"Will reform if 100 Myth bonus..."

[Garlyle]

Now, you can message the party leader and ask if they will bend the rule for you; many actually will allow it especially if you say to remove you if you're too weak.

Yup. This was actually how I got into the party that got me both the Titan EX and Ifrit EX clears - "do you mind if I join I'm familiar enough to have done a full final phase cycle but just haven't gotten a clear yet" -> in (then straight onto Ifrit EX, which shocked me, but I'm a quick enough learner that we managed it in 3 attempts!)

Most parties do it as a way to try to keep out those hoping to just get easy carried through, but showing you'll actually put in effort is enough.

[Lyrinn]

"Hey guys, lets all just be jerks to each other"

"Its okay cause if we make our own party, we can be as rude as we want and it doesn't count as being a jerk! Its like a special loop hole, understand?"

How is it being a jerk? I've been on both sides of the coin, sometimes simply wanting to clear something without wiping for an hour and other times being excluded because I didn't have a clear at the time. I can understand how people on both sides feel about the other, but the sad part is neither side tries to understand the other.

T7 in particular is a highly mistake-prone fight, where one person not fully knowing what they're doing or making a single mistake can potentially wipe the raid (yay for one-shot mechanics everywhere). You can take in a player claiming to have full experience but you won't know if they're truly capable of clearing until you try - or fail and wipe. If someone already has a clear, then you can at least expect them to be capable of doing the fight. There's not as much "risk" involved.

The fact of the matter is, some people just don't care to spend potentially over an hour clearing something they've done a million times over. Taking people who have previous clears is much safer than trying someone out, watching them fail, and then spending more time replacing them. I've been down to 3% on T9 but haven't been able to find a group for weeks because one of the two pug groups on my server asks for clears only. It sucks but deal with it.

In any case, most people are actually willing to make exceptions if you simply ask and you're honest and polite about it.