A Good Party Setup - Can I have it?

Okay so this is just a vent from me, the person behind Nindo. But I have to post this and vent because this has been seriously bothering me for awhile now.

Now, I was taught from the beginning that when finding party members, the following setup was what you seeked for:
1 (or 2 if you take a DD spot) Tanks. Which are usually PLD, NIN, WAR - (And if its NIN you usually grab another NIN or WAR to help)

3 (or 4) Damage Dealer types (DD) which is pretty much any job except for maybe WHM lol.

5th guy (if you didn't grab 4th DD that is) is what I call optional Spot. He can be anything really, another DD, a Tank based on your situation, a Mage job, anything.

The Last Job to be filled is the Mage/Healer job. Unless of course you have a PL, then you probably will grab whatever to fill that spot, but in general its the WHM, SCH, or RDM spot.

So knowing all this, how do people go so wrong when it comes to setting up a party? Did they miss Party Setup 101 in the Dunes? I mean how many times did we all die in the Dunes before either someone higher level explained what you need in a party, or before we finally learned that 5 DD and no tank and one poor RDM can't survive (my hard lesson learned :P).

Lemme set the schene for you. Wajoam Woodlands. Lesser Colibri is our target. I was invited to a Level Sync 58. So great XP right? I've been excitied about killing those birds since I first discovered how fast you get XP there. Anyways back to the schene setting...So im invited as RDM/WHM. There is a 1 PLD/WAR, 1 WAR/NIN, 1 NIN/WAR, 1 MNK/THF, 1 BRD/WHM, and 1 RDM/WHM (me!). And thats a pretty decent setup if I do say so myself. So after a few pulls, the PLD had to go. So we replaced him with a NIN...still a good party so far. Then the one NIN has to go. So the party leader asks us to chill for a bit while he seeks for a replacement. He brings us a SMN/WHM. So that leaves us with 1 WAR/NIN, 1 NIN/WAR, 1 SMN/WHM, 1 MNK/THF, 1 BRD/WHM, 1 RDM/WHM. Still not bad, but were low on on DD. And before you ask, SMN never used their SMNs to melee the entire fight. They would call one out for its AoE and then send it away and spend the rest the fight healing or resting. So then our NIN informs us he has to go and he can find us a replacement. But the party leader tells him no and says he wants to find his own replacement. Fine, thats cool. So what does he find...a WHM/BLM! WOO!!! Because we are so totally low in the healing department right? Right? >.<. At this point I mention why not grabbing a DD or something, but the Party Leader says no we need the WHM. At that point the MNK mentions he has to leave, but he can find us a NIN (were seriously going need more help than a NIN buddy... but thanks for trying), party leader once again says no. He informs us he can grab us another WHM! Woot! Now we can have 5 healers and 1 poor poor tank. That means we will be so badass in XP. Hell the birds will just die for us once they see us. Die in laughter that is. So of course I informed the party leader I'll just leave and to please grab a DD or Tank or something, and I disbanded. I mean come on at that level by then, there is no excuse for screwing up how to setup a party. I understand you can screw up in the Dunes, I did. As well as Qufim Island because I did there too, still learning the basics and all. But it blows my mind how you can go wrong at Level 50+. By then you should been in enough parties to seen what works the best, and whose the best choice for what position, etc. And if your curious as to whether or not he was just grabbing the WHM because there was no one else seeking, that wasn't the case. There was a ton of DD and tank jobs seeking that night. And lately this seems to be going rampant in Shiva Server while im seeking for Level Sync 58+. Which by the way folks, when your inviting people to party, if they put down what Level Sync their willing to take, don't invite them to something lower than that. Maybe 1 or 2 levels lower is fine, but asking me to come to a Level Sync 20 isn't >.>. I can't tell you how many times in the last couple of days I have been invited to parties only to find that either they have gone the OMGZ WE NEED HEALZ route and invited way too many WHM to the party, or the ZoMgz WE DONT NEED A TANK route. And I feel sorry for the only voke in that party, which fell onto a NIN btw incase your wondering. Nobody else in the Party had /WAR and the rest were DNC, a MNK, a THF, and a SMN. I nearly died so many times trying to keep him alive.

Phew I feel so much better. I just had to get this out of my system sorry.

So besides seeking for non-fail parties, I have been trying to work on getting NIN leveled up and working on CoP. I tried to do CoP 2-5 last night, but sadly it didn't work out so well. We tried 3 times and each time something went horribly wrong. It so reminds me of the aggravation of Promys lol. But its also fun and its challenging and makes you try and think. Anyways, our first attempt went bad because the WHM had been told by someone to bother silencing the BLM form since it was Silence resistant. I went in as RDM/NIN btw (which worked semi-decently in kiting, but in the end I couldn't get my shadows up fast enough lol so lesson learned, I make a fail kiter). So anyways, while the other half the group has one the Mammets, I grabbed one and the BST grabbed the other. We accidently came to close to our group in the middle of kiting, and their Mammet went into Staff form and agaed my shadows off. And at that point mine went into Sword Form and turned me into Mithra Meatkabobs. So after we re-raised and informed the WHM that you can silence the BLM form we went in and tried again. This I or the NIN (not sure who), grabbed the same Mammet by accident. So by the time I finally got the right one, my shadows were down and mine once again wiped the floor with me. And once again full party wipe. So on our last and final time, we finally grabbed the right Mammets, knew which direction to go in and stand, but once again when my shadows went down, mine was in Sword form and wailed on me til I died. The WHM by then was getting hate from helping the other group and died. But the DNC we had managed to grab my Mammet and actually soloed it for a bit. And by the time the WHM re raised, but by then it was too late and everybody was going into death mode lol. But all in all it was a good 3 attempts. And I think we all learned our lesson in how to attempt this again. We plan on going next week and trying again with a slightly different setup. And I learned that I can't kite no matter how bad ass I think I may be.

So thats it for today. Off to go have fun in the world of FFXI. Which by the way I am sooo jealous of those who got to go to Fan Festival this year. I wish I could be there. Pretty excitied about all the updates I have heard of so far. And trying to figure out which 2 SMNs they might be bringing. Well have a good day all. Off to go seeking for party. =^.^=

Nindo