A little late to the party.

[SekhmetM]

This brings to light a nomenclature absurity. if you have "Squirrel" and "Squirrel HM" you'd expect no matter what your Equipment level "Squirrel HM" to be difficult. It isn't.

SE should probably get around to renaming Hard and Extreme Mode content to something more appropriate:
"Squirrel - Advanced/Epic"
"Squirrel - 55/90"

These surely imply more difficulty, without being dishonest.

What on earth are you talking about

[Eye_Gore]

Nexus lights don't help either. Garuda HM was on bonus last night so every queue for that resulted in everyone charging right at her. One run last night both tanks looked new (I think OP might have been one of them. I remember seeing the Giantsgall), and as soon as the barriers came down a healer was running in aggroing her before the tank could jump in.

Extremes will be much more enjoyable for newer players as the mechanics still need to be learned and dealt with.

Possible it was me. Though I don't think the MT was new, that guy pulled before I could even have enough time to skip the opening cut scene. Never really got anyone's name as the fight was over in minutes. I got Garadu ex ready to go, though I may wait till I finish the atma upgrade.

[Woggers]

I don't mean anything negative behind this, but you're about a year and a half too late for the hard mode primal to expect a challenge from them. At the time of release the 3 hm primals created a challenge. On Ifrit tanks not stunning eruption or not having a caster for lb3 on the nails = wipe. Titan HM used to be a huge road block as well. I remember people flipping if you didn't have AK/Darklight for Titan haha. Too many people complained saying HM primal are too hard, so Levi/Ramuh HM etc. Modes were made to be easier.

[MrCookTM]

Possible it was me. Though I don't think the MT was new, that guy pulled before I could even have enough time to skip the opening cut scene. Never really got anyone's name as the fight was over in minutes. I got Garadu ex ready to go, though I may wait till I finish the atma upgrade.

Atma upgrade doesn't give you anything except for the new name until you upgrade stats via books, though the most important upgrade (weapon damage) only comes once you finish all 9 books and upgrade to animus. Until then, your weapon is barely stronger than your zenith. Besides this, i90 is plenty enough for garuda ex. You're a tank so the dps checks aren't your business, and the incoming damage in this trial isn't 'that' high. I'd suggest to just give it a go.

[Werhusky]

Nexus lights don't help either. Garuda HM was on bonus last night so every queue for that resulted in everyone charging right at her. One run last night both tanks looked new (I think OP might have been one of them. I remember seeing the Giantsgall), and as soon as the barriers came down a healer was running in aggroing her before the tank could jump in.

I remember helping my friend with his pally relic when light farming just came up. We qd 2 tanks said the obligatory "Hi" then 6 people rushed off pulling garuda and we just watched em patiently die (we didnt even try to get hate because wtf u dont have 3 s for a protect cast from a healer??????). Well then 2-3 of em flames a sec at us because we dared we simply explained the issue that they could have saved the time of this wipe simply by lettin US pull and a healer agreed (sadly was to late to commi that guy after the run ) and suddenly all was clear. Yea they left like instantly after the run as obviously pissed at us but hell if I can I give em my pace not the 1 they expect for no reason.

And for a proper experience without ignoring mechanics just gather 7 people and let em show you how the fight was before all started to be 40+ ilvls too high

[Kosmos992k]

An Ilvl sync would make us at least abide my mechanics again, but a lot will complain because they just want to faceroll everything.

I have to admit, I would prefer an ilvl sync in the hard mode primals to return some of the challenge at least. It's a whole lot more fun when people have to actually play together, and pay some attention to mechanics, and even use some strategy to beat an encounter like Titan HM.

I think it would be good to limit the ilvl in any given content to the maximum (outside of Coil) that was available at the time it was released. For the 3 initial hard mode primals, that would be the ilvl for Mythology gear, which was (originally) ilvl 90. I'd actually like to see that done for all HM content, so that at least some notion of the original difficulty was retained and mechanics could not be ignored.

That would mean the 'base' gear I am talking about would be Mythology, then the weathered gear, and then the basic ironworks gear since you were originally required to run the Coil raids to obtain the necessary items to upgrade both the weathered and Ironworks gear.

That would be Mythology gear (ilvl 90) for content released in 2.0/2.1; for content released in 2.2/2.3 the gear would be the ilvl 100 Weathered gear; finally for 2.4/2.5 it would be the ilvl 120 Ironworks gear. I'd do the same to the EX primals, only one tier higher.

That way we'd have the hard dungeons and hard mode & extreme primals like this;

ilvl sync at ilvl 90
Pharos Sirius , Copperbell Mines (Hard), Haukke Manor (Hard), The Bowl of Embers (Hard) ,The Howling Eye (Hard) , The Navel (Hard) and The Minstrel's Ballad: Ultima's Bane

ilvl sync at ilvl 100
The Lost City of Amdapor, Halatali (Hard), Brayflox's Longstop (Hard) Hullbreaker Isle, The Tam-Tara Deepcroft, The Stone Vigil (Hard), Thornmarch (Hard) and The Whorleater (Hard), The Bowl of Embers (Extreme) ,The Howling Eye (Extreme) , The Navel (Extreme)

ilvl sync at ilvl 120
Snowcloak, Sastasha (Hard), The Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard) , The Keeper of the Lake , The Wanderer's Palace (Hard), Amdapor Keep (Hard), The Striking Tree (Hard), Akh Afah Amphitheatre (Hard), Thornmarch (Extreme) and The Whorleater (extreme)

Striking Tree EX and Akh Afah EX would not be limited - of course.

For that matter I'd also like to see Crystal tower ilvl sync'd as well with Labarynth of the Ancients sync'd at ilvl 100, and ST sync'd at ilvl 120.

I keep hoping that all of this will be taken care of with the arrival of the expansion, with the assistance of the echo already in place, these ilvls are more than sufficient to allow players to easily catch up without making the content completely irrelevant due to over-geared players.

[radioactive_lego]

What on earth are you talking about

Truth in advertising. Try George Carlin.

[Kazumac]

Yeah a bit late to enjoy primal HMs I their full glory but don't worry, the extremes will give you a better experience

There was a whole primal HM ramp up at end game when FFXIV came out and lots of struggles for some moving through them. Now you'll have a similar experience going through the extremes.

[Ashkendor]

The HM primals are a joke with the current iLvl people have, which is unfortunate, especially for people who haven't done it yet.

That said, Titan HM was a pain in the ass when people weren't overgeared

Yes. Yes it was. I remember needing a PF to beat it for my first relic because DF couldn't do it.

that's because everyone wants to ignore all mechanics and just tank and spank everything. i lost count of how many times my DF finder groups wiped trying to beat ultros to get that minion.

A lot of people are used to Levi EX where you get a spinning dive before you have to activate.

@OP - the content is old and has been recycled for Nexus light farming now. Nobody wants to sync back down to the item level where they'd actually need to do mechanics because it makes the fight 2-3 times as long for the same amount of light. Since they just doubled the light, I really don't see that happening. If you want to experience it as it was back in the day, you'll probably have to put up a party finder asking for people in lower item level gear.

[Hiruke]

Its funny people always say watch a vid or read a guide. If you do when you get to the actual fight, nothing happens with the group like the guides or vids say.

That's what happens when you show up to content a year later. If you're doing current content, I guarantee you're not ignoring mechanics. Probably no one is going to make updated guides for stuff that is ancient, because the strategy is either going to be the same, a natural progression of the same strategy to account for higher iLVL, or a "ignore everything and just murder it" scenario. How they are able to bypass mechanics should be clear if you understood the mechanics to begin with from the video. Either way, your first time or two in DF should quickly let you know what strategy people are making popular these days.