PUG != Static

First, ENM was 4-manned last night since Z and Vay couldn't make it and Alden wasn't feeling well. Wack, Deep, and I picked up Evergence (on RDM) to knock it out. It went very smooth and we got a nice piece of Viridian Urushi to show for it >.>

Nyzul was canceled on Tuesday since 1/2 of our static couldn't make it (it's been a bad week for statics). I ended up logging off early and getting some sleep.

I spent some extra time hanging out in Whitegate hoping to jump in on a Nyzul run or two if I could lot some Askar. I ended up doing 3 runs in two different parties.

The first run with the first group was possibly the worst run I've ever been on. I went RDM, but I should've gone WHM because the WHM that we had was awful. There were a couple of issues right off the bat that had me a little worried. One, the frontline was SAM SAM MNK THF, all /NIN, so we didn't have anyone to provoke (which seems kind of important to me). Then, as soon as we land on floor 76, the MNK D/Cs. Long story short, floor 76 is a kill all and the first mob we run into is a dahak. So the WHM doesn't buff us (understantable) but she also doesn't heal ANYONE! I don't even know where she was when we were fighting. We ended up wiping and were starting to recover when the MNK came back. Three more people ended up dying before we were able to kill it (For all you melees out there, in Nyzul isle, please, do not fight mobs with AoE moves around corners or inside of doorways as it forces your mages to get within AoE range and caauses headaches for all) Once the objective was complete, we just exited as we had less than 5 minutes remaining at that time! Twenty-five minutes on one floor is just plain retarded! Funny thing was that the WHM was gonna switch to THF because (s)he couldn't find one, but (s)he didn't want to change from WHM because (s)he "doesn't trust other WHMs". I couldn't believe it after I saw her performance. Based on his/her performance, remind me to never get into a PT with him/her if (s)he's NOT the WHM!

The 2nd party was with some old dynamis LS friends that I've done runs with before. They are spamming floor 80 for Goliard and Denali, so I like to tag along with them as often as I can. They were doing 2 runs and asked me to come WAR. We had BRD and RDM for backline, SAM WAR WAR DRG on the front. I think we exited on floor 78. Our RDM just couldn't keep everyone healed. Maybe the BRD was gimp, too because his lullabies were getting resisted all over the place. One of the floors was a family floor and the target was frogs. With that much AoE, a RDM spamming curaga II just isn't going to last very long before they run out of MP.

The 2nd attempt went a little better, although we had 2 'family' floors with frogs as the target. The RDM and BRD were both weakened as we were trying to kill the last two frogs, and the last one we had to kill before floor 80 dropped a water bomb before he died and KO'd 3 ppl (including the weakened BRD). As we land on floor 80 we get the 5 minute warning. So, clearly we're gonna have to do a weakened zerg on Hydra. For some reason, the RDM decided to raise all of the melee first, instead of the BRD (who could've 1) supplied MP for the RDM and 2) helped raise, cutting our 'recovery' time in half). So, with about 1.5 minutes left, we pop our meds and run in for a futile attempt at a zerg. By the time I engaged the mob, we just had our 1 minute warning. I think we got it down 15% before we timed out.

Maybe our static is better geared. Maybe our static is better merited. For whatever reason, our static seems to just roll through the floors (even on frogs). I have been the only healer in a 5xdd RDM nyzul run before and it is VERY difficult to keep everyone alive and keep MP up without some extremely easy floors. I think that we could've fared much better by letting me come WHM and going with at 3xDD 3xSupport setup. Their kill-speed wasn't the problem, staying alive was. Whatever the case, I think it is extremely rare that Nyzul PuG can match the efficiency of our Static. I hope we never have to cancel another static Nyzul run again!

Posted May 15 2009, 09:58 AM