The difficulty curve in the game has... problems...

[Rilifane]

I'll third was Tobias and Packetdancer say. That's a lot of premature negativity for never having tackled the content and you are judging something and the people currently doing it without really having tried it.

I agree that this game has a really strange difficulty curve. Throughout the MSQ you have mostly extremely faceroll solo duties duties, then comes the odd spike that catches you off-guard and requires slightly more attention than "press any button to win" and back to facerolling. Same with the trials. Most are extremely easy but then you have the occasional trial that still trips up DF to this day like Titania or WoL.
Normal raids usually don't have any form of dps check, you can just keep throwing bodies at the boss until it eventually dies (that 14min e4n run I had being one such example). No mechanics that wipe the raid when messed up, barely any mechanics that one shot you when messing up.

While the confusion of "what's going on here?" may seem like insurmountable difficulty if it's your first tier it's in truth just a matter of getting used to a different overall encounter design. I also played WoW and it took a tier for me to really understand how endgame content here works; that's normal.
And you can get away with a lot of deaths in Savage. I had the messiest kills with deaths and mess ups on several mechanics. The only guaranteed wipe mechanic in p2s is if the dps or tank with the debuff stays in the group and yeets everyone else into the wall. No way to recover that. But deaths/ mess ups on numbers or arrows are recoverable more often than not. Gear helps a lot here with making the dps check or taking harder hits e.g. during Coherence from missing people.

And PF right now is filled with helpers. It's not all "only bad raiders are left" doom and gloom, many really good players are bored out of their minds because their static steamrolls these fights on Tuesdays so they hop into PF and teach people fights. And it's extremely effective. Most "practice from [one of the first mechanics]" groups turned out to be a kill party with only one or two other helpers.
Some mechanics are memes in PF like p3s add phase or p4s Pinax but that doesn't mean you'll be hitting a wall and be unable to clear until next expansion. You'll wipe to it a couple of times, someone may leave or get replaced and try again but it's rare to see a party not getting past the meme mechanic within the evening.
If you are interested in raiding there's nothing except your own mindset keeping you from doing it. Saying that you need a static, that you'll be helpless to progress if PF isn't at their best game, that you'll spend weeks on a boss for little to no reward is simply wrong and unneccessary doom and gloom. And definitely not fair to all the people out there constantly teaching and helping with clears or people that simply started later but are quite capable of learning.

[Issaella]

I mean, I don't think the only people doing savage are people who can't clear. I personally know a fair few high end players who enjoy just teaching fights to players who haven't cleared them before.

I'd suggest putting up a 1-0 chest learning party on PF and see how many bored raiders you get bites from.

I see the same ones up night after night in the PF that never even come close to filling. The only ones that ever fill are the Duty Complete/Reclear groups. I mean, that's anecdotal, but I've been keeping an eye on the PF for a couple weeks now and I don't think I've ever seen anything advertised like that and the prog groups that do get advertised rarely fill in less than an hour before just imploding and the listing disappearing.

Some mechanics are memes in PF like p3s add phase or p4s Pinax but that doesn't mean you'll be hitting a wall and be unable to clear until next expansion. You'll wipe to it a couple of times, someone may leave or get replaced and try again but it's rare to see a party not getting past the meme mechanic within the evening.
If you are interested in raiding there's nothing except your own mindset keeping you from doing it. Saying that you need a static, that you'll be helpless to progress if PF isn't at their best game, that you'll spend weeks on a boss for little to no reward is simply wrong and unnecessary doom and gloom. And definitely not fair to all the people out there constantly teaching and helping with clears or people that simply started later but are quite capable of learning.

A couple things on this. One mechanic cleared per night, that's all you can expect? That just seems absurd to me, there are 8-10 mechanics in every one of these raid bosses. So that's literally tens of hours for 1 clear, best case scenario. So it just seems like progging it in PF will just repeat in the same failures over and over from night to night due to the lack of uniformity between groups with people who can't complete previous mechanics.

And again, anecdotally I have never really seen anything like what you guys are claiming being advertised in the PF. All I ever see is on one end of the spectrum Duty Complete/Reclear parties and on the other are half-full practice/prog parties that either never fill, or just keep getting relisted after half an hour minus 2-3 people from the previous run.

I don't have a uniform set of time I can set aside on a weekly basis to even attempt to join a static and it just seems like trying to prog any of the current Savages when I do have a couple hours to spare will just be an exercise in frustration. The chance of completion seems entirely based on getting lucky with a unicorn comp or a prog that manages to get everything right. How much time burned trying to find a group capable of progressing at all from one night to the next seems like it is an inordinate time sink.

[LianaThorne]

I see the same ones up night after night in the PF that never even come close to filling. The only ones that ever fill are the Duty Complete/Reclear groups. I mean, that's anecdotal, but I've been keeping an eye on the PF for a couple weeks now and I don't think I've ever seen anything advertised like that and the prog groups that do get advertised rarely fill in less than an hour before just imploding and the listing disappearing.



A couple things on this. One mechanic cleared per night, that's all you can expect? That just seems absurd to me, there are 8-10 mechanics in every one of these raid bosses. So that's literally tens of hours for 1 clear, best case scenario. So it just seems like progging it in PF will just repeat in the same failures over and over from night to night due to the lack of uniformity between groups with people who can't complete previous mechanics.

And again, anecdotally I have never really seen anything like what you guys are claiming being advertised in the PF. All I ever see is on one end of the spectrum Duty Complete/Reclear parties and on the other are half-full practice/prog parties that either never fill, or just keep getting relisted after half an hour minus 2-3 people from the previous run.

I don't have a uniform set of time I can set aside on a weekly basis to even attempt to join a static and it just seems like trying to prog any of the current Savages when I do have a couple hours to spare will just be an exercise in frustration. The chance of completion seems entirely based on getting lucky with a unicorn comp or a prog that manages to get everything right. How much time burned trying to find a group capable of progressing at all from one night to the next seems like it is an inordinate time sink.

You can prog through PF. Yeah it'll come with headaches, but it's not impossible. My old FC lead progged the entire tier that way, just have to be patient with people if you actually want your clears or host your own parties if you can't find something that fits where you're at prog wise. If it's worth it to you, stick it out.

[IdowhatIwant]

I see the same ones up night after night in the PF that never even come close to filling. The only ones that ever fill are the Duty Complete/Reclear groups. I mean, that's anecdotal, but I've been keeping an eye on the PF for a couple weeks now and I don't think I've ever seen anything advertised like that and the prog groups that do get advertised rarely fill in less than an hour before just imploding and the listing disappearing.

When I was playing I would sometimes go and try to help people with P1S and P2S. I probably won't do it anymore cause a lot of the players I was going out of my way to help were very rude, and would get an attitude with me when I would try to explain mechanics to them.

A couple things on this. One mechanic cleared per night, that's all you can expect? That just seems absurd to me, there are 8-10 mechanics in every one of these raid bosses. So that's literally tens of hours for 1 clear, best case scenario. So it just seems like progging it in PF will just repeat in the same failures over and over from night to night due to the lack of uniformity between groups with people who can't complete previous mechanics.

And again, anecdotally I have never really seen anything like what you guys are claiming being advertised in the PF. All I ever see is on one end of the spectrum Duty Complete/Reclear parties and on the other are half-full practice/prog parties that either never fill, or just keep getting relisted after half an hour minus 2-3 people from the previous run.

I don't have a uniform set of time I can set aside on a weekly basis to even attempt to join a static and it just seems like trying to prog any of the current Savages when I do have a couple hours to spare will just be an exercise in frustration. The chance of completion seems entirely based on getting lucky with a unicorn comp or a prog that manages to get everything right. How much time burned trying to find a group capable of progressing at all from one night to the next seems like it is an inordinate time sink.

Best if you are your party leader, you create the party and set x standard whether is be prog for a certain mechanic or a clear group or what ever. If some one it holding you back simply replace them.
Personally I usually do all my progs blind with a friend so we will set up a PF and go at it blind for a night. Next day we will go ahead and maybe look up a guide (usually we already know the mechanics and don't need to) and we start working on a clear. It can take longer than having a static group, but that is why you are the party leader and replace people as needed.

[Rilifane]

A couple things on this. One mechanic cleared per night, that's all you can expect? That just seems absurd to me, there are 8-10 mechanics in every one of these raid bosses. So that's literally tens of hours for 1 clear, best case scenario. So it just seems like progging it in PF will just repeat in the same failures over and over from night to night due to the lack of uniformity between groups with people who can't complete previous mechanics.

And again, anecdotally I have never really seen anything like what you guys are claiming being advertised in the PF. All I ever see is on one end of the spectrum Duty Complete/Reclear parties and on the other are half-full practice/prog parties that either never fill, or just keep getting relisted after half an hour minus 2-3 people from the previous run.

I don't have a uniform set of time I can set aside on a weekly basis to even attempt to join a static and it just seems like trying to prog any of the current Savages when I do have a couple hours to spare will just be an exercise in frustration. The chance of completion seems entirely based on getting lucky with a unicorn comp or a prog that manages to get everything right. How much time burned trying to find a group capable of progressing at all from one night to the next seems like it is an inordinate time sink.

First off: I never said anywhere that you'll only be able to one mechanic per evening.
Right now you're so caught up in your belief that Savage is an insurmountable task and that it's hopeless trying to clear it in PF that you're interpreting everything that way.
What I said is that there are some meme mechanics in PF because they tend to hold up groups a bit longer and that I rarely see a PF NOT getting past it within the evening. I never said that it's the ONLY mechanic you'll see within the evening once past it nor have I said that every PF is like that.

You're still making a lot of assumptions about something you haven't actively tried.
Anecdotally I spent 4 tiers (all 3 ShB tiers and the current EW tier) PFing quite a bit and not just reading PF descriptions or checking names and every "helpers welcome" party usually had 2-3 helpers minimum. Sometimes it was only one person still needing the clear and the rest were helpers. The parties don't have "We're a bunch of pros that will help you learn this fight and teach you everything" in their description, they are regular "practice" parties with a "helpers welcome" in the description in addition to things like "bring macro" or "we have markers" or "R1 flex". Perhaps that is the reason why you missed it.
Sometimes people leave and that is normal. PF is a hop on/ hop off thing precisely for people like you that can't set aside a fixed amount of time every week on the same days; some people only have an hour, some people want to progress faster, others notice that they aren't as sure with mechanics as they thought and leave.
You are also free to make your own party, set whichever mechanical requirement you want (e.g. "numbers onwards") and therefor setting the prog speed, welcome helpers and replace people you feel are holding you back. If you're only looking at parties from others you'll have to take what you get and may need to deal with someone that keeps failing something not getting replaced.

As it is endgame content, it's not unreasonable to spent 10 hours and more on a boss, depending on thr turn. P1s and p2s can be cleared within one evening respectively if you have a couple of helpers that know what they're doing; seen that countless times during all tiers I PF'ed. You'll spend longer on p3s because add phase and FoF tends to hold up PF a bit longer. And obviously even longer on p4s as that's the final boss of the tier.
If that is too long for you then yes, I suppose the time spent/ reward is not to your liking - doesn't make it bad, just your preference of generally wanting to get things a little faster than that. But considering it is the 2nd highest difficulty of any content in the entire game, it's reasonable.

I have to ask: are you really concerned about the difficulty increase from Ex to Savage or are you concerned that PF will hold you back because you deem it too unreliable for you to make progress?