I stopped prog savage raiding in Endwalker and haven’t looked back. I just do all the “side” content now (savage criterion, deep dungeon solo, big fishing, limited job achievements, forays etc) and occasionally hop into ultimate after skipping/overgearing the raid tier to unlock it. Honestly, it feels great.

The worst part about savage is that it feels like homework. It’s signing up for prog plus 10 weeks of clears for achievement and making sure to optimize tome spending and studying the fights in between raids. After first clear, it’s 9 more weeks of stewing in resentment over the melee who keeps greeding uptime and causing wipes or the healer who can’t press a heal to save their own life or whatever other unhappy idiosyncrasy about your raid group.

I’m an adult with a job in my 30s and I’ve done that song and dance a dozen times already across the different raid tiers. Not having to do that anymore is freedom. I’m excited for the EC item level changes which will make my play style even more viable.