[eticket109]

A 17-19 pt with a NIN tank shouldn't have any problem with pugs as long as they all aren't wearing level 10 gear.

[Skylar]

My point exactly....

Typo fix **fast

Yah l said fats* , what of it?

[Jarre]

Its just the sure mentality of people these days, yes you may say its nothing new, but is it on the increase? I think so.

When i was lvling pld through dunes about 3 months ago I told one of the guys to set HP at entrance. I was asked why, I pointed out death means a long walk if he doesn't (we wern't being pl'd), to which he relied "You use white magic, you can raise me" I pointed out to him I don't get that spell till lvl 50. He set HP. He was a war and the other people in the party were a mnk/war, a good whm/sum, thf/nin and Blm/whm with me as main tank, war wouldn't pull hate when we got a link, luckily thf/nin and mnk/war did and we bounced hate between the 3 of us and the party survived. I got 3 levels that night.

The following day I got invite into a party, it was a shambles I ended up doing auto disconect... i.e. pull out cable from router. I soloed till 15 and then headed to the tunnels.

[Murphie]

I don't honestly think it's any worse than it was a year or more ago. The days of not seeing a PL in Valkurm are long since gone.

[Necropolis]

Well when I level in the dunes I don't set my HP thier either. When i was new, sure I set it there, I didn't want to have to walk all the way form windy again to get back to the party.

But now I only level jobs when I don't have LS event's going on (Dynamis, Assaults, Salvage, HNMs etc). I find it a bigger inconvience to have to take my low level job from the dunes to Sandy or Bastock (can't even blood warp if set hp in selbina) change jobs to whm, teleport to mea, and ride the boat to aht urghan. I find it much easier to HP, get a tele-dem and walk to the dunes as opposed to going through all the hassle of getting back to where I want to be.

As far as power-leveling goes, I don't care about it. If I find someone that can't play (PLed or not) I don't play with them. If I don't enjoy the party, I inform them of so and try to find a replacement that would benifit thier setup. I now just power level myself with a friends account as opposed to stressing over crumy dunes parties. Depending on the job it may be faster or slower than a party set up, but I enjoy it more this way. I spend 0 hours looking for a party, no downtime for MP, and I get to keep everything that drops of value (Beastmen Seals and the such that I may use).

As a 75 whm do I PL? Rarely. If I'm bored I may sit in the dunes and help out a party from time to time, but I don't full time heal, I usually just handle links and cure if they are in dire staits. But I make it clear to them that I am not there to help them or anything like that, just bored out my mind and don't want to waste time looking for something I don't feel like doing anyway, and any benefit they receive from me being there is just a by-product of me amusing myself when I want to play but not do anything that requires much effort on my part.

Things I won't do as a whm.
1) get paid to PL - I won't waste my time in game to increase you standing in the game

2) be pressured into PLing you wether you are my friend or not. There is little difference between me being in a party exping on whm and me pling. If I'm going to be a cure-bot I would rather be earning exp/merits for my work.

3) be yelled at for death in a party. You chose not to have a dedicated healer for your pt. I can not be as efficient as I am in a party because I can't see your hp bars and must manuely target you, I can't cast regen, erase etc as these are party only spells. I can cast Raise, so don't worry as I can raise you from the dead and you all get a 5 minute breather.

4) be requested for certain spells. Okay you somehow made me PL you, no I wont haste your tank, or cast protect/shell 4 on you, or other things like that. It for one requires too much effort on my part, and secondly doesn't last long enough on lower level players to be of a benefit.

[dspeed]

Wow some of the stuff you guys said remind me of the party I was @ last night. Level 20 War/Mnk wearing lvl 10 equipment and a Moth Axe. Stayed in the party for about 20 minutes and the war lvl and he said he's going back to MH to get equipment. I just said to them that I had to go and left party. Chocobo back to Windy to do see what I needed to trade for more guild point instead.

I really don't understand some people. You're lvl 20 and you're wearing lvl 10 equipment. And he was supposed to back me up when my shadow are gone. How's he going to take a few hit in lvl 10 equipment. The equipment for the others weren't as great too.

I guess that's the only reason I solo my thief to 25 solo. And when I tell people that they say I'm BSing them.

[Satori]

I believe that power leveling is by far quick and helps alot if you really know what you are doing, but as from my own experience in the dunes, As a Whm myself your job is alot harder because the pler interferes with your cures. Whm players have to learn to analyze the party and what is going on and after a few rounds have set cycles in what we cast to ensure we know our mp and prepare for any emergencies. This skill as i see it gets handicapped as the Whm isnt experiencing the mechanics of the battle.

I myself only started to feel like a Whm in Quiffum, where there is less reliance on power levelling and i was able to do my job and learnt what my character is capable of.

[Skylar]

I agree 100% Satori. Happened to me. I hate playing Whm and having a PL. At one point l actually sat my char down... Honestly , I do not believe any of the other memebers even noticed.

[Mikihisa]

I was in that party killed in the Dunes...

Skylar, you helped us, thanks. But how would you know what killed us?
You weren't there, so you can't say that. We were a bunch of newbies, indeed,
but we were doing fine.

We didn'r even asked you to PL us. So, in the end, i see the "kindfulness" (does that
word exist?) of that Veteran tarutaru.

If you have something to complain... then teach us.

[DR2D2]

I have a little different take on the party concept. I soloed my rdm to lvl 30(so i feel i know somewhat how to perform in combat). My problem lies in the fact that too many pullers need better communications skills. I do not consider myself a great RDM, but im not a noob either(i know that my job is more to heal than to take hate). What ive seen since i started partying around a month ago is that 1 person will all of a sudden pull a vt or it, and not let anyone know they are doing this.-by the time the party can get ready to fight-we are either asleep or enfeebled to the point we are defensive in our fighting. Im not the best puller but will at least wait till everyone is ready before i will go out pulling(except when I accidentally do a Diaga-which is actually a funny site seeing about 5 bats and 3 leeches and 2 skeletons all attacking and killing me). I say this because in a way it seems like it is quicker getting exp solo then in a party.

[Saren]

This is on topic but kind of a rant so apologies in advance,

Trying to level blm yesterday from 16-20 in the Dunes was frustrating, I spent a lot of time in scary parties or sat on my butt waiting for the one party that didn’t have a tanking PL to invite me. I do get the PL thing and that with the right sort of PL they really are an asset to low level parties and have been very grateful for the couple of PLs I had yesterday that were ‘training wheels’ only and did almost nothing.

A few hours in, waiting for a group, a guy asked me to start a party with him, I asked if he was going to use a PL, he said no, I said woo yes please. Slowly we managed to get a find a full 6 people, pretty good composition by Dunes standards, we had a designated tank a whm and everything. We decided to fight goblins just outside the entrance to Selbina and just before we started a PL showed up. I am paraphrasing the conversation over party chat a little but it went something like this:

Me: I thought we weren’t having a PL?
PLs brother: He’s my bro
Me: But….he’s a PL
*pause*
PLs brother: He’s my bro
*pause for me twitching a couple of times*
Me: O.K I will find a replacement and stay till they arrive.
PLs brother: lolz now we have 2 PLs because of me, my other bro is here.

……yeah

I have to admit that my replacement and I got our wires crossed so I left before he arrived because I thought he had already arrived but I did at least try to have a replacement there for them before I went. Between fights while I was waiting for my replacement the PL started to send me tells.

He wanted to know why I didn’t want a free PL, the conversation with him and his attitude is what really got to me. He was ‘tolerant of the stupid, amusingly eccentric noob’ while he listened to me explain that I didn’t want a PL because this was only my second job, I didn’t have anything high level and I was trying to learn my side of hate management, get an idea of how much I can Nuke, practice my timing etc and that a PL who tanks gets in the way of that etc. Then he told me that a free PL is always good and that basically parties cannot cope without a PL until Kazaam and that I shouldn’t bother trying to learn anything about party dynamics until I got there.

I said that I had been in parties where we had managed totally fine without a PL at these levels, but he said that we couldn’t cope with links at this level and in a good party links are no problem. I didn’t bother to say anything after that, not worth the time trying to explain. So far, in parties I have had three links if I am remembering it right. The party got mostly wiped on two, lesson learnt: a good puller and a good camp is very important if you want to live. For the other link, which happened after this conversation with the PL, I cast bind on the second Damselfly (thankyou my friend Kai for reminding me of how great that spell is yesterday morning), it was luckily just out of attacking range on the tank and DDs when the spell hit and it lasted until the first one was almost dead.


I know the dunes is full of bad parties, I know it’s not the place where I am going to learn the most about managing hate, how parties work and which jobs go well together but I don’t think it’s been a waste of time for the most part and the PLs total dismissal of the first 15 (I think? assuming you start partying at level 10) levels of party playing was a bit…

[Jarre]

The truth of the fact is, you learn by your msityakes, if you nuke to much and the mobs hate pushes on you, you know you've done it too much. The whole thing of partying without a PL is that you learn you job the hard way. It makes you a better player, rather than being "Babysat" by a Pl'er

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

People like to complain about low level EXP, but really, high level EXP isn't exactly Nirvana, either. We have people so bred on PLs that they can't function at high level or even consider how to build a PT around various jobs.

PLD, DRK or BLU in PT and no RDM? Yeah, that's a real winner, I'm sure BRDs and COR love you for that crap, after all, they're "refreshers." DRGs and THFs don't even set up hate on tanks anymore and they're two of the best jobs out there for doing that. Bludgeon is cute and all, but could we trouble you to enfeeble, dispel or support heal, Mr. BLU? .

I know of one person that has BRD, SMN, PLD, RDM at 75. Doesn't keep any of the staves or numerous instruments for any of them... this is stuff you need for those jobs. I can't even consider you a glorified back-up healer at that point. Now they're trying to shove WAR and THF into their roster of jobs. Will they do addtional subjobs? Probably not. Will they get all the gear needed for them? "Takes up too much space," that will be the excuse.

I know a BST who has been PLed for the majority of his CAREER. He sucks. Did assault with him, Excavation Duty. /WHM sub with no jug pet... and he died on the way in and cried because we didn't have WHM for R3. When he was up, he couldn't even land hits on a wall of rubble.

Then theres this NIN, I find joy in finding new ways to get him killed. Helped me on ZM6. Yeah, I know that's not nice since he's helping and all, but this guy doesn't research or think for shit, so I have fun with him. Told him the PLD was the Antican in the middle. No sword or shield on this Antican, no, that would be the one on the left. But dispite that visual cue, he followed what I said and ate an Eagle Eye Shot. Oops.

And don't get me started on the nimrods who take up a job just because some relic armor happened into their inventory in Dynamis.

Some people learn from mistakes and others never do, which is why we call the latter "noobs."

[Karinya]

I agree with your overall point, but how does DRG set up hate on tanks? Perhaps you're confusing them with DRK/THF (60+)? Somehow I don't think that TA Skewer is going to do much, especially since it's a multihit...

Maybe you mean a DRG and THF working together, since they can make good skillchains at any level from 34 on?

[eticket109]

Originally Posted by Karinya

I agree with your overall point, but how does DRG set up hate on tanks? Perhaps you're confusing them with DRK/THF (60+)? Somehow I don't think that TA Skewer is going to do much, especially since it's a multihit...

SATA + Wheeling Thrust however... ^^