People are bad at this game

[Sibyll]

Considering a vast amount of high level fairly hardcore players agree that the iLvl for Haukke Hard is set too low, I'm disinclined to agree with you.

Do you have a source? I've seen a lot of people complain that the ilvls are too low, but I'm inclined to believe that they just aren't very good, or are doing the encounter the wrong way as with Garuda Extreme.

Just curious, but was the healer helping with DPS? Also, the importance of things like primary stat potions and food becomes more noticeable as the difference between the minimum ilvl requirement of the instance and the average ilvl of the party decreases. It wouldn't surprise me if the developers designed those minimum item level requirements around the idea that their players were utilizing those stat buffs to help meet DPS checks, but frankly I can't see that being the issue if your party was any more than 5 item levels above the minimum given the design of stat potions/food.

I think the restriction means you cannot enter below that level because most probably you would make the group wipe (that is, just one player under that ilevel would probably make the fight too difficult to win reasonably.) This does not mean that a group composed with everybody at the minimum ilevel would be expected to win, but rather than a group with only one player at the minimum ilevel, if the rest are not, can be expected to win if played reasonably well enough.

There are videos of someone soloing some of these instances in gear that I'd say is pretty common amongst most DF groups. Doing the content at the minimum simply requires that everyone knows how to get the most out of their class and that means DPS that know how to save CDs for DPS checks, proper rotations, keeping DoTs and buffs up etc.