How about we change the "dps check" a little?

[TaranTatsuuchi]

I generally prefer FF14 raid bosses to WoW raid bosses, but this is one thing WoW does better. Whether it be via available safe space getting smaller and smaller, or some source of constant raidwide damage getting bigger and bigger, many fights are usually "over" long before any hard enrage kicks in, yet at the same time offers a little leeway that allows the truly skilled and daring to potentially last a little bit longer than many others would and potentially get the kill. The only boss I can think of like this in FF14 is a dungeon boss, the last boss in Amaurot. Even when all the little platforms are gone it's actually possible to survive the Apokalypsis with excellent play.

Alternate lose conditions would also work, such as with Azshara in WoW, who will go around attempting to break the locks of an old god prison, and it's instant wipe if they all break. Because of this sometimes sacrificing someone to repair a lock as much as possible, will buy the group much needef time to finish her off.

There are many ways of designing boss wipe conditions. They don't all need to be DPS centric

Bahamut turn 2 has a soft enrage...

If you take too long, the final sphere constantly does raid damage from that point on instead of the normal mechanics....



But...
The healers are so powerful that it's possible to intentionally go for thr enrage strat...


It was common to just wait until the timer ran out to engage the final sphere and just power through the raid damage with heal spam.

And this was doable back in at least 2014. (Quick google search came up with a reddit post from then)

[Hezzlocks]

Bahamut turn 2 has a soft enrage...

If you take too long, the final sphere constantly does raid damage from that point on instead of the normal mechanics....



But...
The healers are so powerful that it's possible to intentionally go for thr enrage strat...


It was common to just wait until the timer ran out to engage the final sphere and just power through the raid damage with heal spam.

And this was doable back in at least 2014. (Quick google search came up with a reddit post from then)

This would be an example of a *bad* soft enrage (or, well, in this case, this is a full blown enrage, so... it's a bad enrage full stop)

A good soft enrage is a situation where something that happens naturally over the course of the fight has ramped up to a degree that it's quickly becoming unmanageable, but skilled play will let you persevere for just a little bit longer. Doing so, however, often puts a strain on your resources, forcing everyone to activate their personal defensive cooldowns (something FF14 lacks, tbh), as well as causing the healers to output as much healing as possible, with a severe drain on their mana, trying to survive just long enough to either kill the boss, or end whatever the mechanic is that is doing this.

Here's a couple of examples of soft enrages. The 2nd boss of Nighthold, Chronomatic Anomaly, has an ability where he will start channeling pulsing damage, and summon a group of adds some distance away from him. Killing those adds drops some arcane orbs, which you can then use on the boss to interrupt his channel and proceed to the next phase, which will also result in a shift in the flow of time, either making all actions incredibly slow, or incredibly fast, while not changing the hard enrage timer at all. The pulsing damage increases in damage each and every time it pulses. Fail to do the mechanic soon enough, and the group wipes. In this case, however, it is possible to hold the orbs for a while to attack the boss while he's channeling this, delaying the next phase as long as possible, before dropping the orb on him before the damage becomes too much. The better the group, the more they can take advantage of this, particularly while the flow of time is normal or fast. The worse the group, the further into the fight they will be forced to progress, risking hitting the actual hard enrage where he will proceed to murder everyone in one hit.

A more recent soft enrage is with the 2nd boss of the latest WoW raid. For the entirety of the fight, you can ONLY be healed if you have a bioluminescent debuff on you, which can only be obtained by killing a nearby pufferfish and bathing in its juices. There are, however, only 6 pufferfish. The first 4 you need to kill as your debuff wears out, as the boss will change platform, and any pufferfish still on said platform might as well be lost to you when it does. After the third platform, the boss will never move again, meaning the two pufferfish on that platform are your final opportunity. Once they are dead and the debuff gone, there is no more healing at all. This is the soft enrage of the fight. You can, however, stretch it out by only killing the pufferfish there when you absolutely need healing (which won't be too long), and you can continue to survive for a short while longer once they're done, as well, but once all your defensives are gone, it's only a matter of time before the boss's regular AoE takes its toll on everyone, let alone the tanks who are taking the brunt of the hits. If, somehow, you continue to survive for an extended time, something that could only really be done once you severely outgear the fight, the boss then also has a hard enrage, where he will proceed to one-shot everyone.


There's always a hard enrage to one-shot everyone, but whenever the fight is about dealing with the soft enrage, the hard enrage is very reasonable, and not a dps check at all, more rather just something to end the fight if it starts taking unreasonable amounts of time - to prevent things such as the Bahamut example you listed. Instead, soft enrages are more often about handling the mechanics appropriately, and managing the raid's overall damage mitigation and healing cooldowns effectively and efficiently, to try to survive as long as possible to eek out that last few %, with the hard enrage being held in reserve for if, say, that one paladin is spamming self healing and mitigation and just won't die even when everyone else has.