I Can’t Believe I Haven't Done This Before... | FFXIV's Savage Is GENIUS. 

And by the way, for anyone here curious about trying savage, P1S is legitimately THE BEST place to get your feet wet.

I think you missed one core design philosophy - The fight will introduce you to a single mechanic one at a time. The further you move on into the fight they start asking you to do it multiple mechanics at once or a more intricate variant of them. Of course the hardest part of the raid tier is the one or two fights that do not follow that.

One of my favorite things mid prog is the tiny tailoring you're doing to your own play mid pull. "Ah I'll use this ogcd here instead as healer" or "I'll gap close this here instead of this later thing", everyone is playing their own minigame within a dance. Fun stuff.

“No one seems to mind what job you bring” The only MMO I’ve ever played was FFXIV and I have to say I was confused when people came from other games and found this weird. This is how game design/balancing is supposed to be, it’s sad to see it as an advantage of XIV over other games, when all games should have been like this in the first place.

They always makes savage like this, the first and second tier is made so everyone can make it. 1- Boss: Just to check if your brain works, and if you can follow your rotation while standing still. The fight tempo is REALLY slow and you have 4+ seconds to resolve mechanics. DPS check is non existent unless you have too much deaths. 2- Boss : Fight is not individualized, you start having more heavy AoE that need mitigation. Making wrong turns starts killing your whole party, not only you. Fighting tempo is slow as P1, but time to resolve some mechanics are reduced. 3-Boss: Is when the fighting tempo starts not being so slow and sluggish. You have tighter everything, DPS checks, healing checks, but mechanics are boss focused. 4-Boss: Is when the fun starts, because the fighting tempo finally gets fast enough so you have do "dance" while doing it. Tighter everything, but mechanics are not only boss focused but boss starts using the arena to do mechanics.

"Macros ... the community attached itself to the most effective strategy" laughs in NA

1:01 Gear might be "less important" compared to other loot-oriented games like WoW. But the reason for that is that any content released in FFXIV is meant to be technically clearable week 1. This means Savage has to be tuned for penta-melded crafted gear (which is the best gear you can acquire in week 1). Though clearing the tier week 1 is no joke tbh, and that's not meant to be a goal for the average player, but that's beside the point. That being said, there is a significant difference in output between someone who's BiS and someone who's still gearing up (even if they're max iLvl but with tomestone gear instead of a proper BiS set). That difference adds up when we're talking about 8 players. And Ultimate, at release, is tuned around players having the Savage tier's BiS (the best gear they could have at release). So, in short, if you're a player who just casually does Savage at their own pace, are in no rush, and care little for competitiveness, then gear is "not important" for you (besides glamour - the _true_ endgame). But if you're a competitive player who enjoys optimization and speed running, then gear is _absolutely_ important, and getting major pieces upgraded (e.g. weapon and chest) can be quite exciting when you see the significant increase in performance. This is the same as any other vertical progression MMO. The only difference is that better gear is never truly "mandatory" in FFXIV, except when you're doing Ultimate where BiS is needed.

The difficulty progression of Normal → EX → Savage 1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → Ultimate is incredibly smooth IMO. I can totally understand the anxiety that people feel when starting harder content, especially for the very first time! But the graduating difficulty is lovely. It's like, by the time you're totally comfortable with one step, you're ready to try the next, if you so choose. Climbing higher and higher at your own pace is hard sometimes, and especially in PF, but it's doable and (at least to me) it feels rewarding. The first time I downed a savage tier and finished farming it, it was in PF, and I felt so proud and accomplished when I was done. The magic never fully goes away IMO either. I've only downed one Ultimate and don't have much time to try more Ultimate groups, so every Savage tier is a treat for me to finish. Such a relief. And lowkey, it feels even MORE rewarding to help friends through it, just to see how happy and accomplished they feel!

My favourite savage fight I’ve done, e12s p2, has some of the best mechanics for the “everyone has a specific role that comes together” fight design that feels so satisfying to pull off correctly. You have to set up rewind points you will get teleported to in reverse order based on what debuffs you get. Once the last spot is set everyone freezes and you see everyone zipping all around the arena as various spells are going off, and it feels so elegant when it all lines up it feels amazing.

One thing I love about PF even though PFing content makes me anxious is that people are usually willing to teach. There are some absolute god-tier raiders in this game who just hang out in PF hopping around practice parties because they understand that playing in less-skilled groups not only improves the raid scene but also improves them personally as a raider. Very different attitude all around than you see in a lot of games.

I want a follow-up on this video once Matt completes the whole raid tier!

So glad to hear that you had so much fund and such a good experience in your first savage :D I hope you're gonna continue to have fun with them. Thank you so much for sharing this!

Eventually you kinda get into the groove for a lot of fights even if there are some mechanics variations in between pulls. My favorite part of prog is getting to a point where I can just vibe as mechanics are happening around me.

Its also in savage when you learn to tweek your rotations: Maybe not use that dmg buff there, maybe use your knockback invul there but not there, when he does that thats the moment my buff runs out (if I dont mess up) ... It comes with time, practice, and some more time. And even if you know every move... you'll mess up regardless XD Also, should you ever find yourself in a static helping out... expect them to handel things waaaaay diffrent than anything PF considers "normal": I know thay my static has been a culture shock for many unsuspecting temporary acquantances XD

Glad you're enjoying Savage so far. Please also make videos on your P2-4 experiences when you get through them if you can. P3S especially since it's a massive difficulty spike, I'd be really interested to see what you think of that.

It makes me pretty happy when FF14 players go out of their comfort zone to try high end content and end up liking it

The first week of Savage, 3 of us decided to pug wing one, since several of the regulars weren't free. We spent 9 hours in one group, with 3 people who had never done a savage kill before. It was a fun time teaching them how to handle the fight and the common courtesies of prog groups (have materia in your gear, eat food, use potions if you're hitting enrage, etc...) Our black mage pulled the absolute banger parse of bottom 1%, but that just goes to show that ANYONE can clear this stuff if they have patience and do their best lol

Yeah I’ve PF’d through P1S, P2S, P3S, and working through P4S. P3S difficulty changes a lot (math is hard). And then you have the P4S party finder groups that are supposed to be phase 2 prog, but turn out that everyone dies to Phase 1 mechanics and can’t get to the checkpoint. It gets frustrating, but still very possible and fun!

great to see you trying out savage content and providing your commentary on it, i only started savage for the first time this tier and was very nervous going in. However, once in it's a blast

Thanks a ton for the video! My static so far has gotten up to the fourfold shackles part and can't clear yet. I really want to clear it but due to my schedule I can't always be with them on static nights. I've been debating party finder and have been super scared to try it, but I think I'll give it a go from what you've said

Congratulations Matt. I've also started to do harder raid content lately and I must say it's really fun. I didn't think I'd enjoy the raiding at first, but when you learn the fight and nail it properly you feel really good about it. And very soon I'm also going to attempt UCOB, and if you and/or Michael ever goes in to Ultimates I'd love to see your takes on it too.

That's what I love with FF Savage / Extremes. Hit the nail on the head regarding the whole "tricky mechanics happen during buff alignment / burst windows". I originally thought it just lined up (early days of ARR into HW) but have to believe now they intentionally and absolutely make your mental focus split for mechanics and personal rotation. I also get that explaining to new raiders where yes there might be less "dynamic" aspects compared to random AoEs or other debuffs ala WoW, but there are also, I think, a lot more micro adjustments you work out during your own rotation, buffs, and raid utility. At least for Bard I feel that way, other jobs vary. I agree on the strategize pre or post pull though; while you can adjust on the fly, I've certainly found myself far more focused on a Savage fight in FF than Normal or Heroic in WoW but again, two different fight styles and design philosophies presented here. All that aside, loved raiding in FF so far and plan to continue for a long time!

BTW, macro's aren't a very common thing in NA. I've pretty much nearly never seen them. Instead, we put down waymarkers and stand around it to claim a clock position. If anything else needs to be mentioned, then the specific parties will talk it out. For example, the tanks may discuss which of the Pitiless Flails of Grace/Purgation to invuln, when to tankswap or take back aggro, ect.

10:37 "the community naturally attaches itself to the most effective strategy" If only that were the case. Sometimes it is, but that's mostly coincidence. Realistically, what the community attaches itself to is generally the first passable strategy that shows up. There have been plenty of cases where the strats that pf adopts in the first couple weeks are far worse than strats that are figured out further into the tier, and when that happens it takes a herculean effort to get pf to change their ways. The strats will work, don't get me wrong. And there's pros and cons to this behavior. When "everyone" in pf uses the same strat then it helps ensure that everyone is familiar with the strat being used ahead of time, and not needing to worry about needing to learn (or teach) the strat because someone has never done it that way before. On the other hand, sometimes the difference in easy or simplicity between a pf strat and a strat realized later can be night and day.

P1S is a great party finder fight. 100%. My wife and I did it in PF while looking for a static... and it was a great time.

This tier as a whole was so well made.... P1S is a nice introduction, P2S requires a bit more attention because of some difficulty spikes during the fight (looking at you, Flow 3), P3S ramps up the overrall difficulty by a lot and requires really good prep, and P4S is this beautifully made longer fight. I can't wait for the next tier.

P1S is only marginally more challenging than extremes. P2S is only marginally more challenging than P1S. P3S and P4S are bigger steps up. That being said, it is a choreography so when you do get all of it, everything feels pretty smooth. I could do P4S as a DPS with my eyes more or less closed now. Gear also helps a lot - for example P2S on launch was a nightmare for a lot of PF groups because even the people who memorized the choreography weren’t performing well enough DPS-wise to beat enrage. Currently, given how overgeared people are with tome gear + upgrades, upgraded crafted gear and aglia the only challenge left is the choreography. The best and really only fair way to gauge difficulty of savage content is on launch because the learning curve is designed to near disappear the closer you get to the .1/.3/.5 patches so that more people can jump in.

You both guys, old wow players have become one of my favourite FFXIV channels (even tho I know you're not only covering ffxiv) :D thanks for the videos! I love your content!

After 2 years of playing I finally jumped into savage for the first time this tier as well! I had so much anxiety over it previously and I just had to force myself to try. Within 2 weeks I cleared all the way through P3S in party finder! Working on P4S now with so much more confidence in myself than I ever had before. You hit the nail on the head regarding fight design. In FFXIV it really is about everyone nailing personal responsibility, resulting in overall group success. I’m addicted lol

Good luck on the tier my guy! It’s the first one I’ve ever cleared while current with a static I put together in February with friends and friends of friends. We are starting UWU prog next week.

I'm currently progging ultimate and I'm having so much fun. Matt I hope you get to experience it.

bro it’s so hype hitting enrage and killing. it feels like a damn cutscene every time!

I just started savage this week after years of giving myself excuses not to do it, my situation was different though, a spot opened in my fc static so I got my clears much easier than PF because I was the only one that had to learn and everyone else knew them already. I was expecting savage to be much harder than it was tbh but I had the benefit of discord fallouts and a team that already knew what they were doing, I'm looking forward to next tier though

well done on your first savage! on the note of macros one of the commonly memed about things was how EU/JP used such macros but they dont really use them in NA. Coming from the Materia server we had a blend of people from all over the data centres and a lot of previous NA players were saying how macros are honestly such a game changer for their pugging experience. its so good and I just love how it allows for the most efficient, safest, consistent strategy to get the clear. maybe stream your raid prog sometime and drag Mike along :P

I feel like P1S was purposely made more accessible in anticipation of the influx of newer players especially from other MMORPG's. It's definitely the easiest 1st fight-of-tier out of all the tiers, especially compared to Oppressor, Ramuh, etc.

I don't know why, i love the phrase "Danger Dorito" for the triangle marker

"Party finder settles on the most effective strats" and here's me looking at "braindead Intemp" all over PF still.

Would love follow-up videos for how your savage journey goes :)

Good luck on P3S mate.. you're going to need it!

Amazing! Love seeing people enjoying Savage for the first time! Good luck going foreward!

P1s, and in the same extent Eden's Gate: Resurrection (Savage), back when it released were amazing intro to raiding savages. It was like; you know the fight in their normal, story driven gameplay, but can you use that knowledge, and take it a step further in solving the steps to the dance, and can you have the DPS required, as a team, to finish the fight before enrage in x minutes. Two fights I enjoyed back in Eden tiers were Furor (Garuda, Ifrit, Raktapaksa) and Anamorphosis. The fights were showing mechanics individually and gradually built on top of itself, and at a turning point, the fights then started to pair mechanics and throw them at you, or, can you complete them in quick succession, while maintaining your rotation, and having to modify with where you can greed, or where you can play safe.

Looking forward to that Savage progress report, Matt! ❤

My static started progging P4S yesterday and in the first phase there's this tether/virus thing. When we understood what we had to do and the DPS had to grab the tethers, we grabbed them and moved in synchrony. We literally went "wow that looks so pretty, feels like we should have some classical music playing".

Good luck on the rest of the tier. It’s a lot of fun o/ Can’t wait to hear about the pinax memes 😂

@9:24 this goes doubly so for ultimates. Like watching Heavensfall trio and Tenstrike trio resolve is a work of art

Gotta say P4S is the peak of the individual decisions looking like a hive mind.When it all comes together and it looks beautiful and planned, especially on Akanthai 4 and Curtain Call. And I've done all savage fights in Shb and EW on time.

A really satisfying place to reach with my static was being able to do some of these savages without any comms at all. The dance eventually becomes so synchronized that you don't need to call stuff out anymore.

Savage content design around 1 and 2 minute burst window is fantastic when your own gameplay and rotation mastery lines up with boss mechanics, it's such a good feeling to see it flow so smoothly, and especially when 8 people have individual responsibilities on top of it. A beautiful dance.

Managing your mental stack is a huge part of what makes games actually difficult. CoreAGaming has a great video on how this relates to fighting games (missing the jump in because you're watching for a fireball). Its why you get hit by extremely choreographed moves in Devil May Cry while you're trying to do a sick combo, its why Starcraft players lose bases to invisible men while microing a fight and its a huge part of why FFXIV raid design is so satisfying. And its why the argument for "accessibility" through mods fall apart. The game is designed to require a certain amount of concentration from you and sometimes you miss things because there isn't an airhhorn blaring at you to remember the mechanic but that's where the difficulty lies. If you can't remember mechanics and you have a robot do it for you, that reduces the load on your mental stack greatly and makes everything easier. Yeah, its hard to do the dance and press the right combination of 8 buttons while weaving True North at the right time so you don't miss out on positional damage as a Dragoon, but using a mod that gives you a 1 button PVP combo is absolutely going to trivialize that mental strain and muscle memory that you have to learn. And managing your mental stack is why seemingly simple mechanics are so satisfying to pull off in FFXIV. When you perfectly dodge the mechanics during your burst window, squeeze out one extra dual cast and backflip to the safespot right before you need to so you can maximize uptime, that's what makes the game fun.

Some people criticize FFXIV for having so many abilities tied to this 2-minute window, but this is something that allows the devs to make these beautifully designed (and balanced!) fights. And, on the topic of job design, some people also say that jobs/classes in FFXIV are too similar to each other (if we are comparing jobs of the same role). I don't agree with that, I think that every job has its own unique flavor, but I can see why people would think otherwise. If you look at two tanks, you will see that they share a template. My point here is that the fact that they share this template allows the devs to make these intricate fights without requiring strats to be tailor-made to whatever composition you are running. Sure, there are ideal compositions, but they are not mandatory. Raid design and job design in this game are really special. While I obviously see the value of having wildly different builds, abiliites, compositions, etc... FFXIV makes a strong case for trading some of that freedom for a more acessible and polished experience.

Trying to clear this savage tier finally got me comfortable with pooling resources for a burst later, or holding off on starting a big burst window for a bit to wait for the boss to be more vulnerable. In the end, just like PVP, staying alive is the most important factor

Glad you had a good time!

Quick FYI as someone who plays on Aether (And more specifically Gilgamesh), I don't see a lot of Party Finder Macros. The EU servers and JP servers certainly do, though with slight differences in the labeling system. Keep in mind this is a simplification of things but the observations tend to be pretty spot on... The JP servers adopt whatever the most consistent strategy is. regardless of if it is the optimal way to do the fight, if it has the best chance of success, that is what people will learn and do. The EU servers and JP servers both use Macros to communicate particular mechanics. NA will Type things out in chat and argue/discuss things for 5-15 minutes before diving in. ^-- I have personally observed this. Maybe we just like to talk (I know I do). Though, learning parties are great, and as long as people know you're new or unfamiliar with a mechanic (preferably have seen a guide if the content is more than a couple weeks old), things tend to be pretty chill. :) I didn't really get into Extremes or Savages (current content, at least) until Shadowbringers was near its end... I had a Triple Triad goal to fulfill and met a couple of high end raiders (one was PUGing all of Eden Savage) who helped get me over my fears of high end content. I tend to have a very "Let's go again" attitude, so that definitely helps. As long as the timer allows, I will continue throwing myself at a boss.

Have you thought about going back and checking out Final Fantasy 11, which is celebrating it's 20th anniversary right now? Today was my first time playing, and man, it's nostalgic playing such and old school MMO.

Over the course of a weekend, I've gone from not joining any practice party fearing I was gonna ruin everything, to be the guy who comes in, sits people down and tells them "stand here, and here, move here when this is cast". Even though I've yet to get a kill yet, jumping into a practice party that struggles with the very first mechanic and see everyone slowly having that "oh, I get it" moment is infecting. Honestly it makes me hate getting synced down even more during the daily roulettes.

As someone who's been savage raiding since HW, it never even occurred to me that buff windows align with mechanics. Like I've noticed that on some fights you have to shift pot windows or adjust your rotation to account for forced downtime, but its never clicked to me that even mechanics with full uptime like Intemperance are aligned with buff windows as well.

I have been waiting on my FC to get its butt in gear but honestly I think it's time I just PF it!

I'm so glad for you that macro culture is alive in EU. We don't have macros for fights in NA; we throw down a (couple) marker(s) and place ourselves in them for visual representations. And half the time players don't move anyway amd we have to hope to high heaven they know what they're doing. I've been waiting patiently for when you'd start trying Savage, excited at seeing you guys give our high-end raiding a try. I've found a lot of fun raiding, and as of the time of this post I've been in a raid-hungry mood. I think the last week, I've spent about 20 hours just helping learning parties, letting people get prog or clears that they've been working so hard to get. PF has issues with consistency at times, and I like to take that away.

I cleared p1s yesterday for the first time and got very fast into it. We had some callouts but the fight is so well indicated that it's easy to tell for yourself what has to be done. Pugstrategies take away the solving a problem together, but when I did diamond weapon and others min ilvl no echo completely blind, we worked out everything as a group, which was the most fun. And the beaty about this hard fights that I saw in extremes over duty finder with randoms, they start off completely spread and uncoordinated and end up being a big unit where everyone holds their weight. And for some fights, it is necessary that everyone knows what they are doing to clear the fight, because one mistake can easily kill others in the process. The entry level of savage also has shown me the major flaws I saw in WoW. I was able to fully prep my tank in a night crafting session and gear him up with my tomestones to make him savage ready. The people I played with were people that had their first ever savage clear a few weeks ago, no one is exceptional good or tryhard. Some play only with mouse and click, some have even disabilities that make it harder. But at the end, everyone can learn this fights if they work hard enough and that is something that I don't see in endgame content in WoW. Gating so many people out of content takes away the diversity of character you meet. And it gets boring to only raid with sweaty neckbeards that go back to grinding right after the raid.

I wonder if the fights being "dances" is the result of them being designed to be cleared in party finder. I never thought about this when I criticized savage. (versus heroic or mythic.) Being able to clear without committing to a static and without using voice coms is a massive plus for a lot of people.

One thing about the early Savage fights in a tier is that the experience is very different from when they're first released to the state they're in now. For the most part, the difficulty of executing the mechanics stays the same - a slight step up from Extreme - but gear does actually make a massive difference to the difficulty of a fight. For example, in week one P2S it was a *requirement* to use mitigation on certain raid-wide attacks or it would wipe the whole raid - now you can get away with not really bothering. Similarly, any mistakes (deaths, damage downs, etc.) could make it near impossible to clear enrage. For PF P3S can be somewhat of a notorious wall because not only is it a significant step up in mechanics, it also becomes much, much harder to clear if there are any significant mistakes, even if they don't cause a wipe. P1S and P2S can afford some dead weight as long as said dead weight doesn't wipe the group, but P3S really demands everyone to be on the ball for the whole fight, which is a lot more of a similar experience to how P1S and P2S were in week one prog groups. (BTW I didn't mean this to come off as a "it was harder when it was first released" comment undermining any achievement. I mainly wanted to comment on the difference gear does make, because it's especially potent with the earlier fights in the tier, and you made a comment about it being a bit underwhelming - but I can assure you at release every little upgrade makes a big difference.)

It's really funny because NA has largely avoided the macros lol

Ngl Matthew, that jacket is hot fucking fire.

Glad to see that you enjoyed it. This tier has a pretty smooth difficulty curve, though P2s to P3s is a bit of a jump. Find people you trust in PF, see if they're down to raid, and go get em.

And that brain space is why I dont do savage. I usually play after work? So I'm already exhausted and just want to relax. And then going into hard content that requires me to concentrate? I cant do that....

Can't wait to see your review return after you get through p4s or even p3s

I've noticed Matt is being influenced by the FF glam system, nice jacket!

I like that explanation 9:03 alot for all fights.

welcome to the savage raiding content! ^^ glade you enjoy it ... (just the 2nd / new tier is harder / more intense than any tier since HW / ARR.., it might be a bit scary, if your new to it, when playing it the 1st time.., don't give up!)

i like listening to matt talk about things he likes a lot more than what he doesnt like. more of this please.

This is why I love progging as a Black Mage. I love figuring out which opener is the best, finding the best place to cast spell for this phase of mechanic, and look for optimal ways to use movement cooldowns.

I'm loving these Matt videos.

I like videos with Matt and FF XIV. More of them please ;) gj!

The first fight is always usually pretty nice to new players however the 2nd fight usually throws that out the window and teaches you that you need to know your rotations and to focus on mechanics (e6s prog was hell)

P1S and P2S are fantastic introductory fights. P3S is the reality check that says, ok now try harder. P4S is tough, but very rhythmic. Once you get a feel for everything, it really feels like a dance imo.

P1S is 100% the best savage content to jump in. It’s so forgiving and once you get it, he turns into a loot piñata. However, the difficulty spike of the later fights will catch you off guard. P3S is normally referred to as “p3sd” in my FC lol. It actually killed our static and I’m trying to form another

can't wait for you to try p2s-p4s

Oh, sweet summer child xD To be fair later floors are still puggable, but they definitely benefit from having comms. The thing about PF adopting the best strats tho... xD We had Mr. Happy brambles not that long ago as the standard PF strat for E9s...

With the normal raids no longer loot locked too, you can basically get a whole set of item level 580 gear without spending gil. More than adequate to start savage raiding.

You know I remember a time (before endwalker) where Matt was talking about how great the raiding scene is in this game, for literal hours on end during the bellular podcast. turns out, as expected, he hadn't done a single piece of raiding content, since this is his first time. I'm not even trying to gatekeep at this point but how could you claim to know what the raiding scene is like if you hadn't even gotten near it?

God damn Matt, respect the drip you got going on.

It really clicked for me on P4S during Act 2. I was trying to understand everyone's job and kept messing it up until I realized I only needed to know my part.

congratz on your Kill Matt. Tbh i often have a Big Problem when it comes to "PF Strats". Usually these Strats are invented during Week 1 Prog. There working but there far from Optimal. But once a Strat is established most ppl refuse to even try a differend, maybe even way easier or optimal Strat. As a Raider once you know how a Mechanic works you should be able to Adjust regardless of the Strategy. Since we cleared P4s we played "Uptime Act 2" and back then our SAM wasnt able to Raid for a Week so we searched in PF. But once the DPS heared of this Strat they immediatly leaved the Group even it is way easier to execute as a Melee. The perfect example is E8s "Ilya Light Rampant" once this Strategy was prominent EVERYONE in PF played this Strategy. Even it was unsafe, unsecure, unoptimal and a Hell to execute in PF. Even Ilya himself often said in his Livestreams that this Strategy is Bullshit. But it worked for them Week 1 and after that his Group played a differend Strategy while the PF used this for nearly a Year.

i also enjoy the smaller group sizes, i know i prefered 10 man raids in wow, so 8 man statics feel real good in ff14

I would love to see Blizzard do a raid tier of 4-5 fights instead of feeling forced to have a few good fights and 8+ fights no one remembers at the end of the tier. They have fantastic raid design but they try too hard to shove in as many bosses as possible. It would allow them more creativity with encounter design and QA testing. If they cut down on they amount of fights, they could do them through internal testing rather than spoiling the fights through PTR. Its a dream, but I doubt they would ever do it.

Vulnerability used to the be typical savage debuff you get from failing a mech in savage (a mainstay since ARR), but they changed that in the final tier of Eden. This is cause they realized that people would sometimes just eat a aoe, just to get a higher uptime dmg, and force others to adjust to them. So the devs answer to that was to switch it to a dmg down, so that those players would be forced to do the mech correctly, or suffer a worse loss in dmg. Also, macros are DC depending, if you tried to use a macro on Aether, people would go 'wtf!?' and start to argue lol. We use markers here. P2S is fairly easy, so you shouldn't encounter too much issue when you'll do it, but P3S is a huge pug wall, with a definite hike in difficulty from the prior 2.

The raidsize of 8 is really magical. 2 tanks 2 healers 4 dps. A lot of mechanics revolve around it and it takes out the RNG of who gets what. You as an individual actually learn the fight. For example WoL EX's Braver targets 1 tank, 1 dps, 1 healer for a massive frontal cone depending on where they stand. So the solution to it is quite simple, both tanks in the front, healers on the side and all dps on the back. If it were 3 random players it could be where you as an individual don't have to do anything for that mechanic for multiple pulls in a row, and suddenly you have to do something. This is why I really wish that WoW would reduce the mythic raidsize. Also a big upside is that because of 2 tanks 2 healers 4 dps you can design a fight with it in mind. Tanks have for example a cast interrupt, since every savage fight will have a tank you can include a mechanic that needs to be interrupted and it will always be covered no matter the composition. Healers have debuff clensing. etc. This all works together extremely well on why pugging in XIV is just such a good experience.

PF macros is really made me learn savage easier I just clip it and put it on 2nd monitor and look at it when there a new mech or i die a mech i go like ah "i was wrong position on that mech" Making a character on elemental were macros are prevalent was pretty good decision for me also pretty rare but some macros has some mitigation plans which is really useful for tank overwriting reprisal and such(though pf can kinda just wing mitigation after 4 weeks maybe) from what exp week 1 savage P1S-Learning where to stand P2S-Do you're party know how to press their mitigation? P3S-Do you know how to spread? P4S-Apply everything what you learned so far and GLHF

The first commandment of designing a savage fight: thou shalt ALWAYS put the most brain-intensive mechanics during the dancer's tech finish steps.

Since Heavenwsward, the first 2 bosses are pugable (EX difficulty), the 3rd is EX++ difficulty (can be done with a loooot of tries but GOOD LUCK to find a good pug...also with so many tries will make no difference to being with a static) and the 4th one is destroyer of pugs, must have an static. At least during the patch release window.

NA would like to ask you what "Macros" are KEKW

welcome home brother

the thing about ffxiv's meta is that it's that every playable job is so ridiculously well balanced that your skill with the job you're playing and your knowledge of the fight matter significantly more than literally any other variable

p1s is like baby food compared to the 5 course meals some of these fights offer

P3S pugging has damn near turned me into a Blasphemy. Haven’t tried it since WHM got reworked, and maybe with the gear boost people have now I won’t have to just stare impotently while that bird enrages. Again. It’s fun though!! Weirdly. In a masochistic way. Good luck!!

as someone who has cleared everything since 1st tier of shadowbringer on savage this game is way more accessible to endgame. you'll hear horror stories about some bosses (halicarnasses, p3s and a couple others) but all in all they are enjoyable. to say nothing of the ultimates. at the time of this comment I have cleared UwU (5 or 6 times?) and TEA 17 times and progressing dragon reprise. I love this game for far more than than savage but I always love clearing a tier with my static.

Do NOT use the tome gear from the start of the expansion for savage when this late in the tier*. Moonward gear is so bad. You want the newer radiant tome gear (ilvl 590). Crafted gear is hands down the best way to get into a new tier, though. 580 is more than respectable for the first few fights, and is enough to clear the entire tier with solid play.

this tier is one of the best times to start, because it gives you a fairly good difficult curve. P3S is a monster but other than that its a fantastic tier

As I've learned through Zepla, those macros aren't part of the NA DC experience -- we type things out like plebians, which probably results in more confusion, in all fairness!

You should go back and do Alexander Savage. Still my favorite.