Byakko... HM or EX ?

[Khalithar]

Byakko ex is perfectly tuned and balanced for what it rewards. If the rewards were 365 weapons you could justify a higher difficulty but for 355? No, absolutely not. As someone that’s beaten O4S on content, I consider shinryu ex to be an overtuned piece of garbage fight with rewards not worth the effort. Byakko on the other hand? Again, for what it rewards you, the difficulty is perfect.

Edit: To clarify a bit more, I believe difficulty should be balanced out by the quality of reward you get. By the time you have the ilevel to do byakko (what's the min req.? 340 I think?) the weapon is only a marginal upgrade over what you should have by that point. Whereas for a fight like shinryu, the difficulty was far too high for a weapon barely better than a 330 tomestone weapon that we all knew would have an upgrade token from the 24m sooner or later. As such, I consider Shinryu to be completely not worth the effort for what you can get out of it and no, the dog/orchestrion/crafting item do not justify a higher difficulty, ever. Compare and contrast to byakko on the other hand where the slightly better weapon is worth getting because of the more reasonable difficulty even though folks will get a 370 or a 375 (if you raid) later on.