Is E2S overtuned?

[RokkuEkkusu]

I forgot to mention that I don't really have a benefit of a static, so I'll have to pug and wing it. So that means I'll have higher chances of dealing a damage down handicap or two on a party member.

[Samsta]

How is E3S hard lol it's an entirely team rope mechanic dance, and one pretty easy even. It basically only has 2 mechs, tsunami 2 and black smokers, and tsunami 2 requires very little thought with the current strat.

It's not hard, but neither is E2S. Teamrope mechanics are notoriously harder than just individual dodging like in E2S, since if one fails everyone usually dies. Tsunami 2 is the first mechanic where you actually have pause a little and figure out what to do, of course it's not hard now that everyone has done it a million times but first time doing it was something. By that same logic the only mechanic in E2S is the spell in waiting combos which are super easy and give you plenty of time to figure them out, everything else is just aeo dodging where E3S has team mechanics like stormy horizon, tsunamis and black smokers where 1 mistake can wipe the whole group. It's definitely more mechanic heavy and more punishing.

[LeonDalmasca]

^ This. I listed them as "How many mistake can the party can afford to cause teamwipes". E3S is by far one of the biggest snowball. Even failing punishing ray on E2S doesn't kill you. I have no idea what people find hard but the dps wall in E2S is non existent since its a full uptime fight. The "wall" comes from healers that doesn't heal and/or tank that doesn't optimize their dps.

[Valic]

The dps wall is usually from the cycles portion of the fight. I have found it very difficult for savage but only because you can nail every mechanic up until the cycles, where you pray for RNG the majority of them are cycles of retribution because it's much easier to dodge and set. Whereas cycles of chaos gets most people and most pugs will either wipe from it or have to many damage downs that the last % of damage they need to deal won't be reached in time. Top it off, if they don't mitigate correctly... They'll die from the damage down + quietus damage up buffed damage. That's why I like using the tank limit break level 1 for the last couple of Quietus, just to guarantee we keep up dps and a 1.9k potency DPS LB isnt worth it when the cast/animation is so lengthy anyways.

Personally as much hell as I went through with E2s, I like the fight. Its a good gateway to let people know they need to know their jobs to deal efficient dps, understand mechanic responsibility, and develop party composition to fit situations like which jobs should be on puddles and etc. Most pugs I'm in, reach 4%, 1%, or worse.... I've cleared it exactly at the enrage timer with half my party dead before even. Meanwhile my static I just got into, we all one shot it and got no debuffs from any of the cycles by the end. I think its fine as it is and will get better with more gear of course, since people slowly get phantasmagoria and there's that loot lock on raids too.

[LeonDalmasca]

I play the "Idgaf about the fight and whatever is going on". I main MCH, ranged dps ignoring mechanics specific positions is my forte. I just can move to stuff without worrying about cast times or melee uptime. Went on E4S only with a bunch of people that made me "join them" We reached 50% (My proper clear is still on E3S waiting for the static to be fair). And yes while E4S might be harder for some classes, I'm still talking about the magnitude of a mistake not the fight per se, all the big mechanics are completely fucked up if even a single person dies in E3S. We are indeed talking about pugging situation and having a whole party not messing up in the party-roulette PF is just a bit hard, with the people having higher level gear than the fight need the DPS check has been more lenient and fight like E1/2S where is a bit hard to wipe your team with your mechanics makes them easier, at least to me, than E3S. E4S being the special case as you can actually wipe someone but its still limited to 2 people, not different from E2S cleaver tbf.

[KageTokage]

You have ample time to move out of the way after Doomvoid Cleaver/clock positions if you move as soon as the boss raises her sword since the damage is already locked in at the point.

[EaMett]

E2S was just punishing for players that didn’t execute properly (past tense since now gear can make up for it)

And by execute properly I mean people who don’t know their rotations or openers, don’t understand how to keep uptime, can’t do mechanics properly, don’t know how to match their gear and materia, don’t use food, etc..

E1S, like most first floors isn’t meant to filter these players out, the dps check was lax and mechanics relatively easy. So of course 2S is going to be a gate boss for these players. Generally speaking I feel like 3S is usually the gate boss but this tier Levi was very easy.

Given enough time the weaker players will eventually get carried and now when you run your weeklies you’re still stuck with them. I rarely pug but when I do I end up with healers that do no dps, dps that barely pull 8k, etc. And that’s on duty complete(albeit towards the end of the week)

All that to say that it’s tuned properly and serves mostly to block people who need to practice and learn their class better out of the rest of the tier.

[Nihility]

it's not really overtuned, it's just people messing up and getting hit by the disembodied head mobs get a long duration damage down reduces their output almost as much as res sickness.
If it happens a lot, especially while learning you just won't have the damage to finish it.

on the other hand, if your group isn't getting hit by them at all you'll have plenty of time to kill it

[Samsta]

The combo: In, clock spots, clea... DIE!

That's the killer, people are so busy trying to dodge they cant get clear fast enough and splat. That's why I think adding just 1 more second would see dramatically improved clear rates. They don't even have to tell us they made the stealth change, just sneak it in on 5.1. I know they wont because they think i460 gear should do it... but I can dream.

Maybe 5.2 will have an easier 2nd fight so people can feel like there progressing and not give up hope and quit raiding. E2S killed my static, its killed my family's desire to raid, it's finished me off too. Sucks but... that's the real legacy of E2S.

I don't mean this in an insulting way but if E2S killed your static your static was really bad to begin with and would have struggled in probably every tier to come.

[Driavna]

I haven't cleared ES2 but I think the fight is properly tuned. Anyway, gearing to cover up for skill problems is already a thing in FFXIV.

With the upcoming 5.1 people will be available to update their phantasmagoria gear via 24 man raid and a new weapon is also coming via new extreme trial, so DPS increase is going to be noticeable.

Edit: No shame in needing extra gear to clear certain content.