Please remove the weekly lock out of stuff

[Ririta]

Sophia weapons are i255, Zurvan weapons are i265. Get one of those, then learn A10S and A11S to get a tomestone and gobdip. Don't use the lockout as a reason to avoid doing stuff when there's a way around that lockout, or gear that is just as strong available from other places.

No way. After pugging Sephirot for one month, I had such a bad taste on my mouth that I left until now in 3.5. It didn't help that the fight wasn't even fun and from normal mode I can tell that Sophia and Zurvan aren't either.

And that was when we didn't have cross world parties so I can't imagine how bad it is today.

I'm pretty sure they've removed the weekly lockout on Alex NM...? So you can get the weapon within 7 runs of Soul of the Creator NM - in case I am mistaken and missreading ths right now the game still offers you Zurvan weapons which are having an even higher ilvl than the Shire ones. If you truely want to get into raiding, there are options beside Shire...
If you're only intrested in an "easy" way, Savage might not be content that you'll actually enjoy

They didn't, I've tried.

Alexander isn't a high priority to me like Coil was but I saw it as something to keep me occupied until the expansion since the fights (from the guides I've watched and normal mode) had a pretty interesting design. However, if before doing that I have to stress myself on things that I don't want to, then I'd rather not. This game's extreme trial design went down the drain after Shiva.