Would you like an in-game parser?

[Reinha]

Honestly? It tells me that you lack awareness. If, after 900 runs, you still can’t figure out when Susano is casting/readying Stormsplitter, then that speaks to your lack of raid awareness.

If lack of raid awareness is a common reason why people struggle with content, what would be the proper content to train people? Is it better to have the first primals and savage bosses doable without much raid awareness to increase people's confidence and experience, or is it better to require more awareness in casual content (and possibly exclude some people from all group activities) and aim hard content to be only for the experienced? There has to be a piece of content which demands some raid awareness without being overly punishing.

Aphrael, if you set the boss as a focus target you'll see each mechanic being cast. It helps with preparing for damage and learning the fight. In primal fights like Shinryu where there are multiple enemy targets it is useful to position the enemy list somewhere where you can keep an eye on it, because the enemies' casts can be seen there too. As for the dice mechanic, that's actually a debuff you your character and you can see it there before the dice icon appears.

[AmeliaVerves]

I understand that most fights are scripted but I cannot memorize all of the events that are going to happen in the fight and when they occur at what minute or second. I would write them down but I don't have time to look down from the screen for a second before someone is eating an attack that needs healed through

Extended combat logs are great for something like that.
In fflogs you see exact timings and at what second the bosses attack hits the tank/the group and even how much damage every partymember took at which exact second.
I am main WHM myself and play it in raids. When I had problems with O3s during progress I analysed our logs and worked out a rotation (when to use oGCDs and when to better keep them and stuff) for the fight looking at the timings of bosses attacks and incoming damage.
I admit it was a lot of maths, working out how to fit your gcd and times of movement to the damage incoming and stuff, but you can also see where you have downtimes and people need only little healing and it is safe to throw some dps.

Would it help you to have something like this ingame?
(Generally interested, not trying to make a point here. )

[Bourne_Endeavor]

If lack of raid awareness is a common reason why people struggle with content, what would be the proper content to train people? Is it better to have the first primals and savage bosses doable without much raid awareness to increase people's confidence and experience, or is it better to require more awareness in casual content (and possibly exclude some people from all group activities) and aim hard content to be only for the experienced? There has to be a piece of content which demands some raid awareness without being overly punishing.

I would argue the latter. Why? Because that creates a proper curve without upsetting players who do have the skills to handle such challenges. Dungeons have basically become entirely brain dead content you scarcely need a pulse for. Imagine if they pulled ideas from the higher floors of PotD—where priority mobs need to be taken down quickly, thus breaking up the monotony of AoE spam. Frankly speaking, mass pulls is only the norm because tanks want to feel like actual tanks. If I do a baby 3-4 pull, I won't even need a healer, let alone any cooldowns. Savage shouldn't be where you're developing raid awareness but where you test those abilities. I mean, if Savage were the developing grounds, what purpose do EX Primals even serve? Part of why people disliked how piss easy Susano and Lakshmi were is because it relegated them to pointless content. Omega Normal suffers a similar problem.

Put another way. I shouldn't be able to stand in AoE on any boss in Rabanastre yet I can eat Mateus' cleaves or practically everything the third boss does on Samurai, and heal with Bloodbath. What this does is make less experienced assume they can ignore mechanics. It's among the reasons people try to brute force so much. The game allows you to in virtually every piece of content. Weeping City remains a perfect example of what happens when the devs finally stop coddling. People got over it because they had to. Sure, plenty were carried but plenty others weren't. It doesn't help FFXIV does jack all to teach you an endgame rotation—which segues into another issue: if content is so easy Dragoons can get away with spamming 1-2-3-4-5. What incentive do they have to get better?

- Leveling dungeons should be the entry
- Expert should smack people for standing in AoEs and push tanks/healers who try to pull everything that moves (Make this a reward for when you start to outgear content)
- Normal mode trials should test mechanical awareness and CD management. (Garuda, Sephirot, Nidhogg and Shinryu normal are decent examples)
- Omega Normal push players harder (Comparable to what Lakshmi EX was for say, Exdeath. Titan Hard mode is another good example)
- 24 Mans should focus on mechanical awareness (Weeping City did this well)
- Extremes should be preparing players for Savage
- Savage is where you take all that knowledge and put it to the test

Currently, the vast majority of content I just listed is faceroll. People unwilling to improve shouldn't be rewarded. You want the best gear? Put in the effort to get it.

[Reinha]

I would argue the latter. Why? Because that creates a proper curve without upsetting players who do have the skills to handle such challenges.

Thanks for the well thought out response.

Regarding the difficulty curve you'd choose, do you think this would exclude a significant amount of people from dungeons and normal raids and would this be a problem for the health of the game? Increasing dungeon difficulty could either make it difficult to run with random FC/LS acquaintances which divides people further, but it could also make dungeons less boring to some and make people more interested in that content. Priority mobs and other dps checks would be a natural addition to more difficult dungeons and would motivate people to better their dps whether or not they use a parser. I would very much enjoy small party content which challenges one to play their job (including role skills) on a higher level.

I like your idea for content difficulties. I do wonder though, is the current reward system enough to motivate people to run content with an increased difficulty? Perhaps Exdeath could drop entry level weapons (315) if it had the same difficulty level as Lakshmi Ex, or the drop rates of primal mounts could be increased so people feel like clearing and farming extremes is more worth the effort when they are current.

[Tridus]

If lack of raid awareness is a common reason why people struggle with content, what would be the proper content to train people? Is it better to have the first primals and savage bosses doable without much raid awareness to increase people's confidence and experience, or is it better to require more awareness in casual content (and possibly exclude some people from all group activities) and aim hard content to be only for the experienced? There has to be a piece of content which demands some raid awareness without being overly punishing.

Well, Auran Vale is the hardest dungeon in levelling and expert roulettes combined, right now. It's from ARR. The main reason why it's harder is that you can't just zerg through and round everything up. The first room will kick you in the face if you attempt it. Compare that to something like Sirensong Sea, which has one pull that's kinda dangerous, and one boss mechanic that can actually kill you (stacking up Magic Vuln up too high). The rest of it poses no real threat at all to any group with a pulse as nothing hits hard enough or causes enough problems that the healer can't just heal through it. That's even worse in Kugane Castle, which although I enjoy the hell out of the idea of the place, it's hilariously undertuned and nothing is dangerous unless you triple pull. The last boss there has a mechanic, but it's incapable of killing you even if you totally fail it. It's virtually impossible to lose.

"Round up everything and AoE it" as the only mechanic in every dungeon gets stale pretty fast, and people just go on autopilot without paying attention. Then they hit something where you do have to pay attention and the brakes slam on real fast, because they've been trained by the game to not expect that. Some players will get over that mountain more easily than others, but it doesn't have to be that way in the first place.

[AphraelAmarantha]

Honestly? It tells me that you lack awareness. If, after 900 runs, you still can’t figure out when Susano is casting/readying Stormsplitter, then that speaks to your lack of raid awareness. And, unless that improves, then you will be unable to do any other Extreme primals that are even remotely more challenging than him. And I’m not saying that to be mean or anything, and I’m not saying that that’s the case now. But you asked, and I thought I would provide an honest opinion.

No it's fine. My question back is how do you develop raid awareness?

Learning occurs through repeated exposure and practice. Like with your previous example regarding education, and some learning a subject at a slower pace: yeah, they learn at a slower pace, but how do they learn? By practicing; by studying. You don’t learn things instantly. If these fights aren’t getting any easier for you, then it may be that you just aren’t able to do them. If you are really trying your absolute hardest, studying the fights, asking people for advice on how to improve your performance... if you are doing everything within your power and still cannot keep track of a simple tankbuster, then you are just not ready for the content.

Yep, I won't disagree with you here. I find the EX fights quite challenging and I usually just avoid them at this point because I can't really do them, (even with i328, i know I am probably being carried.) The only reason I have been doing Susano recently because a friend asked me to since I've done the fight before several times (liek that really means anything, lel).

On a side note, would you believe that I actually perform better when I don't have to do deal with people in a group? I actually solo'd EX Ifrit and EX Titan with my level 70 RDM. That was quite hard and I died several times before beating them. It was more fun though.

There was really no need for this sentence. At all.

Sorry, I said it because that's how I feel. People go: "these fights are easy!" and then I do everything I can and I find them quite difficult, hence why I feel are they just that good or am I just retarded and can't do this stuff? This leads into:

How are you dealing with the specific issues? Do you try to juggle healing and DPS? Have you tried to just heal and see if that eases your stress levels? Have you Focus Targeted Susano to try and watch for his tankbuster cast? Have you set up your HUD in a way to make it easier to keep track of the things you need to keep track of (MT, party health, boss’s HP bar/cast bar, etc.)? Have you increased the size for things like enhancements and enfeeblements (this would help when looking out for the Churning/dice debuff)? You’ve mentioned what you’re having trouble with, but you haven’t really explained anything you have done to try and alleviate the problems.

I've done everything you have listed except increase size of buff/debuffs and used Focus Target. Mainly because one I didn't know you can increase the individual size of HUD elements and two, what the heck is focus target? O.o

[Tridus]

1) A ton of mechanics happening all at once like aoes with dice and thundercloud. Especially if I am also trying to heal the tank but my oGCD are on cd and so I cant cast a quick spell to heal them. Or I am trying to get Medica II back up but i have to keep moving and I don't have an available quickcast. this is particularly difficult near the last 10 percent of Susano's health bar.

I had real problems with this too, for a long time. In opposition to the "it's super easy" people, Susano Ex was kind of a nightmare for me and this part was the main reason why. The easiest fix is more DPS. He does things in order on a timer, and the nastiest combinations are towards the end. If you kill him faster, you see fewer of them.

That means not dying to the easier ones early on, timing party buffs to max DPS, and since you appear to be a WHM, firing off your own DPS whenever you have time and MP. Every bit helps!

Aside from that, Churn (the dice) don't kill anyone by themselves, so you typically have a bit of time to heal between it and the next thing. If someone baits the cloud the wrong way there isn't much you can do but try to get out, but Churn and something else can be handled by Assize, or Plenary Indulgence if you have the confessions. If your cohealer is a SCH, Indom is a godsend at that point.

2) The purple marker for the lightning when you have to dash across to the other side. It's too small and I can barely see it past the other stuff that is going on. I have to be constantly looking at the party to make sure hp levels are good and no one is dying and the battlefield making sure I don't have the stupid marker on.

One trick here is to listen to the audio. He actually has vocal cues when this mechanic starts. There's one line for the "one person run over" lightning marker, and another one for the "everyone but the marked person run over" lightning marker. I *think* it's "Heark you to the tilmuteous heavens" for the first one, and "Now cometh our part, make way" for the second one.

If you hear the second audio cue, it's easy: start running to the other side and go where the group goes. If you can't run, the marker is on you.

For the first one it's a bit harder to see who the marker is on when people are stacked. My trick is to back up a couple of steps whenever I see the marker. If it goes backwards, it's on me. If it doesn't, it's not (since nobody else tends to back up on it, this usually helps).

3) Same with the dice, I cant see the marker until almost too late. When grouped together with other people, it cant be seen very well.

The dice also have an audio call out, and you get a debuff for them well before the counter over your head starts. I don't remember what the audio line is, but he does this in phase 1 so you should be able to listen for it and see the debuffs go up to figure it out. It's the debuff you should be looking for. If you get that, you know you will get the overhead dice when the debuff timer hits 3.

4) Tank busters. These come out very fast and I don't see them coming because I'm not looking at the cast bar when they pop up because I'm paying attention to health levels. It's usually when I'm dpsing is when I usually see it coming.

Set him as a focus target and put that bar in a spot you'll notice. There isn't really an easier way to deal with it. That said, if the tanks are doing it correctly, the OT should Provoke right after Stormsplitter lands and thus the MT shouldn't die immediately anyway. I do like to toss up Divine Benison on the MT before it lands just for some extra cushion, because sometimes the OT is slow. Tetra is also your friend here. (On SCH, I can Aldo or Lustrate it.)

5) I understand that most fights are scripted but I cannot memorize all of the events that are going to happen in the fight and when they occur at what minute or second. I would write them down but I don't have time to look down from the screen for a second before someone is eating an attack that needs healed through and if I do have a moment, I'm not going to be looking down because everyone expects me to be dpsing at that point.

Those are the main issues, if I think of more I will let you know. Yes I know the mechanics but it doesn't make the fight any easier.

Yeah, I had this problem too. I don't learn much by watching a video, I learn by doing. That means failing each and every mechanic until I get them individually, after which I can do better on the fight. It takes time, and practice. If you're anything like me, knowing the mechanics and doing the mechanics are different. That said, if you stick with it, you can get it done. Once you do it enough times you can put it all together and it'll click. It just takes us more times for that to happen than some of the other players here, who are frankly a lot better than I am.

It also helps if you find a friend who knows it who can help you on voice chat, because you can talk over issues with them in real time.

[Tridus]

I've done everything you have listed except increase size of buff/debuffs and used Focus Target. Mainly because one I didn't know you can increase the individual size of HUD elements and two, what the heck is focus target? O.o

Focus target is an extra target box that is locked to a target and doesn't change when you change target. On PC, you can get it by targetting Susano and typing /focustarget

That gives you a target window for Susano that never changes, so you can ALWAYS see his casts and current health in it. You can position that separately from your normal target in the HUD configuration, so put it somewhere easy to see.

[AphraelAmarantha]

Focus target is an extra target box that is locked to a target and doesn't change when you change target. On PC, you can get it by targetting Susano and typing /focustarget

That gives you a target window for Susano that never changes, so you can ALWAYS see his casts and current health in it. You can position that separately from your normal target in the HUD configuration, so put it somewhere easy to see.

Oh that sounds very useful actually. I will have to try that, thank you!

[akaneakki]

Oh that sounds very useful actually. I will have to try that, thank you!

Don't need to be sorry from previous post and also there is a HUD thing you can change name, change the cast bar from the enemy HP. What you do is you go in hud layout, click on the enemy bar, click the clog thingy and split the cast bar between the enemy (boss target). This will help you see cast bar a lot better too. I have mine like right over my cross bars, so I can see it easy. I can take a screenshot and show you later. And I'm honestly glad you take tips from others as well in here, that's something we all appreciate honestly, because many refuse to. So thank you to you as well.

..if you are farming ex primals when they are relevant, to the point where you feel ok solo healing them, you aren't a casual healer, good lord.

What makes a casual? Or hardcore? I play less than most people a week, does that make me casual then? Sorry to say, but awarness and knowing the fight is the only thing besides experience from old raids etc that makes them a better player and that's not even a hardcore mind, just because you think most of us play 24-7 doesn't make is hardcore just as that RP guy sitting in limsa is not hardcore. And I'm pretty sure most of us doesn't spend all day playing the game either.