Increase FRU's difficulty, regardless of how many groups already cleared.

[SPThe_Sparrow]

Mechanically FRU is in a fine spot and is challenging enough, the problem comes from both DPS balance and mitigative balance. Grabbing a picto for your static feels like you can cheat entering phases w a dd or weakness when you otherwise should be wiping there. Even groups without picto wont be as challenged from an enrage prespective as groups doing early TOP or DSR were.

In terms of mitigation, this fight feels like it does as much damage as TEA but everyone has like 10 more mitigative actions to press through 20 levels worth of inflating the healing and defensive skills. I dont think the solution to this issue is to have raid wides spread out every 5 seconds of the encounter but I do think the fight should kill you more often when one or two people forget to press a mit (which never happens in this fight) And that the busters can definitely hit harder if you're meant to take every single one of the fight with a kitchen sink or invuln (which god please disable invulns in ult encounters)

My concern is that the dev team adopts this defeatist mentality when content releases that passes under people's expectations, where they just shrug and accept doing balance adjustments on the next patch which is when the content dies anyways due to new pots food and job buffs. If the devs really do watch the world first race atleast on the side then picto's brokenness and the lack of real raidwide damage should have been apparent enough and warrant an emergency hotfix mid race. Which would be appreciated over just accepting that the ult is gonna be less exciting.

[Supersnow845]

Mitigation as a paradigm is very messed up by SCH (almost to the same degree DPS is messed up by PCT)

Compared to any other class (even SGE) SCH is basically 2 jobs worth of Mitigative potential all by itself

Upping mitigation requirements even further further benefits SCH (who already has like 6* the clear rate of SGE) but as it stands right now you can break mitigation plans with a SCH alone. The class is kinda bonkers

[Kohashi]

Mechanically FRU is in a fine spot and is challenging enough, the problem comes from both DPS balance and mitigative balance. Grabbing a picto for your static feels like you can cheat entering phases w a dd or weakness when you otherwise should be wiping there. Even groups without picto wont be as challenged from an enrage prespective as groups doing early TOP or DSR were.

In terms of mitigation, this fight feels like it does as much damage as TEA but everyone has like 10 more mitigative actions to press through 20 levels worth of inflating the healing and defensive skills. I dont think the solution to this issue is to have raid wides spread out every 5 seconds of the encounter but I do think the fight should kill you more often when one or two people forget to press a mit (which never happens in this fight) And that the busters can definitely hit harder if you're meant to take every single one of the fight with a kitchen sink or invuln (which god please disable invulns in ult encounters)

My concern is that the dev team adopts this defeatist mentality when content releases that passes under people's expectations, where they just shrug and accept doing balance adjustments on the next patch which is when the content dies anyways due to new pots food and job buffs. If the devs really do watch the world first race atleast on the side then picto's brokenness and the lack of real raidwide damage should have been apparent enough and warrant an emergency hotfix mid race. Which would be appreciated over just accepting that the ult is gonna be less exciting.

I heard Happy comparing it with TEA and the reasons behind it and I agree. It's supposed to be on the easier side and more of an entry point for ultimates. I see no issue with that and not everything has to be a miserable experience the way TOP is. DSR will probably remain peak design for a while.

[Valence]

Didn't you read the requirements?

[Hyperia]

FRU’s balance got shredded due to PCT being totally and completely OP. Since they didn’t want to nerf PCT, which they still may need to, other jobs were boosted heavily.

All of that destroyed months of careful calibrating during FRU’s design phase. As such, it was cleared faster than expected because of the boosts. Had the boosts not been done, I expect it would have been closer to what you were expecting.

[Nasigno]

FRU’s balance got shredded due to PCT being totally and completely OP. Since they didn’t want to nerf PCT, which they still may need to, other jobs were boosted heavily.

All of that destroyed months of careful calibrating during FRU’s design phase. As such, it was cleared faster than expected because of the boosts. Had the boosts not been done, I expect it would have been closer to what you were expecting.

Un-ending Coils of Bahamut - 11 Days
Weapon's Refrain - 5 days
The Epic of Alexander - 3 Days
Dragonsong Reprise - 6 Days
The Omega Protocol - 8 Days
Futures Rewritten - 3 days

PCT Or not, its been a point every Ultimate outside Bahamut has been pretty much a clear week of. Not sure what you expect for it to somehow be so much harder than prior that it would not be cleared within a week?

[IOwn92FCHouses]

Fru introduced a new debuff that has made prog a lot faster overall. Instead of getting killed for screwing something up, like you would in any other ultimate, you now get a special damage down that stacks with the normal one. That alone, and by itself, makes FRU easier to prog than the others were when they were on content.

Your Picto hate boner doesn't change this fact.

[Themarvin]

They are all using Cactbot and ACT and similar stuff as well to do it.

[brinn12]

We still have BiS dungeon gear, better food/pots and relics in Dawntrail. Buffs for every non-PCT DPS. FRU will feel like a legacy Ultimate in DT.

[brinn12]

Un-ending Coils of Bahamut - 11 Days
Weapon's Refrain - 5 days
The Epic of Alexander - 3 Days
Dragonsong Reprise - 6 Days
The Omega Protocol - 8 Days
Futures Rewritten - 3 days

PCT Or not, its been a point every Ultimate outside Bahamut has been pretty much a clear week of. Not sure what you expect for it to somehow be so much harder than prior that it would not be cleared within a week?

So FRU + TEA prog time is still not enough to clear TOP. 6 days is 100% more than 3 days. 8 days is more than 100% above 3. These are nowhere close.