Having higher level gear shouldn't BREAK coil runs!!!

[Askarya]

You realize that a mage LB3, which was the accepted strategy for a long time (haven't done LX in ages, dunno if that's still the case), leads to a hell of a lot of time where you can focus on Levi. It's not like people were ignoring spumes.

If you get LB3 for the spumes you won't push levi hard enough to push him too fast

I think it's safe to say that any SMN would feel it's more efficient to continue to dps Leviathan as you take down spumes, by using Bane to spread DoTs to both the head and the tail. BLM might also think Flare is more efficient when at the end of a Fire cycle, to hit both head and spume. One would think that better gear/higher dps would make fights easier, rather than "more difficult". This even happens in dungeons. Haukke Manor (Hard), for example, if you are too efficient with AoE attacks on the succubi that pop out and take the boss too low, boss will instantly eat sub boss when she pops, causing instant wipe.

Yes but this causes only problems if your setup has too many smn for example. If you only have 1 smn baning it shouldn't be a problem (maybe in a full i110 group haven't done it a while with a full group of my fc)

There are two key components to this:

1) For Leviathan EX in particular, mirror and mount are 1% drop rate. Presumably you will far surpass desired iLVL for this fight long before you get either item, causing lots of unintended problems as you dps way too hard (or I guess in more cases, full carry the rest of your team because their dps is garbage - though thanks to no parsing, they probably think they are heroically amazing).

2) SE clearly believes adding more damage makes fights easier, period, as evidenced by their implementation of the Echo. If people who actually already are clearing things like Second Coil are tripped up by doing too much damage, how might the casuals respond to this? Especially before HP % was displayed, Binding Coil Turn 5 was quite a bit when not doing the exact right amount of dps during Conflagration. Think the casuals had a good time figuring out how the fireballs worked, or think they eventually lucked out/got carried/gave up?

1. why would you want to farm a mirror if it's easier to get your hands on a superior weapon? For you other classes maybe, yes. But most people won't bother with it which also means you'll most likely have to pug it. And dps in pug groups is most of the times not that amazing.

2. Echo was implented for the People who are able to perform mechanics correctly but lack the gear/skill to pass for example the dps checks or have a tank that is too squishy because of bad dropluck. And Echo gives more room from errors: you can't (or don't want to) perform the "best dps rotation" for your class? No problem, you have echo! Someone keeps dying? No problem, echo makes it possible for you to just carry him. etc

The argument with the % HP display is just hilarious. It was rather easy to see that the boss is about to switch phases. And t5 conflags... like really? You watch the HP bar and judge the % based on that - wait for conflag - kill conflag - burst the boss into the next phase... not hard. BUT it is completely right that it's way easier with displayed HP%.

As above, I agree that if you have the dps to push phases early, you have it within your power to compensate. However, also as above, this completely ignores the casuals, that SE clearly cares about, because the way SE wants to push the casuals through is a (huge) flat increase in damage, which will absolutely cause all sort of phase shift hilarity that they clearly can't account for. Current design is only ok if SE agrees to stop caring about casuals and only design for hardcore (in which case, please add dps meter, SE, thanks) - which I'm fine with, but SE clearly is not. They are under mistaken assumption that they can only make money by pandering to people who can't actually play the game (and who will most likely leave in under a year because something newer and shinier has been released).

That point is really tricky. You're kinda right here, but imo it's good that they don't just nerf everything to death and don't cater that much to the casual in those cases. I think the casuals should also learn how to execute the mechanics of that fight like we did. They just have more room for error due to the echo.
But yes it doesn't really fit in with the overall stance SE is showing. And i wouldn't mind if they would cater a bit more to the hardcore side.