Personnage

Act 22 The Curious Rise of the Arthritis Mage




As it happened, when this 14 days free trial event was going on, there were an influx of WoW player started playing FFXIV. I didn't pay much attention on day 1, but suddenly the queue time did increase. In my FC, someone told me about these varies WoW players streaming FFXIV. There was this particular streamer, whose name was like something gold. My FC mate kept telling me how annoying this guy was because he was constantly talking about big d*ck.

My problem is, I don't have time to play this game myself, just where on earth would I find time to watch someone playing the game?

I eventually checked out one of these videos on youtube. I picked a short one and it may have been from WoW instead of FFXIV. I can't even remember what exactly the guy said.

So apparently to him, the world has d*cks and bigger d*cks. All the problems in this world seem to be caused by d*cks and all the solution for all these problem is for us to become bigger d*cks.

Obviously I am paraphasing, but this is all I got out from his video.




I thought of that E4s run on the Sunday before.

There were bad runs in Syncademy, but there was never something that bad. Honestly, I was not sure what should the correct response be. Should I even bother to join the next raid? I only have 14 days, and my time would have been better spent on anything else.

I imagined, if those WoW people will probably say something along the line of, "Don't want to get f**ked over by healers? Go roll as a healer and f**k them all."

Solely for the sake to take the p*ss at it, I signed up for the next Sycademy E4s raid as a healer.




Well, if I have to heal, I guess some preparation will be called for. I signed into E4N on DF. Kill the boss, stayed behind as everyone left.

It was something Asny taught me when I first started raiding. Back in 3.x, you can pull aggro with as a BRD with song, or with pets. Before the start of every fight, ideally you figure out where you should stand at the start of the fight, how the positioning works as mechanics is rolling out. So what he did was get 7 other people roll him into the fight, and leave him along there. He will cast Mage Balled find out how close he can get before aggroing the boss. I supposed, no one would have minded if he had to do it in the first raid, but he insisted that he won't be wasting raid time.

I suppose it gives some light on how people prepare fights. Back in 3.x, I was very puzzled that I always have less spell being casted per fight no matter what I do. It is not until one of my recent resub, I noticed that prior to FFXIV, almost every games I played are command type games. Namely, you can take forever to choose what action you want to take, or even afk in the middle. In FFXIV, unless there is a phase transition, you should be constantly pressing button. This is something that I never used to. I think part of me just want to look around and reflect a bit (basically space out). As a result, I am just not very good in this game no matter what I do. Instead, I tend to study the timeline of the fight, find out how hard each skill of the boss hits and get as much field practice to make sure I do the mechanics properly. It somehow compensates my lack of personal skill.

Well, if I were really familiar with the fight timeline, I I think I should fit more naturally to be the shield healer. It was what I thought all these years. Of course, it was all in theory, but in practice, sometimes I just forget, or someone dies and it throws everything into panic mode.

Now in 5.x with this E4s thingy, I tested a few things with my fairy, and it was quite clear how I want to approach this fight instead. I think the arena is a bit deceiving. There are huge area that are not supposed to be used. I suppose, I should have figured this out by now when I was progging the fight. I somehow just didn't pay any attention all these time. In any case, the dice was cast. No matter who I pair with in the next fight, I was confident that I can use the fairy to pick up most of the healing.




The fateful day came that Wednesday.

Supposedly, I had done my homework, so there was nothing to worry about, right?

Guess what, the other healer in my party plays only SCH.

Long time ago, Aruzelt suggested that in the sign up we should have made clear who wanted to play shield healer and who want to play regen healer. But then the raid leader at that time told him that most content can be cleared in any pair of healers, so it would be unnecessary.

Well, so unnecessary that they went ahead to assign two SCH in to the same team. And so unnecessary that instead of living with they own decision, they will try to pressure one to change into another job. It would have worked if they didn't try to put those who really only play one job, and those who spend more time unsub than sub in this game all in the same team.

To be fair, one can claim that it is a non-issue in the first place. While it is true that succor and adlo cannot stack with other shields, but the strength of SCH does not lie in the shields. Maybe once upon a time it was what the SCH's identity, but it is no longer the case in 5.x. Any SCH worth their salt should have figured out how to work with another SCH.

Then, why on earth I kept hearing people bitching about it when they see two SCH in the party? Not to mention this is the situation of those higher power in Syncademy help setting up for themselves.

Did I watch too much video from these WoW people and started seeing everybody are d*cks? Or is this an obvious contempt against me?





Well, what is the point to kick up a fuss when I had only a few days left in the game?

I can't remember when was the last time I play WHM. I did farm Titania Ex as a WHM during 5.0 launch. Maybe I have played this job in a later patch, but I really can't remember. It doesn't matter. I roll as WHM once more.

What do I remember as WHM? Like, hardly anything? I wasn't playing during most of the 4.x, so the Lily system was new to me in 5.x. There was those "new" skills called Afflatus something. I can't remember. It works some what like SCH lustrate and Indom, except it works off the time based Lily instead of aetherflow stack. Believe it or not, afflatus is really not a common English word. At first when I overheard people talk about it, I thought they mean arthitis. I was thinking to myself, you people are quite young in real life, no? Already talking about misery of arthitis? Later when I figure out what they meant. In the past we said we toss some regen on the tank. I guess now we toss some arthitis to the tank?

Arthitis to you all then.

Well, it turned out it really didn't matter how long I haven't play WHM, because this job was so OP that is total idiot proof. Because the experience with the last E4s group in Syncademy, I made very sure that people got heal before the stack and before the raidwide aoe. However, it was quite clear after a while that I overhealed. At first, I kept missing the timing of the Voice of the Land, the raidwide aoe. My cast went off faster than than the damage. Eventually I just wait for the boss castbar hit the end before I even cast the next heal.

Within three hours of raid time, we had 15 pulls in between. We got in to the last phase 7 times. Out of all 15 pulls, I used healer lb3 6 times, raise 39 times. 35 of which pair with a swiftcast, while 4 were hard cast. In case anyone thinks that these numbers are high, it is really not. We had it far worse in the Syncademy group last Sunday. In that run I had to changed into RDM in the second half of the raid and used vercure to stay alive. Even within that 90 minutes raid time as RDM I casted verraise 56 times in total. I also casted as many vercure as Jolt 2 in that period of time.




Back to the present, this time as a WHM, I died 19 times. 15 of which comes with the 15 wipes we had, 2 of them was caused by stupidity and other 2 is I somehow second in aggro to qualify for the tank buster in second phase.

In any case, I was clearly not keeping the Dia DoT up, and overheal was everywhere. A lot comes from the the good old medica 2, along with those mis-timed Cure 3. I probably used more regen than necessary. It was the 3.x WHM play style to keep Regen up on tanks, but I am skeptical on if I should be doing this in 5.x. I also not too sure when to use cool down like PoM, thin air, that plenary whatever. They have been used, but only in places that I felt unsure about.

What a pain. Maybe I should read a guide on how to be a proper arthiris mage?




After the raid, I was trying to look up on videos on just how a WHM heal this fight. Instead of finding such video, instead I found a video on a team doing it MIL, no echo and NO HEALER at all.



What an irony. I was totally at lost on what to say.







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