Don’t automatically blame Cleric Stance for your death

Alright, it took me 2 days to cool down enough to sit down and write about this. I need to be heard. And yes I’ll admit that I’m still butthurt from the incident. I’m now still upset enough to try to hunt down the person and shove the screenshots in his or her face to prove that I DID NOT use Cleric Stance before he or she died. Too bad this person isn’t on my server, else I would personally search for them and send a tell with the screenshot link.

To avoid name-shaming, I crossed out parts of people’s names. But if you are the person’s friend, I am quite sure you will be able to guess who it is. This person is from Zodiark server and has the initials of Y. G. If you know him or her, please forward my screenshots, because when I explained myself, this person didn’t seem convinced.

The day before yesterday, I joined my friend’s party to queue for High Roulette and we got placed into a Pharos Sirius duty. First pull, the tank went to the first corner to get 5 mobs in one pull. It’s nothing we can’t manage, right? So things seemed fine at first.

Mind you, though, that I usually evaluate the party’s tank before I choose my play style. If the tank seems sturdy enough and has sufficient survivability to let me Holy while letting Regen and Medica II work in my stead, I Cleric Stance and Holy a few times. However, if I see that the tank takes too much damage and I’m not confident that they can stay alive while I Holy twice or thrice, I refrain from that and continuously Cure tank instead.

This time I saw that the tank took too much damage and I couldn’t afford the time to cast Holy, so I decided to stick to healing mode. I also noticed that the tank stood in the middle of the group of enemies instead of rounding them up and face them all with the shield. But things escalated very quickly and I didn’t have enough time to comment on that. With this positioning, the tank also pointed one of the mob at me, putting me in a cone AoE attacks. Again, things was crazy and I had to try to keep people alive and didn’t have time to comment on that.

What happened was that the Elbst managed to land an AoE move (I googled later and found that it is Acid Shower, which should be stunned) that put people under the debuff effect “Vulnerability Up” thus increasing damage taken. 3 persons received that debuff, including me and my friend, MCH. I Esuna the tank first. The Esuna cleansed Poison instead, because, guess what, either an enemy has insta-cast poison attack or built-in poison in a physical attack, or the tank ate a poison AoE. I cured and Esuna again, which erased the tank’s Vulnerability Up, but it was too late, the tank went down already.

Note that some milliseconds before that, my friend died, too. And I did not even have time to Esuna myself. The BLM started running to the entrance, trying to kill the rest of the mobs while regrouping with the tank and my friend who respawned. I turned on my Cleric Stance and used Swift Cast Holy to try to stop the mobs in their track and buy us more time to regroup and for me to cure up the BLM after spending my Fluid Aura and Aero to chip at the enemies’ HP and turning off my Cleric Stance.

The first thing the tank said when he or she rejoined us was “Why cleric stance dude?”

At the moment, I didn’t have enough time to read it and just assumed that it was the BLM being mad at me for letting the tank died. So I replied referring to the tank as 3rd person: “Not my fault, the tank ate debuff that increases damage.” “I cleric after he died.”  (I didn’t realize that the tank died before I managed to land a cure BECAUSE the tank stood there and ate yet another AoE attack which induced “Dropsy” status effect, otherwise I would have also added that to my answer.)

The tank replied “Sure” and after a while, I realized that I was talking to the tank, not the BLM. So I added “You have to dodge AoE” referring to the Acid Shower which induced Vulnerability Up debuff.

Along the way, my friend tried to make light of the situation to help us relax and said “It is normal that tank die here” to which I replied “No it’s not normal.” And he said something along the line of “well it’s normal with debuff, that debuff kills people.” Yes of course, with increased damage taken, getting beaten up by 4-5 enemies at once is brutal. Then my friend went on to speculated whether the AoE which gave the debuff was instant or not. I said I don’t know because our tank friend never got it. Probably because he stunned it or the Elbst died fast and didn’t get to use this debuff move.

In front of the door to first boss room, the tank, again, tanked in the middle of the mobs. So I commented on that. Yet, there was no reaction, and further up the tower, this tank kept tanking with some enemies behind his or her back. I didn’t want to bother, so I didn’t say anything else.

Anyway, what I’m mad about is the fact that the tank did not stun stuff (also no stun on the pudding’s Divide and no silence on Banish III from the elemental), ate debuff, ate AoE, yet had the nerves to point the finger at me and my Cleric Stance (which, in fact, wasn’t active until after the tank died) for dying.

In this case, I admit that I had slow reaction and did not use my Benediction fast enough to save the tank. I underestimated the enemies and thought a few cures would get the tank back in shape. However, the tank unexpectedly ate an AoE for 1380 damage before my cure could land, so I totally failed at situation assessment. If anyone or everyone in the party would blame me for not using my Benediction, I would regrettably take the blame. But for the tank to immediately blame my Cleric Stance, that’s unacceptable.

To sum it up:
Tank tanking with back toward an enemy : not my fault.
Tank not stunning AoE : not my fault.
Tank eating Vulnerability Up debuff : not my fault.
Tank eating Poison debuff so first Esuna failed to cleanse Vulnerability Up : not my fault.
Tank eating yet another AoE and died : not my fault.
Cure interrupted from getting splash damage : my fault.
Not using Benediction : my fault.
Tank not using Hallowed Ground : not my fault.
Using Cleric Stance after tank died : not my fault.

FFXIV_Pharos_Tank_b FFXIV_Pharos_Tank_cFFXIV_Pharos_Tank_aFFXIV_Pharos_Tank_d

 

Chocobo power

The other day I was on my Culinarian, heading from Aleport to my friends’ camp, Novv’s Nursery in Sahagin Landbase. I planned to buy some groceries over there. But before I reached the store, a weird stranger sent me a tell, asking if I could help them kill their Hunt Log targets.

My first thought was like…..WTH? I’m a cook. What? How?

I had a mind to politely tell them I’m on crafter now and I’m on an errand and cannot help. But I got curious as to who and where the person was. So I asked “Where are you?” thinking maybe they saw me riding a chocobo past them and decided to send tell. The person, however, invited me to the party instead of replying, and immediately changed zone to Upper La Noscea, to Oakwood. This means they couldn’t have been anywhere near me when they initiated the conversation.

Perhaps they searched everyone in the map and my name came up first.

I wondered whether the person would notice that I wasn’t a DoW or DoM, so I rode my chocobo to meet up. Nope, they said nothing about me being a cook.  XD  Which was amusing. I decided to roll with it and summoned my chocobo, thinking I would let her kill stuff for us.

The person jumped in and attacked a Beetle. But WHOOPS!!!! It linked with 2 wolves because my level was too high and they ganged on that person. My frypan swing speed felt so slow and it took me a while to whack all 3 enemies with it to steal enmity. But the person lived and we continued, killing several beetles and wolves, all died in one hit once my chocobo started attacking. Then the person said thanks and I left.

I didn’t want to seem mean or finicky so I didn’t ask them why they chose me and whether they realized I was on crafter. XD But that incident was so amusing I had to write about it.

ffxiv_07232015_081753_newBy the way there was one time while I was mining a Grade 3 Thanalan Topsoil from Unspoiled node in Hammaelea when I noticed a THM getting killed by a Coblyn. I engaged with my pickaxe and hit the thing once, but it wouldn’t die. In that split second I saw it trying to use an AoE move and I was like OH SHIT I can’t save this person. But my chocobo rushed forward and pecked it to death because I hit it and she entered battle mode (good thing I always leave my birdie on Free Stance instead of Healer Stance) LOL. Chocobo saved the day! That person thanked me and /bow and/kneel and stuff. It was funny I imagined the stare from my chocobo, because she might be thinking “Why you got thanks? You did nothing, me the hero.”

 

Blacklist system should have an additional function.

Dear SE,

I’d like to suggest that the blacklist system should have an additional function.

Or maybe just add a separated function, that allows YOU to prevent a specific player’s character from appearing on your screen. 

There are times when I want this really nice screenshot of the sunset, but a person is standing there, AFK or not, blocking the view. There are times when I want to take a pic at a specific spot (like in front of an event’s decoration), but this person is AFK there all day long (this happened during this year’s Little Lady’s Day) so no matter how many times I came back to check the availability, I still couldn’t use the thing for my screenshots.

Sometimes people are nice and when I asked politely, they gladly moved out of the way. But that’s not always the result. Sometimes they didn’t see my request, sometimes they might just not care, and sometimes they purposely tried to be mean. Also, since the time in the game changes quickly, sometimes I totally miss the screenshot opportunity because asking and waiting for response took too long. (For example, the moon already moved and changed angle.)

If I could remove the appearance of a PC from my own screen, this won’t be a problem anymore. And I won’t even need to intrude and make my selfish request to them when and where I want to take a screenshot.

Additionally, there was one exclusive incident when I made a comment in /say about persons who spammed the chatlog with emotes, and they weren’t nice enough to uncheck the “Display log message” in emote menu like I suggested, but instead continued even more notoriously. I moved away so I was outside of the range for the emote to appear, they followed and spammed more. So I moved again and blacklisted and continued crafting. One of the persons in that spam fest went out of their way to follow me and had their character stand so close to my face with their crotch towards me. Which was beyond rude and was also disgusting.

If I could have an option to “unsee” specific characters in the game, this kind of harassment wouldn’t bother me anymore.

On a remotely related subject, it would also be nice to have an option to prevent my blacklisted persons from seeing my character. It is creepy as hell to have a person on my blacklist follow me around doing emotes at me.

There was one incident, back in 1.0, when a TERRIBLE (terrible is an understatement) person – whom I and my friends bumped into during a Behest, had argued with, and blacklisted him – kept following us around doing emotes at us and laughed repeatedly when we were killed in a levequest.

An option to hide myself from being seen by this kind of person would be much appreciated. So that we can take an additional measure against the people whom we decide to blacklist, to prevent them from stalking us.

Also, although it was just me being paranoid about the crotch person mentioned a few paragraphs above, what if they were taking screenshots of the moment? Now they will have pics of doing nasty things to my character. They may upload them and laugh with their friends about me and how they got back at me in those pics . That’s gross as hell. If I have an option to also hide myself from my blacklisted persons, I could feel less vulnerable.

If you would consider adding such function or anything similar, I would be forever grateful.

Sincerely,
Aleczan Knighthill.

My Gatherer’s (DoL) Macros

With the Unspoiled Nodes in Heavensward’s duration being so short, I can’t afford to waste time looking up on the internet or open a bookmarked link on my browser, I made /echo macro to tell me the slots. Then, realizing I have to head to the spawn spot before it actually spawns, in order to allow me a lot of time to pick the skills to use, I also added where to go.

ffxiv_07172015_010119_cr2/echo ★ ☆ MATERIALS : Unspoiled Heavensward Nodes ☆ ★
/echo  : Falcon’s Nest Chysahl Green [] — Top-left (Dragonspit)
/echo  : Falcon’s Nest Chives [], Prl. Sprout [], T. Leaves [] — Mid-right (Blk. Iron Br.)
/echo  : Camp Cloudtop Hv.Lemon [], Abal.Mistletoe [] — Mid-right (Vundu Ok’ Bendu)
/echo MNR 11:00 Helix Adamamtite Ore [6] — Top-mid
/echo MNR 12:00 Camp Cloudtop Abal. Rock Salt [1], Red Quartz [6] — Top-left (Cold Wind)
/echo  : Moghome Drav. Mistletoe [], Porcini [] — Top-right (Easton Eyes)
/echo  : Idyllshire Cloud Banana [], Morel [] — Low-left
/echo  : Tailfeather Old World’s Fig [] — Top-mid

The 2nd one is for nodes where Collectible items can be exchanged for Scrips. I pair the nodes list with execution of Collector’s Gloves skill as well as changing hotbar 1 to display my COllectible skills hotbar instead. You can manually switch between hotbars by using Shift + the number, or Shift + up/down button.

ffxiv_07172015_010119_cr1

/macroicon “Collector’s Glove” /action “Collector’s Glove” <me>
/hotbar change 6
/echo    Hotbar changed to collectable for Scrips   
/echo  : Camp Cloudtop Hv.Lemon [], Abl.Mistletoe [] — Mid-right (Vundu Ok’ Bendu)
/echo  : Idyllshire Cloud Banana [], Morel [] — Low-left
/echo MNR 12:00 Camp Cloudtop Abal. Rock Salt [1], Red Quartz [6] — Top-left (Cold Wind)
/echo MNR 2:00 Idyllshire Cuprite [2], Light Kidney Ore [3] — Low-right

Monsters Location Maps: The Sea of Clouds

 

Made my 4th map for the Monsters Location.

Again, 4 versions, in case some people like cleaner map with less distractions.

This map was truly a challenge to complete, due to the amount of monster’s varieties as well as the cascading pieces of land.
Monsters_Map_SeaofClouds_v1 Monsters_Map_SeaofClouds_v2 Monsters_Map_SeaofClouds_v4Monsters_Map_SeaofClouds_v3After finishing all 6 maps, I will make a center post containing all maps in the same page. But for now, it has to be separated entries.

Dear SE, please improve shop interface for GC and Ixali.

Dear SE,

Please add the amount selector to Ixal Oaknots shop and GC shop.

When we buy materials from GC Quartermaster, or from Ixali Oaknots shop, sometimes we have to buy in bulk. Yet, the shop interface only allows single piece of item at a time. Please consider adding the arrow buttons and amount number input like normal NPC vendors. It is terrible when we have to click and confirm purchase 99 times for 99 items of the same type.

Sincerely,
Crafter in distress.

Monsters Location Maps: The Churning Mists

Finally got around to making The Churning Mists’ map.

3 Versions, again.

MonstersMap_ChurningMists_v1 MonstersMap_ChurningMists_v2 MonstersMap_ChurningMists_v3

The reason why I made this (despite the fact that there are already monsters maps on the internet that everyone else is using) is that I find things on the map faster with visual aid. Also, on my server, there are a lot of European players, so some of the monsters names are complete different from English names.

Moreover, some monsters drop crafting materials so there might be a competition for kills, so I feel that marking territory of spawn can be useful when monsters become heavily hunted.

The Joy of Having a Flying Mount

Not only that flying mounts are making an adventurer’s life easier and enabling fast travel, but they are also excellent means for any screenshot enthusiast to enjoy taking pictures in the game far beyond the old capability.

ffxiv_06302015_023925_newffxiv_06302015_223852_newffxiv_06302015_224859_newffxiv_07012015_041349_newffxiv_07032015_182909_newffxiv_06302015_185200_new ffxiv_07042015_203058_new ffxiv_07052015_032629_new ffxiv_07072015_123930_new ffxiv_07072015_124653_new

We can now take a screenshot from any height, distance, and angle. We can take a picture of anything from pretty much anywhere while adjusting the elements in the frame much more to our liking. No more frantically jumping to reach a specific camera angle (and still can’t get it anyway). No more getting angry at how the piece of land ends before we could walk to a spot where we want to stand while taking a screenshot. No more being blocked from the perfect view by a mountain or a boulder.

The only downside? Now my screenshots folder gets about 400 new pics per day on average instead of 200. LOL. (But I expect it to tune down soon when I finish all the quests, because I also take screenshots during quest cutscenes.)

 

Monsters Location Maps

 

Monsters_Map_CoerthasWesternHighlands_v4

Made Coerthas Western Highlands map the other day and a few friends were using it, so I made a Dravanian Forelands map yesterday. However, s friend commented that it was too messy and qas quite hard to read, so I made a few adjustments and made 3 versions of it.

(On this occasion I revised my Coerthas Western Highlands and increased font size. As shown above.)

Now, onto the 2nd map, The Dravanian Forelands.

Monsters_Map_DravanianForelands_v2

First one has approximate territories marked.

Monsters_Map_DravanianForelands_v3

Second one doesn’t mark monster’s territories. But I keep the pictures because I recognized mobs better when it’s visual. It took me a long time to scan the map for text when it was text only. ><;;

Monsters_Map_DravanianForelands_v4Version 3 has even bigger font, and is text only, by Dahlia’s suggestion.

Hope these will be useful for me and my friends for Clan Mark Bills. :D