First some background information on me. For almost 6 years now, I have had the privelige of leading one of the most successful and longest-lived Dynamis linkshells in the game, Trutle. Before me, it was led by 2 other people who took me in as a member and taught me everything they knew about Dynamis. Our linkshell has 2 gjallarhorns, 2 aegis', 1 apocalypse, 1 bravura, 1 amanomurakumo, and 1 mandau, all of which are currently at their level 90 form, and all of which are actively used by members in our linkshell. There are more than a half-dozen more relics our linkshell has had sponsors complete over the years, but those members are no longer with us.

I love Dynamis in it's current form, because it is the epitome of what I love about FFXI itself: "knowlege is power". I have played other MMORPGs, but all of them pale in comparison to FFXI because I have never seen any MMO in which knowlege is such a powerful tool, and nowhere in the game is this so evident as Dynamis. If you had random other players take control of all my linkshell's characters, they would not have half the success in Dynamis that we have, because they would know jack about its intricacies. I know how to pull the stones in sandy at the east and west ronfaure gates without linking. I know how to pull the Yagudo stones 1 at a time at Yoran-Oran's manor. I know how to use 3 blms to split the pull of 6 vanguard eyes before the Vanguard Dragon in half without sacrificing anyone. I know that Diabolos Diamond doesn't melee, but he does cast spells, use weapon skills when he gets TP, and every 2 minutes he'll use nightmare (20' AoE around his current target) and then follow it up with 1-6 Daydreams (single target charm, 1 minute duration) which you can outrun provided you stay out of range of nightmare when his 2 minute cycle is up, thus reducing the number of people he can charm to 1. I could fill books with the things I know about Dynamis which no one else bothers to learn or remember, and THAT is why my linkshell is so successful. If you take that away:
•Monster distribution will receive drastic revisions.
then we have nothing. Every other newbie who doesn't know the difference between an Avatar Icon and Manifest Icon will be able to do just as well us.

Combined with other factors, this update will be the Mercy Stroke for our linkshell. Trutle is made up of members from several different linkshells. They come to us because our knowlege and skill brings us success. They come to us because we have sponsors who pay for the hourglass. They come to us because we're an established linkshell with a reliable schedule and grizzled veterans who know what they're doing. And perhaps most importantly, they keep coming back because we know how to make Dynamis fun.

Dynamis does have it's problems. I've sent various feedback slips through the system and talked to a few GMs over the years, though none of my concerns or suggestions ever really got through which gives me little hope that I will be heard here either. The problems with Dynamis boil down to one basic problem: too much difficulty, not enough reward. The fix I wanted to see was to make Dynamis more rewarding, not make it easier and more accessible. Come to think of it, I want Dynamis to be harder if anything. But throughout the years, SE has constantly been applying the wrong fixes to Dynamis. They've increased the relic armor drop rate twice now, and it's gotten to the point where my linkshell frequently has 9 pieces of relic armor in the loot pool which causes all other drops to sort instantly without giving them a chance to get lotted. We don't need easier to obtain AF2- most of us are already maxed out on the stuff. We need better stats on AF2, a way to upgrade it more than just +1, and some new challenges.

If all of this is implemented exactly as it has been stated in [dev1000], I don't think I will have what it takes to hold my linkshell together any longer, and I will be losing my favorite event in the entire game. So please, think this over a little more.