What I’m going to write about will be my actual thoughts on the tier because I think everyone should have cleared by now since we’re going on Week 12-13 and too many drops have happened. For me, I don’t have the luxury of those drops because I was convinced to come back and raid. It was exciting to hear that Kefka was going to be in a raid tier but I just wish it wasn’t this one. I was on a hiatus since my FC beat NEO and I didn’t really care about raiding next tier since I thought I could literally come back and just strong arm a clear. That’s actually what ended up happening.
My final ilvl for this tier was 357 with crafted right side (best-in-slot) and some crafted left side with raid gear drops. Weapon was the mendacity one (I was forced to buy it) and we cleared as soon as I bought the weapon. When people said I would catch up fast, they were on the money. The only thing challenging about this tier was me having to overcome a huge gear deficit.
Sigmascape Savage:
Warning: Wording will be extreme and largely unedited. This is mostly targeted towards “midcore” groups.
Your group probably should’ve beaten this by week 7. I consider myself an average player at best but I didn’t feel like this tier was hard.
O5S – The only thing hard is dodging the ghost hitboxes and positioning for knockbacks but otherwise this fight is easy. I don’t have real notes other than it’s an extremely scripted fight so even with the rng, you’ll know exactly what’s happening. It is harder than O1S and O2S from last tier but it’s only harder because of dumb hitboxes. They missed a huge opportunity to do something cool cinematically. I also think they could’ve upped the check from 24K raid DPS to 26k to put a little more responsibility on healer/tank DPS.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256049562?t=30m22s
O6S – Easiest fight mechanically of the tier and in Stormblood raiding so far. This fight is a good heal/tank check because of how much outgoing damage there is. For tanks, the OT can plan their cooldowns around Last Kiss and be able to mitigate the amount of damage they take and you can have your Paladin or Dark Knight cheese the tornado with their immunity. Healers have a bigger task with how much heals have to be planned because of outgoing AoE damage and then keeping the tanks up since both of them get damaged simultaneously. Healers are also responsible for a lot of mechanics on top of their healing. This floor might only be hard because it gets done so quickly people forget what happens every week.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/256049562?t=49m57s
O7S – This fight ultimately determines how good a group is with their raid’s DPS and how good everyone is mechanically. I know of every mechanic in the fight but I don’t know the timeline because too many people memorized it so I never really had to learn it. There is a flow chart of each time line but I think this is what people were talking about with “Simon Says” when I was still learning this fight. Mechanically, this fight isn’t hard when you know what’s happening but the difficulty lies in how much time passes and people forgetting what was copied and which part of the timeline they are in. Most times, groups will hit enrage and wonder what happened but it’s mostly because of rotation error or too many deaths. If a group is stuck on this fight for a long time, they should probably have a talk about what’s going on.
This is that fight in the tier that makes you want to practice with cheap potions just to see where everyone can potion optimally. Also you can see the poor netcoding on the Virus and Rot mechanics and it will make you question why you even play this game. If your group took six weeks to beat this fight, wow.
For the first three floors, strategies don’t differ between statics and pugs and this is intended so people can pug their clears. There really isn’t a “my static does it differently” but rather the approach is a little different especially for the vertical/horizontal method for Virus in O7S and dropping the green bombs.
O8S Kefka aka Faustka – Easier than Exdeath was last tier. The only real RNG is the real/fake and then the second Graven where you have to remember where to stand otherwise everything else is easily solved. I think pugs use the Box Strat for third graven but both strats are fine. There is a lot of damage but I think this is where tank shields become overpowered. The DPS check is much more forgiving in this fight than it was for Exdeath.
God Kefka – Fight isn’t mechanically hard but there’s just a lot of memes with Trine and tank having to turn the boss for Wing and Room Laser mechanics. Pugs will use the cross-method and others will use the “same side as your tether” (I don’t know what it’s called) but there’s actually a better strategy than both of those because it works for all Forsakens. If you park the tanks east, you’ll actually make life easier and the boss will be pre-positioned for room wide AoEs in the third and fourth forsaken. So you have heals – middle, ranged – dps west, and tanks – east while the melee just go on the same side their tether is on. This fight is extremely forgiving with raid DPS.
https://clips.twitch.tv/FairCuteHamsterTakeNRG
(Twitch Clip)
One thing I will note is that my group has done Celestriad both middle and on the edge. I used to be heavily biased towards tanking it on the edge but I could see why middle could be good. The reason for middle Celestriad is for pre-positioning for future mechanics although it takes a lot of planning during Forsaken 2 because of the Celestriad that happens after which can result in a lot more movement. I think reading this back, I prefer it on the edge because of less movement.
I don’t know what to think of this tier mostly because I thought the only interesting fight was O7S where I had to pay attention. O6S made me feel like they were spoonfeeding mechanics while O5S and O7S makes me feel like I can see Square’s poor netcoding at work. O8S is interesting in the sense that the arena changes but the fight isn’t very difficult. I’m a bit mixed on how I feel about the tier generally because I feel like there’s a lot of poor fight design that doesn’t reward groups for high DPS. I like the idea of having the most difficult mechanic being at the end rather than in the middle of the fight to give a better sense of progression.
Parting thoughts:
- This is the first time I’ve had to switch groups mid-tier. No one I raided with this tier was a bad player (except for maybe two people), it was just a difference in philosophy and expectations that caused a couple of us to leave. Book runs don’t count for this.
- I haven’t given teaching the tier a thought although I’d be very picky on who I take along. I’m definitely not teaching 80 people again.
- I want Alexander Midas Savage difficulty to come back except with less rollercoaster.
- What the hell is midcore?
- Originally my God Kefka clear was supposed to happen week 3 of me coming back. Bellator Lucis and Milo Sasu approached me about it but nothing actually happened.
- Book runs didn’t go away, it’s just handled by a few different people now.
- Is this tier the “joke tier”? Maybe? I know a lot of people hate it because of the feeling of raiding being dumbed down.
- Kefka should’ve been his own tier in another expansion.
- “bUt I uSe coOLDowns foR eMerGecIeS only”
- There’s a guy on Famfrit who roleplays as “King Thordan” on Discord.
- Speaking of Famfrit, there won’t be a new raid chart.
- More people need to understand “situational football” aka get more raid awareness.
- Exdeath is the hardest boss in Stormblood while O6S is the easiest fight. Not counting Ultimate.
- I didn’t have expert roulette unlocked until three weeks ago.
- The raid mount is a reskin of the Yo-Kai watch one that looks like a giant sperm.
- Non-raiders are more toxic than raiders are (mostly on Famfrit). Same people dedicating 12 hours a day in Eureka could’ve been progging Savage.
- Lamia is a bigger and livelier version of Famfrit. It’s the “Famfrit” my brother remembers.
- I do (kind of) lead a second static. This is partly why I don’t want to teach too many new people until after my main is done unless we change our days.
- The second static is an alt static in the sense that it’s mostly alts with one guy being new to prog. People are playing and learning new classes in it. I’m personally learning Warrior
- The FC “Eorzean Trade Company” from Behemoth is what Reign is on Famfrit except with even more crafting. Prime is a real raiding FC.
- Every FC on every other server has websites and places to send applications. I have not seen anything like that on Famfrit.
- With Diamond weapon, I’m ilvl 358. At least I’m not grey for any fight anymore so that’s good.
- Too many people deserve a “most improved player” award. There’s at least 10 people I would name right now who would deserve it.
- There’s a “Geno’s Whore Raid” and a “Geno’s Bootleg PF” discord.
- Dota is trash to watch until The International and they need better commentators.
- 24 Hour Subway is a huge lifesaver
- Raiding at work was hilarious. People looked through the window to wave at me.
- My raid food consists of chicken chow fun, Taco Bell, fish tacos, and occasionally southwest chicken salad.
- I got a free Baja Blast Freeze the day after clearing O8S. This week it was a free pink lemonade.
- Playing warrior is hilarious although I need melds on left side and to work on my overcapping.
Thanks for reading! Also credit to Nomine Stormrage for the screenshot and for the videos (before I joined the static), Rolance Choi for his clip on positioning for Forsakens, and Alesha Phoenix for her footage of our alt group kills..