"Balance team tests the fights themseslves"

[Avenger]

I am sure they do extensive testing and don't have any issues clearing the fights
however it really rubs me the wrong way that they pretend as if the dev/tester prog experience is the same as the player prog experience
you cannot and will never convince me that dsr was cleared during testing without the use of dev tools to checkpoint each phase and prog each independently

meanwhile actual players must always go back to phase 2 each wipe.
yes, you didn't need 3rd party tools to clear dsr, you had 1st party tools that are a million times more cheaty and powerful than any 3rd party tool

In one of the producer letters they explained how during testing they use an HP refill mode (refill rather than KO) to avoid having to wipe and restart. This intentionally enables the testing teams to go in blind but learn the fight much faster than regular players would. After they know the fight, the now-expert team confirms that it can be cleared with all the comps in regular player mode at min ilvl and without HP refill. I imagine Yoshi-p (busy as he is) would also use HP refill mode to learn the fights, and would probably clear them with experienced teams (though maybe still at min ilvl for a bit of fun.)

Obviously if they gave this sort of wipe invulnerability to players during progression it would make learning the fights much faster and easier. Players would also probably complain that the fights were too quick and easy to clear.

I think Yoshi-p also explained that the dev/testing teams are good players but not "world class" players, and they're always impressed at how well players optimize the fights (I imagine, without any evidence of course, that they're also grudgingly impressed with players finding and exploiting bugs and unintended behavior, even if it results in major headaches.)