This is why you don't melee ...

[tdh]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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]

Re: This is why you don't melee ...

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.