Quote Originally Posted by Kurando View Post
content that is balanced for use without them.
It's not. Otherwise you would be queued through the Duty Finder. You can end up in a DR with no tanks or healers, thus essences are required to cover for those shortcomings. I've had this happen a couple of times. All of the bosses have above 90m Hp, leading to the instace lasting for 1:30 hour if no one uses essences or actions, longer by a long mile than any other content in the game. It was balanced with people using essences in mind to take an average of 25 minutes. Even before Pure Essences and advance actions became so easily available, at which point 15 minute run became not only possible, but very cost efficient.