The state of AAC Light-Heavyweight Savage is unacceptable

[SacraAnima]

AAC Light-Heavyweight is objectively under-tuned, with the fastest completion time of any previous raid tier. Each fight can be easily cleared with multiple deaths and numerous damage-downs without even seeing enrage.

In my opinion, it's unacceptable to release a savage tier with this degree of negligent tuning. For veteran game devs releasing their sixth raid series (their 24th raid tier), there isn't a believable reason that I would be willing to get behind for this kind of outcome.

The only communication we've had from the devs about it has been an anecdotal recount of what Arthars, a content creator, may have heard from YoshiP at the Chinese Fan-Fest. Which was essentially: "We know we messed up the dps, it won't happen again."

Without any other insight into what happened, I can only assume that their decision to buff numerous jobs across the board was made without a reassessment of boss hp percentages and dps checks.

On top of the horrid tuning, the mechanics themselves are fairly uninspired. While it's an overall fun experience, the over abundance of "stack/spread, in/out, clockspots" is really tiresome and egregious this time around. M4S was the only fight that actually felt like a savage encounter, and even then, she can go down well before the enrage with sloppy play.

This savage tier caught me off guard. The DT dungeons, trials, and normal raids all felt fresh and innovative. So to be met with each floor of the entire raid tier sharing the same mechs from Shadowbringers was underwhelming. DT's content felt like it took a step forward, AAC Savage felt like it took two steps back.

I really love savage raiding, it's some of the most fun I have in the game. So to have 1/3rd of the savage content of this expansion be essentially an extreme trial series that will be utterly destroyed by gear is pretty disappointing.

Overall, I'm bummed and feel a bit robbed. I would greatly appreciate a more robust and illuminating explanation of how this came to happen and what they plan on doing to ensure that it never does again.

[grinkdaboy]

better than anabaseios and the 5000 bodychecks making you shackled to your worst/least consistent party members

[awhitet]

I think the fights are fun and hard enough to be the first tier of an expansion, it is true that they're undertuned tho, you cannot be skipping mechanics literally on day 1 with crafted gear. We've complained a lot about body checks and now this tier barely have them and see what happens, they're extremely easy to prog and get to the end of fight(aside from m4s) so maybe body checks was a good choice after all in savage.

I think they're going to be like P1-P4, mid fights that were alright and once the gear kicked in they became kinda meh

I'm looking forward 6.2 as they've mentioned is the time they'll try to be more original and focus in encounter design.

[Aword3213]

They knew this tier was undertuned before the patch. They chose not to do anything about it.

[Raven2014]

Undertune or not, I like the new design. Because it feels like it's designed for the shake of the entire player base rather for the shake of the WF races.

- WF raiders have very good communication and reflex skill. aka execution is the strength.
- So the only way you can force extra time for WF raiders is presenting them with a puzzle complex enough to stumble them.
- On the other hand, the average PF player's challenge lie in execution. A guide can show the solution, but won't just improve their reflex.

The problem with a puzzle approach is it's a one time/one trick pony. It may make the WF scene seems to be more competitive, but once the puzzle is figured out and filtered down in the form of guides ... most people beside the blind prog group doesn't stand to benefit from this kind of challenge. But on the other hand, take a look at M2S design:

- Mechanic seems easy, and you probably can figure it out after a few pull or watching a few voids.
- But to complete the fight, it does require a certain degree of perfection in execution, at least right now until the gears catch up.
- I like the fact most failure won't just wipe the entire party, we'll just be progressively punished.

The last point is actually huge and probably contributed greatly to why people clearing the tier faster: because we're allowed to learn better. In previous raid, almost every other mech will just instant wipe the party forcing a reset. Even after the group reached a new prog point, there is still a good chance you'll spend the rest of the night wiping to old mechanic instead of learning the new one. But here, we're allowed to pick ourselves up and continue.

I'm at M3S enrage so haven't seen M4S. But challenge or not for me isn't that much of an issue, because this is the most fun tier I've ever had in a while.

[Rolder50]

My headcanon is that they didn’t account for the fact that they buffed most of the jobs in the same patch. So it’s balanced for the old numbers which makes it now undertuned.

I don’t think it’s fixable either. If they buff damage requirements, it’d be crazy unfair to those who weren’t able to raid the first week.

[Stanelis]

Get ready next tier to get something along the line of the first floors of Alexander savage XD

[Shuuli]

May I ask if you run it with a static with 710 penta melded gear or did you go in with tome + normal raid gear that has 1 materia slot for accessories and did you go in with 700 and 705 ilevel (for the first two fights)? Because if not then respectfully your opinion is invalid.

[Valence]

I care a lot more about the fun and creativity of the savages I'm raiding in than their difficulty.

[Reimmi]

May I ask if you run it with a static with 710 penta melded gear or did you go in with tome + normal raid gear that has 1 materia slot for accessories and did you go in with 700 and 705 ilevel (for the first two fights)? Because if not then respectfully your opinion is invalid.

???
it's literally the easiest it's ever been to get pentamelded gear these days lol