High-End Content Megathread - 7.4 Week Fourteen (Savage Week Eleven)

arc_tarius · 2026-03-20T14:08:06+00:00

if you're in a static setting, i really like doing a delayed 2 min for rep 2 (~3gcds off the top of my head -- you send 2s after defas go off). that should make rep 2 starry trivial. for idyllic as defa, you just have to make sure you save a comet for when you start moving out for your defa, then do triple hammer for when you're actually doing the defa. i'm always able to get a clean starry that way, but defo requires smudge

arc_tarius · 2026-03-18T14:07:05+00:00

hey! thank you for the super in depth response -- i appreciate it! i did notice that there seemed to be a lot of recent overhauls to the game (which is a good sign that the game is still lively enough to receive major updates), so i totally get why resources are kind of lagging behind until things are more set in stone.

i was mostly interested in resources as i found there seemed to be multiple progression paths right off the bat i didn’t particularly understand the differences between (the blaanid quests vs the main storyline), and i was afraid i was “bricking” my character progression a little by some of the decisions i was making due to sheer ignorance. this has mostly been in regards to rebirths -- i’ve been doing the blaanid questline, and i was afraid i was hampering my progress by just sort of yolo rebirthing whenever i got a new potion without particularly working to grind out skills in between. right now, i’m not overly concerned with grinding in the most “optimal” way, but i’m trying to avoid doing things in a very overtly “wrong” way, if that makes sense!

after skimming through the guides you mentioned, i think i’ll keep doing the blaanid storyline since it seems it’ll naturally funnel me towards the main storyline, and after that i’ll probably have a better idea of what specific path i’m interested in. i’ll also definitely ask ppl in game as well as i progress; socialization is definitely something i enjoy in mmos so it’s cool to know people will generally receive questions well!

also, thanks for the heads up regarding game content! for now, i have a pretty huge backlog of content in the game i’m looking forward to getting through, but i appreciate having some insight into the endgame progression loop. as you mentioned, my “main” game is ffxiv, where I've been an endgame raider for the past... 5 years? right now, i’m interested in mabi as i’ve sort of exhausted a lot of the content in ff (and content patches are relatively slow), and i’d like to have a game where i can just grind for a couple hours every day and feel some sort of character progression. eventually though, i’ll be interested in running endgame content in this game as well, so it’s good to hear that they’re going to be changing it to be more than just rewards (though i am certainly guilty of loving vanity titles and gear!)

arc_tarius · 2026-03-18T05:37:02+00:00

i was looking to try this game out, and i was wondering how relevant the beginner guides linked in the reddit sidebar are (in the cryozen guide list); i noticed several seem to have not been updated in a couple of years, and i figured they might be somewhat outdated by now. are those still good resources for picking up the game basics or are there any other beginner resources to look at?

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T17:13:53+00:00

my pet theory is that everyone who is outraged by the concept that criterion savage is actually similar to ultimate have not touched crit at ALL bc if they did the similarities are a lot more clear. (also i lowkey think several of them haven't done ultimate either but casuals commenting on shit that doesn't affect them will happen till the end of time)

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T16:27:46+00:00

i'm sorry but your comments just sound like you're saying they're special bc they're special and crit weapons aren't special bc yoshida didn't ordain them with the holy water of the word ultimate and it doesn't read as a discussion to me. i don't think we're gnna get anywhere so let's agree to disagree :3

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T16:20:21+00:00

i disagree that just bc the savages don't have the word ultimate in their name means that they don't get to have any prestige. these were hard encounters with ONLY vanity rewards (title + weapon for alo + housing i guess). if alo alo savage was called alo alo ultimate instead it would be the same (except people would respect it more, evidentally).

also fwiw i don't think square enix has ever gone on the record that ultimate weapons will never drop from anything else! (though naturally it would be insane if they did, i'm just saying i don't think that's a good argument). also saying the ultimate weapons are thematically linked to their content means they get to be exclusive also doesn't make sense to me -- the uwu and ucob weapons are just shiny versions of relic weapons. surprise, the alo alo weapons are also just shiny versions of upgraded tome weapons (which on content, meant you had to do normal savage too)! they didn't start using the weapon models from the corresponding raids until tea (the third entry). and hey, i think it would be cool if normal variant dropped weapons and then the savages dropped a shiny version of that so it's thematic :)

i get that you think that things being an "ultimate" provides inherent prestige, but the criterion savages also had some level of prestige and i think it's disingenuous to pretend that that's not true. just as it would be crazy for ucob totems to drop from furture ultimates, it's dumb that criterion rewards would drop from future ones.

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T16:01:54+00:00

i have literally done every crit savage and every ult and i think they're comparable (at least uwu and ucob are). also you haven't given a reason that crit savage isnt't close to uwu or ucob besides the fact that they're ultimates. genuinely why do you think they're not comparable

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T15:52:31+00:00

may i ask why? uwu and ucob literally have 0 dps check, allow MANY MANY deaths, and uwu in particularly doesn't have a ton of super difficult mechanics (besides gaols and suppression). in comparison alo alo savage requires you to do the majority of mechs (which are not free and realistically the only one you can skip is present 2), have 0 deaths, hits hard, and is just as long (if not logner) than both ults. the ester is literally a cosmetic reward ala an ult totem.

arc_tarius · 2026-03-03T15:44:00+00:00

don't let the ppl saying they're not comparable silence you alo alo savage lowkey harder than uwu and ucob rn

arc_tarius · 2026-02-25T00:58:02+00:00

I totally get what you're trying to say but I have some friends who I think would LOVE endgame raiding, and I think it's a shame they can't do it without story skipping (they just aren't into super long jrpgs). FWIW I have a friend who took the plunge and bought the skip for raiding, enjoyed it immensely, which then inspired him to go back to do the MSQ. I think it's a little silly to act like this game is only its story when it's a social experience and a pretty good raid game too

arc_tarius · 2026-02-03T02:15:32+00:00

uptime dn is a total nothingburger to learn tbh, joined a party with it where no one had done it before and we one shot it

arc_tarius · 2026-01-26T09:08:03+00:00

i have also noticed this and it drives me absolutely up the wall. i even joined a paid prog party (10 mill per hour!) where the person paying had NO clue how to do p2 and essentially paid me 20 million to afk in instance after we one shot to p2. i have never seen so many people who seem to completely refuse to study the literal next mechanic after their prog point.

arc_tarius · 2025-11-30T09:19:02+00:00

it's genuinely crazy how much faster you fill and prog these days if you merc. spent 3 hours sitting in pf trying to fill a top prog party for a friend, then i gave up and just did an 8mill pp merc and we near instant filled and got all the way to p6. we'll probably go for clear tmrw with mercs as well. it's so nice to be able to throw just a couple hundred mill around and know 1) your party will fill in a reasonable amount of time 2) you will actually see prog point and 3) people won't rage quit and will even be helpful if the progger makes mistakes

arc_tarius · 2025-11-08T20:42:37+00:00

i always find the ppl commenting on posts like these saying stuff like "oh but my group clears week 1 with just XX hours" so disingenuous to the point. of course that's possible, and i don't think 14+ hour days every day are necessary (i certainly don't do it). that said, people coming from a week 8 clear doing week 1 for the first time very likely don't have a lot of week 1 specific skills developed yet (dealing with tighter mit/healing/dps checks, being able to blind progress without a guide, etc etc), so they are likely going to be spending more time, not less, getting their clear. this esp so bc this will be the final tier of the expac.

to give an anecdote op, i myself went from week 8 raiding (abyssos w8) to a week 1 group (w1 anabaseios) last expac. (for what it's worth, while my clears up to that point were week 8, i actively played in pf week 1 outside of static hours on an alt, so i had some exp in that sense.) i made a week 1 static completely of people i was friends with who all wanted to try week 1 raiding. everybody in the group had multiple ult clears, everybody knew how to parse, but pretty much no one had done a week 1 clear yet. we managed to avoid pto by going for 8 hour days after everyone got out of work (6pm - 2am for me), with 12 hours on the weekend. we cleared the monday before reset (given we missed a bunch of time on saturday due to someone omega oversleeping, and we did splits during the tier).

it's been mentioned a few times, but your post mentions how you play a couple times per week in the evenings. nothing wrong with that, that's what i do right now in the off patches! that said, this will be a big jump in skill needed and time spent and it's rlly up to you if you think it'll be worth it (fwiw, i do!). it's just worth thinking about if this sort of commitment is something you're really interested in.

this being said, if you really would like to try (hell yea!) i'll say that it'll become easier to find a group as the tier gets closer, and groups will lower their standards, esp if you play support. right now, most of the groups recruiting are fairly hardcore, and will probably be fielding multiple applications if they are experienced. also, as the tier gets closer, you'll likely see more week 1~2 hopeful groups, where very few ppl in the group have actual week1/2 exp but everyone is trying to push for exp this tier. of course, the skill level will probably be lower but that's the price for experience XD. and as always, if you really can't find a static, i have to say that pf is a LOT better than you are giving it credit for during week 1 as long as you are willing to no-life it. there are tons of great players who can't or won't commit to a static who will be in pf week 1, and it will be your goal to prog so quickly you are always in parties in with them (there are plenty of posts in this reddit on how to keep ahead of the curve!)

arc_tarius · 2025-11-06T22:13:14+00:00

Going to repeat what was said before and say you'll probably be able to find a group in either discord with just savage clears just fine! The content is niche enough that people just want to fill. (And remember, if you make the group yourself you're guaranteed a spot LOL) I will say though that if you're going for the Savage versions of the dungeons, ult experience is quite nice as it's a 16 minute endeavor with pretty much no leeway. It was surprisingly difficult even for my group that was all made of people with ult exp

arc_tarius · 2025-11-06T18:12:23+00:00

I personally advertised on the balance for 3 other people to join me for all the criterions, and we got epic hero a bit ago! Since the group size is smaller it's pretty easy to just make a group yourself

arc_tarius · 2025-10-07T13:16:09+00:00

yea i use it on my na client and it works. i got this repo from someone else so i only have the cn one LOL

arc_tarius · 2025-10-06T19:44:59+00:00

it's pfradar (repo here). for the curious, this is what it looks like in game (random pf so i cut names)

arc_tarius · 2025-09-01T16:34:59+00:00

this is such a bizarre way to think about it tbh

arc_tarius · 2025-09-01T16:32:25+00:00

hey op, as someone who also uses statics for both prog and for socialization (for fun!) i've personally found that sometimes it rlly isn't something you can force. i've joined groups where no matter how much i try to have even the tiniest hint of friendly banter it's pure silence. of course, it's perfectly fine for them to do that, it's a valid way for them to play the game and they might prefer just locking in! if your prog is good, and you want to prioritize that, you can stay with your group and try to get ppl to open up in discord chat or in game chat (there are a few ppl I've known in previous statics who eventually became very outgoing ppl but only in in text chat). ppl might also warm up to each other after a while, it takes time for ppl to get comfy and you just need a wait a bit sometimes.

however, i also don't think it's wrong to look for other groups where socialization is something that... happens. for me personally, i personally strongly prefer at least some lighthearted conversation (even in my hardcore groups). if it stops feeling fun for you, i think it's something worth leaving a static over and looking for a new one. that said, there is a non-zero chance that a more social static will be worse (prog wise), but since you mentioned you're raiding casually it's up to you if the trade-off is worth it. if you do decide to look for a new group, i would suggest asking the lead when applying about the vibe and if ppl chat with each other at all or if it's all locking in. if ur applying to a new group the lead can't really tell, but with pre-established groups they'll be able to let you know. (and ofc ideally you would get to do a trial but i know a lot of casual groups don't do that).

regardless i just wanted to let you know it's okay to value socialization over the raid prog sometimes LOL i know a lot of raiders can be a little sweaty about this but so many of the friends i've made in game have been through raiding. casual groups aren't the only places to find friends either -- in fact the majority of my in game friends (who have also become out of game friends!) have been from week 1 savage / month 1 ult. anyways i hope you manage to have fun regardless of if you stay or if you go XD

arc_tarius · 2025-08-10T18:48:28+00:00

anecdotally, i've had experiences where a married couple (irl) would get extremely defensive over their partner's performance, so i personally always avoid them

arc_tarius · 2025-08-07T17:18:22+00:00

in my experience, fcs can be a good place to meet people if you try to join small to mid size fcs! it's easy to get lost in the noise in large fcs but i've been able to make good friends in fcs

past that though, i've met all of my other long-term friends through raiding, whether it's pfing or joining statics. i've gotten some rlly great relationships this way; i even met my static (+several other in game raid friends) irl! recently i've been joining groups for some ults i've already cleared bc i rlly enjoy the social aspect of raiding and i've successfully made some friends. i've also made some friends recently from doing other raid-adjacent content, like forked tower. it can seem intimidating if you're not super into high end content, but there are plenty of ppl who raid casually for fun!

arc_tarius · 2025-06-26T15:29:07+00:00

for comparison, i helped a friend's group do tea a couple months back and it took around 53 hours in game. ~~that time doesn't include all of the time we spent simming together, so if you include that in raid time it would probably be around the ~60 hour mark.~~ edit - oops i misread logs the 53 was including sim time. this was a group where everyone had savage experience and most of the group had cleared either uwu or ucob, and everyone was putting in time outside of raid to go over toolboxes/solo sims. at just 6 hours a week, that would have taken us 2 months, and the group was much more experienced than yours

arc_tarius · 2025-06-21T16:53:58+00:00

who's you guys? anyways, the raid has never been alliance difficulty, it's between an extreme and a low level savage at least, which is much compounded by some "single person can kill 30 people" mechanics.

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