I almost regret sticking to the 'first inviter' rule last night, but a party is what you make it sometimes... and I don't think I invested enough of myself (i.e. full concentration & analysis) into this one.
I was replacing a MNK, and the party was targeting pretty much everything but the Efts. The party setup was WHM, RDM, PLD, RNG, WAR, COR. The Ranger wanted to set up Rampage + Sidewinder for some reason and I just sort of went with it, not realizing that the resulting SC wasn't really that great for any of the mobs we were fighting (Reverberation i.e. Water). Had I been really "on" that night I would have suggested something else, like Blast Arrow + Rampage (Distortion) to at least make the birds die faster. But I wasn't all there and I'll admit it. I was on party auto-pilot.
We proceeded to kill at a steady pace, but I don't think we broke chain 5 which was surprising considering the seemingly low-end difficulty of the mobs. A few close calls occurred with the usual Goblin links, and I discovered a nice little bug with the "bt" target tag that I'm pretty sure wasn't there before the last patch. If you're currently engaged & locked on the party's mob and a dormant link (in red) is nearby, the "bt" tag will engage the other target... every single time. Unless I happened to be hitting the macro just as the mage was recasting Sleep or something. My attack macro doubles as a /recast timer notification, listing my commonly used job abilities. So if I happened to hit it to check the timers and a sleeping mob was nearby, hilarity would ensue. Guess it's time to switch to /assist "puller_name".
Leave it to SE to make a simple game mechanic such as targetting into a clunky, foreign, buggy feature.
I really enjoyed the new Bomb Core, especially when my accuracy was sufficient to land nearly all of my hits. Every swing was connecting for 50-65 HP per hit, and I could just smell the DoT. I can only imagine what a set of Spiked Finger Gauntlets in addition to the core would have done with these mobs.
Anyhow, the party flow was pretty humdrum, and I could tell I'd been invited right into the cooldown->disband phase of the party, when people were dozing off and just chaining enough mobs to get so&so their level or buffer or whatever. The Paladin told us he was struggling to maintain consciousness and the Red Mage was also desparate for sleep. Since we couldn't find replacements and at least 2 others were tired, the party disbanded. We all 2-hour'ed the last mob for the fun of it, and my Rampage hit for upwards of 1k on a goblin. Out with a bang I guess.
I received about 6.5 k EXP in the hour and half of partying, getting me to level 66 with a healthy buffer. Another 23k grind will bring me to 67... eventually.
I fished up a couple of stacks of Moat Carp with my LFG flag up before logging out for some sleep around 12:30 AM. That Lu Shang rod will be mine; oh yes, it will be mine... in a couple of years -_-
5 comments:
If I'm not mistaken, < bt > targets the last mob you performed an action on.
When levelling BLM, I almost got my PT wiped when I slept a link, hit my blizzard macro with the < bt > and it wakes the link.
Now, I have a /target < bt > macro that helps me target the pulled monster quickly. When there's links and you don't know which to go for, /as (aka /assist) the tank.
I personally took out all of my < bt > macros because I awoke a sleeping link way too often (back when I pretended to be a part-time BLM). So don't know what has changed in the 9 month interim.
lol@"party snob". I'm pretty much the first invite type of person. Of course this has hurt me several times when I'm the 3rd in the party and we can't find a complete party and have to disband. Turns out the other parties that had invited me were off exping. It never occurred to me to ask, how many poeple tdo you have in the party already? The worst was when we had a RDM, BRD, myself, but just could NOT find a tank. I almost cried.
Go go LuShang. I hate fishing up moat carps (for no skill) and turning them in (so no profit). Makes me yearn for the eaiser days that are a legend now, where all yo had to do was push a button to reel int he fish, and the moats themsevles earned more than 10g a piece.
Ah OK, so now I know how to interpret the BT.
When you're solo, it's the last mob you did something to, or the mob that's currently smacking you upside the skull.
When you're in a party, it's whatever mob the party last did something to before you used BT. That would explain waking up a couple of sleeping goblins with an Axe to the face (they don't like that much, btw).
So I need to get more mage-y in my use of the F1-6 keys and start using /assist. I always loved mashing that BT macro though; it would target the incoming mob from miles away and was great for provoking it as soon as it was in range (not that this works as well anymore with the mob-claim patch).
Oh and I learned my lesson early on about being a melee and getting all snobby about the parties. Did a couple of switches on parties that were taking too long to form, and ended up in a parties that disbanded within an hour, while the other party was still going.
It's not so much snobbery as 'the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence' syndrome. I just decided to put a stop to it by always going with the first invite. Sometimes it works, and other times you still wonder if you made the right decision.
Heheh. I guess I'm a mage at heart. So when I play on my WAR (lv 16) and tank, I have a /ja "Provoke" < t > macro and use F8 to target the incoming mob and just mash my macro as the mob comes into range. It the same thing I do for my dia spells.
yeah, the final few levels can be a real bore, considering the $%#@#& tnl.. everything just becomes "auto-mode" as you beat up on the same type of stuff over and over and over again..
Post a Comment