I miss the days when we didn't need foreknowledge to not die.

[Maeka]

Remember the days when insta-death attacks gave you some kind of cue that you could see and understand what was about to happen, based upon what you could see?

Remember the days when you could Q up for a Normal Trial/Raid and not need to watch a video to avoid having to die to every mechanic to learn the hard way what a boss does?

I miss those days.

It seems like we are getting more and more cheap with insta-death attacks, where there's only a split second telegraph and you were supposed to somehow know what was supposed to happen ahead of time.

That kind of thing is fine in Savage, but do we really need that in Normal? Maybe I don't want the spoil the fight before even going in because I'm required to watch a video to actually understand what the boss is doing, when there's so little visual cues given.

I got Eden Ramuh today and I wasn't even really looking to go there, I just wanted a Roulette and it happened to be in my quest log, and I Q'd up as tank (I usually do newer content as ranged or healer so I can learn the mechanics easier), and of course... more instant-death attacks that have very little if any cues as to what you're supposed to do.

He throws down two spears, one's slightly shorter and one of them has a lightning bolt on it (not that you would SEE that with all the other junk happening at the time). By the time you notice everybody running to the end of the arena, you'll never make it in time because it covers 90% of the arena and kills you outright in one shot, no-matter-what. Later on, he throws down FOUR spears and you're supposed to somehow, within about 1-1.5 seconds, find the one that's shorter than the others with all the other stuff all over the place, and just hope you get lucky and it was the corner closest to you at the time.

Whatever happened to bosses that gradually taught you how to fight them during the course of a battle, where they would show attacks one by one and then combine these attacks as you had time to learn what was going on?

Whatever happened to bosses that did hard-to-avoid attacks that gave you vuln (rather than instant death), and if you kept screwing up, you would die to the regular AoEs?

I hate having to watch video guides before even stepping into newer trials/raids because it's downright impossible to know what you're supposed to do without looking like an idiot when you die again and again and again to cheap attacks you couldn't have possibly seen coming, where if you get a group where 3+ people are new to the fight, it's going to be a minimum of 5 wipes to actually win.

Like I said, that kinda thing is fine for Savage, but I hate how this stuff is creeping more and more into our Normal content.

It's not that I can't handle the mechanics... after 4-5 wipes, I was able to go the whole fight only getting hit by one... but the wipe after wipe after wipe process is not fun, and it just feels cheap, like there's no way you could have possibly known this stuff ahead of time.

EDIT: Before anybody goes "the older stuff was too easy!!!!" Um. That's what Savage and Extreme is for, kthx.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

As someone who does things when they come out and cannot have foreknowledge about fights, I find it weird that you say you "need to watch a video" instead of just learning from a few deaths like everyone else did before?

Eden-Ramuh's mechanics, while brutal (Stratospears in the ground) are easily telegraphed for over five seconds, even in Savage (by telegraphed I do not mean the orange ground circles but rather the "safe spear"). To say you have to know within 1-1.5 seconds is a hyperbolic reaction and is simply not true. If you have trouble to find the right spear "with all the other junk happening at the time" I recommend reducing the visual effects of your party in your Character Configuration, because that is the only other thing going on besides potentially Stormclouds forming on two players.

While the fights get more and more lethal, the devs kind of expect players to gradually improve over time or learn from mistakes - which is commonly accepted in parties. I have yet to have an Eden-Ramuh (Normal) run where a player ragequits instead of learning from his mistake or, if he can't figure out the reason for his death, to just ASK the other players in the party about mechanics.

It isn't that older stuff was too easy, but players should expect content to gradually increase in difficulty within and / or between expansions as we level. The difficulty within Extremes and Savages increased as well, so if Normal mode were to stay the same difficulty as before (i.e. not scale accordingly) then the skill gap required would widen even further, making Extreme / Savage look like a distant goal when it actually really isn't.

I'll be humble in my opinion - I genuinely prefer the boss giving me instant-deaths when I don't have debuffs because then I can at least tell that I am NOT supposed to stand or do whatever I did there.

If your issue is that "dying makes you look like an idiot", that is a mentality issue, not that the players require you to know it since it IS normal mode after all.

[Mavrias]

Literally just be observant to your surroundings. The spear AoE is not 90% of the arena. Each tall spear covers maybe 50-60%, of the arena. Even in savage Ramuh gives you forever and a day to figure out what spear is the short one.

If you can't pick up the queue of everyone running to one side of the arena or lightning sparking on the taller spear, that's not the game's fault. It's your own and you should work at it. If you feel stupid for dying in new content, that's again, an issue with you, not the content.

You can either watch the guide or learn not to care, as its normal mode content. You think people who did it when it was first released never died?

[Kuroka]

But i gotta admit im gettin sick of oneshot stuff too, that and death walls/pits just suck...

[RokkuEkkusu]

Ever since Qarn (normal), Titan (Hard), and Tsukuyomi (normal) being mandatory for the Main Story beforehand, there shouldn't be surprises of seeing a few moves that are gonna instantly knock out a party member outside of extreme/savage/ultimate.

[Stepjam]

So is it a flaw that you might not clear a fight on the very first pull? 2-4 pulls for a first time run of a normal raid should be acceptable, especially if you aren't a serious raider

[Canadane]

There isn't a fight in this game that requires a video to be watched first. How on earth would people be clearing this before the videos went up?
Just dive in! Take chances! Make mistakes. Get messy!

[Rongway]

He throws down two spears, one's slightly shorter and one of them has a lightning bolt on it (not that you would SEE that with all the other junk happening at the time).

The short spear is significantly shorter than the other. Once you've seen what the spears look like, you don't have to look at both of them to tell which one is the short one. Look at one spear. Is it the short one? Yes: run to that side. No: run to the other side.

By the time you notice everybody running to the end of the arena, you'll never make it in time because it covers 90% of the arena and kills you outright in one shot, no-matter-what.

You have the space of about three GCDs to determine which side is safe. If you absolutely can't do this "with all the other junk happening at the time", then stop everything you're doing and just handle the spear mechanic.

Later on, he throws down FOUR spears and you're supposed to somehow, within about 1-1.5 seconds, find the one that's shorter than the others with all the other stuff all over the place, and just hope you get lucky and it was the corner closest to you at the time.

The two spear version should have prepared you for this. When you see he's casting "Stratospear", you should expect that you will suddenly have to run to the safe spot. But he telegraphs four landing points for spears this time. Since you have no idea which corner will be safe, maybe stand in the middle when the landing points appear so you're equidistant from all four corners? Then you'll have time to choose a corner and sprint there before the arena blows up, no matter which corner is the safe one.


None of this "requires" a video or foreknowledge. The first Stratospears mechanic that drops only two spears is a mechanic anyone should be able to figure out after just seeing it (or dying to it) once or twice. The two spear version teaches you everything you need to know to handle the four spear version.


This game doesn't just throw super instant death mechanics at you with no warning in non-Savage/non-Extreme content. Every mechanic is a reuse or adaptation of an old mechanic, and when a particular fight has unique mechanics, they start out by giving you a simpler version of the mechanic first before throwing the hard version at you.

[Rufalus]

The validity of that example aside, I agree with the sentiment. Almost all of the mechanics in the game are about standing in the correct spot but with various amounts of mess to make it hard to quickly discern where that spot is.

On fights that make it less obvious what you're supposed to be doing I call it being stabbed by the invisible man. Something happened and we died. Hopefully one of us glimpsed whatever thing we were supposed to be looking at so we can learn for the next attempt.

I think the best fights are ones that make it plain to everybody what you're supposed to be doing but still manage to be challenging on some level without needing to confuse people.

[Frizze]

This was a fun fight on day one. My group had like 3 wipes as we figured out all the mechanics and talked to each other, then probly 2 more wipes because people were stacking the stormclouds(one of us figured it out, but either due to not paying attention or not being used to how much was going on in the fight it kept happening). The final pull they merged the clouds again(it was the 3rd or 4th time he drops them, so we had a few clean ones first), but he was under 10% and we powered him down before it ended us. As long as you remembered the orb thing from patch 2.3 ramuh, the rest of the moves were visual enough to figure out as we went. Long and short spear? The long one will be hit by lightning, get to the far side. Charging guys in obvious lanes? Dont stand in front of them. Ongoing thunderstorm with telegraphs? Those are probly upcoming lightning strikes.