It has to be the easiest cycle during the Sumerian patch set because there is no way I 36-starred it in spite of all my trivial mistakes, like skipping bursts during my rotation, or running a suboptimal team on the second half of the 12th floor’s last chamber where I chased the enemies across the arena while my hypercarry’s burst was active. Had this been the last Abyss, I would’ve certainly clocked 4 minutes in the last chamber. I can’t complain, though; it was genuinely fun and undoubtedly less stressful than any other Abyss in the past couple months!
I see the Abyss as a sales argument. The last cycle was made to remind people of their sin to not pull Nahida.
I personally think Abyss sucks no matter what. Putting me into a circular arena and adding a zero or two to enemies’ hp values makes it neither inspired nor engaging gameplay. It‘s lazy endgame fodder.
On a sidenote it still frustrates me that they put resources into a TCG instead of putting those resources into at least starting to introduce proper endgame content.