So I went casual for a few months while I settled into my new job. Everything is going great, I passed all of my training with no issues and all of my colleagues are really supportive and friendly.
I also moved into a new house share, although I am moving again in a couple of weeks to my brothers house as his flatmate has left and they wanted someone to take over the tenancy, I get faster internet, it's cheaper and I get my own living room so that's a result for me. I also get on really well with my brother so I would feel more comfortable than around a group of strangers.
So with my life back on track, I had one thing in my mind. To take down A8s. I left my group a few months ago and they had long replaced me so I looked into finding a new group.
During my time as a (filthy) casual, I got BLM to 60, I really enjoyed playing the job so looked at joining a group as DRG, MNK, or BLM.
After a couple of hours of PF, I group asked if I would be interested in joining them as BLM for A7 progression, I didn't mind as I love A7 plus I had 0 raid experience on BLM at 60 so It would give me a chance to adjust to the job.
Sadly the group wasn't for me, The leader left a raid halfway through because he claimed he wasn't enjoying himself. This didn't sit right with me as it wasn't fair on the 7 other people who wanted to raid, thought it was a very selfish decision on his part.
I also tried to apply to Curia Regis FC on the Midgard server, I speak to a few of their members on guildwork and due to my schedule I could play NA times if I made some adjustments, My schedule was too unpredictable for their liking though so my application wasn't accepted.
Determined not to give up, I continued searching, I spotted a party finder up one day with some old Dango members looking to rebuild their group, Dango got 3 server firsts last tier so I knew they were good players, I also planned on raiding as DRG so it took the learning curve of learning BLM away.
My schedule continued to be random and a Melee spot came up in my FC for the other group that we had friendly competition with during progression. I thought that it was make more sense to switch groups as my friends would be a lot more understanding of my schedule than people who I barely know. The Dango people were awesome though and I had a lot of fun messing around with them, I wish them best of luck for the next tier.
This group had already cleared A8s, so not wanting to disappoint, I started to research the fight. I would watch streams and melee PoV videos on Youtube to gain an understanding of the fight.
Before going in with them, I hadn't even gotten past legislation with my old group and we barely had any raid time in there to begin with, We got to Verdict on our first pull and everything clicked into place pretty fast for me.
And 3 and a half hours later, A8s died:
Tank body dropped (I got it a dyed it pink :3), it was only a one chest run as Alice, Rhela and Sycko are from the other group and kindly gave up their time to help us while we rebuild the group. Also a shout out to Collin Freeze for helped for the first 3 hours the previous raid.
So my run of clearing tiers before nerfs continues, Looking to continue this into 3.4 in a couple of weeks.
While I'm looking forward to 3.4, I'm growing increasingly concerned for 4.0, There are plans in the works to make rotations and raids easier and I feel this will take the challenge out of the game for me.
I feel the raid aspect of the game really needs to be looked at, while I appreciate the dev team are short staffed, the 'here's 4 fights with the same concept each tier, enjoy' formula is getting really really stale. The struggle to find a group also continues for some people and people are penalized loot wise for taking people who have already cleared into fights with them,
My personal thoughts on how to improve raiding:
1: Have 3 tiers of raiding, The Normal and Savage modes as normal and also add a hard mode with slightly inferior gear, this then keeps the savage mode fights a challenge for the people who want it but also offers a challenge for people new to raiding or who are not able to challenging savage.
2. Remove the impact that taking people who have already cleared a turn into a raid makes out of the game. I feel it's really pointless having this, WoW you can enter as many times as you want per lockout but can only see loot once per lockout. This is perfect in my opinion, It gives people chance to help friends in other statics while not impacting their loot. This would in turn get more people raiding which I'm sure is something that the dev team wants at this stage as they seem to say the clear rates are below expectations each tier.
3. Try something new. Taking the same people through the same 8 man fights each tier is getting stale, they need to mix it up a little bit, maybe lower man or alliance based raids, I'd love to raid with some other friends but the game seems to discourage it as it has an impact on loot. I don't really know what to suggest to be honest but this game needs change.
I do like however the book system that they added, gone are the days of never seeing a drop as you can just purchase it with books if you have enough. although the system isn't perfect I also like how they made it so you can re-enter turns after you have cleared, something which didn't exist in the coil days.
For now, I'm trying to finish off my Alt, Bob Ross, I miss having an alt to help others out and I do still enjoy playing MNK. I'm also making a fair bit of money via retainers and fishing in diadem.
So until next time. This is Aud, signing out.
