Mages Vs. Brainless DDs

When I'm pulling on BRD, I generally have to focus 100% so I get ticked off when I see DD slow to engage and what not

I'll engage you slowly Spence ;)

I agree, if you're in a party, you need to pay attention. I hate when people half-*** it. It just gimps exp gain, or whatever it is you're doing.

I haven't read through all the posts, so sorry if any of this is a repeat.

I Agree OP, but in the defense of the brainless DD's...
Brainless Mages can make things just as bad in group settings.
Few examples:

The Microwave:
The BLM that lets our the largest...most FIERCEST NUKE known to man... over-nuking the second the mob is pulled in.
Then *** to high heaven saying that the Tank isn't holding hate.
DOUCHE-BAG!!! what did you expect???

Another WONDERFUL trait of the "Microwave" is when they rape hate directly at the start... what is the BEST solution?
RUN IN A CIRCLE!!!

Cause ya know... that's the best defense!
Run in a huge circle around the party, forcing the DD's to chase after the mob. That ALWAYS helps!

Yet another example from the "Microwave"...
Tell me you haven't seen this.
SAM/WAR/DRK/someone turns the mob.
THF sata's and runs behind the tank
BLM Lets out the world largest nuclear explosion.
ALL TP is lost...

Another Pet Peeve of mine...
Here I am on RNG/WAR...
Why the *** do I have Haste???
/sigh

Last example...
BLM: "Hi! I have a Sorcerers Ring!"
WHM: "OMG Yellow HP"
Cure 4 A-Go-Go!

So it's not always the DD's that are brain dead some times...
(BTW this comes from experience having been both mage and dd in group settings)

When I'm on RDM, I can play watching TV, scratching my balls, sniffing my fingers, eating, talking on the phone. Playing a mage is not hard, neither is playing DD. This game isn't hard period. Being a main heal in merits is all about MP management; if you know what you're doing, you won't struggle.

The ONLY TIME where I have to pay attention 100% of the time, or close to 100%, is when I tell my DDs to full-ride Hasso (which all DDs should be doing anyway, unless you're mage is incompetent). Most pick-up parties aren't like this anyway, so I never have to worry about paying attention. Quit goosin'.

You made this thread to QQ. Quit trying to save face before anything even gets started.

Polearm isn't God on everything a SAM does. There are some mobs where you'll need to change it up outside of birds, which is quite frequent.

If I'm a DD and I'm not paying attention, then let me know to pull the chariot somewhere else, where its more "comfortable" for you..? Sometimes I get wrapped up in other things when doing Nyzul, and I'm not always paying attention. Crying about it won't fix ***. Telling your DDs, however, will fix everything.

The only DDs that make me want to kill them are gimpfucks who think subbing NIN or full-riding Saigen is the best thing in the world. The end.

DDs should full time Hasso, God I completely disagree.

Yes use Hasso but you see the mob turn on you then immediately put up Seigan and Third Eye, it helps the mage substantially because they then don't have to waste stupid amounts of MP to just keep you alive.

Had a pretty bad situation earlier in the week, was in a merit pt with a sam/nin who somehow managed to take the most damage in the whole group.

Now forgive my ignorance here but a sam/nin has access to 6 shadows initially then what he can get out of Seigan + Third Eye so how can he be the one constantly taking damage?

You know why you experienced this problem? Because your party sucked, period.

Any good party can support 3 DDs fulltiming hasso and never have a problem. The key is killspeed. You can kill mobs before they start dishing out TP moves. The average party has a bird WS once or twice during a fight. My merit parties have a bird WS zero or one time.

It makes a huge difference. You know what the key is though? Your mages can't suck. This means haste can't fall. Put on dia immediately. Do NOT let songs fall off. These all effect kill speed and the support screws themselves when they can't keep these up to standard.

From a DD standpoint, this means you can't have shitty gear and have to ride the *** out of hasso. Hasso w/ decent haste gear and haste buffs is a 30% increase do your attack speed and WS frequency, with acc and str as well. If you have one person too pussy to ride it, that dd is going to *** it up for everyone. If you have a DD w/ shitty gear who can't keep kill speed up, he's going to *** it up.


You need a WELL DEVELOPED group, but once you have this group, seigan shouldn't even be on the DD's macro pallet.


This is the difference between a 20k/hr party and a 30k/hr party.

Also, sam/nin, wtf? There's another thing. DDs must use DD subs, not that pussy ***, or it falls apart.


Shitty groups need /nin and seigan. Good groups do not, and the difference is tremendous.

Only thing that pisses me off in merits is constantly getting slept or elegy'd because I war drk or drg/sam

This goes back to the shitty mages. I won't attack or voke until after i see elegy reflected for this reason, unless I am confident that I'm with a good mage.

If he cast it on you it's because you had hate; Youll be woken up immediately, and ask your WHM for Erase.

Not really. Unless nobody else does anything to the mob. THe other DDs would have hate by then 90% of the time, unless they suck.

You read my mind ^^

I'd like to say to the brain-dead mages out there who either nuke too hard and pull hate, forget to haste the melees, or sat there and watch the tank die a painful death...

grow a pair of peaches!

I feel no sympathy for a DD that is a pure mp sink and dies. I have 5 people to take care of not just them. It is the DDs job to make sure that they dont get owned every 5 seconds by the mob. Its called control. I am glad you can deal a ton of Damage but sorry mp is limited.

Your party is dysfunctional then and sucks.

cant really avoid that sorry it happens. But general a good mage will wake and erase you pretty fast.

Beyond a one or two shot situation I never had an issue with keeping a DD alive on my RDM. If you're crying about DD's "doing it wrong" then chances are, you are on the exact same fail boat as them.

Basically this.

DD jobs: sam, mnk, drg, drk, war, rng, bst, thf for melee. blm, sch for magic

Tank jobs: pld, nin (war sometimes)

Mages (heal): whm, rdm, sch

Buffer: cor, brd, dnc

not sure where to put blu, smn and pup (hybrid?)

Of course there will be more brainless people within DDs, there are many more jobs.

I don't see the point in /nin in a merit since the only thing that'll kill me is a Fang Rush at mamools, occasional firespit or crit + flurry with zerk up on birds. DRG/NINs and DRK/NINs are painful to watch in pts, so much damage lost when they don't really take hate anyway.

Pecking flurry is a fourfold attack so if you're /NIN then you still take damage on one of those hits. SETE however anticipates an attack round so it would last longer providing you don't get shafted with the the randomness of TE, but either way /NIN is not that good.

Also if you're /NIN it could mess up recast time of either Utsusemi and or Hasso/Seigan.

Hasso & PDR set is you're friend.

There IS NO point to /NIN in merit parties. Why are people defending this ***? D:

Tiger is right on the money with the whole Hasso thing..It takes 6 good, nay great ppl to achieve that kind of pt..and at least to my knowledge not many ppl in this game that I come across can consistantly preform at that lvl for more than 30 sec. Which is too bad because those are the most fun merits to be in..

Back to OP: IMO you can't just say DD's are lazier or worse than mages now-a-days. I've been lvl'ing drg and I just deal with it..because I want that damn job to 75 but I've seen more shitty rdm and whm lately. I can't even begin to tell you how many times i've gotten after a rdm for haste/refresh on tanks, and i've been biting my tounge lately about hasting DD's..just cuz I want the xp.

Back in the day if ppl didn't have good knowledge of game mechanics by the 40 to early 50's there *** would get kicked out so far. But now with lots less ppl playing the game ppl think they have to deal with the shitty ppl. It's 2010 and it takes some ppl into the 70's to final figure all the aspects of a job.

Agreed. As was said earlier, this is the difference between a 15-20k hr party and a +30k hr party.

I have been in parties where literally all i do is spam cure 5 on some dds even with my bf that is a rdm in the same pt its just not effective. There is absolutely no reason a single person should take that much damage and not be able to control themselves.

If you're in a group, then things are a group effort. The better -everyone- is at their respective jobs, the more effective the group is, and (in a way) the easier it is for any given member to do well.

A great DD (or tank) will not perform at their peak without great support behind them.

A great mage will struggle with crappy, inattentive DDs.



That said, I think a lot of the absolutism here is due to assumptions being made. Simple fact is, sometimes the full party setup just doesn't support the 30k/hr playstyle, for one reason or another. If you don't adapt (use /NIN, Seigan, whatever), then you could wind up hurting more than helping.

Agreed, if you have a capable party, then not playing full-time Hasso n' the like is wasting potential, and it's the ideal thing to have for merits. Buuut, playing like that when the rest of the DDs can't keep up just means being an MP-sink, and possibly creating downtime.

Then get the 30k/hr playstyle jobs the fk out of that pt. Lol you can get 15-20k/hr w/o a brd or a cor. Leave that ***for them.

This "I have 5 people to take care of" statement isn't a very solid argument. Not that i'm for DD's being brainless but as a healer you're generally only focused on one target at a time. Especially in exp where people avoid mobs with painful AoE's.

I can tell you have never played white mage before.

IMO being Good at a mage or DD is just as hard.

Everyone should be looking at the best way to do anything, engaging faster, JAs on time, WS a nano second after 100TP, switching to PDT and MDT sets (for the DD) or balancing cures, fast status, prioritising everything, managing regen/haste/refresh cycles, hasting curing alliance members, managing hate and MP (for the mage)

To be passable as a DD is (imo) easier.

Most DD I have seen in exp partys don't WS until 150-180TP just because they are too slow to notice, but that is acceptable to most people. Whereas a mage letting haste drop for 20-30 seconds isn't.

A good way to measure your 'importance' is to AFK and see what happens.

In pre-ToAU exp partys if you afk as a mage for one mob your tank and possibly entire party will be dead. In the same party, AFKing as a DD it will depend on your Mages MP, if they have tones of MP then probably nothing will happen other than losing chain.

But imo only being 'passable' isn't acceptable, so its all a moot argument (see the first line for the real answer to the OP).

I agree with this. Aside from TP moves that happen at the worst possible time I've never had any problems keeping people alive or having to worry about MP as SCH. A RDM shouldn't either and a WHM/SCH is the last person I'd expect to complain about MP or healing aggro.


Mages have it easy compared to DDs.