tl;dr - jerks will be jerks, Warrior tanks are fine, and although it took three nights I completed Stone Vigil.
Last night was my third night running Stone Vigil. I know a lot of others have banged their heads against that place.
First night I (WHM) had a Warrior tank, Thaum, Dragoon. Only the Thaum had been there before. We got three tries against the last boss but ran out of time on the third. The second try though . . . We got to about 50% and the Thaum goes down. I try to rez him, and after he accepts the rez the boss turns, looks, and drops a red circle under him as he comes out of the rez. I try again and the same thing happens. I lose the Dragoon at about 15% and try to rez him and - the same thing happens. I know, definition of insanity and all that. But I don't give up and try the Thaum one more time. Same thing.
Meanwhile I'm trying to keep the tank up and dps. We get to about 5% and the boss goes up and starts dropping red circles. He puts them almost in a straight line across the middle, then drops his AoE strip right on top of me. I'm out of mana. I have to run across the circles and go down because I was at 50%, because I spent my mana topping off the tank.
The tank somehow gets the boss to the point where I cannot see any life in the boss' health bar. Nor can I see any in the tank's health bar. This only happened once before to me, although I've read stories like this many times. It was back in WoW on Gruul, and our pally tank survived, and vent erupted. But the other night the Warrior tank went down and I slumped on my keyboard. We had a two-bar limit break and he didn't use it. I don't blame him for not realizing it, the fact that he was able to handle dpsing the boss down from 5% and survive was a feat in itself.
The next night was a nightmare. It was me, a Pally tank, and two Bards. OK, so I've got the only sleep. Well, the tank takes off before I stoneskin him and that pretty much set the stage for the rest of the night. You know the problem in SV with 3 and 4 MoB trash packs and aggro. I was running back and forth through the tank on every pull, constantly. I tried to sleep and he'd attack the slept MoB. Someone in the LS suggested I knockback before sleeping, which was a good idea but adds another gcd. I did that and the first time I did it -- the tank runs after the MoB I knockback . . .
Meanwhile, one of the Bards is spinning, jumping, and back-flipping with all the skills he's using. And the other is standing there pew-pewing. I don't know what that means, but we were taking forever to kill stuff. Oh, and both the tank and the Bard that's standing still pew-pewing have the same last name, and are in the same FC (I checked afterwards). At some point I lose the tank because I'm constantly running and so are the Bards, and I'm healing everyone because we are all taking damage. On the trash MoBs. The tank was holding aggro on no more than one MoB at a time.
We get to the second boss, and the tank says "We know this fight, let's just go." This was because I tried to explain the first fight and began explaining the second. Well, I'm glad they knew it. He puts his FC mate on the cannon. She manages to somehow not kill the flying dragons until they do two to three AoEs. Every time. I can't keep up. I lose the tank. He says in chat, "damn healer" and then "lol." His FC mate says "my fault" but I want to defuse things so I say "tank dies it's the healer's fault." The tank says, "yeah, so whose fault was it now?"
We make it past that boss and during the next batch of trash pulls I start getting lectured by the tank on my healing aggro. "Regen causes aggro." Yeah, but I don't regen at the end of a fight, only during. "Use some of that giant mana pool." If I could stand still for two seconds, I would. But I don't say anything, except after a wipe I say, "If you want to try another healer, I'll drop and you can see if someone else can do better." Tank says, "eh, we came this far."
We run out of time on the last boss. I found it odd that his FC friend never said anything beyond that "my fault." It turns out, the tank has a L50 MNK and the bard has a L50 WHM.
Then last night. We go in, and we have a pally tank. He laaaaaaagggggggssssss through three trash pulls and then just leaves. Someone clicks "yes" to recruit another player and then both dps leave. Before I can leave, two dps arrive. I debate leaving as the timer is ticking down, but something makes me stay. We get a Warrior tank with about 72 minutes left on the timer. I decide to stay, even though I don't see how we can possibly finish.
We have a Thaum and a Dragoon - this is the same makeup as the first night. Interesting. The tank says, "Hey, aggro is hellish in here and I don't have a lot of aggro grabbing skills, so I'll do my best but I hope you'll understand." Wow. I tell him not to worry, Thaum has AoE sleep and I have a sleep, just mark targets. We struggle a bit, but we make good timing and get the first boss down without a wipe. The Thaum has a really, really hard time getting the hang of the cannon and it takes two wipes but we get the second boss down, and we make it to the last boss with enough time for one try. OK, this doesn't look good since the tank and I are the only ones who have done this before, but I'm game.
Son of a *****. Everyone does really well, I lose the Dragoon with about 20% left and he's apologizing like crazy. I actually try the rez thing again and the boss puts a red circle under the Dragoon again, just after he accepts the rez. I guess it's a mechanic of that fight - no rez's. But, we down the boss. Done! I tell the Dragoon he did great and stop apologizing and the moral is . . . the hell if I know.
Strangely, I don't hate Stone Vigil.
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"the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering, April 1946.