Endwalker: An opportunity to rebalance old fights?

[Austere]

With all of the new players coming into the game, I've been playing more content from older expansions consistently.

I feel like there are some fights that, due to their age or scaling, are complete push overs and I would imagine would negatively impact the experience of first time players when they don't get much of a fight.

The main area of concern here are major story trials. Think of Thordan who doesn't really pose a threat whatsoever after having being built up into the story up until then. Even doing this synced on min ilvl poses not much of a threat.

Considering the stat squish coming in Endwalker it seems like it would be the best time to rebalance the existing content to be more challenging so that A. players get to experience every phase of a fight and actually get the full experience and B. feel like they've triumphed over some measure of challenge to add to the story experience.

If you agree, what other fights would you like to see rebalanced and in what capacity? Mind your spoilers. For example, I feel like Thordan could have a bit more HP in the initial phase and some of the dps checks be a little more difficult in the adds phase.

[Vyrerus]

I'm honestly not sure what to say until I see what the stat squish does to the content.

I would definitely like to see some of the old 24 mans put up more of a fight as they did closer to release. Labyrinth of the Ancients used to feel somewhat challenging, particularly Bone Dragon and Kaiser Behemoth. Needing someone to man the four towers and actually kill bomb adds is very much missed. Also, having to have another tank for the iron giant as well.

Nowadays you don't even actually need the three tanks that we have in each of the 24 mans, and originally they just set it to default full party. It'd be nice to see stuff like the Atomos segment require two tanks(it never did) and the adds on Thanatos mean something again. Of course, that gets more into fight design rather than just raw damage check/health check sorta thing, so I guess I'm getting off topic.

If the stat squish doesn't make it really hard, then I kinda feel like both Sohm Al and The Vault are a lot easier than they were when they were current. You do still see most of what all of the bosses do, but that's only because their fight loops are so short. Though the final boss in Sohm Al usually dies before the last set of comets go out, which is like the one actual must be obeyed mech in the fight.

Beyond the early level 60 things not much really needs too much of a tune up. Stuff in Stormblood is generally still close enough to its "when it was current" experience that I expect the stat squish to fix it. With the content ease we got in SHB, I don't really expect them to make things harder again. In some ways they'd have to revert how certain jobs work now in order for that to happen.

[Jeeqbit]

Which Thordan? Extreme or normal?

Normals are not meant to be hard anyway, but I agree that they should balance Extreme and Savage when on Minimum IL No Echo.

Especially ARR, because this is not balanced the way it used to be. Titan Unreal was harder than Titan Extreme because Titan Extreme didn't last as long with all the changes, like potency buffs, replacing Accuracy with Direct Hit, replacing Parry with Tenacity which increases damage and things like that.

You can out-balance old content with level 80 food that gives you a lot more vitality and substats and damage potions that last for 30 seconds instead of 15.

[LisSquid]

Make Thunder God the group breaker again!!

[ForteNightshade]

If the stat squish doesn't make it really hard, then I kinda feel like both Sohm Al and The Vault are a lot easier than they were when they were current.

They straight up nerfed all the HW leveling dungeons going into Stormblood since it was supposedly a bit of a stopping gap for newer players. At least that seemed to be their logic with The Vault.

Normals are not meant to be hard anyway, but I agree that they should balance Extreme and Savage when on Minimum IL No Echo.

There's a difference between not being hard and being drooling on your keyboard levels of easy. When I finally completed Heavenswards about a year after it launched, I was actually letdown even as a new player by how absurdly easy Thordan Normal was. It doesn't exactly make you feel hyped when standing in literally every AoE does negligible damage and he's little more than a target dummy with pretty visuals.

[Nyarlha]

To be fair Thordan was even faceroll week 1 of HW release.

The real shame is Shinryu. I saw a streamer do it last week, the thing rolled over and died. Shinryu during the first few weeks of SB was something else.

[Fland]

I remember doing Thordan during expansion release, back then people are more happy with the music and the visual and doesn't really pay attention much to the difficulty.

[Infindox]

Make Thunder God the group breaker again!!

They will never do that because the Ivalice raids are needed for the ShB relic weapons, and from experience when he wasn't nerfed, some people can't handle it.

To be fair Thordan was even faceroll week 1 of HW release.

The real shame is Shinryu. I saw a streamer do it last week, the thing rolled over and died. Shinryu during the first few weeks of SB was something else.

Shinryu on release was an experience lol. I remember passing it my second try after a few wipes but a fc friend had to get a PF becuase DF was not very kind to them.

[Jeeqbit]

There's a difference between not being hard and being drooling on your keyboard levels of easy. When I finally completed Heavenswards about a year after it launched, I was actually letdown even as a new player by how absurdly easy Thordan Normal was. It doesn't exactly make you feel hyped when standing in literally every AoE does negligible damage and he's little more than a target dummy with pretty visuals.

I do agree with that. All normal trials and raids from the previous expansions should be considered for scaling to minimum item level, because it's usually not hard with that, it's just fun. Anything more than minimum item level and raids like A6, A8 and A11 are nothing like they used to be. Everything gets skipped.

[Vyrerus]

Shinryu on release was a treat. Did they ever directly nerf it? I remember the nerfs to Steps of Faith from 2.55. They usually nerf stuff when enough people complain, and I remember the Shinryu complaints being present enough that they were everywhere for a little while.