I think people sometimes tend to forget how well trained they might be to see markers and react fast to them. On top of this, people have different capabilities, different reaction times. I have hardly seen many mechanics, since I avoid everything beyond normal story in current content, but still, I now recognise a good number that are recurring that I would not have known about before. People in this game will be on a rather wide spectrum of this knowledge, depending on what they have unlocked and when. The story at least has to accomodate all of these people.

For some of you, the sheer number of mechanics you will have mastered in the years you've tackled the more challenging content is immense. To come up with something completely unique has to get harder and harder for content designers, just because of the amount of things you have seen. On top of this, the kits to handle said mechanics get stronger (not wider or more variant, as I understand it), you just have more and more potent tools than in synched stuff. That power creep is there in the potencies and I'd expect in the gear for everything endgamey too.

That talk about the 'midcore' feels a little off for me, when it tries to shift the normal, main story relevant modes to be challenging for people who are clearly beyond it. If the game demands said content just to advance the story, it has to be manageable for people with a vast array of experience. You can be in the endgame without having unlocked any of the older raids and most of the alliance raids. And then, some of the mechanics some of you will easily recognise and master, will be new and more challenging because of the lack of experience/ability.

The story content can only consider what it, in itself, teaches, imo. And this is getting better, because markers get more generalised and dungeons pick up toned down versions of things others might have first encountered in raids.

For me, normal content isn't that much of a breeze, especially the trials. It is not that I do not understand what I am supposed to do (I usually watch guides beforehand), but that i have a hard time seeing and reacting to some of the tells fast enough, not because of the mechanic, but because of the pacing they have. I get one right and fail the next because I've missed one crucial tell. I do get better, when I've played those things a few times, but that brilliance some of you seeminigly have on first tries eludes me.

Yes, you can answer now, that people have to improve their gameplay. But to what degree just to see the story and nothing more than that? I personally think, you might be asking more for changes to things beyond normal story content, if you seek the challenge you got used to in extremes and savages or beyond that.