Quote Originally Posted by Ronduwil View Post
I've only ever seen those essences drop in DR. How are people running it for their first few times supposed to use something that they haven't even gotten? How is it that I'm still able to survive most bosses without those essences if they're so mandatory? I'm sure that if you've stayed on top of the current content for the past two years, you have essences coming out your ears. In a healthy game, though, there's a constant influx of new players who haven't built up giant essence collections. My many deaths in DR were not due to lacking essences. They were due to my failure to realize that the barriers surrounding the first boss were intended to be used as a backstop for some mechanics and as a shield for others. They were due to my puzzlement at a temperature gauge appearing over my head with no idea as to how I was supposed to properly regulate it. They were due to my ignorance of the visual tells that indicated that AoEs of varying types were imminent.
Essences, specifically anything that increases your damage output are mandatory mainly because of just how much health the bosses have in addition to players being locked to item level 430. To drive that home, the final boss in DR has 103,065,720 hit points. Nearly as much as the Red Girl from the final Nier Raid who has roughly 7 million more hit points than the Queen, but doesn't hamper the player by keeping their ilvl low. Without people using essences to make up for that gap in damage, fights drag on for far longer than they should, and that's not even getting into the people that leave the group once they see just how slow bosses are dying, or the ones that kill themselves and refuse any resurrections thrown their way. Sprinkle in some new players that genuinely have no idea what's happening and you have a recipe for one painfully slow run while the few players that do know what's going on and came prepared are contemplating leaving the group as well.

Also, if you need some basic essences, you can always just go inside Bozja and farm some rank 1 enemies near the entrances to the 1st and 2nd zones. There's always a few people willing to party up for essence farming, so you can have well over 100 essences in 30-60 minutes of farming. Turn on some relaxing tunes, turn off your brain and just watch as the essences pour in.