Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

If your hate is shifting around and getting shadow counts muddled up often enough to need a macro, YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG.

Notice that I never said it's needed. In fact I explicitly stated the opposite. However, I like to keep things running like clockwork and just because the situation may not come up frequently enough to be troublesome, as long as it happens at all, I like to be able to send out the warning.

WHEN IT DOES HAPPEN, PEOPLE SHOULD NOT NEED TO HAVE A CHAT LINE TO LET THEM KNOW.

If there were some magical way to check on my buddy's shadow count AND recast timers, then no, there would be absolutely no need for the message.

You can make a convincing argument that it's innecessary but you can't convince me it's a bad thing.

[Feba]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

If there were some magical way to check on my buddy's shadow count AND recast timers,

The only people that have an excuse to not know this are the RDMs, BRDs, and other buffers; but there's really nothing they could do anyway.

If you're paying attention, it's really not that hard to keep to know when someone is out of shadows (hint: blood) or have a rough idea of when they're going to be able to cast again.

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

If you're paying attention, it's really not that hard to keep to know when someone is out of shadows (hint: blood) or have a rough idea of when they're going to be able to cast again.

Yes, but the damage is done. If the macro can give my cotank the heads up BEFORE I lose the HP, then it's obviously better than taking the hit and having him voke immediately, even if he's dilligent enough that I only get hit once before he vokes.

Now consider that shadows drop every single fight. Those hits that slip through between vokes can pile up.

[Feba]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Your cotank should not need a heads up, unless you got yourself into some very deep crap; like a link.

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

And I shouldn't have to tell a WHM to Flash. Or, maybe my cotank is sleepy. Or perhaps he made an honest mistake.

Whatever the case, competent cotank or not, you can't convince me that preventing a hit every now and then is detrimental. No one's going to flip out over the macro.

[Celeal]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

In Kazham level it is still okay to have macro, since the exp. mob especial moves or magic isn't too nasty yet.

At higher level you would not want the healers miss or delay status removal (Silence, Paralyze, etc) due to macro spam.

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

I doubt a single line of text will prevent healers from noticing status ailments, especially if they use chat filters for trivial (to them) things like the party's damage (output) and misses. Either way, past 37, duo tanking is pretty rare. Hell, even pre-37 it doesn't happen often enough.

[Feba]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

If he made a mistake then you're already hit, which means he should've already voked off. If the giant spurt of blood doesn't get him to voke, he's not sleepy, he's asleep.

And yes, personally I feel it's detrimental. Having an extra macro is one more thing to keep track of, one more slot that you can't have easy ready to hit for something else, and encourages people to slack off. It's also one more line in the chat log -- it's like voke macros with a /p, they're just unneeded. I have things that would be more useful to see, and that just isn't one of them.

[Celeal]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Now I am getting confused~

Are we talking about a *panic* macro for shadow recast, or just macro /p Casting Shadows: Ichi into the same macro for casting?

A *panic*or *voke off* macro is okay I guess, if the macro slot is available.

Added: IMHO, co-tank is more productive if the duo is pro-active and counting main & sub tanks' shadows, instead of waiting/depending on a *reminder-voke-off* macro to show up at the chat log.

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

If he made a mistake then you're already hit, which means he should've already voked off. If the giant spurt of blood doesn't get him to voke, he's not sleepy, he's asleep.

Yes. But he may not make the mistake if I use the macro. That's my point.

And yes, personally I feel it's detrimental. Having an extra macro is one more thing to keep track of, one more slot that you can't have easy ready to hit for something else, and encourages people to slack off. It's also one more line in the chat log -- it's like voke macros with a /p, they're just unneeded. I have things that would be more useful to see, and that just isn't one of them.

/p Recast messages in Voke macros are truly useless because hate is unmeasurable on the fly and the DD is going to have to estimate his hate threshold either way. However, pushing that one macro doesn't detract from my performance because I'm definitely going to be counting my own shadows and anticipating the last one either way. It's not going to distract me from my shadow counting in any way.

Are we talking about a *panic* macro for shadow recast, or just macro /p Casting Shadows: Ichi into the same macro for casting?

A *panic*or *voke off* macro is okay I guess, if the macro slot is available.

I'm talking about a macro that says "All shadows gone." Not the "/p Casting Utsusemi: Ichi," that's definitely redundant with...well, the act of casting.

[Feba]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Armando, if all you're concerned about is your own performance, there's really nothing left to say.

The party is not a competition.

[Armando]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

It's not. But I'm looking out for everyone's wellbeing. When I take a hit (or the other tank,) it's not me that cures it, it's the healer. The less that happens, the better for all 6 of us.

[Feba]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

Personally, when I'm playing healer, I'd rather take that small MP hit to cure you than I would miss some line about an enemy attack.

[Kailea]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

love the "perfect party" thinking.....

in a "perfect PT" healers would not be needed because the 2 tanks would never take damage ;p (being sarcastic for those who did not notice)

but in a real PT, a second tank may miss count for one reason or another, and sometimes a "shadows down, take it" macro text is in order when things get a bit crazy, and sometimes a healer has to heal a little when shadow timing is a little off.


Sure we all wish perfect PTs happened every day, but sadly they do not.

[WishMaster3K]

Re: Counting Shadows. Whose responsibility is it?

You know what works best? When everyone works together. FFXI is not an "Everyone for themselves" game.

At the same time, we're not here to babysit. True, the other tank should be counting his co-tank's shadows, but that's where the party fell apart. If he couldn't have main tank as a WAR/NIN in the jungle (WARs get Defender at lvl 25...) then he wasn't that good of a player to begin with.

When mages are overcuring, then something is being done wrong, and it could be a lack of enfeebles, a lack of tank foresight or overhunting.

Honestly, stop pointing fingers and arguing in a circle - it's immature.