Your thoughts on the Stormblood Extreme trials and how they compare to previous ones

[Esp]

I just completed getting all of the doggo's finally and got my ultimate doggo, and so far I have to say these Primal were some of the easier Ex Primals compared to Heavensward. Shinryu did provide a bit of a challenge when it first came out, but after that, each new one just started to drop down on difficulty.

I will say though that while farming them, the longer than 30 sec gimmicks, like Byakko's skydiving part, or Suzaku's Dance Dance Revolution part started to get a bit annoying after having to do them for so long, even though they are fun to do (Just for context, I had to get the 99 totems for Byakko, so imagine trying to farm the doggo and having to do that sequence that many times @_@). I never got tired of blocking the big huge sword from Susano though, I did like that part alot!

I was expecting a bit of a harder fight with Seiryu, being the last Lord and all, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. He is still 100x better to do than Zurvan though. I never wanna see anything like patch release Zurvan ever again. Also have to say that Suzaku, while a pretty easy fight, was extremely annoying for some reason. While the fight was fine and I liked the music, the stupid color panel mechanic was horrible (especially with those who have low latency), and the area is NOT nice to RDMs, since one misstep with muscle memory on Displacement or even Corps-a-Corps if the boss moved can spell disaster.

But yea, these seemed like very easy Ex Primals this go around, and I have to say some of the music for them is absolutely fantastic. Tsukuyomi's theme is still one of my favorite tracks in a Ex Primal, and the fight itself is very fun, even if it has its long drawn out add phase, but I never really minded too much, just cause everything from the music to the visuals was just awesome. Of all the doggo's I though I would have to farm, I had no problem if I had to go through that 99 times, lol.

I do need to say though, that when these Ex Primals get their "Increased drop rate" for their mount, I feel SE needs to up that just a bit...especially if they plan to have more grandiose Phase changes in the future. I know my luck is bad, but there were some times I would go 30-50 totems and never ever see a mount drop doing consistent runs. Lakshmi, probably one of the faster and older Ex Primals, required me to do the 99 totems to earn the mount, just cause I rarely saw any of them, which seemed off when I would check my inventory and see I was on the 25th totem that day, and saw more Bliss Shrouds than mounts (Heck, to this day I have never seen the Aquarium item drop ><. Yea I know its not part of the Increase Drop Rate, but still).

So yea SE, lets jump that "Increased Drop Rate" up just a lllllllittle bit more.

[Deceptus]

Pro: Easier and little more accessible and that's not a bad thing.

Con: All of them have stupid extended add phases or extra sections that are only there to stop speed running *cough BYAKKO *cough

[Awful]

Pro: Easier and little more accessible and that's not a bad thing.

Con: All of them have stupid extended add phases or extra sections that are only there to stop speed running *cough BYAKKO *cough

Agreed I find the SB primals are a bit more flashy and their transition phases take too long which kinda hurt the flow of farming it, I don't mind it the first few times but it adds up.

For me HW had the best primals at least for me they were punishing as hell, better music, more interesting mechanics this is just my opinion mind you, my highlights would have to be the Warring Triad (specially Seph EX he meant business if one person got knocked off was basically over), Thordan EX was a mean machine, Nidhogg EX was very unique, Sophia while easier loved her gimmicks with weights, Ravana EX was a blast. My only low points in HW was Bismarck and Zurvan EX, they weren't bad but just didn't have that wow factor for me.

As for SB I really loved Shinryu EX, Byakko, Suzaku, and Susano, that's about it not that any of them were terrible because they're not they just didn't click as much as the HW trials did.

[Liam_Harper]

I really enjoyed all of them and felt they did a great job overall. Minor nitpicks and little annoyances here and there but nothing major. Shinryu was a great fight. Music was good, mechanics were interesting, difficulty felt about right for a few of them. They were overall decent fights on Normal too, except Seiryu who (while decent on EX) wasn't memorable at all on Normal.

If there were easier than HW, unfortunately I imagine that's a side-effect of how they've been pushing the game. With no parsers, no real way to judge performance or rotation, Normal mode content that continually tries to convince you you're an amazing player and a ToS that's leaning to discourage giving other players advice if they don't want to listen, naturally the overall skill-level of the playerbase can't develop and the only way to have any reasonable percentage of players see an EX clear is to make them more accessible. Nothing in game teaches you how vital things like uptime are, how much tank and healer damage contributes to beating an enrage timer, how much dps you lose if you die, that a Ninja who doesn't trick attack is useless and so on. On Normal you do 2k dps, easily win and get praised and EX feels like your next step.

[Akonyl]

Difficulty-wise, they were a big step down, but whether that's a good or bad thing depends on who you ask.

Musically, I think they were a step down on the whole. In HW, I thought that the themes for Ravana/Thordan/Sephirot/Sophia were all good and memorable songs, but for SB I think the only especially memorable song is Lakshmi's, and Shinryu (but only because of how the one part kicks in while you're running on the tail: that part owns). Susano is a bit memorable too, but that's more for his intermission + his voice, not the music.

Theme-wise I thought the four lords were pretty boring. Not having the final trial be against Koryu felt like a huge wasted opportunity. I know that there's only so many trials that go into an expansion, but come on, you shunted Genbu into a dungeon boss role, maybe you could've done that with one of the others, too.

[HyoMinPark]

How do you feel on the Stormblood Extreme trials this time around? And how would you compare them with the Extreme trials from previous expansions?

For me most of the trials are pretty fun, but some were relatively simple compared to the likes of Heavensward.

Though I do get kind of lost in thought when I see people struggle on mechanics in the easier Extreme trials (Lakshmi and Seiryu EX come to mind.)

When I compare them to the ones from HW that would correspond with them, some are easier than their HW ones (e.g., Shinryu is easier than Thordan; Byakko is a cakewalk compared to Sephirot); some are harder than their HW ones (I think Suzaku is a bit harder than Sophia... not by much, but Sophie was very easy considering she came after SephEx and NidEx lol); and some aren’t much different (Bismarck and Lakshmi are both snoozefests; I don’t think Susano and Ravana are too far in difficulty). Some actually aren’t a meme yet, like Seiryu to Zurvan, so there is that.

I’d like to see more of the Thordan/Sephirot difficulty, but we’ll probably not see it again, sadly.


In terms of the fights, I like almost all of them. The only trial I don’t like from SB is Lakshmi—it’s just boring. I had more fun with some than I thought I would (Tsukuyomi & Suzaku), and it reminds me of how I would do Thordan, Sephirot, and Sophia during HW lulls even if I didn’t need stuff from them because I liked the fights. I did NOT like the intermission mechanics in Byakko or Suzaku (particularly Byakko’s—at least Suzaku’s gives you Damage Up, and it doesn’t feel as long); I’d rather not see those come back. They made farming them very tedious (Byakko, especially).


Music-wise, all of the trials had really good music, just like HW. I’m always satisfied with the music in this game. I do hope for the last trial of ShB, they give its main theme lyrics. Seiryu’s main theme, while good, doesn’t have lyrics, and I feel like he was cheated compared to Byakko and Suzaku lol. It’s probably a conicidence that my favorite theme comes from the sixth primal (Suzaku)—my fav in HW was also from the sixth primal (Sophia).

[Fyce]

All I can say is Thordan has yet to lose his throne.

[AxlStream]

They really need to cutback on transition lengths. That makes it so much more of a drag than it needs to be. Also they were way too easy. The whole content in general was too easy save for Ultimate.

[Ilan]

The only Primal fight i liked this expansion was Tsukuyomi, the rest was either boring or had really annoying features like duty skill, ridiculously long transitions like Byakko or Suzaku. Compared to older primals these ones where mostly way to easy.

[WhiteArchmage]

So far, Thordan is still my favorite fight in the game. The add phase feels smooth, there's always a mechanic happening at some point but it's a good mix of "stop what you're doing or die" and "you can keep up attacking, just keep this in mind". On SB I like some fights mechanically but agree that there are significant lulls that feel too long or dull (like dodging in Byakko). I'd say that the Vrill mechanic in Lakshmi was interesting and the sword phase in Susano is pretty fun, even at release.

Plus, it's led to fun moments like when I was farming Tsukiyomi (One that I absolutely love aesthetically) with the static and going into the add phase someone goes (spoiler text which probably isn't needed)

"Oh, now she's getting sad." "Yep, she's angry" "Well, those people turned her into a prostitute" "Yeah, if my foster family had sold me to a whore-house, I'd be pretty angry, too"