Any reason to launch A4 Savage as an impossible raid?

[Verius_Nox]

Reason why A4S has not been cleared is not because of real dificulty, that is to say some complicated mechanics or such. It is simply an unreachable gear check at the moment so the fight is literaly impossible as of right now. Maybe in a few weeks for world first teams, and in 2-3 months for regular statics. Basically SE tells us gear > skills.

So you'd rather steamroll it within a week, then spend the next 5 months complaining that the content was too easy?

[Priya]

I personally cannot see how Alexander normal is "too easy." For me, it was one of the more challenging things the first time around.

Different strokes (and experiences). Alex normal was faceroll easy for me, but I raided the middle to hardest content in WoW for years. I've seen LFR modes that were more demanding than Alex normal (though to be fair, not by much, and 3 people carrying the rest was very real.)

The sad truth of it is that when you have only two tiers of difficulty but the skill of the player base varies among three (high, middle, low), someone's camp is going to be alienated. I think no one expected it to be the middle group when you factor in the easy content that exists already such as expert roulette and 24mans later on.

Sure echo/tomes will eventually catch up those who can sleep through normal, but don't have the discipline for savage, but if their focus is raiding, they'll likely be quite bored in the meanwhile.

[HorseBoots]

Yoshida has come out recently in a Famitsu interview addressing the difficulty of Savage Alexander.

A1 and 2 Savage were intentionally designed to be FCoB tier in difficulty, while A3S and A4S were designed to be SCoB SAVAGE difficulty.

For added context lets go down and breakdown how raiding tiers work, between FFXIV and WoW. Usually, the general opinion of worldly seasoned raiders during Coil were that while original coils were harder than your bottom tier WoW raiding, Heroic tier (Think SCoB Savage) was considered harder.

That being said, when SCoB Savage first came out, literally everyone I know would describe Savage at its intended level was harder than any raid fight in WoW. At full i110 BiS, it took the top tier raiders a full MONTH to down T9 Savage.

The latter half of Alexander were designed with this mentality in mind, and we didnt get 3 1/5 months to gear up and prepare for it. A4S has been built to be the hardest fight in this game period. This is probably the hardest fight a majority of these raiders have seen in their entire MMO career. It's not just a gear issue, these fights are built to curb stomp you into the dirt.

[Stanelis]

That being said, when SCoB Savage first came out, literally everyone I know would describe Savage at its intended level was harder than any raid fight in WoW.

It makes no sense to make those sort of comparisons. Mostly due to the fact that people who play at the highest level on wow (method, parangon) simply aren't those who plays at the highest level on FFXIV. FFXIV is not a game taken very seriously amongst the raiding community because it simply isn't a game which cater to the raiders.

This is probably the hardest fight a majority of these raiders have seen in their entire MMO career.

What does "hardest" mean ? If you talk about "impossible bosses to kill until a certain item level is reached" then wow had its share of boss like that (Cthun, Kael Thas, LK HM, ...). Also as I said "hard" doesn 't equate to "fun".

Also if you take a look at the wow historical raiding world first timeline : http://manaflask.com/en/world-firsts , you can see that a lot of bosses lived more than 30 days.

[HorseBoots]

snip.

Its kinda sad how you can see those world first dates get smaller and smaller as WoW progressed...

Another thing to keep in mind is the nature of WoW vs XIV raids. Majority if not all of WoW's raids are 10+ players, compared to FFXIV's 8. To compensate, WoW limits your amount of revives in a fight, while XIV allows for unlimited revives, but with weakness as a punishment, which might as well equal TPK in A3 and A4S with how tight those DPS checks can get. While ideally you should have zero deaths period, you can afford a couple slips in your typical Mythic raid, death in XIV's raids comes at a far greater cost.

Not to mention not just DPS checks, but timing on the completion of mechanics are tight in A4S. For example poor timing between the killing legs and quarantine will guarantee a TPK 100% with zero solution other than git gud.


Overall from personal experience, there more going on in A4S delaying clears than just "muh gear check".

some more gear would help though...

[RiceisNice]

...

You also gotta keep in context with how raiding has changed in WoW throughout it's expansion. C'thun lived for as long as he did because for for a period, he was literally impossible to beat numbers-wise.

TBC, while raid instances were technically released at the same time, were also gated with each other and had a lineiar progression. This is also when they added justice/valor points (think tomestones) as an alternative way to gear up so you weren't stuck with uncooperative boss drops.

WotLK had limited attempts which cut down how much progression you could actually put in per reset. It was only until Catacylsm and onward did they get rid of the limited attempts for heroic bosses, and the previous difficulties (including LFR, or the "crystal tower" difficulty) having entirely different loot lockout resets, thus making gearing even more accessible to meet checks.

[Felis]

That means that any gear requirements need to be designed with current best in mind, not several months down the line when we're all packing level 250 god-tier equipment.

I'm sure it is clearable with average ilevel 210 (highest ilevel the moment Alex S came out).

First and foremost, we are paying customers and shouldn't allow ourselves to be treated like that.

You pay real money to get server access, not to get content clears.

[vp_cmc]

So you'd rather steamroll it within a week, then spend the next 5 months complaining that the content was too easy?

If best of the best groups can't clear it within a week it means that average players like me have completely no chances. So why even bother trying then?

[Dante_V]

Then don't try. Secondly "fun" is subjective and I certainly think harder content is fun. Further more this has nothing to do with wow.

[Nadirah]

Different strokes (and experiences). Alex normal was faceroll easy for me, but I raided the middle to hardest content in WoW for years. I've seen LFR modes that were more demanding than Alex normal (though to be fair, not by much, and 3 people carrying the rest was very real.)

The fact that 3 people could carry a 25 man team in LFR but *can't* carry an 8 man team in Alex normal just means the challenge is different. Because it really wasn't really hard, WoW LFR. It wasn't a gear check, it was a mechanics check. No more.

And I've duo'd Durumu from 60% with a bear tank and my rsham.


Once people got gear, the idiot DPS taking an orb in A4 isn't getting one shot by lazers. The tank can take three, four in a row without *needing* heals between all of them. Etc.

TLR, FFXIV fights are midcore mechanics, high gear check.
WoW's fights are mechanics checks, gear is laughable.

That's why the raids are cleared within hours of launch.