. Back and forth until we finally get him to realize we're not talking about his level 54 AoE health drain move, but Unleash... which we had been calling Unleash the whole time.

 

The healer literally copies and pastes the description for Unleash from a wiki or something and the guy finally says "Oh, yeah. I have that. Sorry, I thought you meant something else."

 

Fortunately, once he "realizes" he has Unleash and starts using it, the rest of the run goes... all right. Minus his obvious lack of understanding how the dungeon works even though there was no new player bonus and he was apparently a level 60 DRK. Still, the rest of us knew what we were doing and we clear it out well enough and I duck on out.

 

Not the biggest problem in the world, but it irked me that the guy fought with us tooth and nail about whether or not he had an ability that DRK "has" at level 16, and going so far as to proclaim that the SB expansion moved it to such a high level that he didn't have access to it anymore. :dazed:

[Aaron]

Some people shouldn't play tanks.

[Yian Kutku]

Some people shouldn't play tanks.

 

I ran three dungeons in a row with DRK as Tank.

 

In all three cases, their buff bar contained no buff icons apart from what was provided by myself as Healer, Darkside, and very occasionally Grit.

 

This is despite their mass-pulling.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if DRKs have any mitigation cooldowns to reduce damage.

[Michikyou]

"I play a firemage"

 

 

 

End me.

[Yian Kutku]

"I play a firemage"

 

 

 

I'd like to ask how, but I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

[Valence]

Tanks doing baby pulls in expert.

 

DPS using their single target rotations on trash pulls.

 

Both combined together is 10 times more infuriating than each of them separate when you are the second or third DPS (aka healer).

[Michikyou]

"I play a firemage"

 

 

 

 

I'd like to ask how, but I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

 

either new, or trolling thaumaturges.

[Aaron]

Some people shouldn't play tanks.

 

I ran three dungeons in a row with DRK as Tank.

 

In all three cases, their buff bar contained no buff icons apart from what was provided by myself as Healer, Darkside, and very occasionally Grit.

 

This is despite their mass-pulling.

 

I'm beginning to wonder if DRKs have any mitigation cooldowns to reduce damage.

 We do, sadly have CD's. It's just apparently, for some god forsaken reason, the VAST majority of people who play DRK are complete shit with it (even tho SE made it so easy!).

 

Like, I main DRK, yet I internally prepare for the worst if I ever go DPS instead and get a DRK as a tank. $10 says they don't use DS cause "It drains too much MP T_T"

[Gegenji]

Tanks doing baby pulls in expert.

 

DPS using their single target rotations on trash pulls.

 

Both combined together is 10 times more infuriating than each of them separate when you are the second or third DPS (aka healer).

 

To be fair, "baby pulls" is going to be heavily dependent on what your DPS looks like and how confident you are in your healer to keep you up. If you don't have good AoE damage, big pulls can be time-consuming... and MP-consuming for your healer. Or you could just drop due to either the healer not being able to keep you up or, since we're talking Vent-Tent material, they're too focused on DPS.

 

Which is, oddly enough, a topic that came up recently in an LS chat for me. Super-DPS-focused healers. The launching point was someone complaining about getting into a PotD with two healers who apparently would rather die doing their mad deepz rather than fling around a single heal. And, on the same day, I had a... mildly troubling healing in my Leveling roulette in Haukke Manor (NM).

 

To be fair, we got through the whole thing just fine without any deaths. However, there was many a time where I was worried (as PLD tank) about how low my HP was dipping. Meanwhile our WHM is spamming their attack spells as I consistently drop to quarter and lower health on trash pulls - which quickly meant I started pulling smaller groups since I was fairly certain I was getting more "heals" via my base HP regen out of combat than I was getting from our healer. Who seemed deadset that the "rushdown" strategy would work better, but also apparently didn't seem to see the need to top me off after battles either.

 

... Really, the only times I think I actually saw her healing was during the bosses where she HAD to or I'd die... and one accidental big pull past the first boss when one of our DPS jumped over the railing rather than go around with me and I had to grab and tank both packs. We had a THM and a BLM as our DPS, so it wasn't really a problem... but, again it was more a concern that if I pulled big my super-aggro healer wouldn't heal me.

 

So... yeah. Long story short, there can be multiple reasons why someone might do "baby pulls." Hopefully, though, if you ask the tank to do big pulls... they will oblige. Though, I personally would be more obliging to the healer saying "pull big" rather than the DPS. And I especially don't like when DPS decide to "help" with said pulls by running ahead and grabbing the next pack "for you" - which is what our SAM decided to do in my Leveling roulette of Shisui of the Violet Tides yesterday. :dazed:

[Valence]

DPS that are grabbing for the tank are as infuriating as anything. Even when I would like bigger pulls, as a DPS I will never ever start breaking dungeon basic etiquette and just be outright rude to everyone else. I have already left dungeons when someone pulled that trick on me as a tank.

 

I want to insist that I wrote above "in experts" for a reason. My vent wasn't much addressed to leveling dungeons (below 60 at least). In leveling dungeons you can have jobs that still don't have access to their AoEs, or just tanks and healers that have mediocre leveling gears, which is to be expected and alright. Leveling dungeons aren't about your full max level toolset.

 

I still hold to my view for experts though. Or lvl50, lvl60 dungeons as well (lvl50-60 roulette). Most of the tanks in HW used to pull at least 2 packs of mobs at once most of the time. Everyone was doing that, healers were fine, tanks were fine with it. I don't know why suddenly they are all doing baby pulls. 

 

The point that healers can't keep the pace is moot in my opinion when they just have to pop a regen or cast a cure once or twice during a baby pull. With two pulls at the same time, nobody will make me believe it requires even 50% of healing uptime from the healer, as bad as they can be. Anyone  spamming cure will just overheal that.

 

The point that some DPS are more suited to AoEs, is, frankly, bullshit in my opinion. Unlike all tanks suddenly doing the smallest pulls possible in SB, DPS actually using their AoEs in experts are few and far between, and it has been that way since the first umbral calamity or something. I play one of the jobs that has seen its AoE absolutely gutted by SB (MCH), and I'm still pulling big numbers over 3 targets. Any DPS class has the AoE toolset to deal with packs, and not doing so is 1) not optimal, and 2) shitting on the other DPS player that is trying to AoE but can't do it half the time because you are mowing down the mobs one by one.

 

Tanks running out of CDs when the DPS take too much time killing the packs? I guess yeah, but at the same time some of the mobs are probably dead and if not, dying. The tank doesn't have to pop ALL the CDs at the start of a pull anyway. You don't do it for a boss, so why would you on pulls?

 

Honestly, I have seen a few runs where everyone was AoEing properly and big pulls just melt in a matter of seconds.

 

Ah, maybe some DPS jobs that run out of TP very fast? Generally not fast enough that the pull isn't dead by then, but sometime they have to use invigorate yeah. Who wouldn't take that as a crossrole anyway? And I'm a MCH. I refuse to believe they have TP issues because I'm spamming Tactician all the time, either for myself, or most generally for others. like DRG, SAM, when they actually try to AoE.

 

No, there is just that myth in the heads of players that some DPS jobs are shit at AoE, which is bullshit. Some are better than others yes, but all of them are good at it. Yes, even tanks and healers, and even PLD now. And some of the DPS jobs that are the least played with their AoEs are DRG, MNK, SAM and Nin most of the time. How silly is that? Besides SMN, they probably of the best AoE potency, even if on a shorter bursts.

[Gegenji]

No, there is just that myth in the heads of players that some DPS jobs are shit at AoE, which is bullshit. Some are better than others yes, but all of them are good at it. Yes, even tanks and healers, and even PLD now. And some of the DPS jobs that are the least played with their AoEs are DRG, MNK, SAM and Nin most of the time. How silly is that? Besides SMN, they probably of the best AoE potency, even if on a shorter bursts.

 

Is it a myth? Or is it no longer a truth now, with Stormblood changing things up? And, as such, the fact that DRG and MNK can possibly AoE effectively now hasn't really cottoned on with the general populace? They could certainly be acting on previous understandings on how things worked, and I do recall MNK and DRG not being too great on the sustained AoE during the ARR/HW periods.

 

And, again, just because DPS has AoE options doesn't mean they'll use them. Just like my DRK who refused to use Unleash that I mentioned earlier, you can just as easily have... say... a SAM and BRD as your two DPS and they're almost exclusively single-targeting. Or they could just be bad - like the SAM I had in my Expert yesterday that I could've sworn was purposely standing on top of me to try and get me killed with AoE effects (though that was more issue with the second and final bosses of Ala Mhigo) and only ever seemed to use the Two-Sen AoE move and not the other four at his disposal.

 

Or you could have a healer that's more focused on DPSing than healing - referencing my Haukke Manor complaint from earlier. Sure, that happened in Leveling, but it's still a thing that can happen at any level of play. You don't know what you're going to get in a roulette, so expecting people who keep pace with you is a nice idea... but it never hurts to be cautious. And even then, some people will surprise you.

 

Heck, I had a Omega V4.0 with a DRK offtank on Tuesday who refused to avoid any of the big hits, stood in the middle of the room for Decisive Battle on purpose and hit Living Death, burned the LB3 on a tank LB for no reason, and the entire time was complaining about not getting heals.

 

The various stories of various PuGs that inspired me to create this Vent Tent to begin with is proof enough that - while hopefully the rarity as opposed to the norm - you're going to run into people in roulettes who are problematic. As a tank, I'd rather err on the side of caution and do smaller pulls until either I can gauge the skill of my team or I get the okay from, like, the healer that I can make bigger pulls. Of course, if it looks like everyone can manage and the tank is STILL doing itty-bitty pulls? Then I'd certainly be annoyed too.

 

Still, even dismissing the idea of the Potential Bads you could end up with... it's possible that you just have players who aren't comfortable yet making big pulls. Stormblood's been out for all of, what, a month? Maybe they're not geared enough yet (either in actuality or in their mind) to tank/heal/whatever for the larger pulls. Maybe they don't know the dungeons well enough yet to have figured out how many pulls in you can go. I remember one of my first runs of TotF, we had a tank get a little too ambitious after the first boss and pulled the next two packs - the second pack including a bear and a swarm of small enemies, and he died before the healer could get a heal off.

 

I'm sure as time passes, and people both get more familiar with the dungeons and more gear from them, that people will do bigger pulls. Even now, I usually see the default "first pull" for Ala Mhigo being the first two packs - only newcomers to the instance just pull the first one. And pulling to the barriers in the first legs of TotF seems to be pretty commonplace too.

 

And, honestly, just speaking from personal preference... I'd kinda prefer baby pulls than over-aggressive tanks (and, as mentioned before, DPS) pulling too much and getting everyone killed. Especially if said individuals throw a fit afterward because their eyes were bigger than their iLevels (I'm so witty :bomb: ).

[Drej]

Tanks doing baby pulls in expert.

 

DPS using their single target rotations on trash pulls.

 

Both combined together is 10 times more infuriating than each of them separate when you are the second or third DPS (aka healer).

 

Tanks doing huge pulls in expert. 

 

But then forcing DPS to mostly just use their single target rotations on trash pulls because that's all some of us can realistically do when the tank keeps dragging the mobs out of our f*king Doton.

[Valence]

Is it a myth? Or is it no longer a truth now, with Stormblood changing things up? And, as such, the fact that DRG and MNK can possibly AoE effectively now hasn't really cottoned on with the general populace? They could certainly be acting on previous understandings on how things worked, and I do recall MNK and DRG not being too great on the sustained AoE during the ARR/HW periods.

 

DRG and MNK have had respectively the most potent and the most steady, solid AoE in HW. DRG had (and still has) a crazy insane AoE potency at the cost of a TP running dry after short bursts. MNK has always shown a very steady, stamina enhanced AoE with a strong move (Rockbreaker) that could consistently almost outdo a BLM AoE (which was frankly mediocre for a caster AoE), and outdo absolutely any AoE besides SMN when using Perfect Balance with it.

 

Monk was great on sustained AoE, and average on AoE power. DRG wrecked everything but if the other DPS was sloppy, they would have to stop short of TP pretty fast.

 

It is a myth and has been a myth for years. All DPS classes have good AoE potency. Some better than other sure, but they are all good at it. Especially Nin, with very few AoE flaws and almost on par with DRG on potency alone, but on a more sustained basis. Nin has always suffered in the mind of people because Death Blossom used to be mediocre before its buff to 110 potency (almost 140 per GCD once Huton-ed, and closer to 160 with poison). I also hear that current Nin in SB is absolutely dreadful for AoEs, more than ever. The Ten-Chi-Jin skill or HellFrog Medium is that insane.

 

And' date=' again, just because DPS [i']has[/i] AoE options doesn't mean they'll use them.

 

That's my main gripe yes. There is no excuse not to use AoE on pulls equaling 3-4 or more mobs for all DPS classes.

 

Or you could have a healer that's more focused on DPSing than healing - referencing my Haukke Manor complaint from earlier. Sure' date=' that happened in Leveling, but it's still a thing that can happen at any level of play. You don't know what you're going to get in a roulette, so expecting people who keep pace with you is a nice idea... but it never hurts to be cautious. And even then, some people will surprise you.[/quote']

 

It's pugs. If the healer is too busy DPSing for whatever reason, they will likely let the tank die no matter what or the amount of mobs they have. I actually find that pulling a whole room tend to give those a cold shower and jolt them back on track by focusing more on healing instead of goofing around.

 

( I have rarely met that kind of healer on experts though, just in leveling... it's beginner mistakes )

 

The various stories of various PuGs that inspired me to create this Vent Tent to begin with is proof enough that - while hopefully the rarity as opposed to the norm - you're going to run into people in roulettes who are problematic. As a tank, I'd rather err on the side of caution and do smaller pulls until either I can gauge the skill of my team or I get the okay from, like, the healer that I can make bigger pulls. Of course, if it looks like everyone can manage and the tank is STILL doing itty-bitty pulls? Then I'd certainly be annoyed too.

 

The healer should manage as I said, but yes, you are definitely right, you never know what you can stumble upon. I think I have almost never seen a healer failing at 2 trash pulls though. The whole room with 4-6 pulls? Sure. All the time. Those tanks are crazy. You do that with your friends and people that you know can handle it. But 2 pulls? Anybody can do that and I have yet to see a single situation proving otherwise.

 

And that's all I'm asking really...

 

And, honestly, just speaking from personal preference... I'd kinda prefer baby pulls than over-aggressive tanks (and, as mentioned before, DPS) pulling too much and getting everyone killed. Especially if said individuals throw a fit afterward because their eyes were bigger than their iLevels (I'm so witty :bomb: ).

 

Gear shouldn't be an issue in expert. Min ilvl is perfectly fine for more than baby pulls and can easily sustain a 2 pulls by 2 pulls process.

 

 

 

This is of course just my - unflinching opinion - but I must also admit that I never got bothered that much with it in HW, except when I was playing a specific job, which is SMN, for which the smallest pulls were a living nightmare to handle (killing them way too fast, countdowns and buffs and aetherflow not lining up for the next one, etc).

 

I'm absolutely mad about it in SB due to the specificity of MCH, where the AoE rotation and the single target rotation don't mesh at all and actually screw up with each other badly. You want heat to be above 50 but below 100 for the single target one because your skills are heat dependant, but they aren't for the AoE rotation. The AoE rotation is basically a SpreadShot spamm follow by flamethrower during overheat. Having to revert to single target after the AoE rotation is a nightmare when Barrel Stab isn't up (stupid 2min CD), unless you want to keep Flamethrower out of the AoE rotation to painfully build heat back up again (and murdering it in the process).

 

So yes, I'm venting. It's not supposed to be absolutely composed. Rational yes, but blown out of proportions, I can agree to that.

[Yian Kutku]

Yes, even tanks and healers

 

As a Scholar, I tend to twitch any time people ask me to AoE. I mean, I do put down Shadowflares when it's up. Other than that, well.

 

I think I have almost never seen a healer failing at 2 trash pulls though.

 

I once failed at two trash pulls, in Dusk Vigil.

 

I still contend that it's not my fault, since the Tank (a DRK) was wearing gear ten levels below the dungeon. Not ten ilevels, but ten levels.

[Valence]

Again, mostly referring to expert runs.