The real reason you're mad about Anima

[FeliAiko]

Not to mention, if they maxed relic at 205 and then up to 210, why would you initally bother when you could just get a Thordan weapon in about a night of grinding after you learned the fight.

If Relic had been released in 3.1 (or even 3.0, since there's no reason for the i170 step at least to have been delayed), then you make Thordan drop a different reward (e.g. a i210 ring). In fact, most people were under the impression that Thordan wouldn't drop weapons at all (or certainly not i205) because of the Relic (as was claimed) being available.

[HorseBoots]

Snip.

Honestly, I'd put money down that the original plan was to make Thordan drop a ilvl200 weapon, and be an overall easier fight with a bunch of the fat chewed off, but instead choose to up the difficulty and offer an ilvl205 weapon to help band-aid midcore groups that couldn't meet A3S's DPS check. Too little too late when a majority of the midcore raiding scene has already abandoned Savage and better weapons still doesn't help the fact that the latter half of Savage are bad fights on top of being hard fights.

[Melch]

Honestly, I'd put money down that the original plan was to make Thordan drop a ilvl200 weapon, and be an overall easier fight with a bunch of the fat chewed off, but instead choose to up the difficulty and offer an ilvl205 weapon to help band-aid midcore groups that couldn't meet A3S's DPS check. Too little too late when a majority of the midcore raiding scene has already abandoned Savage and better weapons still doesn't help the fact that the latter half of Savage are bad fights on top of being hard fights.

A3S is actually a really good fight, one of the best designed. It's just that the difficulty gap between A2S and A3S is so big that it requires a huge step up from all the party members.