A good party a lost art?Follow

Hi all white mages ^^; I've recently started playing after a 3 year hiatus and started levelling my whm again. It's currently level 62 and just want to have a bit of a vent I guess.

Is traditional partying a lost art these days? I thought to myself that I should have some fun tonight and do toramas with a 61 sync party. I'm sure most of you know that toramas are like the white mages trial by fire. I loved it when i first hit 60 3 years ago as it kept me on my feet like no tomorrow. Lots of paralyna/silena and on top of that hasting and debuffing.

But how come EVERY party even in the 60s has a power level these days? The party was whm nin blu thf cor pup. Unorthdox yes, but it had potential to be fun. The thf brought a 75 rdm to powerlevel and would pull when the last mob was at 5%. My mp never got about 150/800 even with a corsair since I was determined to keep my nin alive with -nas/hastes/debuffs. The poor blu was on 20 mp 85% of the time and well, a blu with no MP is more useless than a whm with 0 club skill hitting robber crabs.

Has this potential for partying degraded this much that everyone wants to just burn pink birds (and marsh murres) these days? Is there no longer any skill involved? i Pride myself in being able to hit -na buttons fast enough to ensure that the status is on my tank for just a micro second

Level Sync & Astral burns has killed off what little "Trials" you went through in order to get to level 75.

Levels 1~10 you learn how to play the game.

Levels 11~20 you grasp how partying system works. Maybe even learn to *shock* skillchain and magic burst!

Levels 20-37 you learn the core aspects of your specific job and how best to utilize them as your main job and as potential subs.

Levels 37-50 you learn the exclusive core aspects of your specific job and what situations would demand what kind of response.

Levels 50-60 you *were* forced to learn how to Skillchain and Magic Burst effectively in order to get a good rate of EXP going.

Levels 60-75 through extensive leveling sessions, you got a solid idea for what was to be expected of you from level 75 events. You learned to be quick on your feet when handing out cures/nas, control your enmity when nuking, report TP and command skillchains.






But why go through all of that? When you can party to 75 from qufim onwards on worms and crabs?

Then theres Astral burning, whats more quicker than to blow through several levels in as little as 10 minutes?


Oh hey whats this? Divine seal actually makes my na spells AOE? HOLY CRAP!
/sigh

I wouldn't say that everyone wants to fight toucans but why wouldn't you? Quicker to get to, easy exp, more exp then other mobs, and you can vomit just about any party combination at them and turn out ok. Most people around are on their 3,4,5+ job, they know what they are doing in a game that has been around this long and have no need to go through the training grounds of LoO. You can grab just about any 6 people regardless of skill level and come out tops. Now, grab the same odd ball party, make 1/2 of them suck and the other 1/2 not know what they are doing and go make like you are farming Ose to pop and you are going to be ripping your hair out in less then 5 minutes.

Now personally, I prefer the old camps, I'll take the less exp any day to go there but there are 5 other people to worry about. I like leveling, I like grinding out exp, I like setting up for skillchains or being the SATA bitch.

To the OP, the PL issue... you need to make it clear if having a PL is an issue to you, put it in your seacom if need be that you will not be involved if there is a pl. Most people have friends, most people have mage jobs leveled, most people have down time so no it is not uncommon to get a pl. I could care less if one shows up, I know how to do my job I don't need the practice, would prefer if one didn't show up but with it being so hard to get a pt, I'd rather take the pl then sit lfg just because of the pl.

Finally to the op, yes there most definately is still skill, and alot of it, exp is just one small aspect of the game.

Took care a that forrrrya. Also to OP, yes, there is no such thing as a good party unless you are in an established HNMLS doing an HNM.
Even at 75, your SAMs +DRGs will /NIN and not ever tank or get targeted. Your RDM will continue casting haste even though your WAR is 25%HP. Oh, lol and if he dies, your RDM will cast haste on him again cause it lessens weakend time. >.< and don't get me started on PLD/WARs wanting to tank in merit PTs @75.

Edited, Nov 9th 2009 11:49am by Coyoteblackzero

Pecking Flurry isn't that bad, really. Most of the time you can start casting Ichi as soon as the bird readies it and have 3 shadows up afterwards. Or just pause for a split second if you're casting Ni, so you don't get interrupted. Sometime the bird will get off another swing before you can get Ichi up, but that's rare. I've also read (haven't tried this myself yet) that you can cast a nuke on it and the bird will take so long "reflecting" it that you can get shadows up before it attacks again. Of course, this is only on the birds that reflect. The few times when I do get in trouble on colibri, the melees will pull it off with a weaponskill or it will use Snatch Morsel or it just dies.

Where Colibri (or any other mob really) get to be lolworthy is when you get Elegy on them. You can recast Ichi between swings then. :D If you can't get a BRD I'd suggest Raiton -> Hojo to slow down their attack speed a bit, they do attack pretty fast without debuffs.

On topic, I wouldn't mind exping in the old areas, but even if you have a great party that works well together, you can still make more exp in the expansion areas due to Sanction bonus and the mobs just being a lot easier to kill. The old-school mobs just have too much hp and/or defense and their special attacks are more powerful to boot.

Eruca camp is a good camp between Colibri and Imp parties. With the right setup you can get close to 10k/hr easily.

Definitely need better geared/skilled people than colibri parties though.

Well, 65-67 you can't effectively go to Imps or Colibri, so Eruca are the next-best-thing.

Unless you want to do an oldschool camp like Bibiki Bay at 65...

I was in a 67 Sync party last night which was pushing my Na trigger finger to the limit.

Party Setup: Whm/Blm, Sam/Thf, Pld/War, Blu/Nin, Blu/Nin, Sam/Nin.

The mobs were imps.

I just have to say, they were seeming to favor Deafening Tantra. I would remove Silence from the tank and 1 of the Blus, and it would ready it again.

I was actually useing more Mp casting Silena then i was Cureing.

I also only had Sanction Refresh and Vermy Cloak, so on top of only being able to rest after the mob was dead for fear of a silent tank, i had no refresh and rather crappy Mp regeneration, since most of my gear is 70+

When you get to imp range, you'll loathe them, Sure they keep your trigger finger occupied, but they are annoying little flying pests.

But yes, for the most part, "old School" parties are a thing of the past. People realized that useing Tp on the highest damageing Ws as soon as you get it was a better strategy then holding TP to Skillchain.

Tho, as you get higher, Mp managment will be a Struggle, as your parties pretty much never stop pulling, and you need to cope with the occasional 1-2 tic rests inbetween where you can fit it. All the while keeping a haste/regen cycle.

Even tho the party setups and dynamics have changed, it can still be very fast paced for a whm.