As a former WHM, I was always so damn annoyed when more than half the party would announce that Protect just went down as though I couldn’t see the lines of text that just announced that Mr. or Ms. Melee-With-A-Stick-Up-Their-Damn-Ass just had their Protect wear off. Same goes for status effects which I was usually on top of when I was playing my best as a WHM. Sure, way back when (and even at present) there were some really horrible mages than needed to be told this, but when it came from players you partied with several times or even for a dozen of levels? It would drive me nuts! Had they been paying attention, they would have noticed I was actually on my game and not picking my nose going “dur… lets see this here purty mob go boom with a ball of this here light!” or that I had cast Finale or that Bar spell even when I was a BRD or… heaven forbid… just trust that I am actually doing my job.
I play my job how I play it, and I let people play their jobs how they see fit unless: a.) they ask me to critique them or b.) something bad is going on, and I’m totally spazzing out. And, no, I don’t mean bad as in you have Protect down for a few seconds but something like the mob smacking someone’s head around and the only person who has Provoke isn’t Provoking no matter how many times we ask them to.
I think that is why it really grates on my nerves to see when other mages are being treated like they are slaves to melee, since I see it (and your experiences may vary) happening more often than not. If you are demanding a Haste or a -na, then my answer to you is to go buy yourself another account, dual box it, and have your own personal healer that you can do with at your disposal instead of having the audacity to send a /tell to the person demanding a Haste because you did not have it RIGHT AT THAT VERY SECOND LIKE OMG. Even going “Haste?” in LS/Party chat is damn rude. If that’s the game people are going to play, then I claim the right to flood people’s /tell stream with PROVOKE PROVOKE PROVOKE when someone isn’t Provoking when they should.
My point? Be kind to people. Pay it forward. Mages don’t treat Melee like shit, and Melee don’t treat Mages like you are the Goddess Alatana’s gift to the world. I don’t care how damn important you are at x, y, or z or if you do a, b, c, and maybe even z; there are people behind those screens and they aren’t your damn bots! /rant
I agree. It’s really annoying when the all the DDs go all emo on you, crying for Haste and whatnot. They can live a few seconds without the effect. I frankly couldn’t care less about it since their damage output over time wouldn’t be affected anyway. I despise having “parsers” in my party.
As a main healer, I’m expected to keep everyone alive, buff, debuff (in certain cases) and haste everyone… AND conserve my MP enough to be ready for a triple link. DDs nagging about haste has no idea whatsoever what life as a healer is.
And, there’s no need for them to babysit us. We can read the log ourselves. Sure, something may slip through, but don’t keep crying to me for being paralyzed for two seconds in a fight. I’ve memorized some of the monsters’ moves, so I already know what they are going to cast, and I think more healers should too.
Whenever things like this happened to me, I used to always pull up an old screenshot — my linkshell was fighting the O-hat NM, and the tank, despite the fact that the mages were REALLY on top of stuff (and we were all people he knew…), was always hollering for paralyna. In the screenshot, it shows the mob paralyzing him, no less than THREE people casting paralyna, and THEN, after paralyze was removed, he was asking for paralyna. Maybe I’m odd, but just because of how ridiculous the situation was I can find humor in it rather than being annoyed.
You’re right though, when the mages know their stuff it really isn’t appropriate to nag the SECOND someone needs something. We can only cast one spell at a time!
I’m like that in campaign. I /sh /say when I see PLDs that are not tanking their own mobs (NM excluded). Its pretty obvious that there *ARE* mobs to pull and 75% of the time they decide to attack the mob I am tanking. I outright ridicule them for their lack of courage to tank something. If they come up with some bonehead excuse like they’re weakened, I tell them to not attack mobs.
It pisses me off that this WOTG generation of tanks have no idea how to manage hate let alone are so pussy whipped that they are afraid to tank even 1 mob. I’ve managed to tank 3+ mobs and still not die. Shame on them.
the funny thing about stuff like this, for me is that most of the horrible mages who actually need this crap think they’re awesome, and the DDs who pull this shit are the WORST mages ever.
this one guy I know is a PLD pretty much all the time. tanks 100% of the dynamis runs he goes to, as far as I know does the same in sky and all that and whatever else he does, and has played the job by far more than any of his others, and yet there we were, me on PLD and him on WHM (role reversal) in crawler’s nest, and I pretty much had slow on me the whole party. DDs assume they understand the world of support mages and just go right into bitching constantly and then they try it and can’t be arsed to do anything that they want us to do.
The only time I will say “Buffs down” is if it’s clear that the mage in my group is actually going ahead and buffing us — I take that more as a matter of courtesy (to let them know) than going emo.
First off, I’d like to thank Calaera for bring this issue to light. Yes, there are a lot of mages out there who don’t do their job and neglect to do anything but cast a cure spell (or even that.) Then, you have those stellar mages who can almost predict when a status effect will land on the melee and remove it instantly. I feel that I fall in between. While I may not know every mobs TP move, I make it a practice to try and remember most of them and have my -nas ready (I agree with Kimiko on that, mages should try to remember some TP moves when possible just to be prepared because some moves don’t tell what statuses they cause.) I might have been shaky at first but I feel I’ve gotten a lot better. What bothers me most is people (not necessary just melee) who will go out of their way to constantly tell me what to do before I even have a chance to do it. I’m not a robot. This game limits you in many ways. Casting timer, recast timer, MP, etc. Just give me a few seconds and you’ll be fine. If I make a mistake I’ll most likely own up to it. I’m fine with being told that I missed something because it’s going to happen, but don’t tell me something I already know (Like “Haste?” when I just cast it on someone else!) Like Anexia said, we can only cast one spell at a time and spells like haste have a pretty long recast timer, especially if you’re level capped. >< /end wall of text
I’m glad to see that I am very much not the only one who gets annoyed when people take my diligence for granted like this. It’s worse when it’s the very first fight in an EXP party. I understand “being on the ball” and whatnot, but it does take a couple of fights to understand how everyone in a party flows. It’s called “adaptability”. Not everyone’s going to be a cookie-cutter copy of another person – duh.
Not to mention, not everyone’s going to be playing FFXI on a PC and have access to windower and the little who-diggedy-do-dads that -gasp!- oh, wowzors, is gonna let you know when that buff is going to wear off! Oh, no, not all WHM are not going to be in the middle of a Cure IV to get your tank out of orange HP when your ZOMGiNEEDZmyHASTEhasteMEnowzorsSOiCANpwnTHISmob LOLlookATmyUBERepeenIrSOtehUBERZORS!!
That being said, I’m a little worried about going back into FFXI because I’ve developed a penchant for NOT holding my tongue back. I can see myself snapping, “um… it’s not going to come out and -like- rape you up the #@%& if you don’t have your [haste] for a few seconds -m’kay- so -like- relax, and if I honestly do forget to take care of you after 5 seconds, then, sure, please do let me know instead of RIGHT WHEN IT BLOODY WEARS OFF!! (>=O)”
On WHM was kinda ok, because i used to stfu people when i pointed out that i (usually) had no refresh and no convert and whatnot.
RDM was real pain…people starting TP burns at 55, having to heal and fresh a whole pt alone…that’s horrible..not to mention that your protect is gimp and you kinda have to cast single pro to each member x.X
Yeah i hate that attitude!
I’m picky when i’m PLD tho. I go O________O the second haste/fresh is gone i start asking for it! I’d kill myself XD