Question to other Dynamis LS's

after reading the other thread started by Lavi in the flame board, a question came to mind...

Why on earth do most of your shells have like 14 BLMes, 14 RDMes and god knows how many WHMes?

Seriously, think about it. You don't need more then 3 of each job. 3 of each job still makes it 45 people attending.

3 BLMes can easily handle 1 statue without getting hit. If you have a lot of statues at camp, a NIN, can provoke and enfeeble them and tank them while still meleeing, or simply kite them around. If the BLMes really need help, the RDMes, or even the SMN's (magical blood pacts > statues, btw) can help the BLMes kill them.

Oh, but you lack healing then? Well, not really. Melees shouldn't get hit by anything other then AoE attacks, so you can have the local BRD, RDM, BLM, WHM or SMN (or the extra PLD)... or hell, you can even have a DRG sub WHM and be main healer for the entire party.


Basically, it seems like you're seriously overkilling in the mage department, thus making the wait list tremendously long for the mages. We've had so many BLMes drop that I'm 3/5 on BLM AF though free lots alone. Hell, even people who were DRG or BRD and lvling BLM got their AF before they even hit 70. We had WHM body free lotted for almost a month before we recruited another one.

While yes, I can see why you'd want BLMes to kill faster, but melees can do that very well. You only really *NEED* BLMes for the city end-boss and the statues. And 3 BLMes + SMN's can handle that just fine. TP burn > Dynamis. Melees are and will be your main source of damage in Dynamis areas.

I really don't know what people are complaining about. We have people who just joined get their AF in cities, and we even have some people who just joined on the lot lists on Beaucedine and Xarcabard.

Even with 43 people that attended last run, we almost cleared the entire zone in Sandy and Bastok. In Jeuno we got 15 AF2's, and in Sandy 12 AF2's + 2 100c. Going through the lotting lists are rather fast since we don't have like, 30 mages total... What's the deal? Why the huge ammount of mages? Is there ant specific reason to it?

People tend to stack Black Mages mostly for Xarcabard. Up until then, you're right, you rarely need more than 3 to do what's *needed*. But once you get to the multi-eye pulls in Xarc, it's a hell of a lot *easier* to just nuke them all down in one go rather than try to kite 4-5 mobs that can cast -ga spells and then potentially be ready to kill them all and have 3 NM demons spawn on you.

You also aren't taking into consideration that a lot of people have multiple jobs levelled. Just because you recruit someone as a melee doesn't mean they don't have 75 whm too and want the gear for that. This game's been around for so long that honestly it's more likely for someone in dynamis to have 2 jobs at 75 than just one. Mage jobs tend to be popular, so that's how you end up with 7-8 white mages.

I know that lolDynamis doesn't overkill on mages except BLM, but a hefty stun order for MNK and NIN mobs is essential to avoiding wipes. MNK can rip through any tank, I don't give a shit how well equipped you are short of Aegis and Shadow Mantle, especially since they usually come in twos.

We actually end up with very streaky drops regardless of job. I think we've had a total of 8 BLM from Beauce, and we've never gotten a MNK there. Or how about our 20 or so WAR in Windy with the very rare BLM drop there.

BLM is worth the overkill though. Having more than 6 total stunners in your ideal (which includes three lolDRK) is great. And relying on DRK to be a part of a stun order is a very tall order since they're usually too busy killing themselves with souleater to worry about watching for the /tell to stun.

BLMs are not essential, but they make things a whole lot easier. More BLMs mean stones die faster and can help with killing regular mobs especially when pulls go bad and you have a large train. Black Mages have access to Sleepga II which is extremely helpful with the larger trains versus a RDM using Sleepga and then Sleep II on each individual mob. When you get a NIN or MNK, you can stun around 50% and avoid mijin gakure altogether or suppress a majority of the Hundred Fists damage.
RDM>BRD in dynamis from the perspective of a mage. Sleep II lasts a whole lot longer. Refresh is target only versus AoE of a bard which requires me to be stationary when I prefer to be mobile especially when mobs are slept all over. In cities where MP stones are plentiful, you can avoid constant resting. With enough BLMs, you can kill stones without pulling the resulting mobs. It's true, you only need 3 or so BLMs (or RDMs), but with enough of them, a bad pull is manageable.

Like Rappa said, most people have multiple jobs at this point, so just because you only bring 3 whm's into the zone doesn't mean that only 3 people would want/use the relic.

As for why you'd bring multiple of each job into dynamis; you'd want a bunch of rdm's because people like to have mp; whm's to deal with healing and to either speed up or remove the massive exp loss from wiping. Blm's can help with kills besides the stones; so you can have 3 blm's kill stones while the others help kill the mobs. I doubt you'd find anyone who would complain about having a bard in every party. The same goes for pretty much any other job, just mages make a more visible impact.

*I THINK* the reason a lot of Mages get recruited is because if you only have 3-5 of each job and all of a sudden a few don't show up for 1 run, then you are fucked for that run. You can't do Dynamis with 1 or 2 BLM/RDM/WHM effectively, you need at least 3-5 of each of those jobs attending whereas melee's are more plentiful and more flexible and can more easily be replaced. If people would treat dynamis like it was the most important event in FFXI, and showed up 95% of the runs then you could logically cut down on the amount of mages you need in the shell to guarantee you have enough each run. The problem is that most common players that aren't in the top active linkshells on the server aren't used to having to show up to events on time and on a regular schedule (like a job) and you need to recruit more people in order to have successful showings.

I've also noticed that BLMs tend to be the quickest to leave. Of all job types, I've seen more BLMs come and go in my time playing dynamis while WHM was the least. It might just be that there are normally more BLMs and therefore more would leave, but I think it was more than just that. Most of them only obtained a couple of pieces and would have obtained more had they stuck around.

I agree Lavi, in PerfectAtaraxia we have a handful of BLMs who are dedicated and always on but we have also had a steady stream of players that have just cycled through the roster so to speak. Thank god for our dedicated group of BLM's. Unfortunately we have always seemed to be a bit short on WHM's and BRD's, so I guess we are a bit opposite of TDS.

I dunno what happened over the holiday though, but our attendance dropped off hardcore, dunno if other LS's stole our members or if people got all emo and depressed and went MIA over the break but it would sure be nice if they all started coming back as we went from having 45-55 members per run before christmas to 30-35 members after christmas, it seemed like a pretty sharp drop off.

decidence said:

I agree Lavi, in PerfectAtaraxia we have a handful of BLMs who are dedicated and always on but we have also had a steady stream of players that have just cycled through the roster so to speak. Thank god for our dedicated group of BLM's. Unfortunately we have always seemed to be a bit short on WHM's and BRD's, so I guess we are a bit opposite of TDS.

I dunno what happened over the holiday though, but our attendance dropped off hardcore, dunno if other LS's stole our members or if people got all emo and depressed and went MIA over the break but it would sure be nice if they all started coming back as we went from having 45-55 members per run before christmas to 30-35 members after christmas, it seemed like a pretty sharp drop off.

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Well, it might be that a lot of those people are home during winter vacation. Some schools have a long vacation period that extends until the end of January and they might not have the best access to a computer/internet while at home.

Raesvelg said:

People tend to stack Black Mages mostly for Xarcabard. Up until then, you're right, you rarely need more than 3 to do what's *needed*. But once you get to the multi-eye pulls in Xarc, it's a hell of a lot *easier* to just nuke them all down in one go rather than try to kite 4-5 mobs that can cast -ga spells and then potentially be ready to kill them all and have 3 NM demons spawn on you.

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We've had several eyes at the same time. Even when we farm as 21 people, eyes are never a problem. They die very fast from melees killing them, and they move slow, so you can have someone else kite the others.

As for PLD's, you don't need more then 3 PLD's. And with the new Sentinel change, they shouldn't even die on MNK mobs anymore

As for multiple jobs, yes. I suppose. Don't really have that problem though =/ all of our queues are rather short <.<;

Decidence said:

You can't do Dynamis with 1 or 2 BLM/RDM/WHM effectively, you need at least 3-5 of each of those jobs attending whereas melee's are more plentiful and more flexible and can more easily be replaced.

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This isn't true. We've done Dynamis with me as the only RDM several times. We've also done it with 1 WHM, and that day we had the DRG's sub WHM and SMN's help with the healing.

1 BLM works fine too. RDMes can help nuke and SMN's can help nuke. If you're REALLY desperate you can have a THF solo them with bloody bolts. We did that in Xarcabard once xD THF soloing statues ftw.

The times you did dynamis with less then the optimal 3-4 of each mage job did you always get the full 180min run (all extensions)? Did you kill attestation mobs, or fragments? DL or Beauc boss?

These are the reasons why we need that many of each mage job. Starter city zones is not the problem, as 90% of the LS have their 3 Relic's from those zones anyways.

This game isn't about what you can or can't do, but it's about efficency. If you can clear the mobs and be out dynamis in 2 hours, instead of 3, that is better for people who aren't hardcore. Most dynamis extras don't play much end-game outside of dynamis, they know it is a 3 hour thing, but if you cut it down to 2, they are much happier.

I don't think you can clear the mobs of any dynamis zone in 2hrs, no matter how godly you are. The closest we came was within 1 stone of clearing bastok after getting all extensions including the win. And we had around 50-52 members in attendance that night, which also set records for most Relic and Single Coins.

from site:
Most Relic: 19, Bastok 11/14/06
Most 1c's: 304, Bastok 11/14/06

Of course people are happier with shorter runs, hell I would be too, but I think SE made it so the best LS's in the game would still have a hard time clearing the zone with a full 3hr run time, this means a full 3hrs of potential Relic drops and currency farming, which is probably better then running out of mobs after 2hrs.

If your arguing efficiency, then I would say the longer the run the more efficient use of time since you will be getting more drops and more chance of people getting what they want the longer you are in the zone and the more you can kill during your time in the zone increases that efficiency further.

decidence said:

The times you did dynamis with less then the optimal 3-4 of each mage job did you always get the full 180min run (all extensions)? Did you kill attestation mobs, or fragments? DL or Beauc boss?

These are the reasons why we need that many of each mage job. Starter city zones is not the problem, as 90% of the LS have their 3 Relic's from those zones anyways.

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Yes, we've beat all citys with as little as 25 people (21 at once too I think). We've also won Beaucedine with 25 people. We've got all extentions in all cities except for Windy since we usually skip the northest one.

We've also got all extentions and cleared the wall of eyes with 45 min left to farm with 25 people. Hell, with 25 people we also got Dynamis Lord to 80% on our first attempt. Only reason we wiped was due to the next RDM in the stun order forgetting to chainspell.

As for all extentions in Beaucedine, getting all extentions in beaucedine is rather useless since (atleast for us), beastmen have higher drop rate then hydras, and are also easier to kill.

meeze said:

This game isn't about what you can or can't do, but it's about efficency. If you can clear the mobs and be out dynamis in 2 hours, instead of 3, that is better for people who aren't hardcore. Most dynamis extras don't play much end-game outside of dynamis, they know it is a 3 hour thing, but if you cut it down to 2, they are much happier.

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It depends on what you mean with efficient. We were efficient, with 6-9 AF drops per run with 21-25 people attending. That's AF's 28%-36% of the people attending, as opposed to 9-15 AF's with 45 people, which is 20%-33% AF's per person.

The only reason we really recruited more people was so it'd be easier to kill Dynamis Lord, ans so sponsorers could get more currency from their sponsored runs.

Last year alone (November 21st 2005 to December 14th) we got 65 100c, 274 AF2's, and roughly 10k in 1c's, with 21-25 people. And that's not including the 5 runs which we don't have attendance for. That's roughly 11-13 AF's per person. So as you can see, we've had quite a few people leave. But almost 2 full AF sets per person in roughly a year is rather good I'd say, no?

Towards the end of 2006, we got roughly 220 1c per run with 21-25 people attending.

So really, what's your deffinition of "succesfull"?

When you did all that, did you only have 2 blm? were your THFs soloing stones? No, you probably had at least a party of BLMs. What I meant by efficient was the killing.

You can clear dynamis zones get win and be gone with 30-45 min left in most zones when you have a proper cannon with only 20-30 people. Things don't go as smoothly when you only have 2 or 3 of each job.

BLMs make the runs easier, and therefore more efficient.

Also factor in the amount people are dieing. Having deaths in dynamis (even 1-2) already drops your efficiency. Having only 20-25 people and very few mages makes it difficult to counter mistakes that are bound to happen which would cause your group to wipe, but some larger groups to survive without much death at all.

There are advantages to a small group, such as more AF per person (if people stick with the shell) but there are also advantages and more flexibility in having a larger group. Perfect Ataraxia has 10 people lotting BLM and RDM yet we have a couple people finished their sets for those jobs and most others are only 1-2 pieces away, I don't think they are unhappy, they realize the sacrifice in not getting their full AF set faster is because they want to do things more efficiently, more quickly, and with as little XP loss as possible.

meeze said:

When you did all that, did you only have 2 blm? were your THFs soloing stones? No, you probably had at least a party of BLMs. What I meant by efficient was the killing.

You can clear dynamis zones get win and be gone with 30-45 min left in most zones when you have a proper cannon with only 20-30 people. Things don't go as smoothly when you only have 2 or 3 of each job.

BLMs make the runs easier, and therefore more efficient.

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First half we only had roughly 3 BLMes, but then a DRG and a BRD lvled BLM, so we had 5 BLMes then. Usually 4 that came.

We had roughly 2 RDMes and 3 WHMes aswell. At around November 23rd we recruited a few more though, and averaged 30 people with 2 more BLMes, 2 more WHMes and 2 more RDMes, thus being at around 6 BLMes, RDMes and 5 WHMes for Sandy > Bastok > Jeuno > Windy > Beaucedine > Xarcabard (attempting win at December 14th).

So for the majority of the year, yes, with around 30 people the last 6 runs of the year.

Also factor in the amount people are dieing. Having deaths in dynamis (even 1-2) already drops your efficiency. Having only 20-25 people and very few mages makes it difficult to counter mistakes that are bound to happen which would cause your group to wipe, but some larger groups to survive without much death at all.

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Well, not really. With less people, there's less people that needs healing. People just need to learn to be flexible and adjust to the situation. We rarely had any deaths unless it was bad luck from a mijin gakure, or the occasional hundred fist dead PLD. Well, sometimes Dayner would pull hate from the PLD and die, but that's his fault xD

Basically, yes, deaths do happen. But not more then it normally would with a larger group. A 45 person Dynamis naturally requires some more healing, I can understand that, but WHMes can heal people outside the alliance, and SMN's etc. can help with healing. You just need to learn which stones are MP and HP stones and pull them accordingly so people don't run out of MP fast. Sandy stables is a good example. The 2 stones at the tree don't pop anything. 1 is HP 1 is MP. If people run out of MP, or you're in a bad situation, pull the stones and kill them and everyone have full HP and MP.

Although one reason we were as succesfull as we were were probably thanks to our excellent pullers that didn't mind suicide pulling It does require a change in tactic, like suicide pulling in case of a large link which a 45 man group could handle. We still managed a 25 orc 5 statues pull once in Sandy with 25 people though. I was impressed at that.

All you need is a group willing to adjust. I'm sure any Dynamis LS could manage with as little as 1 BLM as long as people are willing to try and adjust.

Ad:

Dynamis Shell seeking PLDs/NINs for tanking duties. Must NOT have RDM, WHM, BLM or MNK levelled!


Oh crappo~


Personally, I wouldn't mind [x] amount of people after a certain job if there were some way to make all AF drop equally. Having drops increase based on attendees would be a really nice thing to do, too.

The dynamis shell I ran for a short while did it's first Jeuno run on our 5th run. We had 18 people when we started. Before we got to the top of stairs one of our WHMs threw a fit and warped out, leaving us with one WHM. We had 3 BLM that run. We hit every extension, 3 hours of farming, nice deal.

3 days later, 4 BLMs 22 people, got our asses handed to us, only hitting 2 extensions.

A month later after a merge with another LS, 8 BLMs 26 people, every extension, and win.

Drops are going to happen how they happen. But there are a set number of mobs you kill before the win, and that number doesn't change. If you kill all of those mobs faster, you come out on top. Having only 3 BLMs will work, but not as well as having 8 BLMs.

I understand what you're trying to say, but it's still easier stacking the important jobs over the weaker ones.