Alexander!. Thoughts on difficulty? and endgame. [possible spoilers]

[fanservice]

I do like how dynamic the 3rd fight felt even down to a hype final final phase.

[LegendWait]

This is a harder CT that will force people to learn to play a LITTLE better

[adn]

3/4 of the fights feel like they are REALLY on the DPS. The only fight where I felt significant pressure to perform as a healer was A4, and none of the mechanics in the fights seem particularly rough on tanks. I haven't done EX primals but I've seen sentiments that both Bismarck and Ravana EX are mostly DPS checks as well... not sure if S-E is just trying to push DPS players harder or what.

[Neuflune]

...not sure if S-E is just trying to push DPS players harder or what.

Probably. In the past, a lot of things rely on the tanks and healers; the DPS who don't know any better just button mash. Take for example, Ifrit Extreme. I've farmed it as a tank and as a healer, and the DPS just don't know how to let up. The healers try hard to avoid the DPS when they have Searing Wind, but the problem is that the DPS spread out to kill more nails as quickly as possible. The tanks get debuffed heavily, as does everyone else, and that makes it very hard on healers to the point that it may cause a wipe especially if the healers are new. But DPS don't care. They just DPS away.

Point is, it's time for DPS to learn something other than their own rotations. Deal with mechanics while keeping our DPS up, etc. (I main summoner) Edit: Of course raiders already know this. Alexander (Normal) is catering more to the "casual" player; they need a DPS bootcamp too.

[Snugglebutt]

This is a harder CT that will force people to learn to play a LITTLE better

The two are not really that comparable. CT is 24 man and it is that amount of people which allows for easier runs since a single persons error will not be as damaging.

On topic of Alexander itself, it is about the right difficulty. I have stuck to doing it in DF by choice in order to help teach people the floors I have done and learn from DF members the ones I am currently doing instead of being more anti-social from using PF/statics (anti-social in the sense of limiting number of people interacting with to preformed groups that run the content together over and over instead of with almost always new people each time via DF).

The DPS checks seem to be less tight than the new EX content yet tight enough to make people push themselves harder. The boss mechanics and phases are not overly complex but still require learning and memorizing plus are quite varied which keeps people on their toes more so between each floor. I can see why it was done in parts like coil though as it would be bit too difficult to have to do a single run with all the Alexander bosses from each floor in one go. It feels to me like coils 1-5 in difficulty without echo and not while over-geared.

Tanks in Alexander seem to have a pretty straight forward and relatively simple job in it like has been the case for a lot of older content too in the sense of switching during stacked debuffs, picking up adds/tethers maybe, positioning bosses for most part and simply cross their fingers and hope healers keep them alive while doing it. Floor two can be a little tricky if tanks don't manage how many big targets are on them adequately though. I can see how some floors might be hard on healers but overall this place seems to be harder on the DPS classes than tanks and healers.

[Ceodore]

I hate floor 3's tether mechanic because nobody in DF can:

1. Stay still for me to get the tether off them
2. Agree on whether they want to move away from me, or have me move (when I move, they run after me, as though they are just begging for death)
3. The other tank will not take responsibility to pick up a tether if I'm trapped in the previous +/- mechanic

Does anyone know any other consistent method of dealing with this? I'm running with my static later so it'll be fine then, but in DF I just don't know what to tell these people.

The best strategy I've used is dividing the arena into north and south halves, and marking the very north part with A and the very south with B. One tank take the northern half and one takes the south. The markers indicate where the tank will move to once they pick up the tether. This is just ideal obviously, and should flexibility be required, then be flexible, but otherwise, this makes this specific tactic much easier. It tells your DPS and healers what direction you will be going with the tether.

[Waffilicious]

Yoshida once said they make the ex primals/savage dungeons first then downgrade it. so by that train of thought i can see that savage is gonna be indeed savage, like f1 instead of 2 missles its gonna be 4 (there is 4 adds) as and example f3 could be double tether, 2 pairs with +-, f2 needing to use both of the gobmounts, f4 instead of 3 lines on someone it could be 4, even 5. extra number of legs with hp (he has 4 and only front 2 have hp).

[Silver-dream]

I'm really enjoying it, making me deep down wanna tank savage when it come out....if my work doesn't keep changing my work times would be great get stable static group LOL.

Apart from that I noticed,I really have no luck in rolls. all my rolls been 3 or 6 haven't won single item yet! Oh well lest I have a excuse keep going in to listen to music XD

[Dualblade]

Yoshida once said they make the ex primals/savage dungeons first then downgrade it. so by that train of thought i can see that savage is gonna be indeed savage, like f1 instead of 2 missles its gonna be 4 (there is 4 adds) as and example f3 could be double tether, 2 pairs with +-, f2 needing to use both of the gobmounts, f4 instead of 3 lines on someone it could be 4, even 5. extra number of legs with hp (he has 4 and only front 2 have hp).

As well when you kill one leg, it gives a message for two being taken down so most likely there will be 4 legs. Now the question is whether you have to do each one at a time, or if you have to kill two before it goes down for a few moments...or if its like A1 and you have to take down two with a short time frame (though I would assume the one taken down would get healed instead of exploding in that case.)

[Waffilicious]

What if you have to kill them one by one to be able to lower the center hp the most you can before you run out of legs and becomes a battle of attrition between healers mp and the insane spam of aoes he does.