So strictly speaking I don’t know yet if we are struggling for damage output because that fight has more body checks (5+) than DPS checks. The times I’ve gotten to the end, the previous body check has been so scuffed people have 1 or 2 levels of exhaustion due to deaths which really puts a sinker on the damage output. Finding groups at (insert whatever random time I pick up party finder and decide my evening shall be raiding) was largely my challenge. This is also my first tier running raids on-content.

Week 1 I only put one day forwards, so it counts and doesn’t at the same time for me. But I did get past baits

What I ran into mostly in 3-6 was picking the wrong time (Monday night on Crystal) to try to find groups. There was a notable vacuum of parties advertising at my prog point - it felt like (mild exaggeration) everyone was fresh, enrage, or a reclear.

So to make sure I still got practice in, I’d take an instance that was a fresh prog and help them - but we’d time out / disband right as we got to the mechanic I was on. As a result, I got really good at phase 1 with minimal “forward” progress.

Pulling stuff earlier in the week, even on Crystal there was a bit more variety if I looked closer to the beginning of reset, and last two weeks (week 7-8 if I counted right), I got clones > mouser 2 > and these past three days I saw raining cats and enrage.

So, other notes

• for one, the more mechs I can get through, the more PFs are available. This problem will be its own nature solve itself.
• I know I could visit Aether or Primal, but as small as Crystal 's raiding scene is if we all collectively decide it’s dead than it WILL die and I’m determined to do my part to prevent that from happening
• my FC has also been probing their way into on-content EX and savage, so with that I’ve also gotten more confident at leading/teaching, and starting next tier I plan to be part of the solution and actively put up a PF if I don’t see one rather than passively participating. I’m not going to sit and bemoan on social media a lower traffic datacenter without trying to fix this myself. There is a limit to how well that will work, because if I’m too late at night, too many PFs may “vampire” each other for members if there’s not quite enough people online. That’s something I have part of a feel of now, and I’ll get better with practice.
• “just join a static”: something I have considered, but I need to make sure I don’t over promise my energy. Sometimes I’ll just run one instance, other times I’ll be at it for 6h enough that one of the other FC officers logs out, domes something else, logs back in later and sees where I am to say “wait you’re STILL raiding??” Statics, by nature, have a fixed schedule and it would be quite rude to them to just not have energy available at their time. Scheduling 8 people is and always will be the hardest part of any raid.