Anyone else concerned by the extremely low skill ceiling?

[Penthea]

That's because the DPS checks have become a joke nowadays, and you can clear most fights on the first week even with multiple deaths. This wasn't the case in Gordias

I don't know why you are using Gordias as an example of "better" raiding. It was a mistake. SE even admitted this. The release of content as difficult as that was severely mistimed with Gordias. Coils was no walk in the park but it didn't prepare you for Gordias. None of the HW pre-Alex content prepared you for Gordias. It was so highly tuned that killing one of the bosses was literally impossible without farming for gear first.

It's not good design to be unable to beat a boss with entry level gear even if you're among the best players in the entire game. It really cheapens the idea of a challenge when the wall isn't skill based, but is instead ilvl based. If you lack skill you can keep trying until you improve. If you lack gear then you need to stop, go elsewhere, and come back later. Take a guess as to which one competitive raiders tend to prefer.

But SE didn't completely abandon difficulty and requirements as high as Gordias. We see it with Ultimate now. However unlike Gordias Ultimate is gated behind content that legitimately trains you to be good enough for it. It's in a place in the progression ladder that actually makes sense.

I understand wanting content to be more challenging, and I'm not against this idea, but if you want to be taken seriously by both other players and SE, stop using Gordias as a reference point for good content. It is widely regarded as poorly balanced by both players and the devs.

Midas is a better representation of the post-coil, pre-creator era, and even then it was only a little over two weeks.

Pretty much.

Honestly though, the clear times would be much different if those fights were released today. On top of many, many QoL changes that helped speed up progression (Cooldowns resetting every wipe that was implemented in Creator so you no longer had to do nothing but wait for literal minutes at a time.) better standardized markers (most mechanics that do certain functions (stack, spread, etc.) tend to have standardized markers now, whereas back in the old days it was a relative free-for-all and groups would have to spend more time arbitrarily discerning what certain markers did.) On top of all of that, just plain experience. When Gordias came out, there was only ARR's raid fights worth of experience to build up against. Now, most of the top raiders have been in the game across multiple expansions, having experienced the full spectrum of raid tiers since then.

Cds resetting is a serious game-changer on its own. No more standing around waiting for them to reset for several minutes, even after an ill-fated pull that ended early. Less guesswork due to standardised markers saves a tonne of time as well. These may seem like small things to some players, but they're actually significant changes that eliminate a lot of wasted time.