I recently completed M12S for my first time and, reflecting back on my Savage experience, wanted to share my thoughts on the journey.
First off, this was really my first time ever doing savage raiding. I did high-end raiding years and years ago in WoW, and technically did "savage-like" raiding a decade ago when Coils first came out, because I cleared Turns 1-9 at item level, but after that life got busy and I just never had the time.
I took a long break from FFXIV and when I came back, Shadowbringer was wrapping up. At that time, I was hesitant to even do Extremes. I never liked causing random groups to wipe, and the game had matured so much in my absence that I felt I couldn't play at the ultra high end anymore (I know extremes aren't at that level, but coming from ARR where fights like Odin were or the EXs were considered very rough, I had trouble adjusting my preconception).
Slowly, throughout Endwalker, I braved the EX waters, and I really got to build my confidence cal slowly by doing solo deep dungeon runs. Getting Necromancer made me finally feel like I was "good enough" for this high end content. Still this expansion came along, and I never stepped foot into Savage, content to farm my EX fights and eventually Forked Tower.
That all changed two months ago though when this new tier came out. I fell in love with all of the music instantly, especially M10S which reminded me so much of EVERY movie song from my childhood. Any other time a raid tier came out, I was basically done with them after the first few weeks when I had all of the basic level gear. This time though, the music really drew me in and I knew I wanted to spend more time with this truly fun and original fights.
So, I bit the bullet and queued in to my first savage fight. That first week was rough, getting used to the constant focus the fights require, and really learning to optimize my class. I always knew my rotation, and opener, that sort of thing, what stats to meld, etc, but now suddenly I was hyper focusing on GCD clipping and burst window alignment, and as a tank who also had to weave in defensive cooldowns and party buffs, I really hard to double down on understanding weave windows and animation locks, especially when I got to M11S and its insane dps check.
Speaking of, M11S. That fight was probably the most intense experience I've had raiding, and I beat heroic Lich King back in the day. I thought I had poured a lot of time into M9 and M10, then M11 rolls along and I feel like I finally got introduced to "real savage raiding". But in the end, after hundreds of pulls, i finally beat it!
Then I was on to M12. Part 1 felt pretty fair overall, mechanically challenging for sure (looking at you Act 2) but nothing too crazy, and the dps check was tight but reasonable, way more so than M11. Then I got to P2, and every mechanic was so crazy! Tracking clones with no visible distinction outside of an animation you observed earlier while trying to dodge that nasty kick, all of the different variations of roles for Rep 2 (and the different PF starts!), and Idyllic Dream, which pushed my concept of what I thought was possible mechanically from a fight in FFXIV to whole new levels. While the mechanics were intense and complex, I was pleasantly surprised at how relaxed the DPS check was. It was like the developers were saying "here, we get it, focus on paying attention and you'll win".
I had some very stressful moments, like making one mistake about an hour in to a 0.4% enrage group that lead to the group disbanding because it was just one mistake too many for the group overall, to the pixel perfect frustration that M11S requires you to master, to "trap groups" and the like, but when I finally cleared M12S it felt so rewarding.
I'm not sure if I'll do savage again, it was a huge time investment, but I was really glad to do it this tier, and I felt like (most) everyone was very helpful and understanding, and often offered a lot of positive feedback and advice as I navigated my first savage tier. So thank you everyone, and for anyone still working on this fight, best of luck!
submitted by /u/Alyr87
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Continue reading...
First off, this was really my first time ever doing savage raiding. I did high-end raiding years and years ago in WoW, and technically did "savage-like" raiding a decade ago when Coils first came out, because I cleared Turns 1-9 at item level, but after that life got busy and I just never had the time.
I took a long break from FFXIV and when I came back, Shadowbringer was wrapping up. At that time, I was hesitant to even do Extremes. I never liked causing random groups to wipe, and the game had matured so much in my absence that I felt I couldn't play at the ultra high end anymore (I know extremes aren't at that level, but coming from ARR where fights like Odin were or the EXs were considered very rough, I had trouble adjusting my preconception).
Slowly, throughout Endwalker, I braved the EX waters, and I really got to build my confidence cal slowly by doing solo deep dungeon runs. Getting Necromancer made me finally feel like I was "good enough" for this high end content. Still this expansion came along, and I never stepped foot into Savage, content to farm my EX fights and eventually Forked Tower.
That all changed two months ago though when this new tier came out. I fell in love with all of the music instantly, especially M10S which reminded me so much of EVERY movie song from my childhood. Any other time a raid tier came out, I was basically done with them after the first few weeks when I had all of the basic level gear. This time though, the music really drew me in and I knew I wanted to spend more time with this truly fun and original fights.
So, I bit the bullet and queued in to my first savage fight. That first week was rough, getting used to the constant focus the fights require, and really learning to optimize my class. I always knew my rotation, and opener, that sort of thing, what stats to meld, etc, but now suddenly I was hyper focusing on GCD clipping and burst window alignment, and as a tank who also had to weave in defensive cooldowns and party buffs, I really hard to double down on understanding weave windows and animation locks, especially when I got to M11S and its insane dps check.
Speaking of, M11S. That fight was probably the most intense experience I've had raiding, and I beat heroic Lich King back in the day. I thought I had poured a lot of time into M9 and M10, then M11 rolls along and I feel like I finally got introduced to "real savage raiding". But in the end, after hundreds of pulls, i finally beat it!
Then I was on to M12. Part 1 felt pretty fair overall, mechanically challenging for sure (looking at you Act 2) but nothing too crazy, and the dps check was tight but reasonable, way more so than M11. Then I got to P2, and every mechanic was so crazy! Tracking clones with no visible distinction outside of an animation you observed earlier while trying to dodge that nasty kick, all of the different variations of roles for Rep 2 (and the different PF starts!), and Idyllic Dream, which pushed my concept of what I thought was possible mechanically from a fight in FFXIV to whole new levels. While the mechanics were intense and complex, I was pleasantly surprised at how relaxed the DPS check was. It was like the developers were saying "here, we get it, focus on paying attention and you'll win".
I had some very stressful moments, like making one mistake about an hour in to a 0.4% enrage group that lead to the group disbanding because it was just one mistake too many for the group overall, to the pixel perfect frustration that M11S requires you to master, to "trap groups" and the like, but when I finally cleared M12S it felt so rewarding.
I'm not sure if I'll do savage again, it was a huge time investment, but I was really glad to do it this tier, and I felt like (most) everyone was very helpful and understanding, and often offered a lot of positive feedback and advice as I navigated my first savage tier. So thank you everyone, and for anyone still working on this fight, best of luck!
submitted by /u/Alyr87
[link] [comments]
Continue reading...