Watching you dive head first into Criterion while having absolutely no idea what you signed up for was a delight.

Completing all puzzles in variant dungeons 100% all routes for the special reward is a pretty good trip. Love the mounts, minions and cosmetics.

3:26:40 Just wanna point out that it's more of a mit check than a heal check. This becomes more common with savage and beyond, but you want to plan out your group's mitigation such that you have coverage for the hardest hits that become difficult to survive otherwise (so you don't blow them all on the same mechanic and then you're out of juice when the boss wants to go another round, to quote JoCat). The bleed in this case is snapshotted when the AOE lands - meaning if you have higher mitigation at that moment, the bleed will be smaller. That's how all damage over time effects work btw.

For what it's worth most folks do the harder content in FFXIV having selected a predetermined strat from the internet, and they still fail plenty. You're not expected to do it perfectly in prog groups. However for those of us that put those kinds of expectations on themselves it can be pretty rough :P

Wasn't expecting y'all to go into Criterion after just one Variant run, but I can't say it wasn't entertaining.

If you pick the same door at the start, the bosses will be the same model and have the same set of default abilities every time. But depending on some decisions you can make during the rest of the path, the bosses will have different additional abilities. Most of those decisions count as different variations, which give a different lore drop into your codex and if you have all 12 lore pieces, you get an achivement with the mount on it. But some are just ways to delete one ability from the next boss, but don't count into the 12 pathes. The lever you bypassed is one of the latter, that just removed one ability from the first boss' abilities. The pieces of ore you had to pick two of, is of the former. If you pick the correct ones, it opens one path, and if you pick the wrong ones, you get a different path. Those decisions can be quite varied. Sometime it's as simple and obvious as which of two levers you can pull, or which of two items you pick up, while others are puzzles or hidden triggers like the order in which you kill a certain group of trash mobs.

2:22:49 Carefully reading the book entries will give clues about how to access other secret paths and to solve the riddles and puzzles. Complete them all for a reward.

"The butt scoot is ice aspected" is my favorite quote here lol

I like this lala's entrance at 0:44 :D

Tip for Kyle (and maybe Garrett too?): You can "raise" the camera angle with ctrl+arrow up so you can get a "higher" perspective. You consistently missed the top of the boss due to your angle, which made it hard for you to figure out a specific mechanic.

The rat was the perfect introduction to Criterion, it took everyone by surprise. I'd say Criterion is around savage difficulty, especially if you're blind progging it. I did the 1st one mostly blind on release, but each criterion gets even harder, the 3rd one is especially rough.

I'm late to the party, but on the off chance you see this many people will pull first time without a guide of any kind then use them after that. Experience it blind then use more info afterwards.

Criterion is savage difficulty. Expectations for a group of players who are able to clear a savage tier on patch would be to be done with criterion in about 3-5 instances (blind). Can be easier if not blind, but still +3 instances wouldn't be uncommon. There is also now a real dps check (somewhat, not that much) and real damage. Just like savage, proper mitigation is a must, you make your own mitigation plan and what not. Shield healers are much more preferable for criterion in general (sge more than sch). And typically having a melee dps with a ranged/caster would be best.

Criterion Dungeon difficulty is a step above extreme. It's not the same as savage but it's definitely higher than extreme, so this is your first time properly attempting content at that level!

Someone probably already mentioned it as well, but this fight is considered to be difficulty-wise somewhere between the third and fourth tier of savage pandaemonium. So yeah - it will take quite a bit of time to prog blind.

The Rat: "So you have chosen death"

This chaos was an absolute joy to watch. More variant dungeon paths could absolutely fit into a whimsy/laid-back stream. And your criterion prog was as entertaining as any extreme night. The first 2 bosses of criterion are absolutely within your ability to figure out, if you feel like more. However you decide to go about it, both variant and criterion are absolutely worth another look sometime in the future! DEATH TO THE RAT!

I love criterion and wish more folks ran it. Its so fun

This was a treat! Although I didn't have time to do them on-release, I've since picked them up and become something of a criterion enjoyer. Glad y'all had fun with it!

I know it's dated and scales a bit weird but I'd love to see you guys go for ARR extremes MINE. Might be able to clear 2 or 3 in a single session

Diving into Criterion blind was certainly brave. Probably foolhardy. I know y'all like blind progging, so I recommend tackling the round of Extremes for that first. More forgiving with just as much puzzling. Endsinger extreme will make your brain hurt.

Silkie mechs are super fun and interesting. Once you get it, it feels like knowing a secret code

Silkie is such a joy of a boss. I’m glad they now have a place to put the mechanics that are too weird for savage, or wouldn’t work as well in a 8-man party, and Silkie’s poms fit in both categories also, I suggest you start each boss blind and ask chat or a trusted third party to retrieve a strat for whichever mechanic walls you, if you feel like it. I find that the value in criterion is that it’s easier to blind prog, since you only need to find half as many people for it as savage, but whatever makes for the best show.

yes most ppl use a guide to get all 12 because of some Secrets that only unlock be standing still in certain random spots till the NPC joins you then walk to another place (away from the next opjective) to unlock a door and shit. its logical enough to no guide it.

criterion is roughly extreme difficulty with savage damage scaling, I'm excited to see y'all do eureka orthos [the deep dungeon not the field operation]

Kyle’s Nanamo voice/pronunciations makes me think he watch too much ‘Allo ‘Allo and is trying to imitate the British spy with a terrible French accent who’s disguised as a police officer.

Maybe large size versions of your thumbnails (both the final ones and your scraps) should be part of your patreon perks lol edit: Ah someone else beat me to it.

Honestly hot take maybe? But I see normal Criterion as Savage and Criterion Savage as Ultimate

The original Rogue was ascii characters on a grid, rpg mechs, turn based, randomly generated, climbing up/down a tower, you die you lose all. The more you drop of these, the more it's roguelite

You can map duty actions to keys so you dont need to take up bar space. Mines ctrl+m4 and ctrl+m5 ~

Just catching up on the VOD, I had to step away to take my kiddo to karate, but I'm glad to see my Grim reaper meme made the stream! Also take this as a vote for more blind prog content, it was a delight!

Thats reality of true endgame content. ;)

Criterion is basically a boss rush mode

3:41:40 RIP Kyle xD

That last dungeon is savage-tier difficulty. It would be better for you to do all the extremes first. I'm pretty sure they skipped the ARR ones, even those can absolute kick your ass, but they're a great place to learn.

It's me, The Rat

i remember people blind progging day 1 funny rat, even experienced raiders were stuck on it for a couple hrs as the top streams on twitch lol

Criterion, Savage, Ultimates - most people watch guides for these, and even then it takes weeks and even months depending on the fight, and the player skill of your group. Execution is already difficult itself that sussing out the mechanics is really only the domain of a select few. It's hard. So don't feel bad about getting guides for these fights, trust us, it is the norm.

You can upgrade your green 640 gear to 650 for free in Radz.

Nice progging guys, I tried beating this rat for hours with no success.

PHRASING!

love your expressions in kzfaq.info/get/bejne/aMeKfLOqyc67aWQ.html

Savage fights are fundamentally different. They shouldnt be compared. This is not a savage fight in their current format nor difficulty and everyone saying such dont know what they are talking about. The difficulty lies in that you are expecting party cohesion to function the same as other encounters or meta. The mechanics are deceptively easy. Like the simple mechanic of that silkie swaps color to the puff after charge with what he is holding; its deceptively easy. You are expecting it to be harder than what it is so it becomes harder.