Raid time! Last July, when the fire hit, we had just gotten to the disco dancing phase of E9S (Cloud of Darkness). But now there is NEW CONTENT so we’re ditching that fight and moving on to Pandemonium 1 Savage, aka A Random Guy. There’s one change to our roster: KJH has taken Kan’s spot. We aren’t even Kan’s main static, so he was cool with bowing out for a new player.
This past week, I got ready for savage. I finished the Endwalker MSQ on Tuesday night, then geared up and did the normal raids on Wednesday, with HGR calling the fights for me. HGR also bankrolled crafted gear for me so I could meet the minimum item level. I think it’s bad game design that the min ilvl for savage is so much higher than the level 90 class gear, but HGR is rich, so whatever. (I was like “oof” at 300K prices, but HGR said it was shockingly cheap. Apparently he paid 18 million for Kan’s gear at the start of the Shadowbringers raid cycle.)
HGR predicted that someone would not be raid ready by Saturday. In fact, Silver showed up without having done the normal raids, so we spent an hour getting him through. He skipped all the cutscenes. He wasn’t missing much, honestly. The plot/aesthetics for this latest raid tier seem fairly phoned-in. Coils of Bahamut had DRAGONS and a lot of lore significance. Alexander had robots, rockin’ music, and a cool time loop. Omega had the best baby chocobo. Eden…okay, maybe not Square’s finest work story-wise, but the music was great. Here, the music is bad and nobody really cares about [spoiler]’s son and his father issues.
But on the plus side, we did a double raid weekend, and on Sunday we beat P1S. A first-week clear of savage content! We’re so good at this game! HGR is the MVP. Silver’s power went out during the final phase, so HGR solo healed the ending. He was all “my parse!!!” but still got 81%. That’s the power of a grief gear gamer. “With Silver there and pots, maybe I could have tried to push 90,” he said.
Inexplicably, my machinist skills have increased over the hiatus, even though I parsed a hot 8%. I’m much better at heat management (I overcapped only 15 heat) and I think slightly better at maintaining uptime. As for the parse, my food apparently ran out during the fight OOPS. Also, HGR informs me I was wildly undergeared due to not having materia. I figured there was no point since I’m just wearing temp gear. (It’s a motley mix of 560 job gear, 580 crafted gear, and one piece of 580 gear from normals. By the end of the tier I’ll be rocking 600s, either in the form of savage raid drops or tomestone gear.) But HGR says everyone puts materia in their gear. He says if I showed up to a pickup group with no materia it’d be viewed as trolling or antisocial. Well, fine. Guess I’ll get materia by next week.
(Compare: I was 9% on Shiva while being wildly overgeared, since it was no longer current content.)
Meanwhile, HGR calling out newbie, our bard: “I watched our clear video. You were songless.”
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