This is why you don't melee ...

[Aeni]

... if you cannot handle your responsibilities.

On this night (Not tonight) that the screenshot was taken, I was involved in some retardedly insane Hakutaku Marathon which culminated in a total of 9 hours of tiring effort in order to obtain Optical Hats for no less than 9 cluster holders ... only 6 managed to walk from this ordeal with the prized possessions.

There were untold deaths, mostly on the part of our valiant tanks, who unselfishly gave it their all in trying to manage this unfortunately epic battle.

However, there were a couple of bad apples in the alliance, and no more notorious than the RDM that was situated in my party, a part of seasoned veterans responsible for leading the battles and for providing essential communication to the other players ...

Here is a level 75 RDM, supposedly tested in many end game activities and teeming with knowledge of his job. He had told us he would be subbing DRK for stun, to provide additional stunning on this mad-AOE-ridden beast ...

However, he also had a penchant for throwing himself into the fray, mindlessly meleeing with his newly obtained Optical Hat, dagger in hand and just squealing in delight with one or two additional strikes he otherwise was not able to perform prior to this night ...

What was the result of his negligent behavior? There were no refreshing and backup cures in our PT. I silently disengaged during crucial moments of every fight to gather my lost MP in order to continue along in the stun rotation ... however many stuns we had that night, there were times when the resting coincided with each other, such as it were in the moments similar to this screenshot ...

When Haku started to cast Firaga III, I knew that something was up when Stun #1 did not throw a stun. A quick glance and I noticed that she was taking a knee for MP ... so was Stun #3 ... and Stun #4 ...

Then I noticed that the RDM had scuttled nondescript to the rear to take a knee as well. After the WHM implored for a refresh, the RDM answered with, "Getting some MP back." Huh, if you were refreshing, this shouldn't be a problem. Oh heck, why don't you just convert ....

You know, I love my RDMs dearly. They are the important pieces in that large gear box which allows all parts to perform their duty. However, when one all of a sudden takes his role for granted and shrugs off the importance of such a basic role, things start to fall apart.

I conclude this post with the same lecture every RDM has already heard. But I wanted to give you undeniable proof of this ...

... If you can't do your job, then you shouldn't be meleeing ...

Oh, when Firaga III landed, unmolested, 5 players got toasted and the fight was nearly lost. It was just dumbluck, that somehow, the little JP tarutaru ninja managed to tank a good 1 minute with less than 50 HP to his name ...

Oh, and happy holidays to everyone. Good night.

[Xellith]

id have taken a poop on his foot. but thats just me. wootaru

[Rai|Kye]

haha,





not

[aegina]

that's some powerful persuasion you got there, young missie!

i must admit, when i was a red mage, there were times i gave in to the temptation and melee'd when i shouldn't have...

[Ghostraven]

the temptation is there, but you have to ignore it.

shame on this rdm........

[Xellith]

this rdm shoulda done his job. instead of thinking "hey im uber and 1337 now i have a class C sword that probobly isnt even capped on this NM thats highly evasive. Yeah +10 accuracy is gonna make me invincible now".

Dumbass...

(i bet thats what he was thinking)

[Icemage]

Makes me glad I'm a Tarutaru. :) Less reason to want to dive in and mix it up for 3 damage a hit.

RDMs like that need to be slapped. Hard. Repeatedly. With Galka-hair brooms.


Icemage

[TheGrandMom]

I often find that when you get a group of high lvls together to do something, there will be at least a couple of nimrods in the bunch. "Oh hey I'm lvl 75! I am teh uber! I will show my 1337 skillz!" Heck I've died farming water (DC mobs) with 6 tanks! Just makes you want to smack people upside the head!

[Hyrist]

First off? Whats that on your back? Secondly, where is the rdm dark in that picture, if he's meleing You'd think you'd be able to see him.

[Taskmage]

Well, there's at least one person in the fight that is completely hidden by the Hakutaku. I don't see any O hats in the picture, but they might be gear swapping. *shrug*

At any rate, I don't read the moral of this story as "rdm shouldn't melee" so much as "recognize what your group has invited you to do, and make sure whatever else you do doesn't interfere with that task." If you can't do your job, then you shouldn't be in the party regardless of whether or not you're meleeing.

Btw, is the taru on the right behind the Hakutaku wearing Nashira Turban?*drool*

[WishMaster3K]

Funny. My Sword is hovering at 212, hence, anything DC or higher is gonna be a huge Whiff fest. For shame. Well, at least if he was a leet taru, like myself, and came properly equipped, he could have easily meleed, refreshed and stunned.

Coulda made use of the DRK abilities and access to Vorpal Blade for some extra damage, but obviously, he's a retard. If it were a seasoned RDM, it'd be possible. But honestly, even with what I know, if I had to refresh that many ppl, I'd be too busy grabbing a seat (Tarus don't take knees) for my own MP to be meleeing.

So there goes the argument "It's possible." I'm sorry for getting everyone's hope up.

[Reincarnation]

I've always had a knack for being stupid like this... -w-;; I don't do it much anymore, heck, I don't do it, now I just go crazy when I'm by myself in a field! ^w^;; I always found that a fun way to get that whole yippy feeling off! ^0^

[Aeni]

First off? Whats that on your back? Secondly, where is the rdm dark in that picture, if he's meleing You'd think you'd be able to see him.

Read the post Hyrist. It explains what the RDM was doing, so I won't bother to reiterate here once again.

That is a Bhuj on my back. The danger with fighting Hakutaku is that hate is about as thin skin on the tanks as a body suit on Aeon Flux. So when ever I rest, I make sure I put on some +VIT and other defensive gears. It may not be much, but trust me, it can make the difference of being one shotted or having just enough HP left after the initial mauling so that someone can save your ass - provided you have a good WHM (which we did)

Although you coming here with that posts smells like you just want to troll. If you're a RDM and feel slighted by my post, don't even bother reading this thread, as it's pretty obvious those kinds of RDM will feel the need to be defensive about any criticism drawn to them as well as the need to be bullheaded about their own modus operandi and ego.

Addendum

Need to explain something about fighting Hakutaku. Whenever you have blink tanks, the real danger is not them being able to evade or dodge physical attacks from the NM, but that they are ineffective in dealing physical damage against the NM, which is part of being able to maintain hate against mages, like BLMs, that do superbly well in this fight.

I remember many times during the night where the NM would just suddenly turn on me and I've died several times because of this (When people talk about DRKs not making good tanks, Hakutaku really prove this in a way that you cannot argue against it) Haku once double fisted me so that the WHM mid-casting Cure III (I had about 900 HP) didn't get that to land and I instantly died (The HP bar just fades from white to nothing with a red zero popping up)

Even when resting, this becomes a grave danger. If one of the tanks dies, then immediately, whoever was second on the hate list will feel the NM's wrath. Normally, this is not an issue with more than one tank, but like I said, there were a couple of nubs in the alliance and one of them was another NIN, who was so cared of dying, he stood a few steps away and just voked - that's all he did. We couldn't boot him because apparently he was with a few players there (BLM, NIN and MNK) and we'd have to quit the runs altogether if they all left.

Incidentally, one of the players there, another RDM, was constantly harassed by the other players there, simply because he said that he was Chinese. I think there's a bit of racism in this game, probably initiated by the whole "Chinese are RMTs" and I think that, while not for this topic, players should need to knock that shit off from the game.

[aegina]

i can see the red mage. he's in the back.

edit: ...or, is that a different rdm?

[Aeni]

i can see the red mage. he's in the back.

edit: ...or, is that a different rdm?

That's the one, hume RDM. He was resting to get MP back and then when the WHM asked for that refresh, he set that excuse up, but some one else sent him a /tell demanding that he give the poor WHM the refresh she needed.

[tdh]

Now I agree that the RDM should have done their job, but wasn't there a PLD or a DRK who could have Shield/Weapon Bashed it to Stun it? Or were all of those used up?

But for some reason when a lot of RDMs start meleeing, they seem to completely forget what their job is. As if that part of their brain is suddenly on the tip of their sword.

In something like this I don't mind a RDM meleeing, but they have to do their other duties too!

[Aeni]

Now I agree that the RDM should have done their job, but wasn't there a PLD or a DRK who could have Shield/Weapon Bashed it to Stun it? Or were all of those used up?

LOL ... tdh, you should know by now that shield bash/weapon bash is not effective against mage type monsters that may have a secondary trait of "spell interuption -%" which you can find on some equipment out there for players to use.

That's why Stun is very important. It's almost guaranteed and especially so on this NM (Other NMs may have additional defense that triggers to protect them against being stunned out of spell casting)

[JeanRC]

i do melee in pt sometimes XD but i do it when those monster dont do anything aoe damage or sleep etc. And melee as a rdm is 2nd to me, first thing is enfeeble, refresh and maybe haste etc. Notice i dont have to cure much at higher level because other mage is curing good and my enfeeble lands good too so the cure required is little.

In haku run, i never do it with unknow people. I only did it a few times with my hnm ls or my own ls people. Why? because in haku run, you need team work. Stunner are important, they need an order as in whos turn to stun and not mix it up or screw it. Then comes the link or aggro part when fighting haku. someone need to kill it and tank the aggro.
Haku run alone with about 18 people is not that hard or easy but the most important thing is blink tank,stunner, a little enfeeble on it. But do take note haku has quite high resist to enfeeble spells, specially if you are not lv75 and have some enfeelb merit and good enfeeble eq. Enfeeble helps a lot for tank.

Haku do resist stun sometimes for some reason by black mage or drk or maybe even rdm/drk. The last one i go, i subbed drk for my rdm but i told them not to put me into the stunner list if possible and i was not inside it. Reason being i have to make sure enfeeble stick on it, refresh on my pt mages and pld( why pld? to help cure too lol ) haste on other pt ninja tank. Although i am not the only rdm or haste mage inside the ally, but i have the most responsiblity because i am the ls leader and we are going as a ls. so i am doing a lot of stuffs that is not really needed to do since they are other rdm there too. But having so huge responsiblity, i had to make sure enfeeble, haste on ninja tank, refresh on my mage pt and pld for helping to cure and sometimes curing ninja tank get it right without much delay. So even though i sub drk, i told the stunner leader not to put me inside the order as i may not have time to stun it when is my turn. Why? To our stunner, number 1 rule is when you are on your turn to stun, you are not suppose to do anything except watching haku ga3 spell and stun it. Reason being you may not be able to stun in time if you are doing something else sometimes. This risk is huge so he only focus on stun when its his turn.
Therefore i ask them not to put me into stun list as the other stuff i had to do takes time.
I subbed drk just incase when some stunner dc or dreaming and i am not doing anything at that second of time and i will random stun ga3 spell.

[Zempten]

I'm sorry, I meele for this fight . . . . .







....The first .5 seconds enough for me to land a Spirit's Within at 300% TP

[Karinya]

Well, RDM/DRK get stun at level 74, and since we only have it while subbing DRK, we have a lot less opportunity to practice it. So a RDM75 may not be any more experienced at stunning than a DRK40; this is why it may be dangerous to ask him to participate in an HNM stun order and expect the same expertise as DRKs that have been stunning for 30+ levels or BLMs for 25+.

It's silly to blame it on melee, though. Nuking and resting would have caused the same problem. It was just inexperience in stun orders by that particular RDM.

Of course, if he was failing at refresh and enfeebling, too, he may just be an unskilled RDM - there are unfortunately rather a lot of those around. Any job can be screwed up by a bad enough player, it doesn't say anything about the capabilities of the job itself.

With the right people and good coordination he's not really dangerous at all, just annoying because he takes so damn long to die. (Well, not dangerous to the alliance as a whole. It's not that unlikely that one or two people per fight will hit the dirt.)

[Aeni]

Of course, if he was failing at refresh and enfeebling, too, he may just be an unskilled RDM - there are unfortunately rather a lot of those around.

That is the point I'm getting at. And if you fail this, then don't melee. Why? Because, melee will effectively take you away from paying attention to your recast timer, watching the tank for any sudden change in his status (The BST/WHM here was the only one that was effective at throwing out paralyna on the tanks - so fast, no one had time to even think the words, "I'm paralyzed.")

When a RDM is not paying attention, even 1 second can cost the battle and a 2 million gil item (The cost of a cluster to force pop Hakutaku in case you didn't know) When you agree to become a part of an alliance to take care of something this important, then you best rein in that foolishness or pay for your mistakes as a consequence.

Another thing, about needing practice with stun. Not sure if you're even aware that Stun is pretty much instant casting combined with a RDM's inherent fast cast trait, but let me just say that your argument for defense of a RDM/DRK is totally wrong. How long does it take for anyone to cast an AM or -ga III? Let me tell you, to a "practiced stunner" it is eternity. For a RDM with fast cast traits up his rear, it's more than enough time to casually look it up in your menu and use it. So please, don't use this excuse, because it's getting old.

Addendum

Need to add this in response to JeanRC.

Many LS are small, JeanRC. You are fortunate to have an LS that is large enough to play host to many level 70+ players. This does make the runs smoother, generally because you get the experience players as well as players committed to the cause and will not do anything irrational to jeopardize his/her shell family.

However, for the others and for players who play this game very casually (I have a couple of friends who only play twice a week and log in everyday only to tend to their gardens) they do not have your luxury of being able to make runs with familiar faces. Thus, there needs to be trust and enough of it to go around in order for the whole thing to function. Trust in each other's abilities and trust in each other's confidence.

Now, going on to the topic, when a RDM who is engaged in a role that is considered by many as secondary, and is oblivious to his duties and primary role, then there is discordance with the group. There is no trust factor involved, because the RDM violated this trust. He has proven ineffective to deliver this primary role and choose to use his focus on his new found e-peen (Optical Hat) and melee on an NM with a laughably high defense with a beestinger dagger. Do you see how perverse this picture is looking now?

You can argue all you want on how we should've done this run this way or that way, but the truth is not everyone has that kind of resources at their fingertips or call and beckon. You need to make do with the situation you have and this topic was focused primarily on how one person, trying to shed off all stereotypes about his job, ended up disgracing himself and the community at large.

[Zempten]

I think having certain people assigned to paralyna certain people is the best course of action. It prevents mages from paralyna the same person over and over.

Stunning isn't that hard. It's the same reaction that RDMs have practicedw ith Dispel over the 30+ levels they've had it. Same reaction. You see mob using a defense boost or what not, you hit your dispel macro. It's pretty much the same with Stunning

[JeanRC]

I'm sorry, I meele for this fight . . . . .







....The first .5 seconds enough for me to land a Spirit's Within at 300% TP


lol for the first .5 sec just to land a spirit is always helpful since its 300tp.
Is just like getting 300tp for genbu etc. But after that is a no no.


I am not trying to shield this rdm we talking here ^^
Infact i think he fail his duty as a rdm.
What i had said is just what i did for my haku run.
Yes there are some people who dont get a LS that do it for them.
And yes i provided the LS to my people and to even new people who just join that day and took the haku hat and then disappear into thin air.
The fact i am doing this is to help the people inside the LS, as the few orangiser for this haku run all had the hat before the run including me which dont even have a melee job pass lv 70.

I forgot to say this in my last post, we also have handle the task of paralyzena to whm and pld sub whm if i did not remember wrongly. as pld is not much of a use in tanking haku, we ask them to sub whm for more mp and help to paralyzena tank etc.

Having trust in what others is doing is huge specially to someone you dont even know. This is where the japanese are very good at. But lacking in english players.
Please dont blame me for saying this as is a proven fact. When i say japanese and english players, i mean the majority of them not just a few single good or bad players. Trust really dont just build up on nothing. It come from history of players group like japanese, na,eu ,spanish, italy and others. Example japanese are well known for trust as they always try their best to finish what is agree. From simple level up pt to BCNM, mission,etc etc. Like most people know, there tends to be some people that speak english that dc in pt and never come back, or after they die from aggro and then dezone back to jeuno and quit pt and so many more shitz. On a ratio of 100 japanese/english party for mission,bcnm,level up pt,
only like less then 10 will quit/run away/fake dc in pt after they die/or unhappy/etc in japanese party but more then 30 will quit/run away/fake dc in pt after they die/or unhappy/etc in english party ; ;

This is really sad but it still happen even now.
Consider that i have the luxury of able to pt more with japanese party then the others english speaking players due to the fact i importer my game and its in japanese and i learn little bit of japanese starting from day 1, which mean i wount have to pt with english a lot, but i still seeing quite a lot of people who quit and run away from party in english pt even though i dont pt with them much.
too many such incidents that i see/heard . So a lot of times we cant blame japanese for not wanting to pt with english.
But to those who dont mind pting with english, i always give them a thumb up for invite when i am making a pt.

[Xellith]

everyones job changes from one moment to the next. Ive used my paladin to help backup heal dammit.

the fact remains the rdm/drk was given a task to do. which was refresh and be apart of the stun order. he completely forgot this and decided he wanted to melee.

He failed at his task.

Someone said that rdm/drk get stun at level 74 and so are inexperienced with stun cycles.... WHAT THE FUCK DOES GETTING STUN AT 74 HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?!?!!

excuse me. im a 75 blm and when i started a stun cycle at level 70 with my blm i had no clue what i was doing but i learned what to do. because i have had stun since level 47 im suppost to instantly know how to do a stun cycle??? hell no fool.

And the spell itself is that hard to understand??? monster uses spell/ability press a macro which stops that spell/ability. yeah.. really hard to understand.

The RDM failed. simple as that.

additional: sorry for my harsh tone. but this rdm shouldnt be defended as he failed knowingly.

RDMS should only ever melee if they know what they are doing. which this one obviously didnt. my rdm is 41. i tried to melee while doing my job. couldnt do it. wont do it again probobly. this rdm cant melee and refresh and stun. nuff said. he should have stuck tot he job that he was assigned.

[Karinya]

Still scapegoating melee, I see. A bad RDM is a bad RDM whether they melee or not, and a bad stunner is a bad stunner no matter WHAT else they are doing when they're supposed to be stunning. But RDM melee is a convenient scapegoat because people are so eager to jump on it, so if you make it about RDM meleeing, then you feel like you're saying something more important than just "this particular RDM was bad at stunning and at his job in general", which may be true but not really interesting to the rest of the FFXI-playing population outside your server.

Xellith, if you don't think that 25-30 levels of experience with using a particular spell is relevant to knowing how to use it, I don't know what to say. Most RDMs are new at stunning and you need to not assume they already know how to do it. Now, obviously, there isn't enough information in the OP to *know* that the RDM was just told "you stun third" or whatever without anyone bothering to explain what you should put in your stun macro, why it's important not to cast anything else when you're up for stun, which attacks they should be trying to stun, what chat filter settings you need so that you can see what you need to stun and not get spammed, etc.; but I see similar things happen all the time in LSes that have done something 82672476 times and then bring a new member, and it is setting that person up to fail.

Of course, even with a good explanation of the tactics, some people will screw it up anyway. But if you didn't even tell them what's going on, it's kind of unfair to blame them for not knowing, when it's something outside the ordinary experience of their job; and *any* stunning is outside the ordinary experience of RDM, unlike DRK and BLM. We can't know based on the OP which was the case, and we should avoid jumping to conclusions, especially based on irrelevant emotionally charged crap like "omg he meleed!!one!"

Double Post Edited:
Stunning isn't that hard. It's the same reaction that RDMs have practicedw ith Dispel over the 30+ levels they've had it. Same reaction. You see mob using a defense boost or what not, you hit your dispel macro. It's pretty much the same with Stunning
If you stun like you were dispelling, then exactly what happened in the OP is going to happen, because in fact they are very little alike. If you don't stun within less than a second you might as well not do it at all for some things (you might have as many as 5 seconds for ancient magic).

You can start a refresh, see a monster using a buff move, dispel after your refresh finishes and it works fine. If you are casting ANYTHING when a move you're supposed to stun comes up, you have already failed, unless it was AM. And if you haven't stunned before, you don't necessarily know that.

[Weeeekujata]

SATA+WS (Samurai Breed works well!, make sure you have a thf to do a TA on him for extra pizzaz) RDM next time, after he dies, tell him thnx he was finalyl useful for something , proceed to give him a R1 saying he is needed for refresh, usually that kicks in there head. and no its not against pol since you are theortically using to output dmg.(thats the excuse you need). anyways ya... xp pt meleeing is one thing, but when it involves someones 1m cluster as well as many peoples xp...

[WishMaster3K]

lol Wee. I've been (intentionally) used as SATA partner for damage since there was no other voker and the PLD was a Hate-Whore. I never died, but Stoneskin stopping 2-3 hits may be a reason.

Anyway, RDM shouldn't melee during NM runs that require and alliance of HLs. Point being, you get so obsessed with getting TP you sacrifice /healing. I use the clock to time my refresh cycle, and when I am engaged to a mob, I can't see the clock. Also, by the time you get to 100% TP, Fast Blade is useless. Maybe as RDM/DRK he can bust out Vorpal, but in that same sense, it's unlikely he'll do any real damage.

No matter how you look at it, he was a bad RDM, cause DRKs can stun very easily in the midst of all their whiffs, lol.

[Zempten]

If you stun like you were dispelling, then exactly what happened in the OP is going to happen, because in fact they are very little alike. If you don't stun within less than a second you might as well not do it at all for some things (you might have as many as 5 seconds for ancient magic).

You can start a refresh, see a monster using a buff move, dispel after your refresh finishes and it works fine. If you are casting ANYTHING when a move you're supposed to stun comes up, you have already failed, unless it was AM. And if you haven't stunned before, you don't necessarily know that.

To clarify to you, I meant the reaction. Not the course.

Double Post Edited:
BTW, I'm not sure if I'm reading it wrong or not, but according to the OP the RDM/DRK was just meeleing and not stunning like he was suppose to and not refreshing like he was suppose to. Stunning as I descriped it would lead to him meeleing and neglecting his RDM duties? I'm not quite sure if I understand you correctly.

Last time I checked, Optical Hat's NM didn't have fast cast to the point spells were instant, as in 1 second. Are you referring to chain stunning? I'm not sure, but I believe there is ample time to stun his Firaga 3. The only thing I found difficult with it was paralyna, but that was easily resolved by having certain people paralyna others. Everything else pretty much worked the same as an exp PT (Refresh so and so, Back-up Cure so and so, if /DRK stun when you see this and that)

You sound quite bitter in your post to me, am I detecting one?

[Heatherr]

To summarise, the RDM plain sucked. Most of us here could have melee'ed and performed his basic enfeeble, refresh and stun duties adequately. Would have enfeebled much better with wands / staves / equipment swaps from the back lines though.

Seperately, Stun rotations are used for end game mobs so the level Stun is obtained is not really important.

[Susurrus]

Not justifying meleeing, but I don't see where your reasoning for the "don't melee" thing is. It isn't like you actually have to control each swing. You turn on auto attack and then you can cast like normal, just like Paladins and Dark Knights do all the time. The post just shows he was a bad player because he did not cast.

[Dragonsword]

Melee, besides gives the mob TP, does distract Rdm from timing the refresh cycle as well as buffs to party members. The game is designed in such a way that we have a role in party and it is because of that essential role, we are invited. For rdm, its their refresh and other buffing and debuffing abilities.

Hero play like this one will cause many deaths and besides. Many ppl's time and xp are lost due to one player who forgot his essential roles.

I would emphasis on maintaining priorities and upkeeping the necessities for the best interest and success of the party, and will refrain from saying Rdm should not melee in any circumstances, well, of course we need to - in skill up party ^^)b.

[little ninja]

Not justifying meleeing, but I don't see where your reasoning for the "don't melee" thing is. It isn't like you actually have to control each swing. You turn on auto attack and then you can cast like normal, just like Paladins and Dark Knights do all the time. The post just shows he was a bad player because he did not cast.

what i think the OP was saying is if you cant keep up with the simple task of refreshing mages, back up healer/stunner. then honestly meleeing should be the furthest thing from your mind.

blink tanking them sucks, but its worse when you dont have mages doing a simple stun to the mob. agaIII = a whole alliance of players in the yellow or lower. an what all because a rdm wasnt able to pay attention to his timers, or /pt chat begging for it.

[Jei]

After years and years playing Rdm I just got too lazy to melee in exp PT and tough battles. I'm sure I can do the Rdm's jobs while swinging my sword. But meleeing requires lot of work and concentration (if you still want to buff/debuff/refresh/MP manage efficiently that is). And the extra damage isn't worth the effort. Strong PT, our melee almost add nothing. Weak PT, our melee won't change a thing.

When stun is our priority, we can't really refresh. refresh takes time to cast, enough for mobs to finish their ga spells. in missions especially PoM when ever we need Rdm/Drk for stun, other MP users will have to take care of themselves with drinks.

[qaitakalnin]

i think the gist of this is to say that if you cant handle melee and the other important factors that you were hired to do for this alliance (i.e. refresh and stun) then yes most definitly you should not be meleeing anything. Stick to what you can do and practice doing more on your own time not others, especially something like this.

[Weeeekujata]

/recast Stun

/recast is one of the greatest tool. please use it, than you can do your refresh, haste enfeebles whatever you wish. other than almathia, I have not seen a mob that spams another spell RIGHT after a stun(which I have time to enfeeble refresh etc). And ya almathia stuns holy like no tommorow n_n

[UnnamedGalka]

Hey now...I'm sure his 5 points of damage per poke plus 7 points of additional En- damage contributed far more to the battle than Refreshing any of you silly stunners and healers would have.

Flare? Firaga III? Pfft...toughen up and let the man enjoy his new fugly hat!

[Aeni]

Not justifying meleeing, but I don't see where your reasoning for the "don't melee" thing is. It isn't like you actually have to control each swing. You turn on auto attack and then you can cast like normal, just like Paladins and Dark Knights do all the time. The post just shows he was a bad player because he did not cast.

Read my entire thread title and the first line in the post. :)

I don't blame melee for a RDMs downfall. In fact, I encourage RDMs to melee if they'd want, when the time and place is right and have no qualms with a RDM in party doing it.

IF ...

If, however, the RDM is not doing his job, basic of basic jobs, outside of back up healing to WHMs and maybe adding in his/her personal touch to a skillchain with some MBs, then the RDM should NOT be meleeing. The simple fact of the matter is that you're doing more harm than contributing anything worthwhile to the alliance.

Let me clarify something so that everyone understands this. There were already 5 stunners on this trip. 2 DRKs and 3 BLMs. The RDM/DRK, before we left Jeuno, said he would come with DRK subbed. We told him he didn't have to, but since he was the last member to sign up on this expedition and we didn't want to hang around any longer in Jeuno, we told him ultimately it was his decision. We told him what the alliance makeup was on more than one occassion and even told him the total number of stunners available.

5 Stuns is more than sufficient against Hakutaku. Eventually, as the evening wore, a BLM left the alliance, leaving just me, 2 other BLMs and another DRK to to stun. 4 Stuns is still ideal at this point. However, when the BLM and myself are not getting refresh, then something is wrong. If both of us (BLM and myself) are healing and then we see the system message that Hakutaku is casting, there is this near instantaneous delay on everyone trying to figure out who's stun is up. We remedy this with Macro and a message after stunning, saying who's next. Well, it was either me or the BLM, since we're one after the other and of course, by the time we realize this and with all the lag in there, it was too late.

The RDM was put into our party for that reason alone. Not to stun (Although he could've stunned too if he wasn't busy doing whatever else he was doing) but to refresh, which he obviously failed at this. In another party, there was a BRD and he was doing a grand job of keeping people happy in that group. Wish I had him in ours -_-;;

[qaitakalnin]

exactly, do what you are asked to do first, then *if* you can do more do more, but not at the cost of the party.

[Caspian]

without anyone bothering to explain what you should put in your stun macro

Seriously? He's lvl 74, does he really need to be told how to set up macro? He's a RDM, his macro creating skills should be among the best on the server, not only that, but he does have DRK at atleast lvl 37, meaning he knows its a viable sub for stunning. (I know Aeni posted the part about him volunteering to come as /DRK after you posted this, so I'll leave that part alone.) Aeni's last post does explain a lot of your questions, mainly b/c all of this was him volunteering, as if he knew exactly what was going on. If he is lvl 74 and doesn't know how to properly create a macro then he'd be best off by logging out and clicking the cancel account button, b/c its unlikely he's ever going to get it.

[Aeni]

I forgot to say this in my last post, we also have handle the task of paralyzena to whm and pld sub whm if i did not remember wrongly. as pld is not much of a use in tanking haku, we ask them to sub whm for more mp and help to paralyzena tank etc.

Ehm ... I have to disagree with this claim. Paladins are not useless and as long as they are high enough in levels, they can properly tank Haku. The only reason why NINs can tank them better at lower levels is because of their ability to throw up gil shields-I mean cast that awesome blink spell known as utsusemi.

When you come down right to it, though, a NIN has the least tools to tank properly even with a WAR sub. Their 2 hour is nothing more than a glorified get out of jail free card (avoiding exp penalty in death) and more often than not is used to give them free warps back to their HP when they are LFP and farming in some remote area like Pso'jxa.

This means that the BLMs have to practice restraint. Stun gives some uber hate (ask any DRK about this) and especially immediately following some massive barrage of nukes on Haku. A NIN tank with proper SATA could hold hate, but most of the melee is done with burst damages from SAMs, DRKs and WARs and SATA won't work properly unless you're behind another tank that is aligned directly across from the main tank. Loss of built up hate (almost an erasing) by transferring hate from tank to tank makes for less efficiency as the fights drag longer while BLMs have to hold back. With PLD tanks, however, once hate is transferred thru SATA, it can be held with several JAs and a flash and cement Haku through 1,000 pts of damage from intense nuking from each BLM. Thus, fights tend to last shorter and PLDs can endure paralysis a tad bit longer than a NIN can, since a NIN without their gil shields - I mean utsusemi - is nothing more than a cardboard tank (3-4 hits and a NIN is usually face down from Haku when a PLD only lost about 1/3 of his total HP)

[Karinya]

[Another detailed response omitted, since clearly nobody on this thread cares about facts, they just want to slam RDMs.]

Really, I think the main problem here is someone thought that if they have a cluster, they are entitled to a hat, neglecting the little matter of the HNM fight. HNMs are dangerous, even to well prepared and skilled groups. Nobody wins 100% of their fights, particularly groups that haven't fought that HNM much yet. There's no need for finger-pointing - Hakutaku is a bastard and sometimes he kills people. I lost 99 KS recently in a failed Horns of War (we ran out of time at <5%); am I going to jump around blaming people and criticizing the playstyle of jobs I don't even play? No. Quit whining and get another cluster. If you don't want to bring that RDM next time, don't. But leave the blame where it belongs, on Hakutaku.

[TheGrandMom]

Yes while NM's are dangerous, people still do make mistakes. This rdm OBVIOUSLY did. Regardless of whether he melee'd or not, he did not do his job. His main job was to REFRESH. If mages don't get refresh then they can't heal and stun. I would have to say that this was a HUGE problem with this fight which means it could have been avoided. If he had not melee'd, would he still have kept refresh going? No one knows but it is safe to say he did NOT do his job.

[Aeni]

[Another detailed response omitted, since clearly nobody on this thread cares about facts, they just want to slam RDMs.]

Really, I think the main problem here is someone thought that if they have a cluster, they are entitled to a hat, neglecting the little matter of the HNM fight. HNMs are dangerous, even to well prepared and skilled groups. Nobody wins 100% of their fights, particularly groups that haven't fought that HNM much yet. There's no need for finger-pointing - Hakutaku is a bastard and sometimes he kills people. I lost 99 KS recently in a failed Horns of War (we ran out of time at <5%); am I going to jump around blaming people and criticizing the playstyle of jobs I don't even play? No. Quit whining and get another cluster. If you don't want to bring that RDM next time, don't. But leave the blame where it belongs, on Hakutaku.

First of all, I have no idea what you're talking about, because you're making ZERO sense in any of your responses so far. Again, you're defensive because you're a RDM and bottom line, any talk involving a RDM, regardless of whether or not the talk was justified, is an insult to you. Why do you need to feel defensive about this? Is it because you're insecure about yourself and how you play your job class? Maybe because the criticism levied on this one player seems to be a mirror reflection of yourself? Really now ...

First of all, no one lost any cluster on this set of runs. I point out the danger, however, of a cluster potentially being lost if someone fails to do their job. Note that we had enough exceptional players to pick up on his slack, but this situation was not limited to just one run. Over the course of six runs (Yes, SIX) this behavior was repeated and, after the RDM got his O Hat, perpetuated to the point where it was abusive behavior.

This post you made seems to be directed at me, in particular. You're trying to lecture to me about HNM fights? Hah. That's funny. Yet in several posts before, you've contradicted yourself or made erroneous assumptions about how these kinds of fights are suppose to be handled. I've seen, with my own eyes, how an exceptional group CAN ALWAYS win, with or without mistakes being made. I don't know why you bring up an example like KS99, since we're talking pears and grapes here (Time limit on one and no time limit on the other) Let me add that Hakutaku has been taken with as little as 8 players before and I've known this firsthand (But I was not in that alliance) Although the battle was quite long, it was still won.

[Zempten]

I personally think as a player we should have played all the jobs to get a feel for it. One of the things that I've known so far is "Knowledge about playing the job and actually playing it is very different".

(No idea where that fits in this post, lol)

[eriiko]

You shouldn't have blocked his name. He is a bad player & everyone should know.
I don't care if you just got Lv75, a player should know when & when not to do things as melee. Although he isn't on my server, so it doesn't matter much to me. It bothers me nonetheless.
There is one RDM, on Ramuh who started his -bot- in my PT. I talk about in in /say when I see him in Jeuno.

Also, why didn't you tell him to stop meleeing before he got his hat? Did he get his hat first?

[WishMaster3K]

Let me state that quite often Aeni and I have differentiating opinions. And while I greatly dislike you, you rat-bastard, I appreciate the fact that I can argue about things that can be seen as menial :P

Moving on, Aeni had some good points, but they seem to have been responded to out of context. I'm a RDM, and I meleed on Genbu. . .


Enough to drop out my 300% Spirits Within and be moved out of the melee pt and back into tank PT for refresh.

IMO, that's the only useful thing us RDMs can do on HNMs and Sky in terms of melee damage, SW. No excuse for meleeing in those situations. We have a very important role, because if the mages are low on MP, it's usually my objective to tell them to rest while I refresh them and cure bomb the tanks. By the time I dwindle through my MP, the mages are at least all back at 300MP, meaning that we survived that much longer, allowing us to turn a Chainspell-Firaga3 into a win.

I melees on Genbu with a Sole Sushi, my results were 0 damage + 2 Enthunder. Miss Miss. 0 damage+2 enthunder.

I decided that healing and nuking on MBs from the back line would be more beneficial than being more Waterage3 Fodder.

Stop defending this situation ppl, argue about exp, or solo melee, but not HNM. . . Us RDMs are not invited to melee in these instances.

He was RDM/DRK, no one expected him to Stun, because RED MAGES ARE EXPECTED TO REFRESH. I don't get invited because ppl are like "Hey Ren, don't worry, we have a RDM already, so you're free to melee." No, I still have buffs, nukes and cures to throw out, in addition to paralyna, which saves ass on Byakko when the WHMs cant get it off cause they too are paralyzed.

Christ, wth is wrong with you ppl trying to find an excuse and say that "It was ok, but he didnt do his job." It's not ok, cause he DIDNT do his job, and no matter how well you refresh, RDMs are always more beneficial to the pt they are in, and the alliance as a whole, if they stay the fuck back.

[TheGrandMom]

Christ, wth is wrong with you ppl trying to find an excuse and say that "It was ok, but he didnt do his job." It's not ok, cause he DIDNT do his job, and no matter how well you refresh, RDMs are always more beneficial to the pt they are in, and the alliance as a whole, if they stay the fuck back.

Can I get an AMEN!?

[bikkebakke]

Can I get an AMEN!?

AMEN!!!

[Karinya]

RDMs are always more beneficial to the pt they are in, and the alliance as a whole, if they stay the fuck back.
You know, I pretty much expect this kind of stupid overgeneralization from some people now - hell, most people. But a 74 RDM should *#&%^ KNOW BETTER.

He didn't do his job for reasons COMPLETELY UNRELATED to whether or not he was meleeing. Different situations call for different tactics and in that situation, meleeing DIDN'T MATTER to what happened. Blaming it is stupid and pointless and fails to address the real problems in the original post.

If you want a real example of why you don't melee, why don't you bring up something where it really does matter, like Sewer Syrup, Faust, the Ollas, the Retribution WSNM, Alastor Antlion... There are plenty of fights where RDM meleeing really is stupid and dangerous, but Hakutaku just isn't one of them, and wanting it to be so won't make it so. And that's why you shouldn't use words like "always" without thinking about them.

[WishMaster3K]

Haku is a marathon fight. He's easy, but if you slip, that's the entire alliance. As you said, there is a time and a place for many things, and meleeing on anything requiring a friggin alliance is uncalled for. Maybe his meleeing didnt hurt his skill, maybe it did, point is, even if he landed all his shit, he'd have been 10 times more useful not meleeing. That's the point and you missed it.

I throw up Barwatera when we fight genbu, I never draw hate, I never get hit, Genbu is fairly painless. But if I decided to instead chill in the grass with the mages, I'm exponentially more useful. Cures, buffs, nuking on MB, being able to get full benefit of my abilities by using staves and my full stat gear and not having on my Acc+ gear makes things easier on everyone in the pt.

Being a Red Mage, hell, being in an alliance means you're a part of a greater whole, and no one person can funtion better than the other, and everyone has their role and so forth. Genbu can be done with 8 ppl, 1 tank and 2 WHMs, as long as there is team work. Just like how 8 ppl can defeat Genbu, an entire alliance can fail if things go wrong and the tanks die and there is pandemonium.

When Byakko hit his Paralyze move, you can bet your ass I was Paralyning my mages and my tanks cause they were too paralyzed to get it off. When Chainspell Firaga 3 hit I chainspelled Cure4 and took a death for the team, so that the tanks could live on and save the rest of the alliance. Being in the backrow better prepares you for these situations.

No defense for being a bad Red Mage. That guy sucked whether or not he helped or not.

If he wanted to melee, he could have waited till event was over and took out one of the nearby adds.

A sucky RDM is a sucky RDM whether they melee or not. This one decided to suck standing up. There is a lot of things you miss when you have chatlog melee spam, in additino to your own, and you have not a million things to do, like normal RDMs, but now a kagillion.

With all your accomplishments, you should *#&%^ KNOW BETTER.

[Aeni]

He didn't do his job for reasons COMPLETELY UNRELATED to whether or not he was meleeing. Different situations call for different tactics and in that situation, meleeing DIDN'T MATTER to what happened. Blaming it is stupid and pointless and fails to address the real problems in the original post.

What real problems are you trying to find, Karinya? Basically, all I said was, "If you can't handle the basic of all basic roles that your job class is known for and expected to deliver, you have no business doing something that your job class is definitely not well regarded for."

Note, that's not word for word, but I felt the need to spell it out for readers such as yourself, who seem to have issues with how things that aren't spelt out and assume that such a post can render a thread detrimental to the forum community.

:rolleyes:

When I see a RDM, do I think:

(a) omfg - OMFG - awesome melee DD! We gotta pick up this l33t dudezz omfg oh sh*t sh*t sh*t I'm cumming in my pants.

(b) Refresh whore. We need to keep our mages happy. Throw an invite to him/her.

Now, Karinya, answer this question. When your HNM LS leader looks at you, does he/she see you as (a) or (b)?

After answering that, if you answered (b), you should know better about priorities. Prioritizing can make or break your reputation. Because, afterall, there's only so much to learn about one job class that has not seen any improvements outside of equipment and weapon in the past three years. With that taken into account, what really makes a RDM stand out from all the millions of other RDMs in this game is not whether or not that player know how to cast "refresh" or swing their weapon on a monster. It's all the other things that make each individual unique and mastering these abilities is what can make you a good RDM or a bad one.

If you answered (a) ... I pray to your (object of worship) that your situation is unique and not something of the norm across all servers. -_-;;

[TheGrandMom]

I'm lvling my 4th rdm because I love the job so much. When I first started lvling rdm, I took the melee route. I stood up for my meleeing when people would put me down. I said I was doing just as good a job as if I didn't melee. I was downright adamant about it! If you didn't like me meleeing well tough s**t!

On my 2nd rdm, I had to learn to stand back on occasion. Oooooo I did NOT like it one bit! If I could get away with it I would stand back until the end of the fight and then run up and get a few whacks in! I was going to show them!! There was something bothering me a little though. But my bullheaded ways wouldn't let me acknowledge what was bothering me.

Then on my 3rd rdm, I found myself in the back quite a bit. I was irritated by it but as time wore on I came to acknowledge what I would not acknowledge before........I was more of a benefit if I stayed in the back row. God that was a bitter pill to swallow let me tell you. I knew after I accepted that fact, I would never be able to melee in an exp pt again. So in disgust I stopped playing rdm.

Now I'm on my 4th rdm. I have accepted I'm in the back row. In fact, I have embraced it. I am a damn good rdm too. I know one thing for ABSOLUTE CERTAIN, you ARE a better rdm if you stand back. Meleeing DOES interfere with your concentration. You WILL be slower to react overall if you melee. And this DOES affect the efficiency of your pt. Those ARE the facts. Like it or not, its the truth.

So was this rdms duties affected by his meleeing? You damn right they were. He lost his focus on what he was there to do. He focused on meleeing and didn't meet the requirements of his job. He was wrong.......plain and simple. Those are also the facts.

[WishMaster3K]

Those are also the facts.

She's got 3 generations on us all. . . I can't argue with logic ;.;

Although my grandmother says some outta control things. That's totally unrelated, but anyway.

If the RDM wanted to deal damage, he has Fire3, Aero3, Blizzard3 and Thunder3 to choose from.

He'll do more damage in 10 seconds with those spells than he could ever do meleeing the entire fight.

Fear the Red Mage who has no need to draw his sword. . .

[Johnny]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wishmaster3k
Fear the Red Mage who has no need to draw his sword. . .


Haha, I like that one...and it's so, so true.

[WishMaster3K]

Fighting pots, RDM-type mobs, shows strong evidence of this. If i tried meleeing another RDM in Ballista, it'd take all day ._.

I have yet to try it, tho. I'm sure I'd have assloads of fun :P I'm gonna merit sword and Eva and Critical >.>;;;

[Johnny]

Fighting pots, RDM-type mobs, shows strong evidence of this. If i tried meleeing another RDM in Ballista, it'd take all day ._.

I have yet to try it, tho. I'm sure I'd have assloads of fun :P I'm gonna merit sword and Eva and Critical >.>;;;

Hmm, RDM vs. RDM Ballista...this idea might just have the potential for an incredible amount of fun...I can't even imagine the amount of trash talking that would go on during an event like this...not to mention the humor behind watching 2 RDM swing away at each other, simultaneously silencing each other, using an echo drop, and doing it again...count me in :thumbsup:

As for those RDM (excluding the lower levels) who disagree with WishMaster3Ks quote above, and think that RDM can melee in any situation, try meleeing Maat. (To stop those who will undoubtedly flame this remark, I'm not saying that all RDM who melee believe they should do so in every situation. I'm also not talking about at 75 with merits, because then I plan on trying it with Joyeuse. I just don't feel he was sufficiently put in his place the first time...)

[WishMaster3K]

Grendal soloed Maat ._.

at lvl 75

Juffs buffs and debuffs like he was a regular EM mob. No nukes.

Grendal is my FFXI Jesus.

Of course, I'm not sure a lot of ppl could solo Maat w/o him busting Asuran, but Grendal is a Taru, so Idk. Joyeuse + Genbu Shield is fucking dangerous as shit >.> Man I love both those items.

[Karinya]

What real problems are you trying to find, Karinya? Basically, all I said was, "If you can't handle the basic of all basic roles that your job class is known for and expected to deliver, you have no business doing something that your job class is definitely not well regarded for."
Well, I agree with *that* statement, but it's not what you said in the first place. You didn't say "This is why I had a party with a bad RDM". You said "This is why you don't melee" - which at least *appears* to be saying you = ALL RDMs, good, bad, and indifferent. (And without qualifications, it even implies "all the time.")

Maybe that's not what you meant. But it's what you said. If you're changing your mind now - if you recognize that most of the no-melee arguments only apply *if* the player can't keep up other responsibilities at the same time - great.

Meleeing many fights does not stop you from carrying out other responsibilities of the job. It doesn't even slow you down, if you know what you're doing and have the appropriate macro setup, etc.

When I see a RDM, do I think:

(a) omfg - OMFG - awesome melee DD! We gotta pick up this l33t dudezz omfg oh sh*t sh*t sh*t I'm cumming in my pants.

(b) Refresh whore. We need to keep our mages happy. Throw an invite to him/her.

Now, Karinya, answer this question. When your HNM LS leader looks at you, does he/she see you as (a) or (b)?

Neither, of course. Both my dynamis LS and sky LS leaders are RDM themselves (I'm lucky in that, I guess), and know that neither of those is anywhere close to an accurate and complete description of a RDM's capabilities. But even if they're not RDM themselves, LS leaders have a responsibility to know the capabilities of all 15 jobs - maybe not perfectly, but at least better than that kind of one-dimensional caricature.

Duh.

After answering that, if you answered (b), you should know better about priorities. Prioritizing can make or break your reputation. Because, afterall, there's only so much to learn about one job class that has not seen any improvements outside of equipment and weapon in the past three years. With that taken into account, what really makes a RDM stand out from all the millions of other RDMs in this game is not whether or not that player know how to cast "refresh" or swing their weapon on a monster. It's all the other things that make each individual unique and mastering these abilities is what can make you a good RDM or a bad one.
Absolutely. You haven't mastered a job until you can use ALL of its abilities to their best effectiveness in the situations where they are appropriate, and not use them in situations where they are inappropriate. RDM has more situationally-variable abilities than most jobs. Silence is either awesome or useless depending on what you cast it on and when; so is Dispel; so is Refresh. In some situations, *sitting down* is dangerous and must be avoided. That certainly doesn't mean that RDM should never sit down!

It's precisely because there are so many people saying that RDM should never melee, ever, that I feel there is a need to promote a moderate viewpoint: RDM should think about whether or not to melee, since it depends on the situation, the mob, the party, etc. It's pretty obvious when you want to Silence or Dispel, it's not quite so obvious when you want to melee and when not, but the general principles are the same - look at the situation, think about the costs and the benefits, then make a decision. Dogmas just get in the way.

In any case, problems that don't have anything to do with melee (but just involve a RDM in some way) shouldn't be taken as an excuse to push the no-melee viewpoint/agenda, which is exactly what this thread started out doing.

Is it *that* hard for some people to grasp a viewpoint that isn't one-dimensional absolutism one way or the other? What's up with this "I don't melee Byakko, I don't melee Suzaku" crap? Neither do I, for obvious and good reasons!

[WishMaster3K]

Good points, I'll admit. but I'm a soft taru, and AOEs frighten me ._.

Nothing more to say at the moment except well played, Fencer, I shall parry and return the blow at a later venture.

[little ninja]

truth is i could care less if a rdm is meleeing with me or not. but the moment i or any of the other party members has to start calling for dispel, or refresh. then yeah obviously hes not performing to his jobs standard. an that is to debuff,buf an support cast. but i will aggree with the Op on this one. if any rdm regardless if its a regular pt, an alliance. a god for or a hnm. if they can not keep ahead of the dispels, stuns refreshs, or back up heals. then yeah that will label that RDM a crappy one.

we would never label a pld great, even though he lost hate the entire fight, an refused to cure himself, now would we? wed never label a nin a great tank if he never casted blink, would we ??? can we label a whm great even though everyone in the party always died, an they had full mp, could we??? the answer is No, so why do you consider this rdm to bew any good.