Sorry in advance for a longer post, but I just wanted to share a few thoughts on this after competing in the Ishgard rankings for the first time this season:

- Ishgard ranking really comes down to time more than skill. Of course, MMORPGs in general are largely about time commitment more than skill in many cases, but when we're talking about the highest-end content (e.g., the ultimate fights for DoM/DoW classes or Feast ranking seasons for PvP), they are usually skill based, although you obviously need time to hone those skills. In light of that, it is a bit disappointing that to get the "Saint of the Firmament" title, which is effectively the "end game" content for DoH/DoL classes, you really just need to have a ton of time to devote to this. If the quarantine wasn't still ongoing and work from home a thing, there's no way we would've been able to put in the hours we did. As others have said, it would be nice if there were a different way to conduct the rankings that doesn't (for the most part) result in "more time = higher rank" regardless of skill. I'm not sure how they could fix this, but perhaps having crafts with ridiculously high quality caps that are impossible to achieve would allow for players to rely more on skills; e.g., they would receive an exponentially greater number of Skyward points for higher-collectability crafts. Adding in new Conditions may also help with this by increasing the complexity of the crafts. For DoL, it would be nice if they also based points off of collectible turn-ins and had you use your collectability-increasing skills so that gathering in Diadem for rankings wouldn't be such a mindless task. Perhaps they could even add new mechanics (conditions, etc.) to the gathering process to make it more skill based. I did DoH because, even though it was extremely repetitive, it was at least more engaging than DoL.

- I wish they didn't tie the materials for the expert recipes to Diadem. Unless you had someone feeding you or had a lot of time to server hop and go check prices, it could be pretty expensive to get the materials you need. Of course, you may get some of that money back by selling the items you buy with Skybuilder Scrips or Kupo of Fortune prizes, but it is still a bit annoying. It would be nice if the expert recipe materials were sold by a vendor much like the items for the weekly collectible turn-ins are. That would make the competition much fairer for DoH classes because it would be more about how well can you craft instead of how well can you source items. If, as I suggested above, the gathering classes also were changed for the purposes of Ishgard ranking so that they too must turn in collectible stuff, that would resolve the issue of "what will the DoL classes do with the green materials they gather?" If DoL classes also get to turn in collectibles, perhaps even they could participate in Kupo of Fortune and get those rewards, which are currently exclusive to DoH classes.