Merchant's Tale is boss HP sponges and carboard trash

It's on par with the other variant dungeons. A boss that takes 8 minutes to die is hardly a "sponge."

And it's way worse in parties, as I've yet to be in one where people had the proper actions for their jobs... I think the last boss in my last party last night took 15 minutes to kill, so I've decided to stick to solo after that (we had a tank and healer yet everyone but me had shield and heals as actions...).

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Originally Posted by Pricia

It's on par with the other variant dungeons. A boss that takes 8 minutes to die is hardly a "sponge."

And it's way worse in parties, as I've yet to be in one where people had the proper actions for their jobs... I think the last boss in my last party last night took 15 minutes to kill, so I've decided to stick to solo after that (we had a tank and healer yet everyone but me had shield and heals as actions...).

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Yep, I've been running solo too. Sometimes I queue with a team since I just like chatting with people but having done all the varient dungeons solo dozens of times, this new one is on par with the time is takes to finish those.

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Originally Posted by Pricia

It's on par with the other variant dungeons. A boss that takes 8 minutes to die is hardly a "sponge."

And it's way worse in parties, as I've yet to be in one where people had the proper actions for their jobs... I think the last boss in my last party last night took 15 minutes to kill, so I've decided to stick to solo after that (we had a tank and healer yet everyone but me had shield and heals as actions...).

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I checked it out, so far I seem to have a consistent +25-30% in kill time solo comparatively to older ones.

I usually ran Samurai in endwalker variants and it would work fine and be ahead of clearing. Have to test this one though.

I did the Variant on BLM and PLD, solo as well and I thought they were far less obnoxious and actually fun compared to some older Variant dungeon bosses.

The bosses might have a good amount of HP but the fights are actually fun to do so I don't.
Really, after how much we breeze through other content and bosses nowadays, even new ones, I actually welcome those bosses taking a normal amount of time for a change.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Mind you, I haven't tried yet running this in parties so your mileage may vary. I have only done this solo. I am not BiS, but decently geared.

- Trash just keels over and dies before I can even start my burst. Incredibly frustrating.

- Bosses are literal HP sponges. I takes the last boss over 3 minutes to just show you all the basic sets of mechanics, and you'll probably need 6 to 8 min to solo it down.

Feels very lopsided to me. Is it any better in parties?

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That's exactly what it felt like when I was soloing Sil'dih and Rokkon. This is the design. Get to enjoy the bosses fully and not be zerged by mobs if alone is the intention.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I had literally no issue with the older variant bosses in terms of HP durability. It seemed decently balanced to me, even though I could skip some late mechanics, which I assumed also came from me not playing a support job and being BiS back then.

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I remember on sage with BiS the older bosses still had sponginess but it was less than this current set. And trash didn't kill me solo but I was fighting it a bit more. In this one like you said, trash dies if i look at at it and bosses take forever. And I'm not quite BiS but I'm 789 so not that far away. This one really doesn't seem as balanced.

My main gripe with older Variants solo is the actions don't really seem to make an appreciable difference. I can use them or not use them and end up the same. Bozja Lost Actions seemed to make more of a difference so I think they could retain the sponginess if they wanted if they gave us better actions that mattered when they were applied.

First impressions definitely seem like the bosses HP are more balanced towards a 8 man group...

I’ve only done the normal version solo I don’t have any friends lol and as a Paladin, and once as a solo Scholar, so it was basically cheating lol (*Laughs in Hallowed Ground / Critical Adloquium*). It did feel like the bosses were a big HP sponge-y. The Lone Swordsman boss was the worst offender, the fight really felt like it dragged on a bit too long. Though maybe my dps just sucks lol

I can appreciate what they were trying to do by having the mechanics loop repeatedly so players have a chance to learn them, but at the same time it ended up feeling more like ‘god there’s still 40% left?!’ than ‘I am now super confident about these mechanics’. Like, I don’t think we need to learn them that much, we got it the first 140 loops lol. Maybe?

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

And I'm not quite BiS but I'm 789 so not that far away.

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FYI ilvl doesn't matter for the variant difficulty. I don't know if substats matter, but all gear is synced down or up to 765, so that 789 ilvl wouldn't have made a difference. You, in theory, should be able to go in with ilvl 690 and perform very similar to your gear.