The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

There is no curve, it's more of a 90 degree angle.

Everything in the game can be done by playing with your feet, and then you hit savage and it's not even the same game anymore

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I forced myself to join another prog at Harma with zero hope of getting any farther. Progged for about an hour before someone had to leave. I managed not to wipe us and get the mechanic right after like 5 tries on Harma. Actually cleared Overflow and the second Overflow easier than Harma. Saw enrage once near the end (~25%) before we disbanded. I died, like a lot, a lot more than everyone else it seemed like, and still am clearly the weakest link.

But, it may be, minutely possible that I can eventually clear it. Enrage once at 25% is a long ass way from a clear, but it might not be impossible. It's still really f'ing hard though and the game does absolutely nothign to prepare you for it. And I'd be willing to put a large wager that I just lucked into a unicorn group that felt sorry enough not to kick me bringing paper bag tier DPS.

I'll keep trying I guess. I will withold my judgement on the feasibility until I actually get a clear though. I think there is an above even chance I end up in the old folks home (ie - the perpetual "seen enrage a bunch" groups, but never get a clear).

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It sadly doesn't look like you have any logs. I was going to offer some pointers but I don't know what I am working with. I did my savage stuff as Mch, and I like to think I do well as Mch.

Yeah 25% is pretty high for enrage. How ever I am pretty sure when I first saw enrage my group had it pretty high as well but that is what prog is you typically aren't going to clear. If you don't feel comfortable with the mechanics to potentially clear (able to ideally go through the fight with out dying or killing some one) you may want to practice more before that push to clear.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

It sadly doesn't look like you have any logs...

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Because they are hidden and will remain so. I don't need my shameful bottomdweller grey parses posted for all to see. I didn't even know I had any (or even thought about it) until someone said something a while back and I had to scramble to figure out how to get rid of them. There is noting to see there but disappointment and humiliation.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

Because they are hidden and will remain so. I don't need my shameful bottomdweller grey parses posted for all to see. I didn't even know I had any (or even thought about it) until someone said something a while back and I had to scramble to figure out how to get rid of them. There is noting to see there but disappointment and humiliation.

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lol wear them with pride they eventually get better. I cleared P2S with a dark who was low enough to not even get a score, it doesn't really matter in the end, and I really don't think people actively check people before allowing players in a party. If they do then they are just losers you don't want to play with anyways.

If you are able to access them though, copy and paste one into the xivanalysis website and it will give you a run down in what you may have done wrong, and what can be improved. It's a pretty cool tool gives you essentially goals to achieve.

Fair Warning: If your parses are as low as you are claiming, it may be a bit overwhelming to look through at first, but I promise it is a good tool for improvement.

Example: Drill, Bioblaster: 25 / 30 (83.33%), which essentially is there were 5 additional drills I could have gotten off through out the entire fight but I did not for what ever reason. This difference alone may have made this run go from the 80% to maybe 90% as 5 is actually a lot to miss as a bulk of your damage is drill.

You can also take some one who has a high parse, and throw it in to see how they open, or what sort of rotation they do, to learn from them as well. Usually when I want to mess around with another job I use this tool to figure out how to play it.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

lol wear them with pride they eventually get better.

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You vastly overestimate my ability to translate "you know where you stopped casting in order to move because you can't mouse-turn and click a cooldown at the same time, don't do that." and "you know when you stopped casting in order to process information to not wipe everyone, don't do that either" into an actual increase in performance.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

You vastly overestimate my ability to translate "you know where you stopped casting in order to move because you can't mouse-turn and click a cooldown at the same time, don't do that." and "you know when you stopped casting in order to process information to not wipe everyone, don't do that either" into an actual increase in performance.

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Wack a dummy and move around while doing it. MCH is the best for being mobile and maintaining up time. Do your rotation enough you won't have to think about it at all itll just be muscle memory. Also practice not clicking skills and try to adjust your keybinds where you can actively press all your skills with one hand and little movement. Good keybinds are very key, I can't really give you advice on that really mine many would consider bad but its comfortable for me. May want to look up some guides on keybinding and play around with it. It took me a couple hours to figure out how I wanted mine, and that is excluding practicing it afterwards and making adjustments.

For example I have my rotation as qwe, with my ogcds gause barrel and ricochet as 12, so I can easily press 12 after each step of my rotation, Drill air anchor and chainsaw I have as rty.

Trust me, there are people that parse purple and are still stuck trying to clear this tier from p2s and p3s onwards.

I think ddamage and healing meters only matter when you cannot kill a boss before an enrage timer or going for world first. Without monitoring dps or healing output you'd have no clue who is responsible for doing low damage or not topping off the raid fast enough and who to replace. Its toxic and cutthroat but necessary given the difficulty of the content.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

Because they are hidden and will remain so. I don't need my shameful bottomdweller grey parses posted for all to see. I didn't even know I had any (or even thought about it) until someone said something a while back and I had to scramble to figure out how to get rid of them. There is noting to see there but disappointment and humiliation.

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I started off the bottom, during my grind, I started to see it go from grey, to not grey by other people who logged me in random EX farming.

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Originally Posted by game_enjoyer

i ran p1s when it released with my fc and for a month straight i didn't get a single piece of gear. largely in part to our static having multiple people who would run it before the rest of us because they wanted to prog faster. every week it would be 1 chest runs. progging feels really bad when u continue to see everyone else getting kitted out with BiS. the static folded before we even made it to p2s.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

According to everyone in this thread anyone can do it at any time, at any gear level, without addons, without experience, exclusively through the PF and saying otherwise makes you wrong and/or a negative Nancy and/or a quitter, etc...

You just have to be willing to eat pavement ad infinitum and apparently put 3x as much time into getting a party together than you spend actually progressing. Having no deaths on the first Channeling Flow after only 3 pulls, and seeing Kampeos Harma after only 4 pulls seemed like progress to me...

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I don't know your motivations and how good you are. I'll give an idea of how someone may have progressed.

I start out and reach the end on "expansion" and I'm only exposed to dungeon/trial boss, I do not know the fundamentals of the game, that it isn't reaction based and freestyled whatever job I was on. I dipped my toes into EX and was dragged as a corpse to the end of it by a "school bus" as I read and studied the guide just for the EX instance while freestyling horribly.

I immediately knew that I'm not meant to do this because I know nothing at all of this part of FF14 and the things I were playing before with intensity was racing. The FF14 content turned into "I'm going to beat up this striking dummy/SSS target repeatedly." I failed the SSS dummy but I did read up and understand whatever job I pick to learn, a bit.

Got bored again the next EX instance where I'm somehow inspired to attempt to farm an EX, maybe the music was really great and inspiring. To avoid being carried through like a corpse, I went back to hit the SSS dummy again, while getting food and craft gear melds and some normal raid gear till I actually managed to break the SSS dummy. Final EX of the tier.

It took me several PFs and I roughly cleared it... 1-2 weeks after it's release. I went back into practice groups after clearing and kept brushing up till I felt confident about the mechanics, I was still bad and kept drifting on my job unknowingly.

Then, at some point, someone pushed and reminded me that I was in a JP dc, they suggested I use High End Duty Finder to farm it after being confident from several PFs.
I wanted the farm to end, I wanted to finish the instance faster so I can be done with it.
I still kept drifting, but it was getting less and less severe, but still bad, eventually, I did it over 130+ times because it didn't give me the mount and I only did it because I knew I can. Randoms kept track of me, some of it. Character limit

As I stepped into savage late into the tier, with only experience of EX content, I got trashed, I did manage to clear, but I was bad, I only managed to clear 2/4 floors before the next tier came out, the final tier of the patch.

Then came the next tier, I painfully managed to do the first two floors and the third walled me off for a bit, till I barely cleared it on week 2, on a monday (?) before being walled off by the last tier for over 8 weeks that passed. During the walled off period, I kept looking up guides on how to maintain uptime as much as possible, I kept trying to be greedier, I wanted to cast as much a possible, how far I can push it without dying horribly to a mechanic.

It was hard, I definitely didn't do well on my first few clears, but that improved over time as I recleared them. The EX content... became a lot more easier when in BiS it's subjective, but I somewhat understood how these mechanics worked and slowly it started to feel like a normal thing.

EX content, isn't as hard as savage, but it's still ledge over the climb to savage. If it's your first tier that's late into the tier, you'll probably need to climb steadily for the next tier.

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Originally Posted by Klytania

There is no curve, it's more of a 90 degree angle.

Everything in the game can be done by playing with your feet, and then you hit savage and it's not even the same game anymore

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This is kind of accurate.

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Originally Posted by IdowhatIwant

Wack a dummy and move around while doing it. MCH is the best for being mobile and maintaining up time. Do your rotation enough you won't have to think about it at all itll just be muscle memory. Also practice not clicking skills and try to adjust your keybinds where you can actively press all your skills with one hand and little movement.

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I've been trying for 15y and in that time managed to add only 4 more hotkey slots and even then I have a tendency to mis-tap hotkeys and/or not reset my fingers to movement keys properly regardless of practice. I am at my limit in terms of hotkeys, it's just not something I can improve in that dept. So it's click some of them or don't use them at all. FF14 has so many abilities (like old WoW) that there are are simply too many for me to hotkey everything I need so it's main abilities and short cooldowns, whereas longer cooldowns I click. If I get used to the timing on boss abilities I should be able to avoid that problem (I have in Unreal/Ex1&2). It also means I'm coming into this with a major impediment that most people don't have to deal with, that was one of my major reasons for not even trying.

I only have 1 job geared out at 590+ presently, SMN, I thought about MCH, but I can't play BRD or DNC with any kind of skill. Also, with how far MCH is behind every other DPS it felt like a huge handicap, if I could get SMN even close in terms of performance it would easily out-DPS MCH. SMN also leaves the door open to playing rezmage with the same gearset if I need/want to (I'm not as good at it, but I can play it ok). It would take me a couple weeks of grinding to get another job to 590+ and that is the bare minimum I'm willing to enter this in order to stack the deck in my favor as much as I possibly can.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I've been trying for 15y and in that time managed to add only 4 more hotkey slots and even then I have a tendency to mis-tap hotkeys and/or not reset my fingers to movement keys properly regardless of practice. I am at my limit in terms of hotkeys, it's just not something I can improve in that dept. So it's click some of them or don't use them at all. FF14 has so many abilities (like old WoW) that there are are simply too many for me to hotkey everything I need so it's main abilities and short cooldowns, whereas longer cooldowns I click. If I get used to the timing on boss abilities I should be able to avoid that problem (I have in Unreal/Ex1&2). It also means I'm coming into this with a major impediment that most people don't have to deal with, that was one of my major reasons for not even trying.

I only have 1 job geared out at 590+ presently, SMN, I thought about MCH, but I can't play BRD or DNC with any kind of skill. Also, with how far MCH is behind every other DPS it felt like a huge handicap, if I could get SMN even close in terms of performance it would easily out-DPS MCH. SMN also leaves the door open to playing rezmage with the same gearset if I need/want to (I'm not as good at it, but I can play it ok). It would take me a couple weeks of grinding to get another job to 590+ and that is the bare minimum I'm willing to enter this in order to stack the deck in my favor as much as I possibly can.

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The technical issue of "I'm fighting my controls", rebind them all to whatever you think is comfortable. Same issue people with other games on either KBM/Controller while people got used to it effectively such as MH, Apex Legends, etc.

Shift/CTRL/ALT modifiers, Q, E, R, 1-5/6, etc. Controllers? I have no suggestions, just that people are good on it.

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

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Keybinds will make a huge difference. I can't stress enough how important getting keybinds set up in a way that you a comfortable with improves your performance. Best way is to make a system where certain skills are always going to be certain buttons so that all jobs you can use the same system. Once you get that all set up it's just getting muscle memory from that point on.

Re: Keybinds

I play the game entirely open keyboard, no mouse (in combat).
This is what I do, if it’s useful to you:

Bind hot bars to BOTH the top #s and the actual numpad.
Use No additional press for bar 1
Use CTRL for bar 2
Use ALT for bar 3
(I also have ctrl+alt for bar 4, but not needed)
Bind every job’s core rotation to 4-5-6, ctrl 4-5-6 for secondary, alt 4-5-6 if there is a tertiary.
Bind every job’s AoE to 7-8-9 (with ctrl and alt needed)
Bind utility stuff/resource usage/DoTs to 1-2-3

Return selects nearest mob/player, T selects their target.
Arrow keys move the camera, shift+arrow keys move selection

This lets your right hand do all skills, with your left controlling movement and ctrl/alt.

Furthermore, consider using macros to combine niche abilities (like defensive cool downs can be on 1 macro that you can press once and it will just pop the next one available).

If it helps, here is my bard setup, from a while back: (Apologies any spelling errors/changes in EW not accounted for)
https://i.ibb.co/R2h4G0R/bardskillbars.png

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I forced myself to join another prog at Harma with zero hope of getting any farther. Progged for about an hour before someone had to leave. I managed not to wipe us and get the mechanic right after like 5 tries on Harma. Actually cleared Overflow and the second Overflow easier than Harma. Saw enrage once near the end (~25%) before we disbanded. I died, like a lot, a lot more than everyone else it seemed like, and still am clearly the weakest link.

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If you feel like you died more than others... I mean, that was fresh prog for you. Chances are that others had seen the other mechanics before, at least a few times. It's very, very easy to get obliterated when a mechanic is new to you and you're focused on matching what you see on-screen to the description you've seen elsewhere.

(I will also note that if you're feeling self-conscious, you may also have thought you died more times relative to others than you did; especially if you're not the healer, it's easy to not really register someone else dying if you're focused very specifically on making sure you pick up the mechanics.)

That's one reason I do prog ahead of my static within a fight, by spending time in PF. I know that even if I look at a video or a Toolbox or whatever, I personally don't have a mechanic really click for me until I've seen it a few times. But once it does click, I know I can call it (and answer questions about it) when my static gets there.

I will also note that there's almost no way one person alone is responsible for missing enrage by 25%, so you might be judging yourself a little harshly there. Sure, it's worth thinking about your DPS. But focus first on the mechanics; better to do some DPS and execute mechanics correctly than to do more DPS but die.

(Admittedly, the ideal is doing more DPS and not dying, but even the best raiders rarely focus on the two at the same time. You focus on the "not dying" so that the fight becomes smoother to perform, then you focus on the "more DPS" to beat the enrage check.)

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Originally Posted by Issaella

But, it may be, minutely possible that I can eventually clear it. Enrage once at 25% is a long a** way from a clear, but it might not be impossible. It's still really f'ing hard though and the game does absolutely nothing to prepare you for it. And I'd be willing to put a large wager that I just lucked into a unicorn group that felt sorry enough not to kick me bringing paper bag tier DPS.

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Honestly, it is likely you will clear it. You say that you think the fight is beyond you... but I'm going to point out that from what you've said, you've been in a grand total of... what, two parties for P2S? And you've already seen enrage. That is a great deal better than many people do.

Yes, granted, you probably have other people in there who had cleared the fight before, and who are very well-geared. And even those who haven't cleared the fight can be well-geared by now, given the Aglaia coins to upgrade Radiant gear. Still, to be able to get through to enrage -- even enrage at 25% -- ain't nothing, as far as progress goes. It means you've seen the whole fight! It's less "learning the fight" now, and more "getting practice at doing the mechanics more smoothly".

If you really find yourself stuck... the Discord server for the FFXIV subreddit has datacenter-specific recruiting channels, and there is likely a raid community Discord for Aether. For instance, Primal has the Primal Raid Community server (or PRC), where you can find a static or ask for a learning party to be put together or whatever, in a more active and collaborative way (including voice chat if needed) than just relying on party finder; I have little doubt that a similar server is out there for Aether.

(As I play predominantly on Primal -- and periodically on Crystal a little bit with friends over there -- Aether is not a datacenter I have any familiarity with the raid resources for, so I'm afraid I don't know where precisely to point you. The subreddit's Discord will have Aether-specific channels, though, and someone there may be able to help more directly.)

In Shadowbringers I basically redid my hot bar layout completely because reaching for keys 7-0 with your left hand repeatedly was a recipe for carpel tunnel and I kind of want my wrists to not implode. I went with 4 rows of 6 plus two extra keybinds on F and V. Honestly, I probably should rebind T to another key than retargeting.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I only have 1 job geared out at 590+ presently, SMN, I thought about MCH, but I can't play BRD or DNC with any kind of skill. Also, with how far MCH is behind every other DPS it felt like a huge handicap, if I could get SMN even close in terms of performance it would easily out-DPS MCH. SMN also leaves the door open to playing rezmage with the same gearset if I need/want to (I'm not as good at it, but I can play it ok). It would take me a couple weeks of grinding to get another job to 590+ and that is the bare minimum I'm willing to enter this in order to stack the deck in my favor as much as I possibly can.

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If you like MCH, play MCH. As my static told me when I was feeling bad going MCH this tier vs. DNC, "You may be hitting like a wet noodle, but you're OUR wet noodle, and we're not going for a week one clear, so it really doesn't matter." I was also told by multiple experience raiders - when I was wringing my hands about MCH damage before the tier dropped - that it was much more important for me to be on a job I was comfy & experienced with. We had P4S down in ... 5 weeks? Which isn't amazing, but also isn't bad. Damage checks were never really the issue & I certainly wasn't holding the group back by not playing DNC or BRD, and I was also contributing my fair share (we also just needed a physical ranged, period - I don't know about Aether's PF scene, but it does seem on Crystal that physranged is in "high demand," relatively speaking). If you're comfortable with the job, it's NOT a "huge handicap" unless you're in a top group going for a clear week one. (Yes, I do wish MCH got a little more love than a smattering of potency buffs, but here we are)

Have you tried using a controller, vs. kb/m? This game is very well optimized for it, esp. for classes like MCH and current SMN that don't have lots of buttons. I switched from PS4 to PC & still play on controller. The only class I really have "issues" with is AST, but I know plenty of people who raid on AST on controller & do more than fine.

And, as Packetdancer notes, hitting enrage at 25% is a group problem, not a YOU specifically problem. Seeing enrage, period, does mean you've seen the whole fight.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

I've literally tried every possible solution, like I said, I've been playing MMOs for 20y. If I use both shift and control modifiers I will hit the wrong one a non-zero percentage of the time, regardless of how much I've practiced it. If I try to use anything beyond 7 or shift+6 I will hit the wrong key a relatively large percentage of the time. Again, despite endless practice. So about what I have is 1-6, shift+1-6, e/q and shift+e/q (the latter pairs generally I set for cooldowns and movement abilities). Even with shift+5 and shift+6 after half an hour or so it starts making my hand hurt, which is an entirely different issue. I can handle MCH, SMN, DRG, and RPR with only clicking my big cooldowns, but other jobs with more abilities means more clicking. I can almost do RDM, but mis-tapping the melee combo still give me issues, I was really hoping they would compress that into 1 key like they did with the GNB cartridge spender. Tanks and healers aren't as big an issue so I don't have as much issue there, either do to fewer primary abilities (WAR, GNB) or the simplified DPS rotation (WHM/SGE) allowing for more efficient clicking.

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Unironically; Play with a controller.

Pick a job that you haven't leveled that you've been meaning to check out (or start a new character) and level it using a controller. After playing FF14 with a controller, I can't go back to hotbar combat MMOs with keyboard.

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

I mean getting back on topic, I think that including something that is less demanding, but still as fully fleshed out as an entire savage tier, would probably help deal with the DPS meter issue as well since it gives more options to provide rewards. Right now savage is an all or nothing deal, but if people could choose to do a toned down version of it that could be completed more easily in PF, while also providing progress towards the same rewards, it would make life a lot better. They don't have anything like it at the moment since normal mode is not even the same thing as the savage mode of an 8 man instance.

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I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

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Originally Posted by Inanegrain

I'd consider EX and first savage floors to be the remaining bridge.
Get better at ex, move onto trying floor 1, get better at it for how there's still a difficulty gap between the two then move on to the rest of the floors.

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The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

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Originally Posted by Packetdancer

Honestly, it is likely you will clear it. You say that you think the fight is beyond you... but I'm going to point out that from what you've said, you've been in a grand total of... what, two parties for P2S? And you've already seen enrage. That is a great deal better than many people do.

Yes, granted, you probably have other people in there who had cleared the fight before, and who are very well-geared. And even those who haven't cleared the fight can be well-geared by now, given the Aglaia coins to upgrade Radiant gear. Still, to be able to get through to enrage -- even enrage at 25% -- ain't nothing, as far as progress goes. It means you've seen the whole fight! It's less "learning the fight" now, and more "getting practice at doing the mechanics more smoothly".

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My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

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Originally Posted by Colt47

That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

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Meanwhile, the truth is actually sort of the reverse; the Coils of Bahamut raids were basically what would now be considered savage, but people complained (and admittedly, understandably so) that what was functionally the epilogue to 1.x -- and thus potentially very meaningful story for 1.x players -- was locked behind very difficult content.

Hence why Alexander and onwards have the story for the raid series attached to scaled-down versions of the fights, and then have the actual progression raids be wholly optional content.

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Originally Posted by Issaella

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

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I mean, it's certainly very frustrating at times! But as I said, party finder is not a fast way to progress the tier. It is a viable way, but yes, you will find yourself sometimes having parties that do very well, and sometimes having parties where it's a P4S "Act IV cleanup" party that can't even make it into phase 2 at all, much less to Act IV. PF is a grab-bag, and what you get can vary widely.

Doing it in PF does not take more skill than doing it with a static; it just takes a lot more patience and stubbornness.

But again: if you find PF frustrating, I highly recommend looking around for a static. There are still statics forming at this point in the tier; not nearly so many as when a tier is fresh, no, but there are people who had life commitments that kept them from starting the tier earlier, or who only just got to endgame, etc. Or people who did PF and want to do a static for next tier, and so are looking to put one together now.

Were I you, I would probably be looking for one of the last of those sets -- someone looking to put together a static for next tier now, but who'll be running the current tier to help the group gel (or to help newcomers feel more confident in savage).

I can't help too directly other than pointing at /r/FFXIVRECRUITMENT, because I'm not on your datacenter; I don't know the datacenter-specific resources that would best help you. (If you needed them on Primal, I've got you covered; I can point to half a dozen different places to help. But for Aether...? Alas.)

I got my clear on my alt. Died 3 times, no one else died. I'm out of the Practice/Duty Completion zone finally.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

The issue is what does one consider completion? Midcore content is a fight or a series of fights that can be completed by players who have yet to ramp themselves up to harder content, and usually allows for players to gain the same rewards as provided by the hardcore content at a slower rate. Savage is not a set of single fights, it is an entire series of fights and has to be measured by the hardest fight in the series, which is p3s/p4s under the current tier. Not sure if you read anything back in the earlier posts that I made, but I'll repeat one of the points made for the sake of convenience: The shadowbringers job changes brought up the skill floor and EX content is no longer midcore content. It sort of became it's own thing and a lot of people just skip strait to savage now due to the changes. Unreal is even more-so in it's own kind of world as there's a lot of players who have never once touched it outside of maybe a few times when it got released.

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

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I've mentioned before I took 8 weeks + to clear the final tier of the previous tier and only cleared the 1-2 floors tier before it. If you mean the gap between current EX and P1s is far, I did mention that it'll still be hard for first timers attempting savage. I can't judge EX content as if I was new for any other ex released pass WoL, because every EX is going to be "easy" for me from a certain point onwards.

It's true that EX is "easy", players should start from somewhere and steadily climb. I consider completion when said player finally clears an entire tier. It's understandable if they did not clear the tier in time as it's late into the tier now unless a lot of personal improvement has been made rapidly.
Their choice to skip savage, but I wouldn't recommend jumping straight into savage if new besides getting carried through it because it's P1s, potentially at the cost of others sanity.

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Problem is that people should not be taking longer than 2 months to clear a savage tier. They release so much other content in the game and people are bleeding themselves dry having to break through content that clearly was not for them, or because they had the misfortune of not being able to get in a group that has the coordination and time needed to clear the content at decent rate. That and due to the rewards, the savage tier looks like a continuation of the normal 8 man raids when it is not supposed to be.

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This is a bit silly. I'm part of what would probably be considered a "midcore" static, based on the experience of most members, our numbers on That Website That Shall Not Be Named, etc. (I'm the "baby" of the group, with only one savage tier under my belt before Pandaemonium). We cleared P4S in 5 weeks as a group (we had some people clear earlier on alts in PF, etc). Our scheduled hours are 6 hours a week, plus an extra 3+ hours for *most* of the group can make while we're progging. But after our scheduled 6 hours a week, everyone's free to head to PF for the week.

I went back and looked at our E9-12 clear, which was not the exact same composition as our Pandaemonium group (still generally the same skill level & frankly, more familiarity between most of the static members that tier - but it was the last tier of an expac, so, harder than this one), but it took us 3 months to clear E12S as a static. That's with ppl who were - on the whole, minus probably me - far better than your average PF. Sniffing that it should take a rando party of randoms less than 2 months to clear a tier seems ... not quite right.

Like I've said earlier, I do wish there was some easier stepping stone to harder content in this game from dead-easy dungeons and trials, or something that teaches you how to play your class better & what you're doing wrong. XIV was my first/only MMO, and I was terrified of "hard" content and being screamed at for underperforming and/or dying. One of the best players I know (now a Triple Legend, great teacher, can flex to multiple roles, etc) had to be coaxed into Normal Raids as a sprout during SB, because they were afraid of "raiding" content & that it was going to be too hard. We both got better (though they're still way, WAY ahead of me, despite the fact I've been playing for years longer XD) because we were in an FC that encouraged getting into harder content in a safe & comfortable way - either with the "FC static" or with FC events on weekends. I learned so much doing current expac Savage & Ex fights with more experienced people who I knew weren't going to scream at me for dying! The only thing that got me into actually doing *actual* Savage raiding was listening to directions really well on an E2S party we had as an FC event, and having 2 ppl say "Oh, she'd probably be more than fine in an on-level Savage." (and I have)

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Originally Posted by Issaella

My original suspicions were confirmed. The party that got to enrage was a unicorn/fluke. The ones since then have been lucky to get to Harma, let alone get past it to Overflow. There is enough despair in PF at this point to turn a certain blue bird grey again. I will reiterate my argument - unless you are significantly more skilled the the average player there are only two types of PF groups - [Duty Complete] that you can't get into and Practice/Completion groups that will remain that way forever without 5-6 experienced players to drag the rest through. There is no kind of uniformity, might as well be starting fresh in every group. Even the ones that are posted as "practice X mechanic" take multiple pulls just to get there if you are lucky and "seen enrage", which is just a euphemism for "walled at enrage".

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Also, I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but you are in a really bad time to be trying to prog this current Savage tier. No one I know is hopping into PF, and I know a lot of very good, tippy-top raiders who LIKE hopping into practice groups to help in downtimes or at the end of the week when we're all progging or in reclears, etc. My static last met to do the last fight of this current tier in, uh ... March. Most of the ppl I know are doing DSR, so when they're NOT doing DSR, the last thing they want to be doing is hopping into a PF fight. I really would encourage you to find a static for next tier, if your schedule can stand it, or just start PFing earlier.