No tank – Aleczan's New Diary (FFXIV: ARR)

Expert roulette today was full of drama, again. Frankly, that is why I tried to avoid DF solo and only go when I have at least one friend with me. Today, though, I was with Corn and Bray, and we went in as a party of three, then were matched with a stranger who was a DRK.

Right off the bat, without any heads up, he or she stood there for like a minute, seeming AFK. We went ahead and pulled a group of 3 enemies, having Corn’s Titan-Egi tank. The tank came back a bit later, when enemies were almost dead. Tank said sorry and helped us kill 2 out of 3 enemies, and ran off to grab next group before last one died.

Bray said “go big” so the tank kept going…..up the stairs where it was a dead end. We fought there and proceeded to next set of mobs. Tank pulled all the way to the monkeys’ room. I had difficult time keeping up with the cure. This tank was strangely squishy. I wasn’t sure if DRKs are squishy by nature, or if this person had bad gear, or if this person had bad skill rotation. I couldn’t Cleric Stance properly. I had healed DRKs before. I felt DRK is quite hard to heal and I’m more accustomed to healing a PLD. And in level 60 content (non-sync) I can also heal a WAR alright. But DRK is another story. However, this DRK seemed a little bit squishier that others. So, I selected to focus on healing instead.

Boss room was ok. I couldn’t DPS and tank didn’t 100% dodge the Folio AoE, but that’s fine. Everything was manageable.

This DRK kept quietly going AFK (or at least seemed AFK) every once in a while, without notification, too. So we crept forward slowly using Titan-Egi tank, which complicated things because when the tank arrived late at the scene, it was harder to secure enmity. I almost got mowed to death a few times due to my Medica II pulling hate from Titan-Egi.

Then, in Liquid Flame boss, I made a bad decision and spent Benediction on Bray when he was dying. Bye-bye my cool down. Ugh!

Next mob after flame boss was in a room where vision is blocked by a narrow door. Corn wandered too far into the room and was seen. (I did this twice, because I forgot and didn’t see the enemies visually.) So we started fighting.

The tank (back from being idle) ran in, said “Ffs” and grabbed all the 3 enemies, and headed further up the stairs. I used Sprint to follow. We reached the next room, where there are many statues. Inside the room, near the entrance there are 3 more enemies. Once tank reached the enemies, Corn placed Shadow Flare there. I spent my Divine Seal and used Medica II. But lo and behold, the tank didn’t stop there, he or she continued to the end of the room, missing Medica II and waking up first set of statues, which spawned 2 3 more enemies. That’s 8 (I was wrong, it was actually 9 enemies) in the fray.

I followed immediately and Swiftcast, reapplied my Medica II to help with tank’s HP. I also landed Tetragrammaton on the tank for 7888 HP and placed Asylum. Meanwhile, one or two loose enemies whacked on me because of my too-early Medica II. (I usually let tank secure enmity first, but this tank had me panicked because he or she ran off for more enemies when I wasn’t expecting it, and tank’s HP gushed like water.)

Tank used Convalescence but from that point on, I could only land 1 Cure. I tried to Cure II, as Benediction and Tetra were both on cooldown. We all dodged a bunch of cluttered AoE and either I was hit or my Cure II was interrupted by damage, and in a blink, tank died.

I was shredded into pieces right after. And then Corn, and then Bray.

Tank was like “Great” then said “Can pull cant heal.”

Um? I didn’t pull. And wait, you were the one who decided to take a bigger bite than you can chew, no? We wanted to stop at the front of the room. You dragged the mobs all the way to the back of the room. YOU.

And where’s the oh-shit emergency skill, Living Dead, that could have extended your death for at least 10 seconds? And not all enemies were on you, yet you still died. =_=;; That means your tanking skill, in combination with my healing skill, cannot withstand that many enemies.

I was so miffed and replied “Where’s your Living Dead? :P”

Corn got pissed off, too, and called the DRK out on those mysterious AFKs. The DRK said “I was trying to type” (I thought to myself, type what? You’re not supposed to type while engaged in battle.) On my second thought, though, maybe the DRK meant he or she was trying to type to tell the party that he or she needed to go AFK. But….how long does a person need just to type “Wait” or “BRB” or “AFK” or “sec” or to type wa [and tab, for auto-translation of “Wait, please.”]. After 3-letter notification to make the party listen, one can have plenty of time to explain the situation or the need to AFK or to pause the pull.

Anyway, after everyone went to HP and ran back again, the DRK darted forward without waiting for Protect (probably was too pissed off to care). So I had to cast Protect on them again, at the same time the DRK aggroed first group of enemies, and my Protect stole enmity right off the bat. DRK didn’t even care and kept running forward for the 2^nd group. I had to Sprint to catch up and heal, etc.

Unhappy.

While we were fighting through the room full of statues that gradually spawned enemies, the argument went on and on. The tank was angry that Corn pulled. (Honestly, I would, too. I always hate DPS that pulls before tank.) Corn was pissed that the tank kept going AFK unannounced. (In this case I regrettably sided with Corn, because going AFK unannounced is very rude, IMO. And to top it off, the tank was so squishy and died from pulling too many mobs without consulting the party, and then immediately blamed me, I was infuriated.)

I also had to use Benediction there (like, what the!?! I only used Benediction there on Dew when and if we pull 8 enemies at once.) The tank seemed so occupied in exchanging angry messages with Corn and didn’t focus on tanking AT ALL. It was even worse than before. Tank was always on the verge of dying, even when I fully focused on healing and switched to bombing Cure II instead of Cure as usual.

I finally snapped and said “You’re squishy enough when not typing, please focus.” Which is very mean, I know. But I just really can’t tolerate that attitude. A sub-par tank who’s not trying to do the job properly, but focusing more on typing an argument…

After that, 4 enemies spawned, and the tank seemed to be mad at my remark, and seemed to intentionally neglect to take back the aggro. I tanked 2 of them the whole time until they died. I spent Tetra on myself. I cure bombed myself. I refused to die. Meanwhile Corn threatened to vote kick the tank, to which the tank replied “Kick me u crybby” and “Like i care” so after the mobs died, we voted kick the tank.

Good riddance.

There was just one enemy on the way to last boss room, if I remember correctly. We got past that just fine and got to the boss room. Corn waited for a bit, but no tank came in. I was unwilling to wake Dew up, so I just stood there, trying to not get mad at what happened. =_= As you can see, apparently, I failed to stay not mad.

Corn eventually decided to tank with Titan-Egi.