If you love your healers there are two pulls you should not do.
1)
You know that group of 2 enemies early on (I think 2nd pull) in Kugane Castle? Yeah, don't pull those to the big robot right nearby. First of all, those 2 hit hard. Second of all, a ton more enemies spawn at that robot. Just...don't. I know the pack of 2 seems underwhelming, but it's much less underwhelming than dying because your healer can't keep up.
2)
The 2nd to last and last pulls of Temple of the Fist. The ones with the coeurls. Don't pull those together. Please. I just had to do that one. I think it's probably possible if your healer never stops healing, but if they happen to mess up and get hit by one of the coeurl's AoE in that mess then you're all dead because they're paralyzed, need to Esuna themselves, and there isn't time for that. And that's assuming you have a White Mage. I'm pretty sure an AST / SCH would be out of MP very quickly there.
Seriously, I can count on one hand the amount of times a group has wiped because I couldn't keep up with the healing on trash pulls. And all of those times have been on those two pulls.
Other iffy pulls that are doable, but not pleasant -
- Pulling the bird enemies to the pack with the dancing bear in Temple of the Fist. That one is doable with some careful healing, but it's not fun.
- Pulling enemies to the pack with the big Skipper enemy before the second boss of Sirensong. Doable. Not fun.
- Pulling any other packs with the bird packs in Bardam's Mettle. Doable. Not fun.
- Pulling enemies to the first pack of robots in Doma Castle. Again, doable. Not fun.
- Pulling multiple packs in Castrum Abania is just a bad idea in general. Everything hits so hard in there. Doesn't help that it never shows up in roulettes, so no one's really familiar with it, I think.
Showing posts with label FFXIV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FFXIV. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Thursday, June 1, 2017
FFXIV: My House!
I'm decently happy with my decorating (despite the very small budget because I have no gil after buying it), so I thought I finally feel comfortable to show off my little house!
I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it here too because it's relevant. It is on Adamantoise, Goblet, Ward 8, Plot 47.
There's still a LOT of empty space to fill with stuff when I get around to it. The pictures very strategically did not show the extremely sparse areas just outside the frame ;^^
And my yard is awful.
Oh, I almost forgot! My apartment in the Lavender Beds is cute, but I forgot to take screenshots of it, so I'll do that tomorrow if I remember and just add it here. Although it's even more sparse...
I know I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it here too because it's relevant. It is on Adamantoise, Goblet, Ward 8, Plot 47.
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| Exterior! |
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| My little training dummy area with random decorations that happened to be cheap on the MB... |
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| Boring other yard thing with my poor neglected Retainer out front. |
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| Bedroom on the first floor. I think it looks quite cozy. |
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| Living room / study area. |
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| Dining room |
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| And that's it! |
There's still a LOT of empty space to fill with stuff when I get around to it. The pictures very strategically did not show the extremely sparse areas just outside the frame ;^^
And my yard is awful.
Oh, I almost forgot! My apartment in the Lavender Beds is cute, but I forgot to take screenshots of it, so I'll do that tomorrow if I remember and just add it here. Although it's even more sparse...
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Very confused
I was yelled at in Weeping City today :(
I've only done it twice. The first time went okay. I placed a meteor in the wrong spot, but it ended up being fine. And I died to haircut, and also the attack Ozma does where you have to not attack.
Second time went awful.
First, to start this all off, I walked off the edge in Ozma before the fight started. Everyone said it was fine and it happens to everyone, and so that was fine.
Then came meteors. First set of meteors I was targeted, and brought it to the right spot this time. Fight continued on as it should. Until the second set of meteors. I didn't see that I was targeted immediately, and so tried to move out of the way of the meteor, then I realized I was targeted and tried to move to a safe area, but all the ones around were taken. There were people from the other groups on the side areas, and the other meteor target from my group at the bottom. I had nowhere to go, and ended up blasting the entire group. A bunch died, I was scolded, and I felt really, really bad. I didn't know what to do in that situation! What was I supposed to do? I don't want to mess that up again.
And then, again, I died to Haircut.
So now I feel pretty awful and I'm scared to go back in again. I don't like to let my party down like that. I can do the first two bosses really well. I haven't died on Forgal or anything. And I can do all of Ozma fine except the meteors :(
Edit: Finally had success (for me) on the 5th run. By that, I mean I didn't die due to messing up mechanics. I did die twice, but that's because we actually wiped twice in Ozma, which made me giggle because of course we wipe the one time I actually do the mechanics right!
Anyway, yeah. First boss was as easy as it was the past times, and so was Forgal, although I did mess up and get zombified once at the start of the fight :(
Ozma went well for me. I did get meteors the first attempt and managed to place them correctly. The second two attempts I only got the first meteor and then didn't get the other sets, so that was pretty stress-free for me. First attempt we wiped after one of the other groups died, second time I don't even know why we wiped. It kind of happened too quick for me to really catch. Third time was fine.
And then a pretty perfect Calofisteri. I only got stuck in a trap once! And I didn't get hit by Haircut this time! And I think my group actually only had one death and that was Haircut-related and easy to fix.
And I'm now at i230 so I can stop worrying about running it over and over and go do Baelsar's Wall like I wanted to do. Yay, now I can do this with less stress! I still want to keep doing it for the gear, but that's less stressful than doing it to unlock something else.
I've only done it twice. The first time went okay. I placed a meteor in the wrong spot, but it ended up being fine. And I died to haircut, and also the attack Ozma does where you have to not attack.
Second time went awful.
First, to start this all off, I walked off the edge in Ozma before the fight started. Everyone said it was fine and it happens to everyone, and so that was fine.
Then came meteors. First set of meteors I was targeted, and brought it to the right spot this time. Fight continued on as it should. Until the second set of meteors. I didn't see that I was targeted immediately, and so tried to move out of the way of the meteor, then I realized I was targeted and tried to move to a safe area, but all the ones around were taken. There were people from the other groups on the side areas, and the other meteor target from my group at the bottom. I had nowhere to go, and ended up blasting the entire group. A bunch died, I was scolded, and I felt really, really bad. I didn't know what to do in that situation! What was I supposed to do? I don't want to mess that up again.
And then, again, I died to Haircut.
So now I feel pretty awful and I'm scared to go back in again. I don't like to let my party down like that. I can do the first two bosses really well. I haven't died on Forgal or anything. And I can do all of Ozma fine except the meteors :(
Edit: Finally had success (for me) on the 5th run. By that, I mean I didn't die due to messing up mechanics. I did die twice, but that's because we actually wiped twice in Ozma, which made me giggle because of course we wipe the one time I actually do the mechanics right!
Anyway, yeah. First boss was as easy as it was the past times, and so was Forgal, although I did mess up and get zombified once at the start of the fight :(
Ozma went well for me. I did get meteors the first attempt and managed to place them correctly. The second two attempts I only got the first meteor and then didn't get the other sets, so that was pretty stress-free for me. First attempt we wiped after one of the other groups died, second time I don't even know why we wiped. It kind of happened too quick for me to really catch. Third time was fine.
And then a pretty perfect Calofisteri. I only got stuck in a trap once! And I didn't get hit by Haircut this time! And I think my group actually only had one death and that was Haircut-related and easy to fix.
And I'm now at i230 so I can stop worrying about running it over and over and go do Baelsar's Wall like I wanted to do. Yay, now I can do this with less stress! I still want to keep doing it for the gear, but that's less stressful than doing it to unlock something else.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
An Argument for Always Picking Up Chests in PoTD
Ok, this has really been bugging me. I run Palace of the Dead a LOT because I've been feeling stressed out and it doesn't trigger my anxiety at all (even when aggravated), and it's also great for leveling up my classes and making money off of materia (which is great because I now have no gil after buying my house). And a looot of times that I run it, everyone ignores all the gold and bronze chests. And I don't mean that they don't enter a room just for a non-silver chest, I mean they run straight past the things when it would take no time at all to just click them and be done with it. And of course, the complaining at people who do pick them up because "mah speed run."
Please note that I am not arguing clearing out a whole room just for a gold or copper chest. I am just arguing for picking them up when you happen to already be next to one. Because, honestly, why not?
Also, I'm really only talking about floors 51-60 here. 1-50 are a different beast, and I've never bothered with 60+ so I don't know what things are like there.
1. Lust and Rage pomanders are great time-savers. If you really want to speed-run, you should pick up chests, because Rage pomanders help you clear floors waaay faster. And Lusts help speed up the boss fight if someone remembers to pop it and get the vulnerability debuff up.
2. Sight and Safety pomanders also save time. Sight poms make it so you can easily skip rooms that aren't worthwhile (which could mean a room with only gold/copper chests; again, I'm not talking about making runs slower here, just picking up ones you come across). Safety pomanders make it so the entire party doesn't stall because they all got hit by the silence trap or something. Or all explode and die like the last group I was in did.
3. Flight pomanders are woefully underused in 51-60. What's better than less enemies on the floor to deal with?
4. Witching pomanders can save your butt in dire situations. And again, are woefully underused.
5. Purity pomanders. How many groups have I been in where no one's picking up chests, and the one time someone does it's a mimic. And then everyone proceeds to not pick up chests, meaning they're stuck with the long pox debuff (which can be deadly in groups with only DPS). Hey, if everyone was picking up chests, maybe you'd have a Purity for the pox?
6. Serenity pomanders can save you. Seriously. Gloom + no actions is awful. It's even worse when your healer forgets to turn off Cleric's Stance before going to the next floor, and is thus stuck in Cleric's Stance with Gloom and no way to heal effectively because Cleric's Stance is an action...
7. INTUITION POMANDERS. WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT THESE? Sure, sometimes you get useless stuff out of the bags, but if you get materia you can sell it and make decent money. I should know. I just got my house preeeetty purely from PoTD materia money.
As for copper chests, two words: Gelmorran Potsherds. Yum. These things can get you so much money because you can check the prices and demand for the materia and pick the one that will give you the highest profit. Or, you know, you can keep your good materia for yourself if you're trying to gear too. I know they're rare, but a small chance is better than no chance at all.
Also, how am I supposed to revive people with Phoenix Down in all-DPS parties when no one picks up the copper chests so I never get another Phoenix Down? Especially since a lot of groups I've been in apparently don't know how the raising tower thing works, because I tend to have to run over there by myself to get someone up because no one has a raise or phoenix down, and people seem to forget it exists.
Seriously folks, just pick up the chests when you come across them. Please. Not picking them up can work out with a decent group, but picking them up just makes it safer, easier, and quicker. People don't play perfectly all the time, and having pomanders can really save a group or at least speed up a slow run.
And again, I'm not at all advocating taking the time to clear out rooms just for chests. I get it, floor 51-60 are the speedrun, leveling floors. Trust me, I know. I'm just here for the fast leveling too.
Sorry, needed to just rant about that for a minute. Ugh!
Please note that I am not arguing clearing out a whole room just for a gold or copper chest. I am just arguing for picking them up when you happen to already be next to one. Because, honestly, why not?
Also, I'm really only talking about floors 51-60 here. 1-50 are a different beast, and I've never bothered with 60+ so I don't know what things are like there.
1. Lust and Rage pomanders are great time-savers. If you really want to speed-run, you should pick up chests, because Rage pomanders help you clear floors waaay faster. And Lusts help speed up the boss fight if someone remembers to pop it and get the vulnerability debuff up.
2. Sight and Safety pomanders also save time. Sight poms make it so you can easily skip rooms that aren't worthwhile (which could mean a room with only gold/copper chests; again, I'm not talking about making runs slower here, just picking up ones you come across). Safety pomanders make it so the entire party doesn't stall because they all got hit by the silence trap or something. Or all explode and die like the last group I was in did.
3. Flight pomanders are woefully underused in 51-60. What's better than less enemies on the floor to deal with?
4. Witching pomanders can save your butt in dire situations. And again, are woefully underused.
5. Purity pomanders. How many groups have I been in where no one's picking up chests, and the one time someone does it's a mimic. And then everyone proceeds to not pick up chests, meaning they're stuck with the long pox debuff (which can be deadly in groups with only DPS). Hey, if everyone was picking up chests, maybe you'd have a Purity for the pox?
6. Serenity pomanders can save you. Seriously. Gloom + no actions is awful. It's even worse when your healer forgets to turn off Cleric's Stance before going to the next floor, and is thus stuck in Cleric's Stance with Gloom and no way to heal effectively because Cleric's Stance is an action...
7. INTUITION POMANDERS. WHY WOULD YOU NOT WANT THESE? Sure, sometimes you get useless stuff out of the bags, but if you get materia you can sell it and make decent money. I should know. I just got my house preeeetty purely from PoTD materia money.
As for copper chests, two words: Gelmorran Potsherds. Yum. These things can get you so much money because you can check the prices and demand for the materia and pick the one that will give you the highest profit. Or, you know, you can keep your good materia for yourself if you're trying to gear too. I know they're rare, but a small chance is better than no chance at all.
Also, how am I supposed to revive people with Phoenix Down in all-DPS parties when no one picks up the copper chests so I never get another Phoenix Down? Especially since a lot of groups I've been in apparently don't know how the raising tower thing works, because I tend to have to run over there by myself to get someone up because no one has a raise or phoenix down, and people seem to forget it exists.
Seriously folks, just pick up the chests when you come across them. Please. Not picking them up can work out with a decent group, but picking them up just makes it safer, easier, and quicker. People don't play perfectly all the time, and having pomanders can really save a group or at least speed up a slow run.
And again, I'm not at all advocating taking the time to clear out rooms just for chests. I get it, floor 51-60 are the speedrun, leveling floors. Trust me, I know. I'm just here for the fast leveling too.
Sorry, needed to just rant about that for a minute. Ugh!
Saturday, April 15, 2017
FFXIV House Pictures (Picture Heavy)
Saved up enough to actually build the house now, which means I have pictures! Took all the furniture out of the apartment; I'll repurpose that later. Or maybe later I'll redecorate that as kind of my personal quarters and make my house something special or something. I don't know, regardless, I have some furniture for the house now.
Anyway, pictures! I took so many because I was so happy. I didn't think I would ever get a house of Adamantoise. I had resigned myself to rerolling on Mateus to get one, but I thought I would just check and see how feasible it would be on Adamantoise, and there was a few open plots in the Goblet, one of them happening to be the plot I'd always had my eye on! Lucky me!
Obviously not completely happy with the decorations because...well, I don't really have any! Just some basic stuff I got for the apartment before from vendors. Need to craft or something. I have the coffin lid drop from Void Ark, so I guess I'll make the coffin a priority in particular? That and just...nicer furniture in general.
It's on Adamantoise, The Goblet, Ward 8 Subdivision - Plot 47.
Anyway, pictures! I took so many because I was so happy. I didn't think I would ever get a house of Adamantoise. I had resigned myself to rerolling on Mateus to get one, but I thought I would just check and see how feasible it would be on Adamantoise, and there was a few open plots in the Goblet, one of them happening to be the plot I'd always had my eye on! Lucky me!
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| Right after I bought it. Was so excited! |
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| Look at how gorgeous the location is! I wanted one right in the oasis and I got it! |
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| Here's the outside after it was built (featuring last year's Hatching-tide decoration, which was the only outdoor decoration I own). |
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| Here's upstairs. |
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| Downstairs office-ey area. |
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| Downstairs bedroom. |
Obviously not completely happy with the decorations because...well, I don't really have any! Just some basic stuff I got for the apartment before from vendors. Need to craft or something. I have the coffin lid drop from Void Ark, so I guess I'll make the coffin a priority in particular? That and just...nicer furniture in general.
It's on Adamantoise, The Goblet, Ward 8 Subdivision - Plot 47.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
FFXIV: Aaaaa so excited!
After much effort and lots of scrimping in FFXIV, I finally had enough gil this morning to purchase land in The Goblet! Finally!
My plot is located at Ward 8 Subdivision, plot 47, on Adamantoise!
There's not a house on it yet because I need about 200,000 more gil before I can build it (I have 45 days or something like that, right?). I was able to save up 2 million in a few days, so 200,000 should be rather easy. Back to running PoTD over and over and over and over. And hopefully I'll have better luck than yesterday. Yesterday I ran PoTD a bunch and not one bag gave me materia to sell...all I got was the stupid confetti things and some replica allagan gear, which doesn't sell quickly or well. And it's not like I'm even getting allagan gear that I'd like to keep and use for glamour some day. No, all I got yesterday was the healer gloves...which I already had three of...
My plot is located at Ward 8 Subdivision, plot 47, on Adamantoise!
There's not a house on it yet because I need about 200,000 more gil before I can build it (I have 45 days or something like that, right?). I was able to save up 2 million in a few days, so 200,000 should be rather easy. Back to running PoTD over and over and over and over. And hopefully I'll have better luck than yesterday. Yesterday I ran PoTD a bunch and not one bag gave me materia to sell...all I got was the stupid confetti things and some replica allagan gear, which doesn't sell quickly or well. And it's not like I'm even getting allagan gear that I'd like to keep and use for glamour some day. No, all I got yesterday was the healer gloves...which I already had three of...
Thursday, September 29, 2016
First Raid!
I did a raid for the first time in WoW this evening.
I think it went pretty well. We got the first two bosses of Emerald Nightmare down, after a bit of struggling but not too bad. Took us two tries to get the first boss down, and then a few tries for the second boss (we did the spider boss second).
I had been leveling both my Holy and Shadow artifacts, on recommendation from the raid leader to keep both options open. Today, at basically the last second I got both artifacts to the point where I've unlocked one elite skill each. I was ultimately told to heal for the raid, so I did.
Beginning started out a bit rocky for me. I haven't healed in over a week, and have been playing Shadow pretty much non-stop, trying to level it to a decent point. Holy was already waaay ahead, so I've been focusing on Shadow to get it up to par.
Of course, because of this, my gear is also relatively low, I think. Our requirement was 830+ and I went in with 838 or so. I haven't been doing dungeons and the idea of Mythics gives me anxiety. Raiding is different, since there's other healers to support me, but healing by myself for a group is very anxiety-inducing for me.
Basically the entirety of both attempts of the first boss I was dead. I think I was placing the puddles fine, but when it came to the enlarged bugs I kept getting messed up. I wish they had an indicator around them. I had no idea if I was too close! I have the GTFO addon, but when I'm in full-on healing-panic-mode I can hardly hear / notice it or DBM. I don't think I survived the first bug phase in either attempt. Sooo, I have not too much to say on this fight, okay?
Trash between the first boss and the second was pitiful. We melted through it. Minimal damage.
Spider boss took a few more attempts. First attempt we didn't place puddles correctly, so they were just all over the place. That was fixed by the next attempt though, so no big deal really. The rest of the attempts we'd just basically lose too many DPS during the part where you need to swap platforms, and we wouldn't have enough DPS to take down the boss. We figured out that it would be a good idea to send some healers to run across the webs too, rather than having all the healers take the feathers across. Due to the fact that Holy Priests have very, very little in terms of on-the-go heals, I was assigned to get a feather instead, so I don't know the specifics of how the web runs went.
I did die during the first transition phase from the wind attack, but someone in the raid got me back up and I was able to stay alive the rest of the fight until the absolute very end when I died again (again, during a transition), but at that point the boss had so little HP that it didn't really matter how many people were down (which I think was me, one or two other healers and a handful of DPS), because we were going to clear it at that point. I just want to point out that I didn't die in the transition phase once during all the other attempts until the last one, where I proceed to die to every transition :|
All in all, it was a good experience. I really like my guild and the raid group. They are very laid-back and nice.
I will say though, that this foray into WoW raiding has made me realize that I don't really like the style of WoW raiding. I already knew I didn't like the style of WoW's dungeons, but I thought maybe raids would be a bit better for me. I'm coming to realize that I really am just a FFXIV sort of person and should perhaps stop denying that so often. I really, really love the way FFXIV's dungeons and raids work. They feel faster paced, more complicated mechanically and yet more simple (colored circles and cones showing where the enemy is targeting is an amazing thing that I miss immensely). Trash in WoW is too numerous and is either extremely difficult or like wet bread. And you know, as much as everyone complains about the constant circular or square boss platforms in FFXIV, they're a bit of a blessing as well.
I also just don't really like healing in WoW as much as in FFXIV. Don't get me wrong, I like healing far more than DPS, but it just isn't as comfortable. Damage in WoW is really spiky and stress-inducing. I don't feel like my heals have as much of an effect, and I don't feel like I have a big enough toolkit. I feel like I have a whole lot of skills that just straight up heal a single target, and not much else. I have an AoE heal that seems to hardly do any healing, an AoE targetable heal that is affective but difficult to use in most situations, and Prayer of Healing which seems a bit unreliable. And none of these feel nearly as effective as, say, Medica. The damage in FFXIV feels more sustained and less spiky. It's more like a bunch of smaller hits rather than a couple of huge hits. Considerably less stressful.
WoW is also missing the sheer satisfaction that is avoiding a ton of damage to the group by playing a Scholar and using Succor + Sacred Soil. Best feeling as a healer, I swear. Maybe Disc Priest is similar, but I'm not about to go switch to that. Sounds too stressful (although our raid's Disc Priest was amazing).
Healing just feels more powerful in FFXIV. I feel like in FFXIV, I can help carry a group. I feel like in WoW that I am weighing down the group. I've been told I'm a good healer, but I still feel like I am weighing down the group. I feel like a bad healer because I see these huge bursts of damage going out, and I see damage happening so fast that I don't even have time to cast Flash Heal and I don't have Holy Word: Serenity available because I just used it to heal through the last big burst, you know?
All in all, I will still raid with my guild. I like them, and I said I would. I'll keep with my commitment. They want me to raid with them; it's not like I'm going to turn them down! But I may look into getting into FFXIV again, perhaps more seriously than before.
I think it went pretty well. We got the first two bosses of Emerald Nightmare down, after a bit of struggling but not too bad. Took us two tries to get the first boss down, and then a few tries for the second boss (we did the spider boss second).
I had been leveling both my Holy and Shadow artifacts, on recommendation from the raid leader to keep both options open. Today, at basically the last second I got both artifacts to the point where I've unlocked one elite skill each. I was ultimately told to heal for the raid, so I did.
Beginning started out a bit rocky for me. I haven't healed in over a week, and have been playing Shadow pretty much non-stop, trying to level it to a decent point. Holy was already waaay ahead, so I've been focusing on Shadow to get it up to par.
Of course, because of this, my gear is also relatively low, I think. Our requirement was 830+ and I went in with 838 or so. I haven't been doing dungeons and the idea of Mythics gives me anxiety. Raiding is different, since there's other healers to support me, but healing by myself for a group is very anxiety-inducing for me.
Basically the entirety of both attempts of the first boss I was dead. I think I was placing the puddles fine, but when it came to the enlarged bugs I kept getting messed up. I wish they had an indicator around them. I had no idea if I was too close! I have the GTFO addon, but when I'm in full-on healing-panic-mode I can hardly hear / notice it or DBM. I don't think I survived the first bug phase in either attempt. Sooo, I have not too much to say on this fight, okay?
Trash between the first boss and the second was pitiful. We melted through it. Minimal damage.
Spider boss took a few more attempts. First attempt we didn't place puddles correctly, so they were just all over the place. That was fixed by the next attempt though, so no big deal really. The rest of the attempts we'd just basically lose too many DPS during the part where you need to swap platforms, and we wouldn't have enough DPS to take down the boss. We figured out that it would be a good idea to send some healers to run across the webs too, rather than having all the healers take the feathers across. Due to the fact that Holy Priests have very, very little in terms of on-the-go heals, I was assigned to get a feather instead, so I don't know the specifics of how the web runs went.
I did die during the first transition phase from the wind attack, but someone in the raid got me back up and I was able to stay alive the rest of the fight until the absolute very end when I died again (again, during a transition), but at that point the boss had so little HP that it didn't really matter how many people were down (which I think was me, one or two other healers and a handful of DPS), because we were going to clear it at that point. I just want to point out that I didn't die in the transition phase once during all the other attempts until the last one, where I proceed to die to every transition :|
All in all, it was a good experience. I really like my guild and the raid group. They are very laid-back and nice.
I will say though, that this foray into WoW raiding has made me realize that I don't really like the style of WoW raiding. I already knew I didn't like the style of WoW's dungeons, but I thought maybe raids would be a bit better for me. I'm coming to realize that I really am just a FFXIV sort of person and should perhaps stop denying that so often. I really, really love the way FFXIV's dungeons and raids work. They feel faster paced, more complicated mechanically and yet more simple (colored circles and cones showing where the enemy is targeting is an amazing thing that I miss immensely). Trash in WoW is too numerous and is either extremely difficult or like wet bread. And you know, as much as everyone complains about the constant circular or square boss platforms in FFXIV, they're a bit of a blessing as well.
I also just don't really like healing in WoW as much as in FFXIV. Don't get me wrong, I like healing far more than DPS, but it just isn't as comfortable. Damage in WoW is really spiky and stress-inducing. I don't feel like my heals have as much of an effect, and I don't feel like I have a big enough toolkit. I feel like I have a whole lot of skills that just straight up heal a single target, and not much else. I have an AoE heal that seems to hardly do any healing, an AoE targetable heal that is affective but difficult to use in most situations, and Prayer of Healing which seems a bit unreliable. And none of these feel nearly as effective as, say, Medica. The damage in FFXIV feels more sustained and less spiky. It's more like a bunch of smaller hits rather than a couple of huge hits. Considerably less stressful.
WoW is also missing the sheer satisfaction that is avoiding a ton of damage to the group by playing a Scholar and using Succor + Sacred Soil. Best feeling as a healer, I swear. Maybe Disc Priest is similar, but I'm not about to go switch to that. Sounds too stressful (although our raid's Disc Priest was amazing).
Healing just feels more powerful in FFXIV. I feel like in FFXIV, I can help carry a group. I feel like in WoW that I am weighing down the group. I've been told I'm a good healer, but I still feel like I am weighing down the group. I feel like a bad healer because I see these huge bursts of damage going out, and I see damage happening so fast that I don't even have time to cast Flash Heal and I don't have Holy Word: Serenity available because I just used it to heal through the last big burst, you know?
All in all, I will still raid with my guild. I like them, and I said I would. I'll keep with my commitment. They want me to raid with them; it's not like I'm going to turn them down! But I may look into getting into FFXIV again, perhaps more seriously than before.
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
That was amazing
I just got put into Titan normal from roulette, and had an amazing run.
First time we wiped because both DPS got hit by Landslide and then the tank didn't get me out of Gaol.
Second time, a DPS got hit by Landslide very quickly, and then the tank got hit soon after Earthen Fury. Like, literally the first or second Landslide after.
The remaining DPS (Ninja) and I finished Titan off after that. It was amazingly hilarious. I was able to keep him alive as he tanked and killed it, and he was able to get me out of Gaols.
But hey, we did it! And it was great!
First time we wiped because both DPS got hit by Landslide and then the tank didn't get me out of Gaol.
Second time, a DPS got hit by Landslide very quickly, and then the tank got hit soon after Earthen Fury. Like, literally the first or second Landslide after.
The remaining DPS (Ninja) and I finished Titan off after that. It was amazingly hilarious. I was able to keep him alive as he tanked and killed it, and he was able to get me out of Gaols.
But hey, we did it! And it was great!
Tuesday, July 19, 2016
FFXIV: Palace of the Dead Semi-Guide Thing
So, I was able to solo Floors 1-10 with Scholar without too much trouble. Until you get to level 4 it is torturous because you don't have Eos yet, but it's smooth sailing after that. I mean, it gets even easier when you hit level 10 and can use cross-class skills and have access to Cleric's Stance, but that was barely even on my radar at that point.
Time wise, I feel like you should get more time if you're in there solo. I got to the end with 10 minutes remaining, and ended the boss fight with only 2 remaining, so I was cutting it very close.
I was not able to solo floors 10-20 though, because of the stupid Palace Slimes that explode if you can't kill them fast enough, with no warning or prior notice, so you just automatically die and wonder what happened.
Anyway, I then restarted with a matched group. Floors 1-10 were painless. We ended up having three Scholars and a Bard. Let's just say that there was no way any of us could even have gotten below half health, what with three Scholars, all with Eos out.
The first boss has a few AoEs. If I remember correctly, a frontal cone, a circle centered around the boss, a one targeted circle. He also does a roomwide, unavoidable AoE that puts a wind DoT on you.
Floors 10-20...less painless. Still relatively easy, but I don't know...I feel like it looked like I was bad at positioning because I kept accidentally pulling things with my butt, but I honestly think things just kept spawning behind me since that's what happens in Palace of the Dead. We also had awful luck with traps and treasure chests. I think we got our equipment upgraded once; the rest of the time the chests just exploded.
Anyway, our group composition was a Warrior, a Ninja, an Astrologian, and me as Scholar. So, two healers.
At one point, I had once again gotten attacked by a freshly spawned enemy, and was trying to kill it since I think my tank was done with me at that point and ignored it. So, I was off killing that. Apparently, in the meantime, the rest of the group went off and started fighting one of the Palace Slimes, and they clearly didn't kill it fast enough because the next thing I know they're all dead.
I'm not very good at sarcasm, so I felt really bad and I felt like they were making fun of me. They probably weren't. Because I wasn't right with them, I didn't get killed by it, so I was able to resurrect all of them.
The rest of the floors went fine.
The Floor 20 boss is a bit trickier than the first, but only slightly. He has a long column AoE and targeted circle ones. He marks a player (it was always the tank for us) with Prey, and whoever that is will be targeted by two Bee adds that can be killed. He also does an occasional room-wide AoE that does a surprising amount of damage, but too bad if you have healer. I think that was it for this fight. I feel like the boss probably also poisons you, but maybe not. I might be confused with the couple earlier floors where there was poison flying like crazy.
Floors 21-30 are a considerable difficulty raise, primarily due to two new enemies, the Palace Cyclops and the Palace Scatane. The Palace Cyclops does huge amounts of damage, and the Scatane does an AoE Sleep which we couldn't figure out how to avoid.
This time around, my party composition was a Black Mage, an Arcanist, a Machinist, and me as an Astrologian. So, no tank. Luckily, we didn't run into a Cyclops + Scatane combo, which I've heard can happen. The Cyclops does do a huge amount of damage, so I would advise any healers to make sure everyone has as close to full HP as you can manage. I know that I got hit by one of its attacks and I survived with a tiny bit of HP and was able to Essential Dignity myself to life. The Scatanes will Sleep you regardless (maybe it can be Silenced?). I tried to send out an Aspected Helios before the cast went off. It appears taking damage will negate the Sleep. In this case, I theorize that if you were in the situation where pulling both a Scatane and a Cyclops was unavoidable, perhaps you should have a healer pull the Scatane so it wakes them up immediately so they can keep everyone else alive / cleanse? Just a thought. Of course, this would only work if you have a healer.
I haven't really gotten a good look at the boss yet, since we had three DPS so it went down insanely quickly. As far as I can tell, it will target a random player and put a fire or ice puddle under them. The fire ones do damage, the ice ones slow your movement speed drastically. He also does an AoE blast that doesn't do too much damage. Also, and I'm not sure what caused this (perhaps it was the AoE?) he Fears you, which can be quite catastrophic if luck is not with you and you end up running straight into the fire puddles.
Floors 31-40 are...I think they're easier than 21-30 trash-wise, but things can get hairy pretty fast too. Our composition was a Dragoon, a Ninja, and two Astrologians. Most of the trash is straightforward. There's some that have huge cone AoEs from their tails. On the later floors there's Palace Troubadours who do pretty high AoE damage. Also, if you're think you're smart like we did and try to have a Ninja sneak through to pick up chests, be aware that the Palace Zombies and some other mobs can see them and will pull the entire room to them. So, you know, I would only do that if you know for a fact there's a silver chest in there and no zombies.
The boss is fairly difficult, particularly since these floors take a bit longer to clear anyway, leaving you a bit time crunched. He throws out a lot of circle AoEs, but they are easily avoidable. I'm not sure if all of them stick to the ground as puddles, or if I just wasn't paying attention as things got hectic. He also uses "Accursed Pox" which is a much larger AoE circle. I assume standing in this will give you the Pox debuff, which can only be cleared with one of the dungeon-specific items (Pomander of...Purity, I think? Maybe it's not Purity, I don't know), so, you know, don't do that.
He also does a big roomwide AoE which does a little damage, freezes you in place, and then does a TON of damage. We lost our poor Dragoon at this part, but it was easy to get him back up and into the fight. He was our "tank" for the fight. I assume he died because he already had a bit of damage going into the AoE. I would advise having your "tank" healed to full before it begins, as well as anyone who may have damage.
Floors 41-50 have hard-hitting trash. Our group composition was a Warrior, a Dragoon, a White Mage, and me as an Astrologian. These floors were the first time I encountered three of the floor effects: Gloom, which makes all enemies on the floor more powerful, the one that makes you unable to use abilities, and the one that makes you unable to use items (including Pomanders). These effects are all rather obnoxious at best. If you get the one that makes you unable to use abilities, you had better hope you have a Pomander that can clear floor effects, because I'm not sure how the floors are possible without abilities. We got unlucky and got the one that stops items/Pomanders from being used PLUS Gloom, so we couldn't clear Gloom. The trash is hard hitting, but nothing too bad mechanically.
The boss is interesting. I wouldn't say it was entirely difficult, but interesting. The skill names were rather memorable, so I actually have those this time. Please be warned that the skill names may be spoilers for some people, so do not read the detailed version if you don't want to know.
The relatively spoiler free version first:
Not much damage going out. The major things to be aware of are a roomwide AoE with a safe zone beneath the boss's feet, a circular AoE under the boss's feet that you need to run out of, a skill called "Cold Feet" which when you see it casting you need to turn away from the boss, targeted circle AoEs, and an unavoidable roomwide blast. Avoid all the AoEs and turn away for Cold Feet, and the boss shouldn't be too much of an issue.
------SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT-----
Her first ability is Dark Harvest, which just is an attack on her primary target. It doesn't do too much. I'm not sure if it has a secondary effect or something.
Next up, we have In Health. This skill takes two forms. The first is a roomwide AoE with a safe spot underneath the boss. The second is a large circle AoE under her that you need to run out of. The first one she does will be the roomwide one, and the second will be the circle. At this point, she'll usually use them one after the other, so there's a lot of going in-and-out.
Black Honeymoon is a roomwide AoE that can't be avoided, but luckily doesn't do too much damage.
Cold Feet is an important move to be aware of. When you see her start casting, you need to turn away from the boss or you'll be petrified.
At some point she will also spawn some adds which cannot be attacked, but they target the group with circle AoEs which need to be avoided. For us, this was immediately followed by the roomwide In Health.
Not too difficult of a fight as not much damage is going out so long as everyone dodges AoEs.
------------
Overall opinions, after completing all 50 floors plus the "true ending" questline that you can only accept once you've completed all floors + Tam-Tara Hard?
Pretty positive! I liked the difficulty of the content, it was just difficult enough while still being mildly relaxing and not setting off my anxiety. I also quite liked that I was able to slowly ease myself back into healing on my Astrologian. Since running the Vault a few times last time I played, I've been too nervous to pick AST back up and try it again, especially after taking a month-long break, but Palace of the Dead has helped me regain my muscle memory and healing confidence.
In that sense, I feel like Palace of the Dead is could end up becoming a truly useful tool for returning players who want to slowly get a re-handle on their high level characters. Another big benefit that I foresee is trying out new classes that you're not sure if you're going to like yet. I may do this with Ninja or Machinist. I have to go through more in order to get my weapon anyway, so I might as well try some new things besides healing.
I really like the freeform party system, as well, even though I am typically a huge supporter of the trinity setup (I like healing!). I felt like I still had my "role" as healer, but I also had a bit more freedom to DPS more too, and it was rather fun. It was neat to see everyone else being more creative and lenient with their typical roles too. I feel like it actually probably has made me a better healer in trinity content because, well, if I was unconfident stance swapping before I certainly am comfortable now. It also helped me get more comfortable with the concept of my party members dying and it being beyond my control, thanks to the Palace Slimes and Palace Cyclops, explosive traps, etc. I can probably be a bit more stoic and cool-headed healer now rather than the anxious mess I always am. Okay, slightly less anxious.
I think tomorrow I'm going to try the Vault again and face my fear! And if all goes well, I will hopefully continue the MSQ, since I stalled on that out of nervousness.
If all doesn't go well, well, I can always try out more classes in the Palace of the Dead! :D
Also, that last boss fight was seriously so fun for me. I hope they will eventually implement a way to skip ahead to floors you've completed once you've cleared the Palace so I can go and do that one again without having to do the entire thing again, because 21-30 is kind of a pain :|
Time wise, I feel like you should get more time if you're in there solo. I got to the end with 10 minutes remaining, and ended the boss fight with only 2 remaining, so I was cutting it very close.
I was not able to solo floors 10-20 though, because of the stupid Palace Slimes that explode if you can't kill them fast enough, with no warning or prior notice, so you just automatically die and wonder what happened.
Anyway, I then restarted with a matched group. Floors 1-10 were painless. We ended up having three Scholars and a Bard. Let's just say that there was no way any of us could even have gotten below half health, what with three Scholars, all with Eos out.
The first boss has a few AoEs. If I remember correctly, a frontal cone, a circle centered around the boss, a one targeted circle. He also does a roomwide, unavoidable AoE that puts a wind DoT on you.
Floors 10-20...less painless. Still relatively easy, but I don't know...I feel like it looked like I was bad at positioning because I kept accidentally pulling things with my butt, but I honestly think things just kept spawning behind me since that's what happens in Palace of the Dead. We also had awful luck with traps and treasure chests. I think we got our equipment upgraded once; the rest of the time the chests just exploded.
Anyway, our group composition was a Warrior, a Ninja, an Astrologian, and me as Scholar. So, two healers.
At one point, I had once again gotten attacked by a freshly spawned enemy, and was trying to kill it since I think my tank was done with me at that point and ignored it. So, I was off killing that. Apparently, in the meantime, the rest of the group went off and started fighting one of the Palace Slimes, and they clearly didn't kill it fast enough because the next thing I know they're all dead.
I'm not very good at sarcasm, so I felt really bad and I felt like they were making fun of me. They probably weren't. Because I wasn't right with them, I didn't get killed by it, so I was able to resurrect all of them.
The rest of the floors went fine.
The Floor 20 boss is a bit trickier than the first, but only slightly. He has a long column AoE and targeted circle ones. He marks a player (it was always the tank for us) with Prey, and whoever that is will be targeted by two Bee adds that can be killed. He also does an occasional room-wide AoE that does a surprising amount of damage, but too bad if you have healer. I think that was it for this fight. I feel like the boss probably also poisons you, but maybe not. I might be confused with the couple earlier floors where there was poison flying like crazy.
Floors 21-30 are a considerable difficulty raise, primarily due to two new enemies, the Palace Cyclops and the Palace Scatane. The Palace Cyclops does huge amounts of damage, and the Scatane does an AoE Sleep which we couldn't figure out how to avoid.
This time around, my party composition was a Black Mage, an Arcanist, a Machinist, and me as an Astrologian. So, no tank. Luckily, we didn't run into a Cyclops + Scatane combo, which I've heard can happen. The Cyclops does do a huge amount of damage, so I would advise any healers to make sure everyone has as close to full HP as you can manage. I know that I got hit by one of its attacks and I survived with a tiny bit of HP and was able to Essential Dignity myself to life. The Scatanes will Sleep you regardless (maybe it can be Silenced?). I tried to send out an Aspected Helios before the cast went off. It appears taking damage will negate the Sleep. In this case, I theorize that if you were in the situation where pulling both a Scatane and a Cyclops was unavoidable, perhaps you should have a healer pull the Scatane so it wakes them up immediately so they can keep everyone else alive / cleanse? Just a thought. Of course, this would only work if you have a healer.
I haven't really gotten a good look at the boss yet, since we had three DPS so it went down insanely quickly. As far as I can tell, it will target a random player and put a fire or ice puddle under them. The fire ones do damage, the ice ones slow your movement speed drastically. He also does an AoE blast that doesn't do too much damage. Also, and I'm not sure what caused this (perhaps it was the AoE?) he Fears you, which can be quite catastrophic if luck is not with you and you end up running straight into the fire puddles.
Floors 31-40 are...I think they're easier than 21-30 trash-wise, but things can get hairy pretty fast too. Our composition was a Dragoon, a Ninja, and two Astrologians. Most of the trash is straightforward. There's some that have huge cone AoEs from their tails. On the later floors there's Palace Troubadours who do pretty high AoE damage. Also, if you're think you're smart like we did and try to have a Ninja sneak through to pick up chests, be aware that the Palace Zombies and some other mobs can see them and will pull the entire room to them. So, you know, I would only do that if you know for a fact there's a silver chest in there and no zombies.
The boss is fairly difficult, particularly since these floors take a bit longer to clear anyway, leaving you a bit time crunched. He throws out a lot of circle AoEs, but they are easily avoidable. I'm not sure if all of them stick to the ground as puddles, or if I just wasn't paying attention as things got hectic. He also uses "Accursed Pox" which is a much larger AoE circle. I assume standing in this will give you the Pox debuff, which can only be cleared with one of the dungeon-specific items (Pomander of...Purity, I think? Maybe it's not Purity, I don't know), so, you know, don't do that.
He also does a big roomwide AoE which does a little damage, freezes you in place, and then does a TON of damage. We lost our poor Dragoon at this part, but it was easy to get him back up and into the fight. He was our "tank" for the fight. I assume he died because he already had a bit of damage going into the AoE. I would advise having your "tank" healed to full before it begins, as well as anyone who may have damage.
Floors 41-50 have hard-hitting trash. Our group composition was a Warrior, a Dragoon, a White Mage, and me as an Astrologian. These floors were the first time I encountered three of the floor effects: Gloom, which makes all enemies on the floor more powerful, the one that makes you unable to use abilities, and the one that makes you unable to use items (including Pomanders). These effects are all rather obnoxious at best. If you get the one that makes you unable to use abilities, you had better hope you have a Pomander that can clear floor effects, because I'm not sure how the floors are possible without abilities. We got unlucky and got the one that stops items/Pomanders from being used PLUS Gloom, so we couldn't clear Gloom. The trash is hard hitting, but nothing too bad mechanically.
The boss is interesting. I wouldn't say it was entirely difficult, but interesting. The skill names were rather memorable, so I actually have those this time. Please be warned that the skill names may be spoilers for some people, so do not read the detailed version if you don't want to know.
The relatively spoiler free version first:
Not much damage going out. The major things to be aware of are a roomwide AoE with a safe zone beneath the boss's feet, a circular AoE under the boss's feet that you need to run out of, a skill called "Cold Feet" which when you see it casting you need to turn away from the boss, targeted circle AoEs, and an unavoidable roomwide blast. Avoid all the AoEs and turn away for Cold Feet, and the boss shouldn't be too much of an issue.
------SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT-----
Her first ability is Dark Harvest, which just is an attack on her primary target. It doesn't do too much. I'm not sure if it has a secondary effect or something.
Next up, we have In Health. This skill takes two forms. The first is a roomwide AoE with a safe spot underneath the boss. The second is a large circle AoE under her that you need to run out of. The first one she does will be the roomwide one, and the second will be the circle. At this point, she'll usually use them one after the other, so there's a lot of going in-and-out.
Black Honeymoon is a roomwide AoE that can't be avoided, but luckily doesn't do too much damage.
Cold Feet is an important move to be aware of. When you see her start casting, you need to turn away from the boss or you'll be petrified.
At some point she will also spawn some adds which cannot be attacked, but they target the group with circle AoEs which need to be avoided. For us, this was immediately followed by the roomwide In Health.
Not too difficult of a fight as not much damage is going out so long as everyone dodges AoEs.
------------
Overall opinions, after completing all 50 floors plus the "true ending" questline that you can only accept once you've completed all floors + Tam-Tara Hard?
Pretty positive! I liked the difficulty of the content, it was just difficult enough while still being mildly relaxing and not setting off my anxiety. I also quite liked that I was able to slowly ease myself back into healing on my Astrologian. Since running the Vault a few times last time I played, I've been too nervous to pick AST back up and try it again, especially after taking a month-long break, but Palace of the Dead has helped me regain my muscle memory and healing confidence.
In that sense, I feel like Palace of the Dead is could end up becoming a truly useful tool for returning players who want to slowly get a re-handle on their high level characters. Another big benefit that I foresee is trying out new classes that you're not sure if you're going to like yet. I may do this with Ninja or Machinist. I have to go through more in order to get my weapon anyway, so I might as well try some new things besides healing.
I really like the freeform party system, as well, even though I am typically a huge supporter of the trinity setup (I like healing!). I felt like I still had my "role" as healer, but I also had a bit more freedom to DPS more too, and it was rather fun. It was neat to see everyone else being more creative and lenient with their typical roles too. I feel like it actually probably has made me a better healer in trinity content because, well, if I was unconfident stance swapping before I certainly am comfortable now. It also helped me get more comfortable with the concept of my party members dying and it being beyond my control, thanks to the Palace Slimes and Palace Cyclops, explosive traps, etc. I can probably be a bit more stoic and cool-headed healer now rather than the anxious mess I always am. Okay, slightly less anxious.
I think tomorrow I'm going to try the Vault again and face my fear! And if all goes well, I will hopefully continue the MSQ, since I stalled on that out of nervousness.
If all doesn't go well, well, I can always try out more classes in the Palace of the Dead! :D
Also, that last boss fight was seriously so fun for me. I hope they will eventually implement a way to skip ahead to floors you've completed once you've cleared the Palace so I can go and do that one again without having to do the entire thing again, because 21-30 is kind of a pain :|
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Am I doing something wrong? I can't tell.
I was playing my Bard (level 40) in leveling roulette. I got Haukke Manor. Fine, I know that dungeon. I've directed groups through that dungeon before. No problem.
My problem is, and this applies to many other pre-Quelling Strikes dungeons is that I keep getting aggro off the tanks, and it's frustrating.
It's frustrating because I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong or not. I'm doing my rotation, and in these situations I don't use my nice attack boosting CDs (as in, Blood for Blood / Raging Strikes etc.) because I know that if I do any more DPS then I'll take enmity. I slow down my rotation a bit, and I wait a good few seconds for the tank to get aggro.
And still, I usually end up pulling things off of them. I always feel horrible about it.
Today, this happened in every single boss fight too. I sometimes ended up stopping attacking entirely because I was on the absolute verge of getting aggro. Like, the enmity bar was filled, I just didn't have it yet. But then I feel bad stopping my DPS because then I feel like I'm a bad DPS. And I also feel bad not using all my CDs because again, I feel like a bad DPS. I could be doing soooo much more damage!
It's better post-30 or so once I have Quelling Strikes and tanks have better skills and stuff, but it is awful in the early level dungeons.
I hate the concept of cross class skills so much. I hate that on my SMN I can have Quelling Strikes for Sastasha (or, more importantly / relevantly, Haukke Manor when I have access to Bane :3 ), but I don't have it until 34 on my Bard. No way to control your own aggro is a pain.
DPS is certainly not my favorite job, but I hope I'm not as awful as I feel at it. I'm too stressed out to heal, and no one should ever have to be put through me tanking, so DPS it is...
My problem is, and this applies to many other pre-Quelling Strikes dungeons is that I keep getting aggro off the tanks, and it's frustrating.
It's frustrating because I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong or not. I'm doing my rotation, and in these situations I don't use my nice attack boosting CDs (as in, Blood for Blood / Raging Strikes etc.) because I know that if I do any more DPS then I'll take enmity. I slow down my rotation a bit, and I wait a good few seconds for the tank to get aggro.
And still, I usually end up pulling things off of them. I always feel horrible about it.
Today, this happened in every single boss fight too. I sometimes ended up stopping attacking entirely because I was on the absolute verge of getting aggro. Like, the enmity bar was filled, I just didn't have it yet. But then I feel bad stopping my DPS because then I feel like I'm a bad DPS. And I also feel bad not using all my CDs because again, I feel like a bad DPS. I could be doing soooo much more damage!
It's better post-30 or so once I have Quelling Strikes and tanks have better skills and stuff, but it is awful in the early level dungeons.
I hate the concept of cross class skills so much. I hate that on my SMN I can have Quelling Strikes for Sastasha (or, more importantly / relevantly, Haukke Manor when I have access to Bane :3 ), but I don't have it until 34 on my Bard. No way to control your own aggro is a pain.
DPS is certainly not my favorite job, but I hope I'm not as awful as I feel at it. I'm too stressed out to heal, and no one should ever have to be put through me tanking, so DPS it is...
Saturday, June 11, 2016
Ah, Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, how I have not at all missed you.
Trying to level my Bard, and got in here. Fun fun.
Tanks that don't pick up all the mobs are fun.
Today I was that jerk DPS that takes enmity. The tank was ignoring all but one enemy per pull, so I stole enmity off the healer so he wouldn't die. Every pull. Bard tank best tank?
No, seriously, I hate Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak. It never goes well. Never. I have been in Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak many many many times. It never goes well.
While Brayflox is kind of the big jump in difficulty for healers, I think Toto-Rak is the same thing for tanks :|
Trying to level my Bard, and got in here. Fun fun.
Tanks that don't pick up all the mobs are fun.
Today I was that jerk DPS that takes enmity. The tank was ignoring all but one enemy per pull, so I stole enmity off the healer so he wouldn't die. Every pull. Bard tank best tank?
No, seriously, I hate Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak. It never goes well. Never. I have been in Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak many many many times. It never goes well.
While Brayflox is kind of the big jump in difficulty for healers, I think Toto-Rak is the same thing for tanks :|
Is The Vault always this bad for healers?
The Vault is torturous to me. I got it this morning as my leveling roulette (I really wish there was a separate roulette for Heavensward dungeons, because I like to queue into leveling roulette to help newbies...).
Oh my goodness is it awful. I can't tell if I'm just not a good healer, or if I'm not getting good groups, or if it's bad luck, or maybe Astrologians are bad in the dungeon? I don't know: all I know is that something always goes horribly wrong every single time I do this one.
Take this morning's run, for example.
Ser Adelphel:
1st Wipe: I get boxed in by the exploding bubbles + I have the ground AoE under me. I die, everyone dies.
2nd Wipe: We were doing absolutely wonderfully, and then the tank gets disconnected.
3rd time, we cleared it.
Ser Grinnaux:
No wipes, but a couple deaths and overall trouble. I remember when I went in here the first time I thought this fight was very easy and rather inconsequential. Not this time. I think it was a combination of not-high-enough DPS and unfortunate tank positioning. We ended up having barely any safe areas left from portals, and the boss was kind of positioned at a weird angle, so personally, I always got knocked back in a direction I wasn't expecting, typically straight into a portal. I think I ended up with like 5 stacks of the debuff by the end? While the first time I did this fight I had none by the end. Lost a DPS twice I think to a similar issue.
Ser Charibert:
1 wipe. Absolutely my fault. My computer decided it wanted to open the chat box instead of move, so I ended up getting hit by a triple combination of the ground AoE, horses, and the chain thing.
Beat it the second time, barely.
First time I did the dungeon we wiped on Ser Charibert about 3 times I think.
As a more positive, I witnessed a miracle yesterday in The Aery. Last night I was doing roulette trying to get to level 57, and I was put in as a fill-in healer for a friendly group in The Aery. They were on Nidhogg, with 18 minutes or so remaining. We wiped a couple times. Mostly due to Sable Price.
Last try, very few minutes remaining. The two DPS die to something or other. I get caught in Sable Price. Only the tank remaining. Tank is on a tiny sliver of HP. I warp back to the start because I knew the tank was about to die. And, nope! Somehow, SOMEHOW the tank managed to kill Nidhogg with only a sliver of HP left. It was a miracle.
As a side note, the more I go into dungeons with Bards, the more I want to play a Bard. Their animations are so nice :x
Oh my goodness is it awful. I can't tell if I'm just not a good healer, or if I'm not getting good groups, or if it's bad luck, or maybe Astrologians are bad in the dungeon? I don't know: all I know is that something always goes horribly wrong every single time I do this one.
Take this morning's run, for example.
Ser Adelphel:
1st Wipe: I get boxed in by the exploding bubbles + I have the ground AoE under me. I die, everyone dies.
2nd Wipe: We were doing absolutely wonderfully, and then the tank gets disconnected.
3rd time, we cleared it.
Ser Grinnaux:
No wipes, but a couple deaths and overall trouble. I remember when I went in here the first time I thought this fight was very easy and rather inconsequential. Not this time. I think it was a combination of not-high-enough DPS and unfortunate tank positioning. We ended up having barely any safe areas left from portals, and the boss was kind of positioned at a weird angle, so personally, I always got knocked back in a direction I wasn't expecting, typically straight into a portal. I think I ended up with like 5 stacks of the debuff by the end? While the first time I did this fight I had none by the end. Lost a DPS twice I think to a similar issue.
Ser Charibert:
1 wipe. Absolutely my fault. My computer decided it wanted to open the chat box instead of move, so I ended up getting hit by a triple combination of the ground AoE, horses, and the chain thing.
Beat it the second time, barely.
First time I did the dungeon we wiped on Ser Charibert about 3 times I think.
As a more positive, I witnessed a miracle yesterday in The Aery. Last night I was doing roulette trying to get to level 57, and I was put in as a fill-in healer for a friendly group in The Aery. They were on Nidhogg, with 18 minutes or so remaining. We wiped a couple times. Mostly due to Sable Price.
Last try, very few minutes remaining. The two DPS die to something or other. I get caught in Sable Price. Only the tank remaining. Tank is on a tiny sliver of HP. I warp back to the start because I knew the tank was about to die. And, nope! Somehow, SOMEHOW the tank managed to kill Nidhogg with only a sliver of HP left. It was a miracle.
As a side note, the more I go into dungeons with Bards, the more I want to play a Bard. Their animations are so nice :x
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
I love my FFXIV character so much
I can't help it but take screenshots of her all the time! I think she came out so well! I just wish she looked okay in other hairstyles besides this one, because currently she looks pretty awful in any other ones.
~Yomi Tosho from Adamantoise Server~
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
I just left a dungeon for the first time in my life
I don't want to call it a "ragequit" because I didn't yell at anyone or anything. I just knew that I could. not. do that. And so left before the inevitable yelling began.
That was awful. Absolutely, completely, and totally awful.
I had just a sliver of exp remaining before I would be level 53, so I decided to do another random leveling roulette. I had just done three today, and they'd all gone smoothly, and I am confident in my healing abilities.
The roulette places me in Brayflox normal. Tank asks if anyone is new. We have one newbie DPS. Alright, totally fine. I could run Brayflox in my sleep at this point. Nocturnal Stance. Protection. Get my food exp buff.
First pull goes very rough. Tank takes a LOT of damage very quickly, but I get him back up. No problem. Rough start, but very rarely does this dungeon go bad until the end. Next pull, same thing, except this time the tank doesn't hold aggro so great.
We get to the first boss. At this point I am skeptical about this tank. Enter combat. The tank pull the boss, but doesn't bother to aggro the little ones. I wait until his HP gets down to a fairly dangerous level before healing him, in hopes that he'd pick up the adds in the meantime. Nope. All the adds go after me. Adds switch between me and the DPS, the tank uses seemingly no cooldowns, and barely even their enmity combo because they're taking immense amounts of damage and the boss starts chasing me. Luminiferous Aether in a vain attempt at getting these monsters off of me. First DPS goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend and they're. Conveniently in time for Swiftcast to be available again, the tank goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend, all set. I'm still tanking the boss. Running low on MP and the boss still has half a health bar. BLM is trying to help me heal. I feel like I'm grabbing too much enmity from my healing, but I also know that if I stop spamming Bene / Bene II then we're all dead. I run out of MP and die. Group wipes.
Experienced DPS attempts to dissect what happened, and starts talking to the tank about aggro management. Turns out this Dark Knight is a brand-new tank. Never tanked before, let alone on Dark Knight, and something possessed them to enter Brayflox as their first dungeon. Tank doesn't wait around for the DPS to explain how to tank, and rushes into the boss again.
Again, I try to wait until his HP is low for him to pick up adds, but no luck. I'm too slow on healing this time (do I have to mention again that the tank was using zero cooldowns?) and he goes down immediately. Boss goes for the experienced DPS while I'm raising the tank, and the DPS goes down. Don't have Swiftcast up, and now the boss is after me, so I don't have time to long-cast Ascend. The DPS warps back to the entrance, so they're out of the fight completely, and cheering us on from the outside.
Same thing as the first attempt happened. I ended up tanking everything, the tank didn't use Unleash at all. I still feel bad about spamming Bene II but again, it's the only possible way for us to stay alive at this point. Strategic uses of Luminiferous Aether to try to keep my MP up. A lucky Ewer gets my MP up more. Tank finally gets a hold of the boss and things are looking up, except that I still have three waves of adds still after me that the tank isn't even bothering with, so I die.
I warp back to the entrance and immediately leave the group. No, I am not staying in that group. That is my limit. I am not one to leave a group when things are going badly. I always stick it out until the end, no matter how bad the group is. I pride myself on being patient and helpful and generally a good healer. Not this time though. No no no no no no!
The tank seemingly had no idea that he was doing anything wrong, nor did he seem to have any inclination to attempt to do the fight differently, and I am not going to bash my head against the wall over and over for the same result. I also don't want to be yelled at for something that was not my fault, and my intuition tells me that was coming. I'll happily take the 30 minute penalty over staying in that situation.
Also, why on earth would a brand new Dark Knight that has never ever tanked before, start with Brayflox? If you have DRK unlocked at all, then that means you've done Brayflox before, so surely you know it is a spike in difficulty? Why why why would you not start with a lower level dungeon to learn how to tank first? And why not pick up Provoke first? I mean, not knowing how to AoE or use defensive CDs in Brayflox is kind of inexcusable.
I feel really, really awful about leaving. I really do. I feel sick to my stomach because I feel bad about it. I never want to seem like the healer that leaves as soon as something isn't going well, but I don't know. I think that situation was awful. All those times I've complained about Toto-Rak have nothing on this. Healing Titan Hard was easier than this. Healing Garuda normal for the first time on my original character was waaay easier than this. I'll have to do Ravana hard at some point tomorrow, and I know it'll be easier than this Brayflox attempt was.
I'm sad now :(
That was awful. Absolutely, completely, and totally awful.
I had just a sliver of exp remaining before I would be level 53, so I decided to do another random leveling roulette. I had just done three today, and they'd all gone smoothly, and I am confident in my healing abilities.
The roulette places me in Brayflox normal. Tank asks if anyone is new. We have one newbie DPS. Alright, totally fine. I could run Brayflox in my sleep at this point. Nocturnal Stance. Protection. Get my food exp buff.
First pull goes very rough. Tank takes a LOT of damage very quickly, but I get him back up. No problem. Rough start, but very rarely does this dungeon go bad until the end. Next pull, same thing, except this time the tank doesn't hold aggro so great.
We get to the first boss. At this point I am skeptical about this tank. Enter combat. The tank pull the boss, but doesn't bother to aggro the little ones. I wait until his HP gets down to a fairly dangerous level before healing him, in hopes that he'd pick up the adds in the meantime. Nope. All the adds go after me. Adds switch between me and the DPS, the tank uses seemingly no cooldowns, and barely even their enmity combo because they're taking immense amounts of damage and the boss starts chasing me. Luminiferous Aether in a vain attempt at getting these monsters off of me. First DPS goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend and they're. Conveniently in time for Swiftcast to be available again, the tank goes down. Swiftcast + Ascend, all set. I'm still tanking the boss. Running low on MP and the boss still has half a health bar. BLM is trying to help me heal. I feel like I'm grabbing too much enmity from my healing, but I also know that if I stop spamming Bene / Bene II then we're all dead. I run out of MP and die. Group wipes.
Experienced DPS attempts to dissect what happened, and starts talking to the tank about aggro management. Turns out this Dark Knight is a brand-new tank. Never tanked before, let alone on Dark Knight, and something possessed them to enter Brayflox as their first dungeon. Tank doesn't wait around for the DPS to explain how to tank, and rushes into the boss again.
Again, I try to wait until his HP is low for him to pick up adds, but no luck. I'm too slow on healing this time (do I have to mention again that the tank was using zero cooldowns?) and he goes down immediately. Boss goes for the experienced DPS while I'm raising the tank, and the DPS goes down. Don't have Swiftcast up, and now the boss is after me, so I don't have time to long-cast Ascend. The DPS warps back to the entrance, so they're out of the fight completely, and cheering us on from the outside.
Same thing as the first attempt happened. I ended up tanking everything, the tank didn't use Unleash at all. I still feel bad about spamming Bene II but again, it's the only possible way for us to stay alive at this point. Strategic uses of Luminiferous Aether to try to keep my MP up. A lucky Ewer gets my MP up more. Tank finally gets a hold of the boss and things are looking up, except that I still have three waves of adds still after me that the tank isn't even bothering with, so I die.
I warp back to the entrance and immediately leave the group. No, I am not staying in that group. That is my limit. I am not one to leave a group when things are going badly. I always stick it out until the end, no matter how bad the group is. I pride myself on being patient and helpful and generally a good healer. Not this time though. No no no no no no!
The tank seemingly had no idea that he was doing anything wrong, nor did he seem to have any inclination to attempt to do the fight differently, and I am not going to bash my head against the wall over and over for the same result. I also don't want to be yelled at for something that was not my fault, and my intuition tells me that was coming. I'll happily take the 30 minute penalty over staying in that situation.
Also, why on earth would a brand new Dark Knight that has never ever tanked before, start with Brayflox? If you have DRK unlocked at all, then that means you've done Brayflox before, so surely you know it is a spike in difficulty? Why why why would you not start with a lower level dungeon to learn how to tank first? And why not pick up Provoke first? I mean, not knowing how to AoE or use defensive CDs in Brayflox is kind of inexcusable.
I feel really, really awful about leaving. I really do. I feel sick to my stomach because I feel bad about it. I never want to seem like the healer that leaves as soon as something isn't going well, but I don't know. I think that situation was awful. All those times I've complained about Toto-Rak have nothing on this. Healing Titan Hard was easier than this. Healing Garuda normal for the first time on my original character was waaay easier than this. I'll have to do Ravana hard at some point tomorrow, and I know it'll be easier than this Brayflox attempt was.
I'm sad now :(
Monday, March 28, 2016
Success
I've successfully just completed Dusk Vigil, meaning that I have just completed my first Heavensward dungeon! Yay!
I also got my Astrologian to 50 yesterday, so I'm using AST for Heavensward!
I feel like my healing was really low in Dusk Vigil, and I don't know why. I don't think I was doing anything wrong, really; it's just that normal Benefic was doing practically nothing, Benefic II was doing barely any better, Essential Dignity wasn't being too effective either. I was in Diurnal for the regens too. Most of my equips are Ironworks with the exception of accessories and my gloves, which are from the patch MSQ quests.
Ultimately, no one died but me though. I died on the first boss when it focused on me for its attack things that it does, and while I was paralyzed from the attack it then hit me with an extra AoE. I would have been fine otherwise! Luckily, we had a SMN in the party who got me up quickly.
Everything else went flawlessly, despite my low healing and bad luck with cards :)
I also got my Astrologian to 50 yesterday, so I'm using AST for Heavensward!
I feel like my healing was really low in Dusk Vigil, and I don't know why. I don't think I was doing anything wrong, really; it's just that normal Benefic was doing practically nothing, Benefic II was doing barely any better, Essential Dignity wasn't being too effective either. I was in Diurnal for the regens too. Most of my equips are Ironworks with the exception of accessories and my gloves, which are from the patch MSQ quests.
Ultimately, no one died but me though. I died on the first boss when it focused on me for its attack things that it does, and while I was paralyzed from the attack it then hit me with an extra AoE. I would have been fine otherwise! Luckily, we had a SMN in the party who got me up quickly.
Everything else went flawlessly, despite my low healing and bad luck with cards :)
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Well, that's a new one.
Ah, Maws of Toto-Rak, you never cease to disappoint me.
Today I got a tank who, to be fair, did not walk face-first into the Fleshy Pods. No, no. Instead, he would try to use his ranged attack to kill them, but he stood too close to them and got poisoned anyway. This is understandable once or twice while you figure out what's going on, but not a bunch of times.
I also ran into a couple tanks today who appear to subscribe to the idea of "you get enmity, you tank it."
Even when the person that grabs enmity is the healer, and they grab enmity from an enemy that you didn't bother to try and tank and instead just assumed that the healer wouldn't grab enmity on even though you pulled it and aren't tanking it, and the healer is just trying to keep you alive. Sorry for the run-on sentence there.
I hate, hate, hate healing the tank when they haven't grabbed enmity on enemies. Like, when the enemy names show up as orange on my screen rather than whatever-color-they-usually are (but I know orange means I'll pull it if I heal!). I try to hold off healing for as long as I can, but when the tank, say, has two stacks of poison from running into Fleshy Pods and is losing health fast, sometimes you need to throw out a heal. And then, if I do get enmity, I pop Luminiferous Aether if available, and run to the tank. Who then proceeds to ignore me. Which leads me to end up having to heal myself to stay alive. Which then solidifies my enmity.
I've even had tanks then continue to ignore the enemy attacking me after they kill the ones they were working on, and just go on to the next set of mobs while I'm still dying.
Fun.
If I were a more bold and assertive person I would have stopped healing myself and just let myself die to make a point. I'm too afraid of being yelled at to do that though ^^;
I do not like The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, in case that isn't clear by now.
That said, it is significantly less painful as an Astrologian, purely because of Luminiferous Aether, and also Lightspeed for the second boss fight (insta-cleanse Slow off of self!). No fun on Scholar because no Leeches, and no fun on White Mage because that second boss is rough because of Slow.
Oh, and I changed back to Au Ra. Remind me never to try and recustomize my character ever again.
Today I got a tank who, to be fair, did not walk face-first into the Fleshy Pods. No, no. Instead, he would try to use his ranged attack to kill them, but he stood too close to them and got poisoned anyway. This is understandable once or twice while you figure out what's going on, but not a bunch of times.
I also ran into a couple tanks today who appear to subscribe to the idea of "you get enmity, you tank it."
Even when the person that grabs enmity is the healer, and they grab enmity from an enemy that you didn't bother to try and tank and instead just assumed that the healer wouldn't grab enmity on even though you pulled it and aren't tanking it, and the healer is just trying to keep you alive. Sorry for the run-on sentence there.
I hate, hate, hate healing the tank when they haven't grabbed enmity on enemies. Like, when the enemy names show up as orange on my screen rather than whatever-color-they-usually are (but I know orange means I'll pull it if I heal!). I try to hold off healing for as long as I can, but when the tank, say, has two stacks of poison from running into Fleshy Pods and is losing health fast, sometimes you need to throw out a heal. And then, if I do get enmity, I pop Luminiferous Aether if available, and run to the tank. Who then proceeds to ignore me. Which leads me to end up having to heal myself to stay alive. Which then solidifies my enmity.
I've even had tanks then continue to ignore the enemy attacking me after they kill the ones they were working on, and just go on to the next set of mobs while I'm still dying.
Fun.
If I were a more bold and assertive person I would have stopped healing myself and just let myself die to make a point. I'm too afraid of being yelled at to do that though ^^;
I do not like The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, in case that isn't clear by now.
That said, it is significantly less painful as an Astrologian, purely because of Luminiferous Aether, and also Lightspeed for the second boss fight (insta-cleanse Slow off of self!). No fun on Scholar because no Leeches, and no fun on White Mage because that second boss is rough because of Slow.
Oh, and I changed back to Au Ra. Remind me never to try and recustomize my character ever again.
Monday, March 14, 2016
I'm going to be so surprised in the morning.
50% certain that when I wake up I'm not going to remember that I just Fantasia'd Yomi into an Elezen.
That'll surprise me in the morning.
To be fair though, Elezen-Yomi is gorgeous. Unlike Dragon-Yomi who only looked good with a few hairstyles, Elezen-Yomi looks good in the majority of hair styles. I'll post a picture tomorrow of the comparison.
I was inspired by some lovely glamours I saw where the glamour-ers were female Elezen, and they were gorgeous. And, also I was really sick of Yomi's horns clipping through her gear. I'm sure my new Elezen ears will also clip through gear, but maybe it'll be lessened since they're more to the side rather than forward.
EDIT: Surprised, no. Really quite sad and disappointed, yes.
I miss my Au Ra :(
Not that my Elezen doesn't look great but...she's just...not Yomi.
That'll surprise me in the morning.
To be fair though, Elezen-Yomi is gorgeous. Unlike Dragon-Yomi who only looked good with a few hairstyles, Elezen-Yomi looks good in the majority of hair styles. I'll post a picture tomorrow of the comparison.
I was inspired by some lovely glamours I saw where the glamour-ers were female Elezen, and they were gorgeous. And, also I was really sick of Yomi's horns clipping through her gear. I'm sure my new Elezen ears will also clip through gear, but maybe it'll be lessened since they're more to the side rather than forward.
EDIT: Surprised, no. Really quite sad and disappointed, yes.
I miss my Au Ra :(
Not that my Elezen doesn't look great but...she's just...not Yomi.
Friday, March 11, 2016
Yes!
Officially in Heavensward content!
Or, I will be as soon as I'm done writing this and actually go accept the first Heavensward quest.
Keeper of Lake went fine. We wiped once on the second boss due to everything going wrong with the fire puddles, and also one of our DPS got disconnected, but we cleared it easily after they came back and we figured out better fire puddle positioning.
The Chrysalis went well as well. Again, we wiped once, and it was in the meteor phase, which was perfectly reasonable, honestly. We lost a lot of DPS during the second ball phase, and one of the tanks told the healers to LB and resurrect the DPS because we were just about to enter the meteor phase, and they said that they had been in a group that has cleared the meteors without DPS LB. Well, we got the DPS up (although one died shortly after in meteors), and we were soooo close to finishing the meteor phase. SO close that I honestly thought we had cleared it when we wiped. But no, we wiped. Second time went so easy that it was kind of anti-climactic, honestly. OH, and so exciting: my healing partner was an Astrologian who was in Diurnal Stance! First time I've seen that, and honestly, that's probably part of why we did so wonderfully! Yay for synergy!
I was so proud of myself in Chrysalis though. I felt like I did well as a Scholar in this one. Whenever we got Triple Spark I would Adlo the main tank + Virus Nabriales or Eye for an Eye the tank if Virus was on CD. And when he would do his explosion after the ball phase I would Succor + Sacred Soil (yay!).
Steps of Faith went pretty flawlessly. I was assigned main healer (thank goodness! I was so worried I'd have to do the Dragonslayer part, and I was so nervous about the idea of having that much responsibility!), and basically spammed Adlo on the tank and/or Succor whenever everyone was taking damage. Whoever was on the Dragonslayer missed with it like, twice, and I think we got the counterattack from it on the last one because we very nearly wiped. I say very nearly, but we did actually all die. It's just that, our deaths were staggered. I was in the first group to die, which consisted of me and half the DPS. By the time we had run back to the boss, the other healer and a tank had died. By the time the second tank died, the original tank had made it back, etc. Weird. We won in one try though.
And now I just got done watching allll the cutscenes, and I'm in Heavensward!
Astrologian here I come!
I might also try Dark Knight. Not sure yet. I stockpiled some tanking accessories from the MSQ and I also have a full set of Monk/Ninja gear (also from MSQ) for if I ever want to play that. Neat.
Or, I will be as soon as I'm done writing this and actually go accept the first Heavensward quest.
Keeper of Lake went fine. We wiped once on the second boss due to everything going wrong with the fire puddles, and also one of our DPS got disconnected, but we cleared it easily after they came back and we figured out better fire puddle positioning.
The Chrysalis went well as well. Again, we wiped once, and it was in the meteor phase, which was perfectly reasonable, honestly. We lost a lot of DPS during the second ball phase, and one of the tanks told the healers to LB and resurrect the DPS because we were just about to enter the meteor phase, and they said that they had been in a group that has cleared the meteors without DPS LB. Well, we got the DPS up (although one died shortly after in meteors), and we were soooo close to finishing the meteor phase. SO close that I honestly thought we had cleared it when we wiped. But no, we wiped. Second time went so easy that it was kind of anti-climactic, honestly. OH, and so exciting: my healing partner was an Astrologian who was in Diurnal Stance! First time I've seen that, and honestly, that's probably part of why we did so wonderfully! Yay for synergy!
I was so proud of myself in Chrysalis though. I felt like I did well as a Scholar in this one. Whenever we got Triple Spark I would Adlo the main tank + Virus Nabriales or Eye for an Eye the tank if Virus was on CD. And when he would do his explosion after the ball phase I would Succor + Sacred Soil (yay!).
Steps of Faith went pretty flawlessly. I was assigned main healer (thank goodness! I was so worried I'd have to do the Dragonslayer part, and I was so nervous about the idea of having that much responsibility!), and basically spammed Adlo on the tank and/or Succor whenever everyone was taking damage. Whoever was on the Dragonslayer missed with it like, twice, and I think we got the counterattack from it on the last one because we very nearly wiped. I say very nearly, but we did actually all die. It's just that, our deaths were staggered. I was in the first group to die, which consisted of me and half the DPS. By the time we had run back to the boss, the other healer and a tank had died. By the time the second tank died, the original tank had made it back, etc. Weird. We won in one try though.
And now I just got done watching allll the cutscenes, and I'm in Heavensward!
Astrologian here I come!
I might also try Dark Knight. Not sure yet. I stockpiled some tanking accessories from the MSQ and I also have a full set of Monk/Ninja gear (also from MSQ) for if I ever want to play that. Neat.
Big sigh of relief!
Making very fast progress on the MSQ if I do say so myself. I'm on Before the Fall - Part 1 quests now (just starting them).
Last night was interesting, doing the Dreams of Ice patch quests. Primarily because I ended up being on the same quest as another player, and we ended up grouping up. I then did Snowcloak and Shiva with their guild. I stayed up way later than I liked to doing Shiva with them, but it all worked out in the end, so it was fine!
And then I went to bed dreading today because I knew what the next encounters on my list were. I think I had nightmares about hard mode Primals.
Did them bright and early this morning. Ifrit was wicked easy. Trivial, in fact. The group DPS was so high that he only did one rush and we never got even the second plume pattern.
Garuda, also easy. I would dare say easier than normal mode. We skipped the last phase entirely, I think. We just kind of ignored the adds since she was already basically down at that point. Mostly solo-healed that one as well because the other healer forgot they were in Cleric Stance and was healing with it on.
Titan...was not as bad as anticipated. There were two deaths, but they were both the same person because they didn't dodge the bombs at all. I had a few very close encounters because I kept getting hit by the plumes even though I wasn't standing in them. Don't know what was up with that. I don't think it was lag because then I would have had problems with Landslide, and the game didn't feel laggy except for the plumes hitting me strangely. Oh, and the other healer was an Astrologian in Nocturnal Sect again. I have yet to see an Astrologian in Diurnal Sect. Ended up being fine this time because we had practically 100% upkeep on shields without draining either of our MP because we just kind of switched off.
Keeper of the Lake will probably be a breath of fresh air, oddly enough, and then on to...Chrysalis. The encounter I said I never, ever wanted to do ever again. But, then again, I kind of thought the same thing about Titan Hard, and that really wasn't that bad. Oh, I hope Chrysalis doesn't go horribly on me.
Honestly, I can't tell if things are easier this time around for me because players as a whole are better geared than they were last time I did these, if I'm just getting wicked lucky with groups, or if I'm a better Scholar than I am a White Mage. Probably a combination of the three, honestly. Except maybe the last one. I don't think I'm a great Scholar. I don't like stance dancing and I always forget about Eos. But I am good at shielding! And placing Sacred Soil! I love Sacred Soil. It's my favorite Scholar ability and I wish I got to use it more often, but it often feels like a waste when it takes Aetherflow stacks that could probably better be used for Lustrate. Lustrate is great, but it's so boring. And even though I do forget about Eos, if there is a ton of damage happening, I often Rouse + Whispering Dawn without really thinking about it.
Last night was interesting, doing the Dreams of Ice patch quests. Primarily because I ended up being on the same quest as another player, and we ended up grouping up. I then did Snowcloak and Shiva with their guild. I stayed up way later than I liked to doing Shiva with them, but it all worked out in the end, so it was fine!
And then I went to bed dreading today because I knew what the next encounters on my list were. I think I had nightmares about hard mode Primals.
Did them bright and early this morning. Ifrit was wicked easy. Trivial, in fact. The group DPS was so high that he only did one rush and we never got even the second plume pattern.
Garuda, also easy. I would dare say easier than normal mode. We skipped the last phase entirely, I think. We just kind of ignored the adds since she was already basically down at that point. Mostly solo-healed that one as well because the other healer forgot they were in Cleric Stance and was healing with it on.
Titan...was not as bad as anticipated. There were two deaths, but they were both the same person because they didn't dodge the bombs at all. I had a few very close encounters because I kept getting hit by the plumes even though I wasn't standing in them. Don't know what was up with that. I don't think it was lag because then I would have had problems with Landslide, and the game didn't feel laggy except for the plumes hitting me strangely. Oh, and the other healer was an Astrologian in Nocturnal Sect again. I have yet to see an Astrologian in Diurnal Sect. Ended up being fine this time because we had practically 100% upkeep on shields without draining either of our MP because we just kind of switched off.
Keeper of the Lake will probably be a breath of fresh air, oddly enough, and then on to...Chrysalis. The encounter I said I never, ever wanted to do ever again. But, then again, I kind of thought the same thing about Titan Hard, and that really wasn't that bad. Oh, I hope Chrysalis doesn't go horribly on me.
Honestly, I can't tell if things are easier this time around for me because players as a whole are better geared than they were last time I did these, if I'm just getting wicked lucky with groups, or if I'm a better Scholar than I am a White Mage. Probably a combination of the three, honestly. Except maybe the last one. I don't think I'm a great Scholar. I don't like stance dancing and I always forget about Eos. But I am good at shielding! And placing Sacred Soil! I love Sacred Soil. It's my favorite Scholar ability and I wish I got to use it more often, but it often feels like a waste when it takes Aetherflow stacks that could probably better be used for Lustrate. Lustrate is great, but it's so boring. And even though I do forget about Eos, if there is a ton of damage happening, I often Rouse + Whispering Dawn without really thinking about it.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Why?
I hit level 50 on my Scholar last night, and I'm working my way, with decent speed, through the MSQ to get to Heavensward.
Anyway, for every 8-man thing I've done thus far, I've been paired with an Astrologian. And every single one of these Astrologians has been in Nocturnal Sect?
Am I missing something here?
Nocturnal Sect adds barriers to Aspected Benefic/Helios, but those shields do not work with Scholar Galvanize.
Diurnal Sect adds Regen to Aspected Benefic/Helios and also increases attack speed.
Are the Astrologians I've been with just trying to get that extra +5% healing potency out of Nocturnal Sect, or what? Is it because they're a higher level than me? Because, I don't know, I don't really feel like I'm very useful as a Scholar if I don't have to throw out shields. Every single one has also overwritten my Protect at the beginning of the fight, and overwrites my Galvanize whenever I use Succor. The only thing they don't always overwrite is Adlo on the tank. And then they don't really ever seem to contribute to the actual healing at all, leaving me to do it with my otherwise quite-lack-luster Scholar heals.
Example is Good King Moggle Mog earlier. We wiped three times. The other healer wasn't really healing much, aside from using Aspected Helios. I was trying in vain to keep everyone up. Adlo on the tank whenever it was needed, Lustrate whenever it was available and needed. I think I used Sacred Soil once. Rouse + Whispering Dawn whenever it was needed/available. Physick practically constantly. Didn't have time to do Cleric's Stance because the other healer wasn't healing aside from overwriting my Succor.
I mean, it just seems to me like Diurnal Stance would have been the better choice there. I don't have much in term of AoE healing. I can heal the tank just fine, but if they're handling the shielding, then I don't really have anything I can do for AoE except when Rouse + Whispering Dawn is ready to go. It's not like I'm going to overwrite with Succor because that seems like a waste of MP then, and even then, that doesn't really actually *heal* for much. I would have liked if the AST had been doing the AoE healing, since they're actually capable of it.
I really want to know though. Is there any reason why an AST would be using Nocturnal Stance with a Scholar (albeit a new one) in the party?
Anyway, for every 8-man thing I've done thus far, I've been paired with an Astrologian. And every single one of these Astrologians has been in Nocturnal Sect?
Am I missing something here?
Nocturnal Sect adds barriers to Aspected Benefic/Helios, but those shields do not work with Scholar Galvanize.
Diurnal Sect adds Regen to Aspected Benefic/Helios and also increases attack speed.
Are the Astrologians I've been with just trying to get that extra +5% healing potency out of Nocturnal Sect, or what? Is it because they're a higher level than me? Because, I don't know, I don't really feel like I'm very useful as a Scholar if I don't have to throw out shields. Every single one has also overwritten my Protect at the beginning of the fight, and overwrites my Galvanize whenever I use Succor. The only thing they don't always overwrite is Adlo on the tank. And then they don't really ever seem to contribute to the actual healing at all, leaving me to do it with my otherwise quite-lack-luster Scholar heals.
Example is Good King Moggle Mog earlier. We wiped three times. The other healer wasn't really healing much, aside from using Aspected Helios. I was trying in vain to keep everyone up. Adlo on the tank whenever it was needed, Lustrate whenever it was available and needed. I think I used Sacred Soil once. Rouse + Whispering Dawn whenever it was needed/available. Physick practically constantly. Didn't have time to do Cleric's Stance because the other healer wasn't healing aside from overwriting my Succor.
I mean, it just seems to me like Diurnal Stance would have been the better choice there. I don't have much in term of AoE healing. I can heal the tank just fine, but if they're handling the shielding, then I don't really have anything I can do for AoE except when Rouse + Whispering Dawn is ready to go. It's not like I'm going to overwrite with Succor because that seems like a waste of MP then, and even then, that doesn't really actually *heal* for much. I would have liked if the AST had been doing the AoE healing, since they're actually capable of it.
I really want to know though. Is there any reason why an AST would be using Nocturnal Stance with a Scholar (albeit a new one) in the party?
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