Pulling in AbysseaFollow

I did my first bard pulling in Abyssea (I previously managed to finagle my way into lazybard for the BLM party for 75-80.)

I've pulled Abyssea on THF before, but I found myself quickly overwhelmed on bard, to the point where the alliance caved in and found a second puller to assist me. The Main Assist also just started voking mobs that were close by, and not necessarily the one I slept, so they'd wake up and start beating on me. (It didn't help that they failed to tell me I was gonna be pulling, and I was subbing WHM.)

We were on lizards, and they are non-linky, which meant we had to manually group them together for the SMN to Odin.

I'm using a Lamiabane as my RA to pull, but I felt it was too slow. I literally could not keep up. By the time I pulled one lizard and sang a song, that lizard was dead and they were waiting on another one.

I'm not sure a bard is really a good puller in Abyssea. On the pink birds, where pacing was important and a really good party still took 30 seconds to kill something, we had enough time to sing a song before we had to run off and find another victim. In Abyssea, where the alliance exp is much more fast paced, it feels like a waste to have a single bard puller who doesn't even have time to sing songs...

Am I just being a lolprincessbard here, or has anyone else experienced difficulties in pulling and buffing solo in Abyssea?

Edited, Sep 21st 2010 7:30pm by catwho

I find it fun tbh, keeping the Party pleased with buffs while pulling is sorta my weak point though :/ I've only pulled pachypodiums though.

I actually have a vid of Pachypodium pulling lol

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RaVIpaUrJQ

It's not. Perhaps that's just the frequent Crapaudy parties talking (which are nigh immune to light based sleep), but it just seems to me that with Haste n' Cure IV from sub now, the ability to keep Ballads on yourself, the potential benefit of utilizing the frequent Intense Soothing Light crates... just doesn't seem to make sense to have BRD be the one running out of camp constantly.

Honestly, once Azure light is built up, BLMs make solid pullers (or RDMs, SCHs, etc).

Once Azure lights are built up, have the BLMs pull. For one, the BLMs will actually pay attention to sleeps when its their neck on the line. Secondly, the RNG, THF, BRD, or DNC that is being told to pull is much more useful doing their actual job.

It's not like a BLM can't toss in nukes and accumulate azure lights at the same time. Pull, sleepga, T3/4 the mob being fought. The puller stands still and waits while the alli picks mob(s) off anyways.

My god, that Pachypodium pulling video looks like a lot of fun.

Edited, Sep 27th 2010 5:36pm by SerontQuetzalcoatl

It's nice to know that no matter how good/skilled you might be, there is always someone who can fill a unique niche and make you feel humbled by it (Good Job!). I have pulled, but not more than 2 or 3 at a time - this actually looks very fun.

Lately though, I've been doing "Perma 2hr Marches" with 5x2H DD's. It's entertaining at first, very fun for the DD, but absolutely boring for the BRD. But it can turn any crappy party into a successful one.

For those interested - whenever you examine a chest, your buff timers stop. 2hr + Troubadour + Nightingale + 2x Marches, examine chest and watch the DD's go to town. When they lose buffs, exit out and reapply. You can make your 2hr last up to 30 mins if your lucky, and you should easily see your share of 2hr chests in the mean time.

A few issues using this method:
Make sure there is chest to lock yourself on.
AOE can unlock you.

The funny:
Don't try to overwrite your 2hr, it wont take effect.

The sad:
You cant do sh*t while your locked.

Edited, Sep 29th 2010 3:38am by Asmoranomar

I tried pulling once in Abyssea when they first started. People knew me as an awesome puller in merits. It... didn't work out. Yeah, bards are back to our old job. One thing I find though since scars came out and TP moves are back in, I'm much more useful in a back-up healing role especially since I leveled WHM not in AU but in old world vane'diel (onzozo anyone?). The last party I had (we were killing coeurls) probably had a hard time after I left since I cured 80% of the status effects in the whole alliance (I could begin my double ballad macro, have whoever get silenced/paralyzed and cure the status effect after the second ballad goes off).

Healers weened on AU makes me facepalm

The sub really doesn't matter these days, but /nin will still give you that lifeline when you're caught in no-mans land, or your healer is having a brain fart. If you think you're subbing whm to help with status cures and backup healing, you don't really understand abyssea pulling. You shouldn't have time to do anything but buff and pull. If you do, your alliance is poor and maybe you need to make adjustments.

I generally sub nin still, but half the time I don't find the time to put up shadows...it's just there as a button to click if I'm getting uncomfortably low in hp. Dual-wielding those fast-cast fey daggers is another reason to consider /nin....not that I got those.

Only one? RDM. Fastcast, refresh, (soon to be) haste, and convert all make for excellent sub abilities, esp if you are backup healing (or even main healing).

Next are /whm, /nin, then /sch.

/SCH now gives all the -na except Viruna and Stona. Still loses out on Curaga, bar- spells, and Cure IV that /WHM gives, but has nifty tools like Sublimation and Accession Stoneskin/-na.

May or may not be worth the trade off depending on what you do.

Sublimation charges a lot faster now, making it less useful for that. Plus, the cheap Elshimo Pachira Fruit has always been the more reliable anti-sleep measure.

As the Stratagems are pretty limited on /SCH;I'd pick AoE Stoneskin and Regen over status cures, unless it's the last thing I do before moving on to a new camp/pop.


Er, more variety is good. If all the monsters do are damage, then all the healers and support healers would be doing are just cure dumping.


p.s. I prefer /WHM myself, but I can see where /SCH would do better. Still, /WHM is the better general-use SJ.