This Savage Raid Tier (Anabaseios) isn't Very Fun: My Experiences So Far

[Jeeqbit]

Ruby 6 in P5S regularly threw me off. Usually mechanics snapshot way before the animation goes off but those lasers snapshot a good second after. So you see the explosion go off, move into the tile and eat a nice damage down.

I've started to notice a lot of casts being fake casts recently. By that I mean the cast is just so we know what it's doing and a while after the cast, it does a completely separate instant attack which contains the snapshot, allowing for things like mitigation to work very late after the cast. Before that it would be really rare, such as with Leviathan's Tsunami attacks.

The tank buster in P8S Phase 2. The first tankswap in P9S. I don't know for sure about Ravening but it seems the difference between cast and effect is an eternity. You can mitigate very late for these. And many of the mechanics are resolved in P9S by understanding that it snapshots 3 seconds later than the cast, which will be why a lot of people won't ever get it, because they have to thoroughly understand the snapshots to do Rockbreakers cleanly and with ease every time.

The animation might look like it but Ruby Reflection (the name of the lasers) is just a single instance of damage. Not sure this game can even do multi-hit attacks in such a short time frame.

It does in the last boss of Amaurot. Or Ahk Morn.

[fulminating]

Yes, because we can't balance around job difficulty when CBU3 is on a crusade to completely flatten the skill ceiling on every job.

I hate how "basic" 6.0 summoner is as much as the next one, but I don't think the players should get punished for the dev's obsession with creating the most boring and unsatisfying PvE gameplay experience possible.

But they already claim to balance based on difficulty. Drop the damage through the floor so that red mage isn’t dead, if the playrate of new summoner also falls, then it should indicate that it isn’t played because it’s enjoyable but because it’s free damage for no effort.

[Absurdity]

It does in the last boss of Amaurot. Or Ahk Morn.

While Akh Morn is a multi-hit attack it isn't a very fast one, if Ruby Reflection dealt damage according to it's VFX effect you would be eating 5+ hits in a single GCD.

[Aword3213]

The animation might look like it but Ruby Reflection (the name of the lasers) is just a single instance of damage. Not sure this game can even do multi-hit attacks in such a short time frame.

Did some research by checking my prog VOD and some streamer's VOD. Ruby Reflection actually does multi-hit attack in a short time frame

While Akh Morn is a multi-hit attack it isn't a very fast one, if Ruby Reflection dealt damage according to it's VFX effect you would be eating 5+ hits in a single GCD.

it seemed to be hitting 3 times max.

[Caro178]

I'm two mechanics from the end of the door boss and I strongly feel this is by far the best raid tier since Promise. My impression is they upped the punishment factor of mechanics while simultaneously nerfing damage checks, which to me was a necessary result of last tier's overtuned final floor. On average the first three fights will take longer to clear, but P12 is not the frustration-fest that was both P8 phases (before and after the dps nerfs) because 9, 10 and 11 do a much better job of providing skill checks that will wall players who aren't ready to move on. P5 and 6 were both cakewalks with a single difficult mechanic each, and P7 became arguably easier than P5 after the Sleepo one platform purgation strat was popularized.

P9S: Slow moving, but the mechanics are a bit more punishing because this tier sees the return of surviving players taking extra stack or spread damage when someone is dead as the cast occurs. The limit cut in this one of the hardest mechanics in any first floor savage, ever, period - when my group hit it early on we were flabbergasted that this would be requiring PF to do three overlapping mechanics at the same time when previous 'wall mechs' like Devour, Fourfold Chains or Tiles only involving a few movements. That said, it is a fun iteration of limit cut to perform successfully.

P10S: Absolute banger of a savage fight with some of the most interesting puzzle mechanics I've ever seen in this game. Maneuvering around getting ping-ponged across the arena and having to build strategic bridges so players can traverse safely and not get yeeted into oblivion is good fun. My one criticism would be the overuse of stack/spread, which was a complaint I had about P3S as well and it is once again the only truly frustrating mechanic at play in the whole fight. The way this one slowly builds to the climax of constructing the web net is quite genius and feels amazing to get right, especially because the fight just loops mechanics after this point so it's more-or-less a guaranteed clear.

P11S: This fight genuinely feels more like a ShB raid. Themis even has a couple savage exclusive voice lines including a specific line where he references Emet-Selch and uses one of Hades' signature attacks. This one is a satisfying dance of ins and outs that feels very akin to the fan favourite E11S, and while it isn't the most difficult, it is really enjoyable and the triumphant, sweeping piano is a welcome change from the grungy lo-fi tracks that have been the signature of Pandamonium.

P12S P1: This one is also a lot of fun with some tight dodging and fun use of debuffs. It also sees the return of role-specific mechanics which raids have felt utterly void of since ShB. There are whole mechanics where supports handle half the duty and dps handle the other guaranteed every time with no randomness. Ironically, the limit cut in this fight is easier than P9S', so I guess that will perhaps be a relief for those of you still stuck on it?

[TomsYoungerBro]

The rush to clear is somewhat justified, because the longer you wait the worse party finder gets, until you're wasting hours of your life in trap parties.

Well if the fights are taking longer to clear (on average) in pf, then the longer that process will take to occur anyway right? Also, again, you have 8 months to clear the fights . At that point that is a little more than just being in "trap parties".

[IllyaPrisma]

My static was able to do the entire tier week 1, and it has felt very enjoyable, difficult and challenging. I personally believe this is the best tier of the expansion.

[Absurdity]

Did some research by checking my prog VOD and some streamer's VOD. Ruby Reflection actually does multi-hit attack in a short time frame

I stand corrected. I looked through my logs and only ever found a single Ruby Reflection, but I guess I only caught the tail end of it every time.

[Elena_Farron]

I really like this tier and I felt like Asphodelos and Abyssos were kind of a downgrade after Eden, so it's refreshing to have some really fun fights again. Levinstrike being a little hard really isn't that bad considering you can already kind of raise your way through the entirety of P9S and I think it sets the pace for the tier very well (as the first floor should).

I cleared this tier week 1 and all the fights felt fair and well structured. I think Pallas Athena was a much more epic final boss compared to Oracle of Darkness, although I am kind of getting worn out after 3 doorbosses in a row.

[Petite]

9S was tedious because everything before numbers is just...slow and boring.

This is what kills fights for me. There's so much dead air in that fight. Do we really need Kokytos recharging with his lantern constantly? The only hard stuff to learn for me were Levinstrike and melee positioning for uptime during both Archaic Rockbreakers.

The worst by far for me was P7S. Just a whole lot of non-mechanics up until 7 minutes in the fight. They made staying awake an IRL mechanic on that one.