Are the raid tiers "too hard?"

[Lovescake]

Just want to disclaim that this is obviously an opinion, alot of people are going to forget that.

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So over the course of the two raid tiers we have had, (referring to Gordias and Midas Savage) there has been an influx of things brought up, this is just gonna be my take on it and an over-all view of what people seem to think about the raids.
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Gordias Savage

So Gordias Savage came out a month after the release of heavensward, with the first implementation of story mode two weeks prior to the savage release. we were able to get i190 gear from the normal mode, i190 weapons from Ravanna Extreme, and esoterics once the savage turns were unlocked to gain i200 pieces, savage also gave us the i210 upgrade items. (including the i210 weapon on the last turn.

Gordias over-all seemed to be a DPS check, mechanics were good, but people seemed to complain about how tight the over-all enrage timers where with the given output, this also didnt help with the 210 weapon in the final turn + the eso weapon upgrade in the same turn which breaks away from the coil progression...

This tier wasn't "Too Hard". most groups who were competent about raiding cleared this fight before 3.1 and progressed on a4s until 3.2.. the midcore players started clearing this mainly around the steps towards 3.1, and those who really struggled got through it after 3.1 with the 205 weapon upgrade boost from Thordan. a4s strategy for cheesing it basically eliminated the harder part of the fight entirely... casual groups were struggling with a3s but this doesn't mean its the fights fault, although i will agree that a problem with it was the difficulty spike from a2-3s.

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Midas Savage

We got 220 crafted gear for early progression, sephirot weapons available (220), alexander midas normal gear (220), Lore gear (230, 240 upgraded)

Midas was already announced to be alot easier in comparison to Gordias, with the same difficulty as around t9-t13 (correct me if wrong.) however this difficulty scaled up didnt really reflect as strong as people thought.

Midas a5s gave us a great mechanical fight, learning the fight was also enjoyable for a first turn and the faust dps check was also relatively nice to have for the current gear available, this turn seems well received by basically all raiders.
A6 however, pre nerf was classed harder than A7, with the duo mine, orb hp, goblins hp, vortexer damage and health, this fight proved a relative challenge even for the harder end of the spectrum, this however does not make it a bad fight. it just took time to clear, and the progression sucked because having to do each robot. A7s was relatively easy, but had a dps check in comparison to the previous turns, giving the cages taking away uptime on the boss, specific roles for each cage, dodging balls etc, this turn is probably my favourite turn of the raid tier so far. as for a8s, this fight was also a very good mechanics fight, making us use previous information from a6s to combat 2nd phase, learn different mechanics on the fly as well as having a dps check relative to the gear given.

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Over-all

Over-all i think midas was a great balance to an extent, i feel it could be a bit more difficult to excel from the coil, otherwise we'd be stuck with same difficulty forever.. raids are meant to be hard., however alot of people still complain to this day about a6s due to its "difficulty" after the nerf.. as well as the current other turns too.

This is why this hurts the endgame raiding content. the people who struggle to do the content this late into the patches are normally the people who dont understand their role (not saying its everyone. but this holds many others back.) , being full i240 gear in a5-6-7-8s is not what the fights were designed around, this is a handicap you get for the extended time you take to progress the fights. same with the "catch up" patch which is implemented 3 months later. it's there to allow you to tackle the harder content with stronger gear to possibly help you to beat that one specific phase youre stuck on.

these people however, are also a bigger voice stating that the raids are too hard. and because the % of the raid clears being relatively low (which i get from a business POV. this is bad because less clears = wasted content.) but i feel like we're heading backwards within how raids work, coil was good because difficulty increased relatively, however its as if we're going backwards with alexander, this is obviously too late for change, however im more interested in other peoples opinions on what they feel about how the raid scene seems to be going. so lets discuss