GRIND has become the first group to clear all four Savage raids of The Arcadion, Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail’s first Savage raid of the expansion. The Japanese static, based on the Gaia server, landed the kill on AAC Light-heavyweight M4 (Savage’s) boss, Wicked Thunder at around 7pm GMT.
But their win wasn’t without contention. Both GRIND, and North America static Serenity reported their kill at 18:59 GMT, which meant the race was a tie. It took several hours of confirmation, but by using Eorzea Time, the in-game clock which measures minutes and seconds, rather than hours and minutes, the kill time was confirmed. GRIND reportedly secured the win by just a few seconds, according to RWF tracker Frosty.
Image Credit: Square Enix
The kill ended around four hours off pulls on the final boss of the tier, after a dominant performance by second place Serenity for much of the race. The static had scored the first kill on M1S, Black Cat, the first boss of tier, but slipped into second place behind the likes of Echo, and Lucrezia. But coming up to the final boss, GRIND was the first to break through the wall that was Wicked Thunder (Savage) taking down the queen of the arena after just under five hours of pulls.
But ironically, the third and fourth place also came down to a Photo finish as JP static Lucrezia reported the same final kill time as Echo, at 19:17 GMT. After some VOD viewing, it was determined that Lucrezia had killed the boss a dozen or so seconds before Echo.
This pair of neck-and-neck finishes was incredibly thrilling, but only served to highlight one of the issues with high-level raiding in FFXIV: Top level raiders not streaming. During the race, Echo, formerly Netherland, streamed all eight perspectives of their raid. GRIND and Serenity did not. This meant verification of GRIND and Serenity’s positions took a decent amount of time, and its veracity was called into question by doubtful observers.
Proponents of non streaming claim its essential for statics to hide tactics to keep their competitive edge. Critics suggest that not streaming means that the authenticity of kills could be undermined.
Whatever the case, a photo finish is the most thrilling end to a raid tier in recent memory. The nine-hour race capped what has generally been seen as a fantastic raid tier, which was challenging on normal, but not artificially hard on Savage. As more statics clear the raid, and re-clears begin, a more full review of the tier can be seen.
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