Power levels and the White Mage.

[Vair]

Doing my job. It's what I love. And what's more I like doing my job well. It's not somthing you see much anymore. It really baffles me as to why people don't play the game properly. Anyways, to the point at hand, powerlevels and the White Mage.

About a week ago I got my BLM up to level 30. So I had to go back to the dunes and raise my 15 WHM up to 30 so I could take BLM up to 60. Well, I went, put up my flag and was invited to a party quickly (blindly, of course. The new Xbox players don't quite understand the Intricacies of building a party quite yet). I went to the party camp to find we had a powerlevel. I thought things would be nice and easy and go faster then usual. It went faster alright. Too fast and within five battles I felt completly useless. The powerlevel always got to the heals before I did, and when I healed I got hate fast. In one of the parites I was in I was told to stop healing completly. So I began to raise enfeeb. My healing didn't go up at all, but I brushed it off and decided that I would raise my healing magic later. Soon, I realized this wasn't going to happen because between levels 15~23, 90% of the parties I was in had powerlevels. My healing hardly leveled, but the good news is that my enfeeb was capped!

There's also another problem with powerlevels. They're leveling people who can't do their jobs. I don't mean "I'm only leveling my sub, can't really get into it" bad. I mean "HOW I MINE FOR FISH!? LOLOL" Bad. Sure I'll let a miss~pull every now and then slide, I'll stay if I die a few times as long as there is a good reason, Hell I'll even heal you if I hate your guts... as long as you're doing a good job and you're not an idiot and know you. (Don't call me a noob. I'll watch you bleed.) But I will not stand for an unorganized party with a level 21 WAR/Subless (Busterblader) and a level 21 WAR/ 6 WHM. I will definitly not stand for it if there is a powerlevel. I don't give half a crap if I'm getting 1000exp/second. No, I will leave. I'll leave so damn fast you might have a heart attack. And the reason I leave: principal.

There has to be some principal, without principal the game is ruined. Thank you for your time.

[sevenpointflaw]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Doing my job. It's what I love. And what's more I like doing my job well. It's not somthing you see much anymore. It really baffles me as to why people don't play the game properly. Anyways, to the point at hand, powerlevels and the White Mage.

About a week ago I got my BLM up to level 30. So I had to go back to the dunes and raise my 15 WHM up to 30 so I could take BLM up to 60. Well, I went, put up my flag and was invited to a party quickly (blindly, of course. The new Xbox players don't quite understand the Intricacies of building a party quite yet). I went to the party camp to find we had a powerlevel. I thought things would be nice and easy and go faster then usual. It went faster alright. Too fast and within five battles I felt completly useless. The powerlevel always got to the heals before I did, and when I healed I got hate fast. In one of the parites I was in I was told to stop healing completly. So I began to raise enfeeb. My healing didn't go up at all, but I brushed it off and decided that I would raise my healing magic later. Soon, I realized this wasn't going to happen because between levels 15~23, 90% of the parties I was in had powerlevels. My healing hardly leveled, but the good news is that my enfeeb was capped!

There's also another problem with powerlevels. They're leveling people who can't do their jobs. I don't mean "I'm only leveling my sub, can't really get into it" bad. I mean "HOW I MINE FOR FISH!? LOLOL" Bad. Sure I'll let a miss~pull every now and then slide, I'll stay if I die a few times as long as there is a good reason, Hell I'll even heal you if I hate your guts... as long as you're doing a good job and you're not an idiot and know you. (Don't call me a noob. I'll watch you bleed.) But I will not stand for an unorganized party with a level 21 WAR/Subless (Busterblader) and a level 21 WAR/ 6 WHM. I will definitly not stand for it if there is a powerlevel. I don't give half a crap if I'm getting 1000exp/second. No, I will leave. I'll leave so damn fast you might have a heart attack. And the reason I leave: principal.

There has to be some principal, without principal the game is ruined. Thank you for your time.

QFT

[Lasswyn]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Agree.....with the small caveat that if I was levelling WHM, I would spam banish until I wore the printing off the F5 key, only because I was a RDM first and my enfeebling would already be capped. From what I've heard off other whms, there probably wouldn't be a time in my whole career when I got bigger, faster, glitterier divine skillups, so in that case I'd probably stay just for the shnitz n' giggles hell of it, and spamcure myself while reading a book later to hand-cap healing.

[Icemage]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Powerlevels are really bad for developing playing skill, ESPECIALLY for White Mages, since that role is essentially usurped by the person providing the PL. Melees and tanks can still function and learn how to skillchain, but WHMs, BLMs, RDMs, and SMNs can get all sorts of crazy ideas from too much powerlevelling which will make other people hate their guts later when the PLs vanish.

Granted, I think there are times when it's not such a bad thing - a full static LS party of experienced players trying to get a jump-start can benefit from this, since odds are they won't learn too much of note in the early levels (and experienced players generally don't need the For Dummies lessons taught by those early party experiences anyway).

Overall though, it tends to make bad players worse, and that's never a good thing.


Icemage

[Jei]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Hang in there. Once you get past the yutanga-yhoator level range, there will be much much less power leveller.
I usually bring my Whm mule with my main levelling in these area too. Not for PLing but for raising in case I need one. (home point's in Al Zahbi, dieing with no raiser = ouch )

[zagex]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I *think* a lvl 75 PUP on our server got PLed most of the way through his PUP career. I only noticed it after pting with him that there was always the same anon whm person in the zone where he was xping. I pted with him only 1 time around 69-71ish, and yeah, the Whm was essentially main healing.

[Atma]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Look at it this way. Powerlevelling in Valkurm ruins TONS of jobs.

WHM get gimped a bit in healing skill and start to banish too much.

WAR get sloppy and lazy with provokes.

RDM don't learn that they have to play both nuker AND healer.

BLM get too nuke happy.

NIN don't learn that they are weak as kittens without shadows in terms of taking hits at that level.

DRK: "Lol, souleater makes the monster attack me." - Nuff said.

PLD: Misses parry and shield skillups, cause the PL ends up "tanking" most of the time.

In terms of "being unscathed", really DRG, SMN, RNG, THF, BRD, MNK get the same out of being PL'd as with a standard healer.

DRG: Autoattack, watch TV, throw a Double Thrust every so often, and Jump.

SMN: You actually get to play a smn before probably 20-30 levels of main healing.

RNG: You take a hit at this level close to as well as any other job anyway, so pulling hate is "whatever"

THF: Cause you're pretty much useless at this level, no offense.

BRD: Same <explative>, different healer.

MNK: Auto-attack, watch tv, throw a combo every now and then.

[AngryUndead]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I only have one thing to add:
If I'm getting 1000xp/second, I don't care if I'm a party with the entire nation of gilsellers, gilbuyers, and their mothers. I'm staying. I'm staying until my computer corodes into dust. And you would to, mainly because after second three you would pass out from all the awesome.

[Icemage]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I only have one thing to add:
If I'm getting 1000xp/second, I don't care if I'm a party with the entire nation of gilsellers, gilbuyers, and their mothers. I'm staying. I'm staying until my computer corodes into dust. And you would to, mainly because after second three you would pass out from all the awesome.

Well, at least with gilsellers, the communication problem often ruins them.

I remember one time I was in a party heading to Boyahda Tree and the party leader invited a white mage who was rank 2 at level 52. Having seen this person previously in parties, I told him it was probably a gilseller, but he said he didn't care. Ohhhkay.

Well, 15 minutes later, we're all waiting for the WHM at the entrance to Boyahda and he's still in Sauromugue Champaign. We ask the WHM what's taking so long, and he responds (slowly) with something like "map where sory"... then promptly zones into...

...Garlaige Citadel.

After a bit of discussion, the PT leader kicked him and invited a SMN instead.


Icemage

[AngryUndead]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Also: to be clear, anything less than 1000xp/second and I'm out. 999 just ain't gonna cut it.

[dox]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I love having power levels, I just raise my club/enfeeb and chill without work for XP. Later on, my healing will level.

All in all, it's great.

[Nataka]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

Yeah, Power Levelers, oddly enough, kinda turned me off of white mage. >_> It sucks because it's REALLY boring, but you cant turn away either because if the PL suddenly stops healing at a crucial moment, it's YOUR fault everyone died. But then the problem is that everyone sucks so hard at those levels that you (the whm) slow down the party without a PL since you're constantly using up your mana pool. It really sucks.

[framerate]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I agree with it ruining the jobs, but honestly, I don't mind it (as a WHM61). It's a nice time for me to get some real skill ups on my Divine Magic as well perhaps my staff >.>

I just tell myself "these jackasses will learn their job tomorrow, or quit..."

And I sleep like a baby

[Chveya]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

The powerleveling situation on Fairy is really starting to piss me off. Practically every party I join has a pl. I'm going to have to start asking if there is a pl before I accept invites. When there is powerleveler around, not only do I feel useless as a WHM, but I get a creeping feeling that I'm participating in something detrimental to the game.

Here's my beef: I do not want to play with people who are coasting through the the most important learning levels of the game. I can understand if you want to just get through the early levels of a second or third job, but in my experience, this has not been the case. There are too many newbs being spoonfed and not learning their jobs. Hell, I'm a newb (I've only been playing about a month), but I like to think that I've made an effort to find my place in any given party. IMHO, unless you make a concerted effort to play correctly, having a pl is going to cause you to be a bit lazy here, or a bit stupid there. And then it becomes habit.

I don't want to go to to Qufim or Yuhtunga Jungle and see the same things I'm seeing in the dunes. Namely, late or no 'vokes, Cure II being cast when Cure would suffice (and the WHM pulling hate with no ill consequences- the pl takes care of that), and and BLMs meleeing.

I would rather get KO'd a few times in order for my party to learn what to do and what not to do, than to breeze thru 10 levels and come out dumber for it.

There's my rant. Thank you for your time and kind consideration.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Power levels and the White Mage.

I have seen the effects of p/l'ing firsthand. I'm lvling 2 jobs right now that are low lvl. I pt'd with a blm in the dunes that chain nuked. So I very kindly explained about how chain nuking can get a taru mage killed. I told him about doing some debuffs first and knowing what magic to burst for a skillchain. But of course, we had a p/l'er that kept hate on himself so the blm just kept nuking. Well I met up with that blm in Altepa today. I figured that by now he had fine tuned his job and would be on the right track. WRONG. The puller pulls and the first thing he does is nuke with a ga spell. He nearly dies. He never cast a debuff and nuked until his mp was gone. He was supposed to help back up heal if needed and eventually we ran into a beetle where we needed him to back up heal but he used all his mp before the beetle was 1/2 dead.

During this pt, I started a private conversation with him. "Hi, how have you been? Did you have fun in Qufim? Weren't the jungles a pain?" blah blah blah... Then I started to steer the conversation to p/l'ing and eventually asked him when was his first pt without a p/l'er. He replied "This one..........so far. It's ok, I have a p/l'er on the way!" I mysteriously d/c'd....

On my other job, I was in the jungle outside of Kahzam and had a war tank. He bragged and bragged about how fast he got to lvl 25 in one day. His friend p/l'd him but had to logout for a while. I knew that was a bad omen. Of course the first thing to suffer is voking. He was told repeatedly to voke every 30 secs. He said ok but it never happened. Voke AS SOON AS the mob comes to camp, again an ok but nothing happened. He was told to keep the gobs away from the mages, but if he pulled he ran right to them and stopped. When we asked him why he would listen to us, he just said that it didn't matter because his friend would be p/l'ing him some more soon because the sooner he gets to endgame the better. He wants to join a HNM and kill stuff.........well don't come knocking on our ls door buddy!

Edit: Oh and I nearly forgot our nin in the jungle. He insisted we kill only Mandys and no Gobs. (50-60 exp a Mandy with 4-5 other pts there...) He said that he can not tank without another nin or a p/l'er...but he prefer a p/l'er. I wonder if you have a "p/l'er" when you're tanking Suzaku on your nin! >.<

People who don't learn the dynamics of the game early on kill people later on. Why should someone else pay because of someone else's greed for exp? The game is made to be challenging for a reason, because you're supposed to have fun! If you aren't having fun playing the game, then why are you playing it anyways?