The Vent Tent - Poor PuGs and Other Terrible Tales

[Pip]

Last roulette in Hullbreaker for a change, it was me that turned kind of into a douche. Okay, not intentionally, pretty mild, but well.

 

Tank had sometimes difficulties to hold aggro. I'm BLM-ing with a good MNK that was parsing similarly to myself, and a very good WhM that was not that far behind either with holyspamm.

 

It went pretty smooth though, even if we took a few hits at times or just died a few, until we reached that pack of 3 mobs with the rogue dude that poisons you. Tank misses to aggro everything, and since we DPS well enough all hell gets loose. Healer gets twoshot by the rogue and the rest, and the tank dies just after. 

 

All the mobs turn on me as I'm in astral burst phase with AoE spells... Notice that I forgot to pop quelling strikes. Pop it out of habit even if I'm going into umbral. Pop up manawalls to survive a few seconds longer, teleport to the poor monk in a panic... And transfer him all aggro since quelling strikes + umbral no dps mode.

 

Monk dies and I kill the last remaining mobs. 

 

Felt like a huge douchebag BLM after.

To be fair, that pull is rather annoying as a tank... in terms of "mechanics". The rogue doesn't move until he's done doing his stealth crap... and the mob on the far right (caster? archer? never paid enough attention to what he's doing exactly) doesn't move either. The only mob that moves is the one in the center... and the other two are spread too far apart to hit with -insert aoe threat move here-.

 

So, depending on the decisions of the DPS (and possibly healer) in the group, that pull can get out of hand pretty quickly. 

 

Personally, what has seemed to work best for me thus far as a DRK, is unmend the rogue, then quick tab target to the middle and lunge, then drag the middle to the right and unleash. Eventually, assuming the DPS didn't go apeshit on it, the rogue joins the rest of the group and I'll unleash once or twice again and it's smooth sailing from there.

 

Not calling you out by any means, but it really is simply a small matter of patience on that pull as everything is spread out so much that it's a bitch to get snap aggro on everything as a tank.

 

When I get to that fight on NIN, I pop my Mutilate DoT on the rogue right after the tank pulls and it seems to break him out of his stealth act and get him in line a little quicker (92% sure it works; I need to watch closely next time to confirm.). On odd occasions he ends up aggroing on me briefly, but that's why I have a bag of aggro-tossing tricks*, defensive cooldowns, and stand in a clump of violence with a well-insulated hate factory.

 

 

*But seriously, am I the only ROG/NIN who gets a little high on having the power to choose who tanks at any given moment? My dream is to be in a well-coordinated group of 3 NINs and a healer and play 'Pass the Boss' through dungeons.

[Kage]

Stealth ninja or rogue can be stunned and he will walk right to you so long as people don't wail on him as you bring the middle to the lalafell.

[Dat Oni]

Stealth ninja or rogue can be stunned and he will walk right to you so long as people don't wail on him as you bring the middle to the lalafell.

 

I do this every single time. Does Awareness work on the mob after that, I wonder?

[Kilieit]

Dear Svara FATE tank:

 

You are a dark knight, not a caffeinated squirrel.

 

SIT. STILL.

 

(Context: I was playing NIN, which is the class which, at my current level, has exactly one positional, at the end of a 3-skill combo. I don't think I managed to hit this positional once during the 75% I actually got to fight Svara properly for.)

 

And for the love of all that is holy DO NOT reset the thing at 25% and 6 minutes to go because you got a widdle scawed and thought you might have to be raised by someone. Maybe using your defensive cooldowns would have helped. Even just one.

 

If I could revoke your soul crystal access, I would.

 

The icing on the shitty cake was that after the FATE inevitably timed out due to this DRK's single-handed incompetence, the boss continued to attack me, while invuln, for about 30 further seconds. So that was fun.

[GhostlyMaiden]

Weeping City of Mhach.

When I realized I wasn't 235 yet (because I was lazy the entire patch), I decided to try and rush and get as much done as I could so I could be closer to 235. I remembered that Weeping city drops the thing to upgrade gear.

 

I thought people would've gotten better with mechanics, that people actually knew what they were doing. I was wrong with this run. We wiped the first boss and it took almost forever to actually beat him the second time. We get to the second boss and we wipe. We do it again and wipe! The party didn't last long since we abandoned duty at around 90 minutes.

 

Yep. Good times.

[Conchris]

Trying to do Wondrous Tails in solo synch queue is like pulling teeth, especially on mechanic heavy fights like Leviathan EX and Thornmarch EX. Queuing up is bad enough as the queue times are stupid long, even as a healer. (I main SCH when I'm not doing dungeons with my FC.)

 

No matter how many times I try to do Leviathan EX, I swear, I get the strangest of groups where half the DPS straight up dies from a stiff breeze (and these are synched level 50s, not real level 50s). I can forgive mistakes but to repeat it over and over and over and over and over makes me want to punch a moogle in the face. And to top it off, how is it possible to not be able to DPS down the Wavetooth Sahagin quickly enough before he screws everyone over with Dreadwash? Even with healer DPS?

 

At least the /facepalm emote is getting some mileage, so there's that.

[Kage]

Wavetooth needs to be stunned before the cast. I don't remember there ever being enough dps for 50s to kill it without a stun.

[Aaron]

A12 is gonna be fun farming every week

[Dat Oni]

A12 is gonna be fun farming every week

 

A11. Marked the shield to be destroyed. The party continued attacking the boss as he was invulnerable over and over until he wiped the raid.

[Conchris]

Wavetooth needs to be stunned before the cast. I don't remember there ever being enough dps for 50s to kill it without a stun.

Hmm, you could be right. I know a lot of the mechanics of Leviathan off by heart but never could quite remember the wave guys apart from the fact that tooth wipes the raid. Dodging the giant serpent doing acrobatics must've made me gloss over it.

 

Either way, long wait plus bad groups equals grump.

[Valence]

I haven't found A12 to be especially harder than the other ones (unlike A4 and A8 were compared to their respective series)..

 

Wavetooth needs to be stunned before the cast. I don't remember there ever being enough dps for 50s to kill it without a stun.

 

Most of the PuG groups I ran leviathan ex with used to just not bother with the stun (knowing the unstability of PuGs), and outright used the LB on him every time.

 

Works like a charm like that at least, even if a bit of an overkill.

[Jana]

I ran Wiping City for the first time last night... The name was apply chosen by the community. I died a few times while learning mechanics but had the hang of it by the end, but an entire other alliance kept wiping us at Ozma (5 times), the zombie boss (twice), and whatever the last boss was named (twice). Took an hour and forty minutes to clear.

 

I got Aurum Vale in my LLR immediately after with a new-but-synched WAR who wiped us twice in the opening room and once on the first boss before I dropped. I just couldn't take it anymore...

[Pip]

I got Aurum Vale in my LLR immediately after with a new-but-synched WAR who wiped us twice in the opening room and once on the first boss before I dropped. I just couldn't take it anymore...

 

I think I was the NIN in your group! That WAR.... One wipe because you forgot your tank stance when it synced you, that's fine. Two because you forgot your tank stance when it synced you and you pulled half the room, we'll call it a learning curve. Kill me thrice, shame on you. I left right after you did. Thanks for eating the lockout penalty. :thumbsup:

[Jana]

No problem, gave me a chance to check out some other new things before bed!

[Gegenji]

I was whining a bit about this in the chat room earlier, but I figure I can add it here for posterity.

 

I have to wonder if some people either fail to learn things during the course of play... or buy accounts and are just being horribly blatant about their inexperience coming into high-level content.

 

I say this because I had a BRD in Alexander 11... Heart of the Creator, I think it is called? Anyway, this girl was dying. A lot. And to stuff we were explaining to her. Here's a general list of things that caught my attention.

 

"Get behind the tanks for Propeller Wind." Stands out in the open and gets confused. When she finally gets it, she stands behind them when there ISN'T a Propeller Wind coming and eats Magitek bit lasers.

 

"Activate the vents to get on the ship." First she doesn't move for them at all. Second attempt she moves and just stands on them so we have to tell her to CLICK THEM. Third attempt she says she clicked them but nothing happened, so we have to specify RIGHT CLICKING. :dazed:

 

"Just push any button to eject." Another fun one. I was doing this on ACCIDENT on our first attempts before it was mentioned what was needed to be done. To her. You literally just have to hit any key when the Eject prompt action comes up and you hop off to safety - and you have four seconds to do it. She doesn't, somehow, and ends up getting lasered to death. Again.

 

"LB before pull." This one actually happened after the first attempt, so it predates some of the other bullet points but makes a nice capper for my little rant. We had two full bars so one of the tanks asked her to LB the boss for some early damage. She stands around waiting until someone else does a regular pull (out of boredom or something, I guess, it was a SMN and almost got himself punched in the teeth in the process) and then complains how it's not doing anything. You know, trying to LB after the bar's drained because we're in combat now.

 

All this is on top of standing in AoEs and generally wasting healer MP rezzing her since our SMN also couldn't be bothered to use HIS MP to help out. Ended up with a vote abandon after a good half dozen or so attempts. Later got into another group with all mostly new people and we had it down in, like, four. And no one had issues with the airship portion or pre-pull LBs, and barely any with Propeller Winds past the first pull.

[Alexia Peregris]

To add to the long list of stories about people who don't listen or simply don't understand basic gameplay, I bring you a tale of a recent excursion into Pharos Sirius NM!

 

At first it was the regular duty roulette fare: the tank isn't using cooldowns and is pulling one trash group at a time, but I'm not being too fussy about this because the DPS are me (a trusty MCH) and a sprout ninja, so I understand going slow. The healer- bless his heart- knows what he's doing, but I notice he isn't doing any DPS, however I say nothing at first. This is lazy mode DF, so whatever. But then we get to Symond, I use Wildfire burst, pull aggro off the tank immediately, and barely survive thanks to the healer. But tank takes back aggro with some difficulty and then they die instantly and we wipe. On a boss that's just 'dodge the AOEs'. So we run back and then we wipe yet again, and the ninja says 'bruh what is the deal' (from that one phrase I knew exactly how much of a nightmare this guy would be). It occurs to me now that several things aren't quite right...

 

• The ninja isn't using Ninjutsus. At all. I checked, three times.
  
• The tank is tanking in Sword Oath. I cried.
  
• The tank is using defensive CDs and letting them fall off before running up to the boss. I... don't know why.
  

And as for things that are going right:

 

• The healer- bless his heart- is doing his very best and keeping us as alive as he can. 
  

So I explain to the tank to use Shield Oath and we do the boss again, barely beating it, though I still died. Because I seriously wasn't sure, I took the opportunity to look in my battle log to see if the ninja was using Ninjutsus or not. He wasn't, so I told him to, then he claimed he always was and started using them. Sigh. I called him on it, and he didn't reply. I explained the second boss, but still ended up tanking it anyways, even though I didn't use Wildfire burst until after I'd stolen aggro. Sigh. We beat the boss, luckily. And then we begin to approach the third boss, where I tell the tank to stop using CDs outside of combat, but they are a mute and do not take that advice anyways. SIGH. We get to the last boss and I explain it again, and this time I make sure to use no cooldowns until I've ripped aggro yet again, which was a certainty at this point. Healer does his job superbly, ninja does whatever and tank does God knows what and in the end it's just me and the Siren. I manage to kill it literally just before it kills me. I quickly type 'Oh thank god' in chat and the healer- bless his heart- agrees with a simple 'I know'.

 

I roll pass on the loot, tell the healer he was an ace, as if to thank him while also passive aggressively condemning the tank and ninja, and left after a moment of deep breathing. So I got my tomestones, but no commendation.

 

Video games are fun.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

This is always a good one.

 

Entered a guildhest as a healer.

 

One of the DPS decides he's gonna AFK the entire time and never moves.

 

The tank is a chicken with its head cut off and runs around picking up mob after mob while I get to be honorary DPS to make up the lack. (Which is fine. Cleric stance is easy to manage for me.)

 

The other DPS and I attempt to kick the inactive and the tank won't let us because he keeps grabbing more mobs. You can't vote dismiss in battle.

 

Shitty DPS only moves once we've cleared everything to go pick up his "reward." It must have been such hard work.

[Delilah Scythewood]

This is always a good one.

 

Entered a guildhest as a healer.

 

One of the DPS decides he's gonna AFK the entire time and never moves.

 

The tank is a chicken with its head cut off and runs around picking up mob after mob while I get to be honorary DPS to make up the lack. (Which is fine. Cleric stance is easy to manage for me.)

 

The other DPS and I attempt to kick the inactive and the tank won't let us because he keeps grabbing more mobs. You can't vote dismiss in battle.

 

Shitty DPS only moves once we've cleared everything to go pick up his "reward." It must have been such hard work.

I had that once, only it was the healer who was the lazy bum.

 

Luckily it was the low guildhest (I think one of the first ones you get) so we cleared it without even getting down to a quarter health.

[Charity322]

I had that once, only it was the healer who was the lazy bum.

 

Luckily it was the low guildhest (I think one of the first ones you get) so we cleared it without even getting down to a quarter health.

 

To be fair, some people just don't wait. I'm sure I've looked like a lazy bum in that low level guildhest because everyone is halfway through attacking and the enemies haven't even loaded for me yet, so I'm just standing there waiting.

[Enla]

Yes, let's force the newbie to tank the raid. Ignoring that they're over forty ilvl's under both of the other tanks AND also have to deal with the other two randomly trying to rip hate before immediately switching back into DPS stances... And now I'm realizing why I miss healing all the more potently. Can't complain about the BLM who was hate ripping because they didn't use Quelling Strikes because they did apologize for it. However -yes- other tank, I NEEDED THEM TO USE QUELLING STRIKES THAT AS YOU ALL OUTCLASS ME WHEN IT COMES TO GEAR.

[Valence]

I did an expert run in Gubal Hard. I notice that the mentor AST is not casting protect... So I'm waiting a bit, then after the first fight I ask if we could get one... I get told "I didn't take it".

 

At that point I silently pursued my lips (I'm a mentor too), and carry on... The Bard doesn't care about AoEs, or is pretty bad at avoiding them. They die a few times. The tank, also isn't able to keep correctly aggro, and it was certainly me ripping it off him since the bard wasn't doing much damage. And I used quelling strikes as much as I could.

 

The heal also ripped aggro (honestly, a heal ripping aggro at that level?). They die. Tank die. I cast a vote to kick the AST and get asked by the two others "Why??". I shrug it off and carry on.

 

We die a few more times, especially on bosses (that heal was really awful). Somehow I get 3 comms, so I concluded they were all in party together and somehow... I don't even. Bleh.

 

Oh and just after for good measure, I pray for not Sastasha in leveling roulette, I get sastash with a tank that was in full 1-10 lvl grey gear with no right side accessories. As I was leveling AST, I can't even properly switch to cleric since he can die in less than 3 hits from those squishy NPCs... I come to be actually relieved when it's me or the DPS ripping aggro and tanking since it's way easier to heal and I can DPS in the meantime...

 

To his credit, the guy wasn't really well informed and I told him to go visit the Smith immediately, and he was happy to learn about it.

[Edda]

Since when have mass pulls in Sohm Al been a thing? Can someone inform me? Or is this one of those classic "welcome back, btw T2 enrage strat is a thing" moments?

 

I mean I guess I'd be more understanding if everyone was level synced from 60 and the dps comp wasn't a MCH and a MNK. Didn't help that the non-synced tank rarely ever used cooldowns and stood in AoE. Even without that, the trash mobs in there still hit hard. The run could have gone so much faster if he just pulled normally and let me focus on not-healing...

[Valence]

MCH and MNK are nice for AoE DPS though. Very few classes like DRG that are actually shit at that, as far as I know (but DRG is the only one I don't really know). Even NIN is decent at AoE DPS. Problem in leveling I find is that people just don't use their AoEs for some reason (even if the rotation is like, 100 times easier). Even AoE casters like black mages. It's a bit sad.

 

Your problem was mostly your tank I think, though yeah, those Heavensward dungeons can hit hard when you mass pull. Better for the tank to ask the heal if they are fine with it before.

[Warren Castille]

A DOZEN FUCKING REROLLS ON MY KHLOE BOOK

 

NOT A SINGLE FUCKING LINE

 

SOMEONE DO THE MATH ON WHAT THOSE ODDS ARE

 

4X4 GRID, RANDOMLY ALIGNING 7 STICKERS.

 

NOT A SINGLE

 

FUCKING

 

LINE

[Edda]

MCH and MNK are nice for AoE DPS though.

Sure, when they use it.

 

Edit: Thanks, phone. But yeah, there was none of that. Don't get me wrong it's not like I wasn't able to throw out some full-dotted Banes on each pull, I just wasn't able to do so as much as I usually like to. I'm fine with big pulls, but this kid was getting shit on constantly (no CDs... hrk). Should have gone as a WHM. Oh well... hindsight etc.