Still making good progress!

Did my weekly Deltascape today! Still going well!
Actually ended up solo healing V 3.0 because the other healer kept dying to mechanics continuously to the point where it was a loss to keep reviving them, and easier to just keep going by myself. Got comms and was recognized in the chat as well, which was nice.

All in all, I'm doing well in gearing too! Got the belt, boots, and legs done today! Only missing the body and weapon! All accessories are done with Deltascape + one ring with last week's Creation tomes. Everything else is Deltascape except the body and weapon which are still Verity.
I'm planning to save up my Creation this week and next week to get the Creation body since that'll only be two weeks, while if I wanted to get the Deltascape top it would take me three weeks due to poor planning. Plus, Creation is better anyway. And then it's just time to play the waiting game to get all the Creation gear.

I'm very proud of my glamour right now though. I was having difficulties seeing myself in some fights, and I have successfully solved that issue. I can see myself perfectly now!

Because I am now shiny and glowy! And also the clothes are all white, which also helps me stand out against the background a bit. Much easier to see myself now!
Also, it just looks nice.

Weapon - Antiquated Aymur (White Mage AF3)
Hat - Kudzu Hat of Healing
Body - Augmented Cashmere Robe of Healing
Gloves - Thavnairian Gloves
Legs - Housemaid's Bloomers
Boots - High House Halfboots
(All dyed with Snow White dye)

I like how the body, hat, and weapon all have purple on them too. I think it makes it more coherent. I like it! :)

What have I been up to?

Playing FFXIV: Stormblood, of course!

I believe I posted before talking about how I had managed to get past the Raubahn blockade late on the first day of early access, but I'm not sure if I've posted about what happened after that.

After that, I got stuck at the Pipin blockade, but got through that early the next day. From there, it was smooth sailing. Leveled quickly. I was the first level 70 in my FC. By the time I was 68, the first few other people from my FC were getting through Raubahn. I had just hit 70 and was on my way to do my last job quest when the FC called me in to give them my speedy healer queue for Susano.

From there, I did EX roulettes over and over for Verity, and fairly quickly got a full set of Verity gear. Didn't touch the EX Primals because I was scared.

Omega Deltascape normal came out. I cleared it early on day 1. I've done it the past two weeks too. I have my hat, gloves, and my full right side gear is done. My guild finally talked me into doing Lakshmi EX, but I'm not really going to bother to farm it.
Capped my Creation tomes today; bought the ring, so now my right side gear is really and truly as high as I can get it for the moment.
I should probably consider farming Susano EX for the weapon, but I don't want to really. An FC buddy said he'd go along with me for my first time in there, but our schedules haven't lined up, so I'm kind of just waiting Which I don't mind. EX Primals stress me out, so I'm not in a big rush to do Susano.


I'm feeling good about my healing though. I feel like my old healing anxiety has mostly passed. It's probably mostly because right before the expansion I was doing a ton of roulettes trying to get WHM to 60 / finally work on getting better gear, and I kept getting Chrysalis and Titan HM (both of my old nemeses), so I kind of became desensitized to rough healing.

Probably also helps that White Mage just feels great right now. I've been trying to level AST too, but the healing feels so much harder. With White Mage I know I can heal through practically anything thrown at me, and still have more than enough MP to spare (if you run out of MP / die, just hit Thin Air + Lucid Dreaming, and boom, full MP, and in battle your MP upkeeps itself with Assize. Thin Air + Swiftcast + Raise for a free raise. It's insane). With AST I can get through the same pull, but I'm going to have MP troubles and it's going to be messier.


All this said, there will be no Omega Savage for me. My FC isn't a raiding group, and I'm not particularly interested in joining a static anyway. It also just sounds like too much pressure. I raided for a short time in WoW, and I just don't like having the set times. It stressed me out and just felt like too much pressure. Plus, my schedule is weird and erratic. I'll stick to running "casual" content with random people and occasional FC runs of things, thank you very much.

Friendly Reminder

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.

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. 

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.

WoW Legion stuff part 2

I am currently level 108, still successfully leveling as Holy Priest. I am always very thankful when other people come along and kill the same enemies as me, because doing quests is so slow with my lack of damage. I never die though!
I've died precisely twice. Once was during the Exodar scenario. The other time was a few minutes ago because someone died near me, and all the enemies that were after them decided to go after the defenseless healer who was minding their own business nearby.

Just doing the Stormheim quests now. Did run into a bug with the opening quest, but abandoning it and reattempting it fixed the bug.

Stormheim is giving me serious FFXIV: Heavensward vibes. I don't know. It might be the fact that I just had to rescue Dragoons, but there's more to it than that. Part of the music sounds like the music in...whatever the zone it is that Hraesvelgr lives in. And the dragons. And the fact that there's apparently a world boss in Stormheim named Nidhogg. And the atmosphere feels similar to that zone too.

And yes, I am very well aware that it's because they both draw rather heavily from Norse mythology (including the Nidhogg part). I know my Norse mythology, thank you. It's mostly just the music in Stormheim that feels like Heavensward to me. I'll see if I can find the song I'm thinking of and report back.

Perhaps after I reach 110 I'll go check for the songs? :D

I do want to hit 110 today. I had my sights set on being the third in my guild to 110, but someone got ahead of me overnight. So now I have my sights set on fourth. Little competition right now, so I think fourth is a reasonable goal. Everyone else is at least a good level or so behind me, so if I hurry it up a bit I think I can reach fourth.

WoW Legion Day 1

I'm level 104, yay!

I've been leveling as a Holy Priest, and having fun doing it. Mostly I've been questing and doing dungeons with guildies, but I've done a couple random ones too.

Launch has been very stable, with the exception of the past half hour or so, when the DDoS attacks started hitting.

I have been unable to log in again for about 5 minutes now.

I really, really want to apologize to the people I was in a party with. If you were in a party with Toyosatomimi-Tanaris and I DC'd and never came back, it's because I am unable to log back in. The Battle.net launcher has had me in a "less than 1 minute queue" for a few minutes now, and I don't think it's going to let me back on.

If any of you are still on and wondering why your healer got up and left, that's why. It's because I'm trapped!

I know none of you will probably see this, but I just wanted to get that off my chest. So sorry :(


Now though, I'm going to go to bed. It's midnight. That last dungeon run took about twice the time it needed to because of the disconnects, and I'm exhausted.

Leveling in Legion feels sooo slow! I've been at this since 9:30 this morning. It's midnight now. I only barely got to 104! A guy in my guild is at 107 or so, and I don't understand how he managed that so fast, let alone how people are already 110! Crazy!

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!

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

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 :(

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 :)

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.

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.

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?

Ooh!

I don't know if I just had a good group, or if Scholar actually makes Garuda trivial. Seriously, I swear Sacred Soil + Succor actually just makes her trivial.

That was the easiest and most stress-free Garuda fight I have ever done.

Back on FFXIV

I'm back to playing FFXIV again. Still playing Ayame Miyumi, although I used a Fantasia and she's Xaela Au Ra now instead of Raen.

I did a couple practice runs of low-level dungeons (I think I did Copperbell Mines, Tam-Tara Deepcroft, and Haukke Manor) just to get used to healing again. And then I jumped right in and did Steps of Faith because I needed to in order to continue on in the story. That went surprisingly well. The party assigned me the role of main healer while the other healer did cannons. There was only one death, and that death was me because I was dumb and stood too close to the dragon's feet. Luckily, the other healer was able to pick up the slack while I ran back. If I remember correctly, I died pretty much right at the end and the dragon died soon after I got back, so I guess I wasn't missed too much there.

Upon getting into Heavensward content, I immediately made my way over to the Astrologian guild, and I am now an Astrologian (level 32)!

I'm loving AST. Have to say. I've done a couple dungeons (Tam-Tara, Haukke Manor, and Toto Rak), and I don't feel like I'm doing horribly. Bad, certainly, but not horrible. Although that Haukke Manor run went flawlessly, just saying. Tam-Tara was a bit hard because I hadn't healed on AST yet before and was having problems with taking enmity, and Toto Rak...well, we'll talk about Toto Rak in a minute because that run was horrible and I really don't think that was my fault. I think I did great!

I enjoy Draw way more than I should. Just working on memorizing what cards do what before Royal Road comes in and messes me up! And the skill animations just feel so satisfying. I know I'm not healing any more than I am on my WHM, but the skills just feel like they have more punch to them.

Ok, Toto Rak. That run was terrible. I just want to write this out and vent about this one because this was honestly the worst run of Toto Rak I've ever done. First of all, to set the stage, the group is all melee DPS, which is rough in Toto Rak because of the poison clouds from the microchu things. Tank and a DPS are both new, which is fine, I get that. I'm patient and lenient and all that, and I know my healing can pick up the slack when need be.

Except when everything is working against me. Then my healing can't pick up the slack at all.
First of all, I get walking into the poison exploding pod things once, not knowing that they'll explode and poison you and stress out your healer, but repeatedly running into them? Constantly? Even though I'm standing behind you frantically trying to dispose of them before you get there?

So, first tank death. Tank runs face first into some exploding pods, and I stop to try to heal/remove at least one poison stack. Everyone continues running on ahead and activates one of the web walls that pops up. I get stuck behind it because I stopped moving for a second to try to keep the tank alive. No one bothers to try and help me get past the web, so I'm frantically trying to break through with my meager healer DPS while watching the tank's health lower. Make it through with just enough time to start casting a heal and he dies. DPS is able to handle the mobs while I resurrect him.

Second tank death. Tank runs straight into at least three exploding pods and then into a group of mobs. Can't keep up with the poison damage and incoming mob damage. Tank dies while I frantically try to heal.

Third, group wipe. On the final boss. Goes fine for the first half. Once the tail comes out and starts shooting poison puddles it all goes downhill. Everyone stands in the puddles because they're melee and the tank doesn't move the boss. No one bothers to attack the tail. I get boxed in by puddles and the boss spawns an exploding pod on top of me. I die. Everyone dies.

Second time through the boss we miraculously make it through despite no one attacking the tail again.

Really though, the running straight into poisonous exploding pods knowing full well that they explode and poison you and stress out your hero is a huuuuge pet peeve of mine. Toto Rak can seriously be one of the most frustrating dungeons just because no one bothers to deal with those pods properly.

Long story short / moral of the story: Don't run face first into the exploding pods in Toto Rak. It annoys your healer. If no one has a range attack feel free to wait for your healer to dispatch it because they have a ranged attack and it only takes one hit. Please.

And Garuda is down!

Successfully beat Garuda today!

Well, by successfully I mean it took at least 5 tries, but it got done none the less. My group was very patient (all but one of us was new), and I don't think we did as terribly as we could have. I feel like a lot of our issue was that I just didn't have enough MP to sustain us, but I feel like a much better healer now that I've done it, and I feel like I have a better grasp for conserving MP. On our final attempt I didn't even come close to running out of MP until the start of the second phase because our Bard was very nice and kept Mage's Ballad up for me when he could. In the second phase I used Shroud of Saints to regain some, and I didn't end up running completely out of MP (I didn't run out to the extent that I couldn't Swiftcast + Raise one of our DPS when he died though, which I feel bad about).

Now, excuse me while I hyperventilate and regain my composure. I don't want to do Garuda ever again, so I'm a bit nervous about queuing for the dungeon roulette now.

Now I can continue on in the game though! Yay yay!

FFXIV Progress Update!

Still going strong!
Although I have to do Stone Vigil next for the main story quest, and I'm nervous about that one. I swear that dungeon guides are useful to learn about the mechanics, but they are terrible for anxiety. I just hope I get an experienced party that can easily blow through the dungeon. Please. Oh goodness, please. I'm generally okay with dungeons once I've gone through them once, but the first time is killer for me. I practically shake the whole way through. After one successful run I'm fine though. I still panic a tiny bit if Titan pops up in my roulette, but I get through it without issues, so even that's fine. And Brayflox? Psh, easy healing now. The only one that I would say still gets me a tiny bit anxious is Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, but I only feel anxious on Graffias. To be fair, I rarely get a group that doesn't stand in the poison puddles, so I think that's an acceptable nervousness.

So, my White Mage is level 41, I have Scholar/Summoner at 33. Thaumaturge is currently 23, and I'm working on getting three more levels there for Swiftcast. I'm not going further in dungeons until I get that, so that's priority number 1 right now.
I also have Puglist at level 18, Lancer at level 8, and Archer at level 6 because I was too lazy to do dungeons last night, and I woke up today wanting to play a Pugilist, so I leveled it today. I'm not sure about it. I think I enjoy Thaumaturge more, but it certainly wasn't a terrible experience. Can't get into Lancer though. Not as fun to me.

So yup, still going strong over here. I have to work tomorrow,  so no Stone Vigil tomorrow, but perhaps Thursday.

In other news, my family is getting a puppy. He's a rescue, and very cute (we already did the home visit). The rescue center is having him neutered on Monday, and then they'll keep him while he recovers for a few days, and then he's ours. Very exciting!

People bother me

Yes, instead of explaining to someone how to play, let's just call them a noob and harass them constantly throughout a dungeon.

Oh, and to top it all off, don't forget to post the DPS meters! Because comparing someone in no heirloom gear to someone in full heirlooms is a totally fair comparison!

Not to mention, you never know how new to the game someone is, so they may not know what type of gear they wear. Harassment is bad, everyone.

Also, showing the DPS meters proves nothing! As long as no one's DPS is lower than mine (the healer, who, on this chart, had contributed 0% of the damage), then there's no problem!

THESE ARE LEVEL 30 DUNGEONS PEOPLE.

Good run otherwise, but it's hard to focus on healing when drama is happening in the background, you know?

Why did I never play a Shaman before...?

I'm having so much fun on my Shaman! Why did I never play one before?

Since I got Earth Shield, healing's been a breeze. Hardly even have to worry about the tank, and, if the tank is decent, no need to worry too much about the DPS either.

On the tank, just pop Earth Shield whenever I need to, keep Riptide up just in case. For the DPS, Riptide as needed for small damage, for large damage, just Healing Surge. Haven't even needed Healing Wave yet. No one's gotten that far.

I keep Watershield up on me at all times, and Riptide if I need health. If I'm getting attacked I just pop Astral Shift. On boss fights, I put down a Searing Totem, and sometimes use Flame Shock is no one's taking damage.

I'm enjoying this so much more than my Priest. Sure, Power Word: Shield is really nice and all, especially how I can apply it to multiple people at once, but Earth Shield is just as good, and lasts much longer. It doesn't prevent damage, but it heals when they're hit. The only downside is that it can only be used on one person at once.

I'm enjoying this too much, I think!

Just hit level 27. I can't wait until level 30 so I can get Earthliving Weapon and Healing Stream Totem. Those will probably make things even easier! I'm actually not stressing out about getting to higher levels as a healer this time! I've been stressed out about getting to Scholomance again, since I remember Rattlegore being terrible to heal through, but I'm not very concerned this time around. I'm pretty confident with my Shaman.

What else am I looking forward to...Reincarnation, Ancestral Awakening, Resurgence, Chain Heal, Tidal Waves, Healing Rain, Spirit Link Totem, Mastery: Deep Healing, Spiritwalker's Grace, and Ascendance.

I'm writing this while sitting in Darkmoon Faire watching the Tauren Chieftains, which is entertaining.