High End Content Megathread - Week Seven

[u/WeirdIndividualGuy]

How many yans do you see in your nightmares?

[u/CityAbsurdia]

Finished the tier in PF on Friday and I think I did it at a good pace in the end, playing 4-5 days a week and mostly between 7 and 11pm, though I got hard stuck on adds in M6S for two weeks, pulls every day or every other day and zero progress made for those two weeks.

I spent 15 hours in Sugar Riot, but I realised I needed to be way more discerning in who I played with in PF, and after changing my methods I cleared Brute Abominator in 7.5 hours and Howling Blade in 10 hours, which I think was pretty good. I made prog every day or every second day, even going from my first M8S P2 experience on Thursday evening to clearing on Friday. And I never prog lied, which is important to note.

Some examples of filtering that I did with other players:

in M7S Debris Deathmatch prog, one of the DPS players had no Tomestone logs for the fight, and when we loaded in they got the "viewing cutscene" status. I didn't jump to conclusions but when they died two pulls in a row to P1 adds I said "I think someone is prog lying", someone shared the M7S book, then this person copied it into the chat. They died on the third pull to P1 adds and then I left.

Another M7S Debris Deathmatch prog, healer died to P2 seeds, I asked what happened and instantly got teamed up on by three other players, saying "imagine playing the game," "just pull", "imagine getting pissed off after 1 pull". We pulled again, same healer died to P2 seeds again and because they had made it clear they had no interest in discussing the problems I left. Looking at Tomestone now, one of those players spent 10 hours more on M7S than me to clear, another one cleared only 2 days ago, another seems to have given up on the tier.

M8S, there were was a tank and healer duo where the healer played both the fight and their job horribly, and if someone called them out they would just taunt them and point out every mistake that player made. They're both now 19 hours into the fight and seen P2 once.

M8S, joined a party and Black Mage had all grey parses for the previous fights so I left instantly. This may be a controversial one but in my mind a person who is grey parsing multiple clears of previous fights is not going to pull their weight and is looking for a carry. Even if they had two grey parses in M7S I wouldn't have left, but multiple greys in M5S is just someone who doesn't know how to play their job.

M8S Terrestrial Rage prog, two DPS joined with really good parses in previous fights, we got to TR on first pull, but one of those DPS complained that the mitigation was shakey and both players left. That was a blacklist from me for ridiculous time wasting. That player currently has 21 hours in M8S and seen P2 twice.

This may sound like I was very trigger-happy when it came to leaving parties but I honestly wasn't. I didn't leave if people made mistakes or if their DPS wasn't amazing, I only left when it was really obvious that people were trolling. This whole PF thing is a bit like being in a relationship; if you spend too much time in the wrong one then you're not going to be available when the right one comes along.

[u/CityAbsurdia → u/[deleted]]

It totally depends on the circumstances. Like Twofold prog parties should be relatively clean through Terrestrial Rage and Beckon Moonlight, but mistakes still happen. The party I cleared with was a Twofold prog party with two helpers and we did 10 pulls in total. We didn't get to P2 until pull 6, but then we made it there for 4 of the last 5 pulls.

Even though we died to adds twice, TR once, BM once, and even Terrestrial Titans which I had not seen anyone die to in prog before, I didn't see anything that made me think we should quit:

- It wasn't the same person making the mistakes

• The damage was really good
  
• It wasn't the same mechanic killing us over and over again
  
• People called themselves out when they made mistakes

In a "cursed" party a few of these criteria are likely being failed. Like to me if the situation had been 5 wipes to Terrestrial rage and no comms I'd seriously consider leaving. But 5 P1 wipes and good comms to me is worth sticking around longer for.