Category Archives: My Rants

When I get angry about something in the game, I let out my steam here!

Hunts these days

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Again, a rant from me.

I kind of miss the old days when The Hunt thingie was more civil. When people would be patient and wait for others who are still rushing to the spot, when people would ask “All here?” or “Ready to pull?” or say “Pulling in 60 seconds,” when people would shout and communicate to organize the scout, or the spawn trigger.

Back in those days, when I was catching Glimmerscale in Western Thanalan to try to trigger Zona Seeker, people who had high enough stats to catch the fish would band together and make team effort, while those who couldn’t fish it would offer to scout. When someone caught the fish, they shout with <link>. Then, if someone spotted the NM, they shouted the <pos> and some people might thank the fisher. Then they waited for the fisher to change job and get all skills/spells recast ready, and we all hunted together.

These days? Nope, no team effort. And no fisher appreciation. Today I caught a Glimmerscale that had actually spawned a Zona Seeker, but I had to shout 3 times just to get an invite to a hunt party. It seems that hunters nowadays tend to just stand at the possible spawn spots and communicate only to their own group when the NM pops in one of those spots. No team effort to try to trigger the spawn anymore. I looked around and I seemed to be the only one who even tried to fish up the trigger fish, even though the spawn window had been open for several hours and the weather was in right condition. What is up with that? Have the knowledge of spawn trigger/condition died with the older generations?

Also, after Zona died, I headed to Fallgourd Float to wait for 5 PM. Again, no other fisher. No shout asking about who to fish and who to scout. I fished for a while until I caught a Judgeray, I shouted with <link> to report it. Within seconds, people started shouting “inv.” This is the trend I’ve been seeing lately. Most people shouted “inv” without actually mentioning the pos. To find out where the NM has spawned, you have to either get a party and head to your party or follow the crowd, if you’re lucky enough to see the train.

Hunting crowd got less civil, and more selfish nowadays it is so sad to see. If I weren’t the one who fished up those fish which I knew would trigger the S rank sometimes, if I didn’t know the windows were open, the chance of me getting a piece of the S rank NM would have been so slim. I got there in time to get full credits only because I was there trying to trigger them. Other NMs? I tried and failed multiple times. Sometimes even when I was already in the map, I couldn’t get there fast enough for full credits. Sometimes I couldn’t even dismount my chocobo before it died right in front of me. Ridiculous.

I assume that the Hunt isn’t this bad when it is not prime time, though. I was lucky enough to join a few kills where people waited so a long time for the gather. It just made me pretty miffed that no one tried to help catch the trigger fish anymore. It was supposed to be server-wide team effort, but look at this…. *sigh*

Grrrr…that’s it for my fisher rant. I guess DoW and DoM won’t care much about this issue. ><;; But you know…..without a fisher to fish the trigger fish, you can camp the freaking NM all day and it will never pop. Unless it is force spawn after timing out??? IDK.

Can’t download patch 2.38

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*update*

OK It’s official, my ISP said their underwater cable for interlink has some problem and they’re trying to repair it. Ughhhhhhh!!

*end of update*

Not sure if it’s my internet’s fault or FFXIV players everywhere are downloading at the same time and thus compete on downloading speed/bandwidth, but my download is going as slow as 0.01MB/s and the time remaining says something like 997 minutes (it’s 3000 something minutes when speed display dropped to 0.00MB/s LOL!)

Sitting here cursing at the slow download, looking through my screenshots folder for what little comfort I could get. ; ;

Alec MonkI need to take more pics of my Monk because she’s handsome. :3

Don’t fight on top of a gatherer

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What the title says, be considerate to gatherers, please.

Seriously, there were too many instances where people brought enemies to fight on top of me while I was fishing, mining, or logging.

One time in Mor Dhona, someone aggroed a Gigas and brought it onto a group of Botanists who were trying to get some Clusters. Of course the AoE not only canceled the Stealth effect, but also kicked them (and me!) out of gathering menu. These Unspoiled gathering spots cannot be resumed after action gathering gets canceled, because they disappear once disengaged.

I don’t know if there had been any fix to gathering getting canceled, because my Botanist and Miner haven’t been eating other people’s enemy’s AoE since. But just a few days ago, I rushed to help with a Raise shout from a Botanist at Proud Creek in North Shroud, the person said someone brought a Dullahan to the tree (highly like accidentally) and its AoE killed him/her.

Yesterday I was mad, but luckily I escaped alive and didn’t have to be even more mad. I was trying to fish this elusive Titanic Sawfish which needs clear or fair weather, daytime 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. approx., and also double mooch. I was on stealth. Then, there came a BLM who seemed to struggle to find a safe spot to fight and not get swarmed, and thus coindicentally brought a Vanguard near me. I was fishing and staring at the Vanguard, so when it readied its AoE attack, with hazard zone (or crisis zone, I can’t remember what it’s called) missing me by a hairsplit, I said in /say “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” and the person moved it away from me immediately.

That wasn’t what got me mad.

After that, the weather wasn’t suitable, so I just parked myself there with Stealth on while I did other stuffs, checking back periodically to see the game-time and weather. Then there came another person. I was reading work e-mail and writing a very long reply so I didn’t pay attention to the game. I heard fighting and assumed that it had nothing to do with me. I continued typing my e-mail until the battle sound somehow caught my attention.

I checked FFXIV window and found that I was being attacked by an enemy. I ran around in frantic, trying to shake him off me, aggroing some more enemies in the process. I think I ran around the area 3 times until I managed to shake all the enemies off, and returned to Stealth mode.

FFXIV_CapeWestwind_Fishing1

It was ugly, because one cannot change job while under attack, so I had no way to fend for myself as a fisher. I thought I canceled my own Stealth while I moved and forgot to put it back on, but I checked battle log and found out that THIS person’s Vanguard did some damage to me, canceling my Stealth effect. Then, unaware if this, I kept standing there until another enemy found me.

Alright, there was a hell lot of space along the edge of the cliff to bring your enemy to without getting swarmed, yet the person had to drag it on top of me (yeah I saw the person standing right next to me when I found out I was under attack). Come on! Well, that wasn’t really what made me mad, as it could be honest mistake. But the person never said anything. No oops, no sorry, and no trying to help AT ALL while I was struggling to lose aggro. I must say I was pretty miffed.

When I bring my enemy’s AoE onto someone else, I always said sorry. Even in the heat of a battle, yes. I don’t expect people to always look out for other players, although that’s a nice thing to do, but at least when someone causes inconvenient or damage to others, they should apologize or try to help ease the damage. Not, like, leaving them to their own fate (an ugly fate induced by you, by the way.)

Moreover, even with Stealth on, I wasn’t totally invisible. You only need to look a bit harder to see the gatherer when they’re on Stealth. You have to be blind or completely ignorant to not see them. It is more than inconsiderate to bring enemy (or enemies) to fight on top of a gatherer. Seriously, they can’t fend for themselves at all. (I really miss the pebble stun that we had in 1.0! What was it? Stone Throw?)

By the way, now I moved to another spot where I don’t need Stealth. No enemy would wander my way, unless someone brings it. I can fish without Stealth, so now even people who’s less observant won’t overlook me and won’t accidentally bring an enemy on top of me again.

 

Emotes Spam

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Not long ago, a patch added a check box “Display log message” in emotes menu, so that we can uncheck it and make our emotes no longer show up as a text in chat log. I really love it, because it’s extremely handy when I want to spam an emote (or many) for the sake of taking screenshots with specific characteristic. I used to have to manually add the word (or syntax?) “motion” after my emote command, to get the same effect, which sometimes became quite a hassle. So this checkbox functions really made it convenient.

I would encourage people to use this when they want to spam emote or emotes. I also taught my friends (old players who didn’t realize there is this function and new player who just started) about it and explained to them how annoying it could get when we spam chatlog with emotes.

Today I was sitting and crafting in Mor Dhona, when someone spammed huzzah for like 20 times in 5 seconds or so. Well, if my friends didn’t know there was the function, maybe some other players didn’t realize it too. And it seemed they were just trying to get screenshots with a friend (who joined in the emotes spamming spree soon) without intention to clog up people’s chat log just because they wanted to be an asshole. So I said in /say:

Would be extremely nice if people who spam emote are kind enough to use /emote motion, or uncheck the “Display log message” in emotes menu when they want to spam. ; ;

Excuse my typo there, lol.

Anyway, I waited for a bit and they still kept going (and it only got worse in term of lines per second), so I figured they didn’t notice my say and blacklisted them for my own sake. No use to bitch and start a fight when everyone is entitled to play their game however they like (as long as it doesn’t break ToS, hahaha).

After a synthesis or two, however, the first person who started spamming emote noticed me and came over (which means they actually saw my comment and yet chose to act disruptive, intentionally) to stand right behind me, too close in my personal space than I would have liked. So I canceled my crafting and ran up the stairs to sit down and craft again. Guess what, the person followed and tried to do some emote, which I didn’t pay much attention to because my mind was set on getting the hell out of that place.

After I ran upstairs, the person followed.I got up (canceling my synthesis mid-craft, again) and returned home. Of course, I suspect that the person was having a kick out of it that he or she could annoy me that much and drove me from the scene.

But, seriously, for some people to not try to be nice and make use of a useful function of the game…..and to go out of their way to try to be mean and upset other players. It’s sad how being politely assertive doesn’t work well in online games. Are we not civil? Can’t trivial problems be talked out peacefully and then happily solved?

FATE Rush

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Kind of like Gold Rush.  You see a train of people flock over to overwhelm a FATE. They come and go, stomping everything in their path. I know it’s the nature of the low-time and peak-time of the server’s crowds and I know it’s hardly anyone’s fault. It still pissed me off, however. I was enjoying my quiet corner against this Spiteful Spitfire. I’ve been camping him all day while working. I would ALT+Tab back to FFXIV to fight him when I hear FATE music. I want my Atma, but I hate chasing FATEs on chocoback, so this is a lazy method that works for me.

ffxiv_08122014_214350

Then, when more and more people start to log in to the server, this train of people came, leaving me with silver medal for FATE instead of the gold. Mind you, though, that this was not the part which pissed me off.

They never returned, ever! They came to rip through the monster, and left, gone. Leaving me to solo the now-10-times-stronger Spiteful Spitfire. Blargh!!!

Again, I know it’s no one’s fault and that it is an inevitable phenomenon natural to online gaming. I just had to get it out of my chest.

Back to FATE camping and working. Peace!

 

WTF? Botting in Duty Finder?

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เวลาเล่น Duty Finder เราย่อมต้องปรับสไตล์การเล่นให้เข้ากับปาร์ตี้ และให้เหมาะสมกับความสามารถในการเล่นของสมาชิกอื่น ๆ ในปาร์ตี้ และเหมาะสมกับระดับอุปกรณ์สวมใส่ของทุกคนด้วย แต่เวลาเจอบอท…. ต่อให้คุณมีทักษะในการปรับตัวได้เยี่ยมยอดแค่ไหน หรือเล่นเก่งเพียงใด ก็ไม่รอดอยู่ดี! เดี๊ยนคิดว่าเดี๊ยนเจอบอทในฮาลาตาลีเจ้าค่ะ มันเล่นได้ห่วยแตกแหกพิกัดมาก สุดยอดกากของความกากกกกกกกกกกกกกกก โอ๊ยไอ้หน้าส้นตีน อารมณ์เสียมากถึงมากที่สุด คือแบบ ไม่ไหวละ…. คิดแล้วแค้นมากว่าทำไมกูต้องมาเจออะไรแบบนี้ด้วย ซวยชัด ๆ เล่นด้วยแล้วปวดกะโหลก กว่าจะผ่านมาได้ก็แทบจะกระอักออกมาเป็นลิ่มเลือด ยิ่งคิดยิ่งอยากจะจับไอ้เจ้าของบอทมากระทืบ ๆ ๆ ๆ ให้แบนแล้วปั้นเป็นก้อนกลม ยัดเข้าไปในปืนใหญ่เรือ แล้วยิงลงไปในน้ำให้กลายเป็นอาหารซาฮากิน โอ๊ยโมโหโคตร ๆ ๆ ๆ ๆ ๆ เอนทรี่นี้จะยาวมากเพราะบ่น บ่น บ่นและบ่น (เป็นภาษาอังกฤษเพราะขี้เกียจแปลเป็นไทยอีกรอบ)

I’ve reported this player, stating that their behaviors were extremely suspicious. I hope the Special Task Force would look into it and solve this problem. But this is going to be a LONG rant.

I ran into a party in Normal Halataly (via Roulette) where the tank was very likely a bot. In short, that tank never said anything and never replied to any question and advice. That tank received many equipment from treasure boxes while we were there, but never equip any of them! Normally, people would change into the new gear in order to better the defense and performance in party, right? This tank also seemed to have certain patterns in their movements. The bot must have been programmed to walk in a predesigned route, so it would walk around to search of a target in an empty hall even when all the enemies were killed.

This probably-botting-tank also disregarded standard kill order. For example, they would keep on hitting other enemy when a bomb joins the fray, letting it explode on himself and on me. We died from bomb at least twice during that run, because the bomb attacked me after I healed the tank. They never used Shield Bash to interrupt the self-destruction of the bomb, even after the thaumaturge told them to. And they never run to pick the enemies off me, the thaumaturge, or the archer. At start, they would use Flash once, or twice, without making sure all the enemies were properly gathered or not. Therefore, they never generated enough enmity to keep the mobs away from me, the healer.

It was exhausting and mentally unhealthy to have been put in the same party as a bot. They do not have proper reaction to circumstances, and they have lousy play style. Other members need enormous amount of effort, skills and patience to get through the dungeon, or just to stay alive, LOL. I didn’t realize until nearing the end of the dungeon that the tank MIGHT BE a bot. At first I just thought he was ignorant tank who can’t play his role correctly. I didn’t suspect it until, after I asked the tank to change into their new gear again and again, the thaumaturge commented that “a bot does not equip stuff.” That’s upsetting, because no amount of adjustment or player skills can make a party with a bot run smoothly. I felt like I used up all my daily gaming energy just in that one dungeon.

Probably a bot.

Probably a bot.

Moreover, I would have died about 10 more times if it wasn’t because the thaumaturge tried their best to keep me alive with both Stoneskin and Cure (and sometimes the thaumaturge died in my place because of the cure spam and Blizzard something spam (to bind the mobs). The archer, too, would always come to my rescue whenever a monster started beating me up (while the botting tank ignored).  I feel so grateful to them and at the same time feel sorry for them to have to put up with this shit. If we knew or suspected faster that the tank was a bot, I would have asked them to just abandon duty, or vote kick and seek new tank.

If botting is not eliminated, I feel that Duty Finder will lose its charm. It is dreadful to think that you might end up in a party with botters who are not only cheating, but also have mediocre performance.  Usually, I dislike Duty Finder, because I dread playing with strangers, especially strangers who don’t play nice as a team, but with the Roulette reward, I got greedy and want to hog some money. So I’ve been doing a few Duty Roulettes per day or two days.

When I’m on Monk, I get away easily because my role is to survive while dealing as much damage to the enemies as I can. There might be some minor adjustments I need to make as a monk in a party with all total strangers, such as grabbing stray adds if the tank does not grab them, switching target to the enemy that wander off to beat up on a mage, arranging kill order as I see fit, and improvising strategies when shit happens.

However, when I play White Mage, it is a completely different story. My play style will depend mainly on the tank and the members of the party. Take The Wanderer’s Palace for example. It was a popular place for speed runs to farm Tomestones. Many people would want to just whoosh through it in 15 – 20 minutes and just be done with it, receiving easy reward. However, doing speed run, anywhere, requires several factors to be just right. You need good gear, you need experience or some knowledge about the place and the enemies, you need player skills, you need quick reaction, and you need to evaluate your party’s capability well and execute plan according to it.

In WP, sometimes the tank only pulls from 2 or 3 rooms before stopping to kill them off. Some, however, may want to pull EVERYTHING until they reach the boss room’s door. I would have to be on my toes about healing if the tank pulls big horde of mobs. If I cannot keep the tank full or above 80%, I will refrain from spamming Holy. However, if I feel that a stun or two will ease my healing duty, I will try to cast Holy once or twice. If the tank is very good and does not need much of my healing, I just go all out and spam Holy like there’s no tomorrow. :D Also, the faster DPS members can kill, the bigger the tank can safely pull. I can also sit back and just focus on healing if they make enough damage on their own.

However, if, for example, in the Pudding boss room (sorry, I forget the name) if DPS is not enough to kill the pudding adds, I would have to make sure I cast Holy whenever the adds pop, otherwise they will start debuffing people, and a Heavy debuff can be fatal if unlucky (being the “single target” while having heavy and being unable to remove all debuffs fast enough is a pain in the ass! Hahaha.)

The tank, too, should observe their party and carefully plan what they can pull and how many enemies the party can tackle at a time. To bite off more than you (or your party) can chew is to court disaster. Then, your rushing might be the cause for the delay. Dying from being too hurried is counterproductive. Then, why die? Better play safe. You can push, but not too much. Playing in a party is not like soloing. You cannot just rely on your own skills and gear. The party runs with all members together, each with their own role and contribution. If the teamwork is good, the dungeon tends to be smoother.

Oh, but you can’t adapt to a bot’s play style….because a bot’s actions are not practical in real situation, and you can’t discuss with the bot to adjust strategies. They are all brawns but no brains. Fuck bots. Go to hell, bots. I hate you, I hate you! You made my day of relaxing became hell.

Come to think of it, the other lousy tank I met in Tam-Tara might have been a bot as well, judging from how they played. Ughhhhh.

This is making me so mad. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Tank who doesn’t Flash

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I don’t play tank so I’m not sure if this is wrong, but I thought tank (GLA or PLD) is supposed to use Flash at start for initiative mob control or use it frequently while tanking multiple enemies at the same time. Today I went to Tam-Tara from Duty Roulette, and was in a party where THM was constantly reminding GLA to use Flash. I thought he or she was just being fussy, but after a while I noticed that the GLA never used Flash at all.

Of course the extra monsters (which we wasn’t targeting) would run everywhere. THM made heavy use of Sleep spell so that saved us a wreck. I would have failed at keeping people alive if THM didn’t use Sleep! I tried saying in /say (in case the tank person didn’t see /party chat) Flash will help a lot when there are more than 1 enemies. Please use it.  (“Flash” and “Please use it.” was from auto-translation, just in case.) However, the GLA never used it at all.

Then, the THM said that the tank was using wrong spell, because the GLA used something that recovers MP instead of creating enmity. Since I have no knowledge in that, I didn’t say anything. ><;;  Maybe the tank set wrong skill button or just didn’t understand how those skills work. Still, it is a headache to see that some people don’t play their role in the party properly and don’t pay attention to advice.

Roulette Tam-Tara party

Roulette Tam-Tara party

At the boss room, at one point I was tanking 4 adds at the same time while GLA and PGL were busy trying to kill the Imps. THM? Of course THM was busy tanking the mindflayer boss on the other side of the room. LOL. PGL seems to have quick reaction when things start to beat up any of the mages and was the first one to come to me to kick those skeletons asses on all 3 rounds of adds summoning while THM ran around the room trying to stay alive, hahaha.

Was fun, though. I never knew that those adds were this weak. They were beating on me for a long time before rescue arrived, and I dodged most of the attacks and didn’t get too much damage.  I should have tried to kill them off instead of spamming cure.

Confusing Ifrit Run (Hard)

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On 19 Jan, there was an Ifrit run that stumped me until today. I don’t know what I did wrong, but people yelled at me and 3 of them left the duty immediately after wipe.

ffxiv_01162014_205903

I have been feeling unwilling to play healer for the past 2 weeks, so I played on my Monk to relax instead. (Although I went to Guildhest and Roulette 16+ as SCH at least once a day so I won’t rust.) Then I saw I could do some Ifrit to practice my dodge skill. I know Ifrit fight very well from 1.0. It changed only a little. And I did Ifrit for a few times that day.

Then, this particular run, tank asked me whats up after telling me to get the nails. You know, at first sight of the nails, I always speed to the furthest nail in the back using Shoulder Tackle to avoid getting hit by Vulcan Burst. And I usually kill that nail or punch it while watching BLM using Limit Break on all the nails, before moving to the next ones.

It had always been like that; a DPS mage would use LB, trying to get all nails to speed up the nail kills. Previous runs, I happened to be in this tank’s party for at least 2 rounds before, so I expect him to know that I was doing it correctly, because no one yelled at me in previous runs and it worked well, we all survived Hellfire. But suddenly this run he yelled at me and left the duty TAT Along with 2 other people which were BLM and WHM.

I’m also very confused about what the BLM said, “no kick = no lb” because I was kicking and punching the nails as hard as I could. I even took care to execute combo from correct sides (flank and rear) to maximize damage output. I even used Internal Release and Blood for Blood to boost it. Yet the BLM said no kick = no lb. What? Why? Was it because the LB bars weren’t filled? I just don’t get it. ><;;

ffxiv_01162014_205903s

Judging from the tank’s question to me (“get the nails……” and “whats up monk…………….” And there was only 1 monk in the party) maybe people had lags and saw me standing still? I suspect that this might be the case because as a healer, I used to see a tank and an archer standing still at a treasure chest in Copperbell Mines, when in reality, they were ahead in the dungeon and fighting new group of enemies and were dying because I did not join (I was staring at their “shadows” like dumb, wondering why they wouldn’t move.)

I swear it wasn’t me who had lag or was frozen due to connection problem. Because usually when I have bad lags, I won’t be able to continue my combo. My side of the game won’t recognize that I had used an attack and changed my form, so it won’t let me continue the combo chain. The chat log won’t show my damage, and there will be no damage numbers on my screen. And then I would either see fast forward vision until I catch up with real time frame, or be kicked from the server. Of course neither of those happened in that run. And maybe the 3 members left because of the connection problem. I have no idea. I just hope so. It’s sad to think that they left after 1 wipe because of me, because of the mistake I didn’t even commit.

By the way, as I hate to be misunderstood as a lousy player (monk not attacking nails is lousy, yeah) if any of my readers know those people (especially Der Henker, the tank that left or got disconnected and the BLM Tamakkia Yokai’hime that said I didn’t kick ><;;) please let them know the true story. I even saved some chatlog screenhots that show me attacking the nails during that run. TAT

Ifrit_Nails01 Ifrit_Nails02 Ifrit_Nails03 Ifrit_Nails04 Ifrit_Nails05 Ifrit_Nails06 Ifrit_Nails07

Deserter Debuff

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Deserter…. I never knew this debuff exists. My bad for not reading all update notes, but wow, so that’s what people have been talking about being locked out of dungeons. I heard of the penalty for Duty Finder which occurs when you abandon a duty before anyone else in the party, but I didn’t know it was a debuff.

Today I was ranting about people acting like an ass to get kicked by vote dismiss, so that they could avoid taking Duty Finder penalty, and then someone mentioned Deserter, so I got curious and googled it.

Of course, I never saw this debuff, because I never left first. I was always, emphasize ALWAYS, the last one to leave the duty. People bailed on me. I never bailed on anyone. I don’t know if this is good or bad, LOL. But it’s funny that I did not know about this debuff. I now only managed to find out that patch 2.1 had increased 15 minutes penalty to 30 minutes. I have no idea how long this penalty had been introduced to Duty Finder. I am so last year. LOL!!!

My Scholar Training Progress

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Day 1:
Lv. 16+ Roulette – Copperbell Mines (cap level 20)

Successful.

I ran into weird lag problem near the end. I kept seeing the tank and archer still standing at a treasure chest (frozen and when I targeted them, it says they were targeting the chest) and there were also 3 monsters staring at them and having names in orange (agro, but not claimed). While in reality, they already went ahead and killing next group monsters. When I caught up with the group, I saw the tank and the archer fighting with enemies, but I couldn’t target them either from party list or from on-screen mouse click. So before last boss room, I let the tank die, he returned and ran back.

We engaged the boss and started killing. I still had problem targeting the two of them. At times, I would be able to target the archer, and it would show that the archer was targeting boss with 0 HP. LOL!!! I had to rely on my faerie to auto cure them because I couldn’t target them. So I helped to nuke the boss instead. All the time, I was screaming about not able to target tank or archer. And I still got 3 commendations at exit. TAT Whoa, must be because of my dramatic screaming. Sorry guys, hope I didn’t annoy you with all my whining. That sure was a horrible bug to happen inside a dungeon!!!

Day 2:
Lv. 16+ Roulette – Sastasha

Successful. Very easy. I had Eos on auto, though. I ran around to try to shut the gate on the floor to prevent adds popping, but it got out of hands and near the end we had lots of adds popping up. The party seemed to completely ignore them so we just tried to kill the boss as fast as we could. I helped nuke while letting faerie cure LOL.

Main Scenario Roulette – Praetorium

Successful. Had another healer who was White Mage. So it was quite easy.

Lv. 50 Roulette – Pharos Sirius

Miserably failed. Details here : http://www.aleczan.com/FFXIVARR/2014/my-failed-pharos-attempt/

Day 3:

Lv. 16+ Roulette – Haukke Manor (cap level 31)

Successful.

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I got in as a healer replacement while the party was about to fight last boss. The fight went well. I still had to keep Eos on auto-mode because the battle was overwhelming and I couldn’t keep up with manual mode. ><;;

Lv. 50 Roulette – Amdapor Keep

Successful.

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I got into a party with 2 bards. One seemed to know a lot of shit and always went ahead to pull or activate stuff in order to speed up the run. They were nice and forgiving, but not quite communicative. I aggroed some Armor guy while they were fighting something else and they managed well and said np. They did very well and killed fast. Demon Wall was tough but with my Faerie on auto mode, I had a bit extra cure power.

I couldn’t keep up with the cure at Demon Wall, though, so the other bard died right before we won.

At start, I told them I never came here before and they didn’t bail, yet didn’t tell me anything either, LOL. Had to learn on the spot and kept dodging stuff which I see coming. Like the first boss with freaking huge hazard zone….I had to keep following the tank and hug tight when I saw the 2 bards came hug the tank. Then at Demon Wall, I had no information other than I had to stay in the middle of the bridge to avoid being knocked off into the cliff. So I learned to dodge shit by getting hit once. LOL.

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Anyway, at last boss, I asked and the tank said to follow the hax bard. LOL. OK so I stood where he stood, and moved when he moved. It went smoothly until near the end where I was targeted by the purple line, and then a globe of dark energy drew near. I dodged but didn’t dare to leave my spot because it was the safe spot for when boss did AoE. But I got hit and the party was in a very bad shape, but they killed the boss immediately after that.

So, I didn’t learn the mechanic of the last boss in AK at all. LOL. Gotta research some time later.

 

Day 4:

Lv. 16+ Roulette – Tam-Tara Deepcroft (cap level 19)

Successful.

Never had to switch Eos back to auto mode. Yay!~

Lv. 50 Roulette – Amdapor Keep

Failed badly.

I got in as a replacement healer when the part was stuck at fighting Demon Wall. Their healer seemed to have bailed because time was running low (about 25 mins left). We went and wiped. Then at next try, BLM got knocked off the bridge and we wiped. Not enough time, so everyone quit.

Lv. 50 Roulette again – The Wanderer’s Palace

Successful.

I did this dungeon in a daze, I don’t even remember now whether I had Eos on auto or manual. All I remember is that I told the party that I never came here as SCH before, but usually a WHM. They said good enough, and that it’s a chance I get to practice SCH. Right!! ^^ Then my Eos kept getting eaten by big bad Bob (Tonberry Stalker).

We won and parted happily. The tank was exceptionally friendly. He even asked how did I like playing SCH so far. ^^ Of course, I like it so much, but there is so much to learn.

Day 5:

Lv. 50 Roulette – Haukke Manor (Hard)

Failed.

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I got in when the party only had Black Mage and Dragoon left. The BLM was a screenshot enthusiast. So we took some pics before a new tank arrived. Then we had a pic with the tank as well.

The fight was so crazy and I also had to put my Faerie on auto (after a few failed attempts to manually control her). Even then, I still couldn’t keep up with healing. We didn’t have enough DPS to kill the maids, so the Rain something attack killed us every time. I also couldn’t dodge some of the AoE attacks. The party was often in bad shape. I and the tank didn’t know the fight and was our first time in Haukke (hard). We kept trying until we had 5 mins left. Then we stood and chatted at the entrance, LOL.  We took screenshots until we got kicked.

Lv. 50 Roulette again – Copperbell Mines (Hard)

Successful, with a lot of wipes.

I got into a party full of French people. They were talking French to each other, probably discussing about battle plans and stuff. I relied mostly on my knowledge from previous run (using WHM) where I was just following the tank around, especially at the boss fight on wooden bridge, because he told me to always hide behind him.

We did very good this run, until the last boss. The BLM kept dying because he was on feeding duty, and whenever he got heavy debuff, he would get eaten. I wasn’t fast enough to run and cast Leeches (SCH’s Esuna) on him. They talked about plans and stuff in French. Then at one point, the BLM spoke in English telling tank to place the boss near the middle (on the rocks, not on sand) so that I would be in range to cure worm feeding person.

We did ok until BLM died XD LOL. Then on last try, which was the successful try, the BLM said we will get it this time, and my work will be lighter. I think maybe they noticed that I couldn’t keep up with the cure and debuff ; ;

I had my Faerie on auto mode on this boss (and also on the bombing bridge boss) because I couldn’t keep up with the hectic rhythm of the battle.

The monk managed to use Limit Break on the boss before dying. I raised BLM and they went crazy on the boss near the end. At one point I only focused on curing the tank and let them die, but we won just in time before something else worse happened.

>_<

Lv. 16+ Roulette – The Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak (cap at level 27)

Successful.

My Eos was on manual mode full-time. ^^

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We ran into a minor hiccup when my bro knocked on my door to summon me for a piece of pizza, and I left my chair, typing something like “BRB a sec, somsone knocked on my door.” I returned and saw that the party already went ahead and fought next group of enemies ALL BECAUSE I didn’t type in Party, but in Linkshell channel!!!!!!! TAT So the tank died and the Archer had to tank while I caught up with them and tried to cure. Then the Archer died while I was resurrecting the tank. Archer returned to run back, we killed a web what’s blocking the way and entered a room where the 2nd boss would pop. When the Archer arrived, he couldn’t enter the room! His character kept running forward, but was pushed by an invisible wall (he said it’s not invisible on his screen, but for me there was nothing! In the above screenshot, he was blocked out just before reaching the purple line.) I saw it. And he kept saying he can’t pass that spot. It was a bizarre glitch! Maybe it happened because we killed that web barricade while he wasn’t in the screen, so his system still thought there was a web blocking his way. TAT After a while he probably returned to the entrance and then came back again, then he was able to get in.

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Right now I’m on a break, as I feel like I’ve been doing too much dungeon runs with strangers, it’s getting stressful, especially when the party keeps dying because I cannot keep up with the healing. It makes me feel bad about myself and I take some mental damage to my healer esteem. I also feel bad for being a hindrance for the party. I think I might have to start again from partying up with friends, so that if we keep dying, we can communicate and work on what I need to improve, or get some advice. Also it will not drag strangers into my practice so they won’t have to suffer my mess.

Problem is my friends are hardly online at the same time, as people have their own schedule in real life. And even if I only pair up with my tank friend and seek 2 random DPS from the Duty Finder, that would not serve as a practice run, as he is too good. He almost never died. So I won’t be able to evaluate myself whether I am doing good or doing bad, because he would just not die. ><;;

My other problem is I am not familiar with partying up with strangers. So when I’m in random party from Duty Finder, it’s a little stressful.

Ugh, I just need a little break. I’ll resume my training with Duty Finder soon….. Probably during this weekend.