Do the devs know what they really want to do with raids ?

[BreathlessTao]

The team really needs to take a firm stance on what they want their end-game and raids to be, and stick with it.

Meh. They can't / don't want to take a firm stance on what the Duty Finder is, ever since it was added - everything in there is "player disputes" and they just stay out of judging and punishing anything that happens in there. Even though too many (if not all) of those disputes stem exactly from this lack of specific and straightforward definition/guidelines.

special mention for the "tank dps" being a problem that they want to eliminate, right after a patch which made us full time dps with extra HP and defense. I really appreciated the joke. Not mentioning it's totally ignoring the fact that healers are also forced to dps all they can and even a bit more.

This is really "funny", because this, by taking it to the absolute extreme, shows how pretty much everything in this game is simply about DPS. If the group can pass a certain DPS value (strictly unofficially of course, actual values, parsers are a big and total no-no) - they can clear the content. Should be a real big in-your-face sign that it's something that should be changed, imo....

[MugenMugetsu]

...pretty much everything in this game is simply about DPS......

I don't see that being the case, but see it more as...the more dps you do the quicker you kill whatever it is that is intended to be killed, and in doing so, you reduce the amount of time that you have to deal with mechanics, thus increasing your survivability and ability to clear the content. However, in order to push out that DPS, tanks must effectively perform their role, healers must perform theirs, and of course the DPS also have to perform theirs as well.

So, I wouldn't say, "Everything in this game is about DPS." as if you have a shitty tank that can't hold aggro, doesn't know how to perform mechanics properly, doesn't grab adds, etc. or an inefficient/incompetent healer, you're not going to be able to push the DPS required, and you're not going to be able to clear the content. So, in my opinion, it's not all about DPS.

Lastly, I don't believe that savage content, or any content for that matter, is only able to be cleared by the top 1%. I understand that their ability to clear the content is a lot greater than that of midcore players, however, if you have a goal that you and 7 friends/static members wish to achieve, and you apply the right amount of effort, I'm positive that whatever your goal is, it can be achieved. Sure there will be A LOT of wipes, and what could be considered to be wasted time, but if a group keeps at it, and applies enough time and effort, unless they are undergeared, simply can not deal with mechanics, do not have enough time to dedicate to banging their head on their keyboard out of frustration due to repeated wipes, or just aren't good enough, they will eventually get the clear. Though I also understand that some content does seem impossible to clear, but to me, if there are groups who can clear it, without using exploits, then I'm confident that clearing that content is not out of reach for anyone who is at least a midcore player that is able to find 7 other good players to attempt to clear the content with.