The health problem of hiding numbers while catering to high-end raiders

[kaynide]

That's how it should work, but the player culture spoils it to a sufficient degree to make things annoying.

If you hold out for better gear before you plunge into Savage (or even EX's, especially the odd patch ones that are tuned at the same ilvl as 3rd-4th Savage fights) you make your task a priori easier, but that tends to be counterbalanced by the fact that you've now missed "the community wave" - especially if you must PF, as many are inclined or forced to by their work schedule.

Now you have the problem that the people who have a decent grip on mechanics are almost always hiding behind Duty Complete, with the result that you're forced to learn and get your first clear with a remaining player pool that increasingly has two left feet (and it often only takes one or two such players per party to make the whole thing a waste of time).

The upshot is that you get this situation where Yoshi intended you to be able to gear up first, but where the playerbase basically forces you to either rush it right away or wait for next tier or even for unsync (which can easily make one feel like a wimp who missed out, if one feels one could've cleared it during tier)

Good insight- thank you. I basically don't touch any of it until I can basically solo/faceroll it with my circle of friends, but I get that there is some personal pride in it for people who wanna show off the newest gear/beat the newest challenge. That said, I'm certainly not saying "your/their fun certainly is wrong", and appreciate that there are different things for different interests.