Quote Originally Posted by Krotoan View Post
Wasn't 8 runs working towards progression? If that's your bread and butter why do anything else?
Not in the least. It's not like we were dying in A5S and A6S because of our gear, we were dying because failing mechanics caused party-wide instant deaths. The more time you spend outside of Savage/in progression, the more time that passes to where both the normal and Savage raid gear lose relevance/appeal due to Tomestone gear and lockouts. The normal mode raid gear would help slightly due to increased VIT versus gear in the previous tier, but it's a matter of efficiency I suppose.

If you aren't having fun, why are you playing the game?
I increased my fun by removing things I found distasteful (normal mode + alliance raid grinding)

I played FFXI for 2 years and was heavily involved with endgame there, so I'm pretty resilient. I'm just always at odds with the carrots at the end of XIV's various sticks for reasons I can't quite place sometimes.