I'm Sorry: The whm saidFollow

My first trip to Altepa (East) was nice. Great xp, great chains. No insurmountable aggro's, almost no n00bs. A high ranking person I pt'd with the night before in Garliage invited me to pt with them in East Altepa. Luckily, I was going anyways. Soon after a few fights I realized I didnt have Silena, and this was greatly messing up the ninja's. I asked a LS member to send me the scroll, and they did, thank you Fujikofujio. The whole pt was rank 7+, accept me a lowly level 34 whm, rank 2. (This is my mule/taxi service, so I'm not gonna go above Rank 3.) I tell my pt who are really in need of my Silena that I need an escort to Rabao to get it. Nobody wants to. The person that invited me to the pt starts being a jerk, and wont take me, but expects me to get there and back in a flash. The pt decides they'd rather use their potions to combat Silence instead. Yes, I was barraded as to how much it cost them, but they still wouldnt take me to Rabao. It was getting late, and we were gonna wrap it up. Just 2 more fights. Up to this point, I never complained of the linking of dhamels that took place, and the strain it took on my mp....or when I died from said link. We start the last fight and the dhamel does a critical and 2 hard attacks on the nin, while I'm spamming CureII. I go for CureIII while in the orange and before it casts shes dead. Of course I'm so sorry for that, but I couldnt have done it any sooner. Instead, I was yelled at for not paying attention. Whenever I did speak up to this point, I was ignored. When I did something that dealt with whatever I may have said, nobody knew why, because THEY didnt pay attention. Those people know who they are, so I wont name names. I've never had a problem like this up to level 34. I couldnt get it off fast enough, and thats that. The person who I raised got their level 3 or 4 fights later, so it's not a big deal in my eyes, but I just wanted to say sorry.

Edited, Fri Sep 10 12:33:16 2004 by Wintercastle

Well, that and to plvl LS members, or when I'm bored....go to the dunes and raise n00bs, so other whm's dont charge them. At first it was just going to be a taxi service, but I really like whm/blm....so who knows....

Kysha... I dont mean to be rude... but what was his 1st 5 words...? that's probably why he needed escort... to get there, not for the protection... if lost, snk/invs doesn't matter...

lol, i've even had maps, and still been lost... probably just me, but oh well...

Edited, Fri Sep 10 14:17:29 2004 by BattleAngelAlita

Point taken, first times are hard for anyone.

It's not just you, I personally can crown myself the Princess of Getting Lost, I think. I guess what was bothering me, is that things like this do and will happen in this game. In fact, there have been times when I myself, as a mage, did not have Echo Drops handy (so I can Silena the others), and almost caused my entire PT to be wiped out. After that kind of incident, I just prefer to take it as a lesson learnt. I never go anywhere without my Echo Drops now. Similarly, for his case, I was just hoping that it would be an experience to just take into stride and grow stronger from. I hope you understand too.

No, you're not justified for not buying it. Does a BLM determine which nukes to buy by first asking what type of mobs the pt plans to lvl on? Ok, let me rephrase that. Does a good BLM act that way? It's not like we're talking about Phalanx here. The ability to remove silence is extremely useful in an exp pt. I partied as a PLD in Korroloka tunnel when I was somewhere between lvl 15 and 18. The worms cast Silence. Silence shuts down a PLD. So it's not unheard of for Silena to be worthwhile before fighting Anticans in Altepa/Quicksands.

The problem isn't your lack of experience. The problem is your lack of foresight. You should be able to look at what spells are available now, and also which ones will be available within a few lvls, and judge whether or not they have the potential to be useful. A party shouldn't have to give specific instructions to mages to make sure they're up to date on their spells, just like a party shouldn't have to badger melees to have up to date gear, ranged weapons for pulling, etc.

Actually, I did read that part. That was the whole reason I mentioned Phalanx. It's a RDM spell that's very useful for soloing, and very very expensive. But it's completely unnecessary for exp pties, so RDMs can get away with not being "current" on that spell.

If you wait for an experience to show you that a spell was worth getting, then you will be continually running into situations like this one. If you want to be a just-good-enough WHM (and it seems like WHM is a job you can get away with that and still get invites out the wazoo), please continue that practice. But if you're aiming for excellence, you should start investing in the proper spells. It is not "pissing away" gil to have a spell available, especially when (as in this case) it's a spell that only your job can use (RDM does not get the -na spells without subbing WHM, and then it takes twice as many lvls before they become accessible).

If you would like advice from experienced WHMs on what spells to focus on, try the WHM forum here. Here's a link to an guide that has a section on all the WHM spells, and their relative desirability: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/jobs.html?fjob=1&mid=109239456573108365&num=29