The disapointment that is Alexander

[MisterLucie]

Ah I was waiting for this response. Trust me, if mechanics were the real difficulty of savage I'd be on A3S competing for server first by now. Instead it's the tight dps checks that lock groups out & leave them either beating their heads at a boss with no result, or waiting for gear, despite their ability to execute mechanics and the fact that they cleared Coil without too much trouble.

Honestly, and I don't mean this as offensively as it's going to sound, but I very highly doubt your group would be good enough to be competing for any firsts if they can't handle doing proper dps while also doing mechanics. A1 was doable without esoteric gear, and it's almost trivial with it.

[HReincarnate]

Honestly, and I don't mean this as offensively as it's going to sound, but I very highly doubt your group would be good enough to be competing for any firsts if they can't handle doing proper dps while also doing mechanics. A1 was doable without esoteric gear, and it's almost trivial with it.

Haha, no offense taken. I was making a point more than anything. My group has competent players that can put out above average dps and learn mechanics quickly - an ability that served us well - and if the real difficulty was doing the mechanics & not the dps check - we'd have been through with no problem. But fair enough, you do need to do proper dps while doing mechanics - but as I see it the balance has shifted far more to the "proper dps" side of the scale than in previous raids which we found more satisfying in difficulty.

[FoxyAreku]

Haha, no offense taken. I was making a point more than anything. My group has competent players that can put out above average dps and learn mechanics quickly - an ability that served us well - and if the real difficulty was doing the mechanics & not the dps check - we'd have been through with no problem. But fair enough, you do need to do proper dps while doing mechanics - but as I see it the balance has shifted far more to the "proper dps" side of the scale than in previous raids which we found more satisfying in difficulty.

That's just part of raiding though. It's not just a game of simon says, you have to do the mechanics while playing your class in the most optimal way possible. If you can't do both, then you shouldn't clear. A1S just leans more on the side of knowing your class more than the fight, I think.

[Almalexia]

Ah I was waiting for this response. Trust me, if mechanics were the real difficulty of savage I'd be on A3S competing for server first by now. Instead it's the tight dps checks that lock groups out & leave them either beating their heads at a boss with no result, or waiting for gear, despite their ability to execute mechanics and the fact that they cleared Coil without too much trouble.

Even if you can do every mechanic blindfolded, it doesn't excuse you from doing your job's duties. All gear does is offer relief, whether room for mechanical error or accounting for a less effective rotation.

FFXIV endgame has always been about maintaining job expectations in spite of a barrage of battle mechanics hell-bent on tripping you up. If it were just mechanics, it would be Simon Says. If it were just rotations, it would be a training dummy. Battle content is a synthesis of both. It's like spinning plates while someone throws knives at you--which I guess is also artificially difficult, because there's no emergent or naturally-occurring system of knife-throwing-while-spinning-plates that I'm aware of.

[Intaki]

Trust me, if mechanics were the real difficulty of savage I'd be on A3S competing for server first by now.

Of course you would. Just like all the other woefully unrecognized raiding gods too pure too skilled for this world.

[HReincarnate]

Of course you would. Just like all the other woefully unrecognized raiding gods too pure too skilled for this world.

Please read my responses in page 6. It might help if you read the entirety of a thread instead of just jumping at the one response you could make a smartass comment at :P

[Ibi]

And a4s is beginning to sound like a repeat of that - not so much the 1 problem mechanic, but just sheer difficulty.

SE are stuck between a rock and a hard place here. If the difficulty was lower, it was always beaten, there'd be multiple threads about how Alex Savage was too easy.

the reason I call it artificial is because it doesn't have to do with the number of mechanics or their execution but just the raw numbers. You could nerf the mechanics to hell and back but most would struggle still to beat the fight because it's all about the dps.

Instead it's the tight dps checks that lock groups out & leave them either beating their heads at a boss with no result, or waiting for gear, despite their ability to execute mechanics and the fact that they cleared Coil without too much trouble.

How is Alex Savage any different from Final Coil in the first few weeks it was out in this regard?

T11 has effectively 100% uptime outside of the add phase, but groups were still hitting the enrage. T12 is made practically an order of magnitude easier any time you can push the phase change in a way that gives your one fewer Bennu to deal with. Even the best groups in the world needed (or at least made excellent use of) penta-melded crafted gear to beat the enrage.

I don't agree with this. WoW has used the normal before hard system for a very long time and their hard mode encounters never suffered from it.

It's not quite the same.

There's only a single week delay and the raids are much larger than FFXIV's. Also, the difficulty that the lower end of the raiding population will clear on (Raid Finder) is not just delayed, but also stagged.

WoW's current raid went into the game on the same day Heavensward released and you still can't fight all the bosses on that difficulty.

[MisterLucie]

A1S DPS check was pretty intense before esoteric weapons and full normal gear. I don't know why anyone would say otherwise. It's not really up for debate.

[4gotmypassword]

A1S DPS check was pretty intense before esoteric weapons and full normal gear. I don't know why anyone would say otherwise. It's not really up for debate.

Because a 10:30 enrage was beaten in 9:30 and less without those, more like 7 minutes now.