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still my favorite raid series;.
The only negative thing I have to say about it; we didn’t get to suplex the ghost train.
finally clearing OS3 blind in PF was one of my highest highs in FF 14…felt so good
Alphascape v3 made cry SOOOOOOOO hard.
I still remember how everyone collectively shit their pants when they found out Neo ExDeath was a thing and we saw the transition phase for the first time. It was a perfect presentation and love letter to FF5. I think these were the best collection of raids in the game. It wrapped up with a nice heartwarming cutscene as well.
Hard for me to cope with the fact my favorite raid series spawned the shittiest ultimate raid
7:40 I saw it and was mega confused for a second lol I still have the video of it
Stormblood (4.0 MSQ aside) was peak FFXIV
As a Warrior main at that time, I passionately hate o5s for the ghost skip. I would definitely throw that below Guardian at least, although to be honest I would move Guardian up a few places.
The hate tanks have for o10s is overblown imo. Yeah dying because of your cotank dying sucked, but at least it was interesting having to come up with ways to deal with all the busters if that was on you. I think that was one of the few fights that actually required mitigation planning, today you can get away with just kitchen sink most busters.
O12S phase 2 was great on tanks. It had a frequency of busters that they don't really do anymore, and they also were more interesting than just automatically hitting first in aggro. I particularly appreciated than on Warrior (which had no short cooldown unless I wanted to go into Defiance and Inner Beast) some busters were so close together that Rampart could cover both with proper timing. It was nice when the 20s on Rampart vs 15s on Vengeance actually meant a functional difference. Unfortunately o12s was probably the fight that got PLD's Cover nerfed because it was too good. Too bad the fight had to repeat in the second half, it was great otherwise.
12. Alte Roite – It's just not deserving of the title of Savage, almost every Extreme in the game to this point was harder than this.
11. Midgardsormr – I just remember our entire static despising this fight and wanting to skip it every reset after we had cleared. There are good ideas, but something about it just felt really clunky to me. My unpopular opinion is I didn't like Nidhogg either, so having to deal with it again but with ice sliding interrupting everything and clunky tethers…bleugh.
10. Chadarnook – I feel a little bad because I found it fun, and I didn't mind the duty actions as much as others seem to. But it was simply too easy, likely moreso than the fight before it.
9. Phantom Train – The add phase was a little annoying, and the main mechanics were 'fine' but a bit repetitive.
8. Guardian – Very mixed feelings on this one, it's got good and bad stuff, as you said it just feels a bit too long.
7. Catastrophe – Probably the best incarnation of the duty action, very interesting mechanics. Still on the easier end, but not bad.
6. Omega – Don't hate me, but I always thought this one was just 'decent'. It's better than most 3rd fights, but…I don't know. It's good but never wowed me either. Plus tank LB3 cheese on the later fist mechanic and stacking them all in one place fried my laptop's GPU. We'll blame that.
5. Kefka – Epic, but I agree that as a DPS it was quite lacking. There's not much responsibility besides the forsaken skulls in the last fight, and it has the mechanic loop syndrome. Still, the first phase had some interesting mechanics, and those issues aside it was strong.
4. Omega M/F/Final – The first phase was brutal for us to prog on, but despite its difficulty it still remained moderately fun. Second fight is awesome, again, as you said the loop issue is one of the only major downsides.
3. Chaos – While not as challenging as the last few, I agree that this is just SUCH a well-designed first fight. Each phase was an engaging dance, and the random order helped keep things fresh. The add phase was just enough of a litmus test to see if you were worthy to continue to the other mechanics you've already seen. Very good fight.
2. Exdeath – I think the only thing I can hold against this fight is the curse of looped mechanics. And maybe when he hides a black hole in his cape. First fight was a tense dance, second was a glorious mix of interesting debuff-based mechanics.
1. Halicarnassus – Close between this and Exdeath, but the sheer amount of dynamic potential across the board, especially in the intense and long second half was just fun however challenging. Which is a rare thing to be able to say for 3rd fights especially. Utterly fantastic. One of the best fights in the game.
Everytime I see Pantrokrator I still have flashbacks to this day!!
Wait isn't Abyssos four the same as as Exdeath?
I much prefer this method of referencing other games than, say, Golbez and the four fiends. Sure, I love the overall story and gameplay of 6.x, and I'm happy for Rubicante to get some modern screentime, but my enjoyment is marred by a major part of their identity being "hey, remember this from another game?" I feel that FF14 is at its best when it dares to be its own original story and references are indulged in ways that don't strain my immersion in that story.
My only gripe with Omega M & F was the LB cheese kinda made the last minute of the fight a non-factor
Off topic question: I see on old monk you did not use the green skill, what is that back in the days?
Thanks Mr. Happy.
I sadly never got to finish savage raiding in Stormblood due to some personal issues, cleared them all on normal mode though, which doesn't really count for much, but it was overall a fun raid tier from what I did. Was also the first raid tier I did as a tank, which was really wild and I loved the learning experience.
O11s was awesome
Back in 2.X and 3.X I was very scared of raiding, thought it was way too difficult and simply unclearable for my 200-ish ping, but then on 4.0 I decided that I would give it an actual shot and started raiding in the Deltascape tier. Honestly, even though Alte Roite is a joke of a fight, I think it kinda gave me the confidence to keep going, so much so that I cleared the entire omega series puggin on PF.
I think that was the idea behind it being a bit on the extreme side of encounters, so people like me would give savage a try. I'll always have this raid series close to heart because of that.
I have NO idea why you and other people dislike duty actions, Catastrophe was a great example of its implementation and potential, and was excited to see more of it. It made every encounter more unique and special, entertaining…. just FUN. Its a lot like Reaction commands in KHII, I don't see the value in fights that are so static, puzzle solving 100% uptime encounters, i care for having every fight be a new experience and test f adaptability, all of them being unique and not bogged down by the hardcore endgame players who only care about parsing or playing the game 1 single way. i miss Faust, because hey were an excuse for parse bragging, and i wish they'd kept them for the first fight of a tier and then had a door boss for the final fight be like ExDeath, short and sweet, fast paced and full of difficult or quick reaction mechanics for like 5m.
There's more anniversary content here than in the actual game. XD
Hali still remains my favorite raid encounter to this day. While I'd like to see what the fight would have been with a savage puzzle sand, it probably would have broken up the flow of the fight too much to add. Overall, it had everything I'd ever want in a raid, fight legit made me a better player by making me learn how to use my support CDs more efficiently, elemental add hit like a truck.
I only did a handful of savage raids at lvl 70(Alte Roite, Chaos, Middy and Final Omega), but now I've also soloed Neo-Exdeath and God Kefka…and I can see why people love Exdeath so much. It was really fun to learn how to solo it(and also imagining how it plays out with a party at the same time).
I don't think I ever heard you say what exactly you find clunky about the duty actions. Honestly i don't really get it it's just another button. I guess if you hate using you mouse or assigning another button. I dunno i don't really get what the big deal is.
Me, healer main, not having had the chance to do omega savage: "….Midgardsormer has a multihit ultimate on savage? Normal got jipped"
Deltascape was my first raid tier on content while i was still fresh into raiding…. and I absolutely hated it. 3 especially and I wouldnt say it was the fight itself, it was mostly down to my group. I definitely made some mistakes but my ninja and dragoon were just absolutely unbearable to raid with and our group dissolved which left me with a sour taste in my mouth with raids unfortunately. Definitely felt good soloing Neo Exdeath after all this time (with some help from your vid happy)
I do miss stormblood raids and i desperately wish i could go back with the game knowledge i know now
I never really finished the tier, but this is pretty close to what i'd put probably. Though I have some PTSD from halicarnasus. the back end of her fight looking back now reminds me of the back end of p7s. very stacked with quick moving reaction based mechanics. the difference is the first half of hali is more fun.
As for the comment on the door boss, 2nd half length, i didnt mind the 7ish mins for p4s, because honestly it doesnt feel it. Like p4s is so well designed for both halfs imho.
Godbert could suplex Phantom Train
The STB raids are the best ones both objectively and subjectively.
My static just got to O12S MINE so I can't speak for that one, but going a bit lose with it I think I would say O2S has to be my least favorite, the mechanics to me on paper are really cool but it's all so GREY and everything is named almost the same, we really didn't enjoy that one. O11S and O3S are some of my favorite fights in the whole game and I'm heartbroken I didn't get to do them each week. O8S and O4S are up there for me, but although I LOVE neo ex death, I FUCKING HATE black hole, it's so incredibly janky and I have no idea how healers at the time did it without astro's huge ass star, that whole mechanic really drops it down on my tier list. I also kinda don't like that as long as 1 healer/rezer gets past grand cross omega you can just healer LB3, I never had the opportunity to really get the hang of it because that's what we ended up having to do in our clear lol