I've done bcnm40, the mandies, 4 times. Pretty much disasterous for me every time. We were War, Pld, Rdm, Rdm, Blm, Brd
Our problem: Pld and Blm. Basically the pld was a noob, and wouldn't listen to the bard. The first fight consisted of him voking the black mandy and pulling it to the bard, and letting it agg and FLOOD the brd. The second time, before we went in, the pld was told to take the black mandy away from the brd, and the rest of the mandies. It took him a while, but he finally got it out into the middle of the arena. we were doing ok, killing blacky with little problem(cept, of course, the pld couldn't keep hate b/c he disagreed w/ the use of Provoke ><) near the end of the black mandies life, it used flood(we were lucky it hadn't already done it). Me and the bard saw it coming and spammed "Flood - Run Away!" b/c we didn't have a drk to stun. But, of course, the pld just stood there and inevitably died from flood. So i voked and we killed it. so i grabbed the next, and we killed it. sometime around halfway through the third mandy, the brd noticed that the mandy target for her song was waking up too fast. And immediately noticed that the mandy's health wasn't full. We quickly figured out that the blm was using < bt > instead of < t >, which meant that he was nuking the wrong friggin mandy, which was waking it up and generally screwing up the whole plan. So anyway, we try to get him to fix his macros but he won't. eventually the rdm's just can't keep up b/c i was the only one even attacking the mandy, and it wasn't dying fast enough, so the rdms couldn't keep up...even w/ convert. the brd ended up dying to the mandies and then they swarmed me and devoured my fat galka body. 0/2
3rd time we straightened out the pld and blm, and told them exactly what they were supposed to be doing, and they said they had it down, they knew what they were doing, blah blah blah. 3rd fight started off bad. Almost immediatly into the fight, blacky casts flood, we warn the pld.....He doesn't move. so we warn him again. no movement. so finally, right before it casts flood i voke it and sturmwind and try to run, but couldn't escape the flood, so i died. brd tells the tank's rdm to raise me, but he doesn't listen. over and over we tell him to raise me so i can help kill the things faster. finally, once the blacky's dead the bard spams "RAISE CHIONOS YOU ***-DAMN MORON" over and over and over until the rdm gets the clue and raises me. so i jump back in and the rest goes smooth. BUT, w/out me to help, the black mandy took too long, and so half-way through the last mandy, our time runs out. D'OH! we were angry, to say the least. everyone wants to give up, cept me and the brd(who's from my ls btw) and we talk them into one last try. i use my orb and the fight goes smooth. i tanked b/c we realized the pld just couldn't handle it. If he had been a good pld, everything could have went perfect, but as is, my tanking skills as war were better than his as pld. so anyway, we slaughtered the mandies with absolutely no problems whatsoever, and in the time limit. afterwards we got our drop....nothing. well, not what we were looking for: Utsusemi, Erase, etc. None of the biggy drops. so we just let the computer decide who gets everything that did drop........i got nothing. There were like 8 or 9 items that dropped....and i didn't get a thing. moron pld got 3 things, and blm got 2, rdm's got one each, and brd got two. pld was so excited and asked when we could all do it again. i told him when he learns how to play the f-ing game and disbanded. Haven't done one since.
Next time we go, me and Cutiepatootie(the brd) are going to have a more experienced group together. Brd, War, Rdm, Rdm, Rng, Blm
basicly replacing a pld w/ a rng. can't wait to own those stupid little turnips.