How about we change the "dps check" a little?

[Machi_Machiavelli]

FFXIV has already implemented what you're asking for in the form of not losing exp and potentially leveling down when you die. Getting to keep your level is your reward for failing a dps check.

[Kaethra]

They really do need a way of enforcing/encouraging people to put out DPS towards the higher end of what they're capable with their class/gear.

The DPS check for ES2 vs ES1 is a very significant step up and tons of groups are getting walled mostly because people aren't doing their rotations properly.

The wall seems to work as its needed. What should be changed is requiring the Eden's Gate raids to be done in order every week. This way these players have to deal with the same wall each week.

[LunarEmerald]

If anything, the game could use more dps checks. Normal mode fights should have enrages as well. People shouldn't be allowed to continually screw up and still clear a fight. The game doesn't encourage people to get better if it still lets them screw up/get carried and pass content.

[Hezzlocks]

Bahamut turn 2 has a soft enrage...

If you take too long, the final sphere constantly does raid damage from that point on instead of the normal mechanics....



But...
The healers are so powerful that it's possible to intentionally go for thr enrage strat...


It was common to just wait until the timer ran out to engage the final sphere and just power through the raid damage with heal spam.

And this was doable back in at least 2014. (Quick google search came up with a reddit post from then)

This would be an example of a *bad* soft enrage (or, well, in this case, this is a full blown enrage, so... it's a bad enrage full stop)

A good soft enrage is a situation where something that happens naturally over the course of the fight has ramped up to a degree that it's quickly becoming unmanageable, but skilled play will let you persevere for just a little bit longer. Doing so, however, often puts a strain on your resources, forcing everyone to activate their personal defensive cooldowns (something FF14 lacks, tbh), as well as causing the healers to output as much healing as possible, with a severe drain on their mana, trying to survive just long enough to either kill the boss, or end whatever the mechanic is that is doing this.

Here's a couple of examples of soft enrages. The 2nd boss of Nighthold, Chronomatic Anomaly, has an ability where he will start channeling pulsing damage, and summon a group of adds some distance away from him. Killing those adds drops some arcane orbs, which you can then use on the boss to interrupt his channel and proceed to the next phase, which will also result in a shift in the flow of time, either making all actions incredibly slow, or incredibly fast, while not changing the hard enrage timer at all. The pulsing damage increases in damage each and every time it pulses. Fail to do the mechanic soon enough, and the group wipes. In this case, however, it is possible to hold the orbs for a while to attack the boss while he's channeling this, delaying the next phase as long as possible, before dropping the orb on him before the damage becomes too much. The better the group, the more they can take advantage of this, particularly while the flow of time is normal or fast. The worse the group, the further into the fight they will be forced to progress, risking hitting the actual hard enrage where he will proceed to murder everyone in one hit.

A more recent soft enrage is with the 2nd boss of the latest WoW raid. For the entirety of the fight, you can ONLY be healed if you have a bioluminescent debuff on you, which can only be obtained by killing a nearby pufferfish and bathing in its juices. There are, however, only 6 pufferfish. The first 4 you need to kill as your debuff wears out, as the boss will change platform, and any pufferfish still on said platform might as well be lost to you when it does. After the third platform, the boss will never move again, meaning the two pufferfish on that platform are your final opportunity. Once they are dead and the debuff gone, there is no more healing at all. This is the soft enrage of the fight. You can, however, stretch it out by only killing the pufferfish there when you absolutely need healing (which won't be too long), and you can continue to survive for a short while longer once they're done, as well, but once all your defensives are gone, it's only a matter of time before the boss's regular AoE takes its toll on everyone, let alone the tanks who are taking the brunt of the hits. If, somehow, you continue to survive for an extended time, something that could only really be done once you severely outgear the fight, the boss then also has a hard enrage, where he will proceed to one-shot everyone.


There's always a hard enrage to one-shot everyone, but whenever the fight is about dealing with the soft enrage, the hard enrage is very reasonable, and not a dps check at all, more rather just something to end the fight if it starts taking unreasonable amounts of time - to prevent things such as the Bahamut example you listed. Instead, soft enrages are more often about handling the mechanics appropriately, and managing the raid's overall damage mitigation and healing cooldowns effectively and efficiently, to try to survive as long as possible to eek out that last few %, with the hard enrage being held in reserve for if, say, that one paladin is spamming self healing and mitigation and just won't die even when everyone else has.

[Gruntler]

The system OP wants already exists.

If you are incapable of performing the task that the savage content asks of you, and are unable to master it (including the dps checks) then you get no loot. However, if you can perform at a lesser level; say, what normal raid mode asks of you, you can get that loot. If you can't, then perhaps you can get what loot is available at a lower level than that, say, dungeons.

And so on.

There's already tiered gating based on mastery of the material, and the pass-fail mercy kill of a failed DPS check is the game telling you directly that you need to adjust to it to attain that next tier of reward.

It's feedback; and the feedback is 'Get better, and you can get rewarded.'

[KageTokage]

Honestly, If you don't know how to play your job optimally you shouldn't even be in savage content.

I honestly wouldn't be against them requiring the respective target dummy to be destroyed in order to even enter the instance in question if they didn't lean towards being overtuned.

[Jandor]

This man/woman gets it.

DPS check is pretty boring, with it being a mitigable damage would be cooler.

DPS check is a requirement, without it you may as well not bring any DPS, especially to progression.

Just stack up on tanks and healers and slowly but surely brute force your way through the mechanics.

[Driavna]

Is SE do something like this kiss goodbye to DPS at PUGs parties, the great hunt extreme is proof of this. BTW, soft enrage are also DPS checks, if your raid DPS is low you are going to be overrun by whatever mechanic, the only difference is that you might survive enough for the last few competent players to finish the boss at the cost of increasing the burden for healers.

[Hysterior]

Yeah... at work when I have an important deadline and I miss it, I should still get a small bonus I think.
Lower than if I delivered on time but still... should get a bonus for trying... right?

[Awful]

We need more DPS checks even in dungeons, look at Innocence normal, I'm glad that people get punished for not DPSing the blue tethered mobs and die to it still, hell even full 450+ gear people still fail the Titania EX DPS checks on the 2nd adds, enrage is a reminder that your group still needs to DPS and do mechanics at the same time efficiently.