The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Issaella]

*snip*

I've gone back on forth on responding to this since I saw this thread a couple days ago, but as someone who has been trying unsuccessfully work up the courage to do current Savage I feel you are wrong on a number of points. For one, I agree with the OP and others in this thread that there is no ramp-up in endgame difficulty in this game, at all. The difference between doing a raid boss on Normal vs Savage is -to use a WoW comparison- the difference between raidfinder bosses and late heroic/mythic bosses (I feel I'm being generous with later heroic), there is nothing in between. And the amount of mechanical overlap between the two is like teaching someone to drive automatic, then putting them behind a manual transmission race car and walking away saying "well, the first 2 pedals and steering wheel are similar, figure it out". Then telling them to keep driving until they get 1st place in a national race, until then they will get no compensation (and if anyone more experienced helps them then they have almost no chance of compensation).

Additionally I would argue that overgearing any current savage is essentially moot due to the sheer number of instakill/instawipe mechanics, where most failures are not recoverable. The only thing overgearing does is speed up the kills for people who can already do the mechanics. For people struggling on the mechanics it doesn't really help at all, because it seems like there are really only 3 outcomes in Savage; 1) make a mistake and you die, the odds of clearing are now negligible, 2) make a mistake and everyone dies, start over, 3) perform flawlessly and succeed. I may be wrong on that, but after watching guides/walkthroughs for a couple weeks trying to psych myself up, I'm even more hesitant because the amount of personal responsibility is such that if everyone isn't performing at at their best at all times there is very little chance for success.

Related to the previous point I would not agree that you can carry people who may be struggling, it's just not possible with the enrage timers and the number of pass/fail mechanics where failure by anyone results in a wipe. If you have carried someone through to completion, then arguably they could have done it on their own under ideal circumstance. You cannot carry someone who cannot do the mechanics without error.

To be honest, I would really like to do a couple of the early Savages just for a couple of the dyeable gear pieces, but being able to perform at that level just looks absolutely exhausting. The distance between taking the first step and the endpoint seems gargantuan, the time investment equally so, and the likelihood of success seems infinitesimal.