>>16949785
I beat the entire Iceborne story with high rank gear.
it's harder than the base game but not by much
most of the end game content is pretty difficult and fun until you get to Alatreon who is an MMO style raid boss with a literal DPS check half way through, the literal FF14 boss in the base game wasnt this bad.
Grinding for endgame gear is the worst its ever been, requiring you to spend hundreds of hours in the shitty endless hunt, praying the right monster spawns so you can augment your gear.
it's better in most areas, but in some, it's a million times worse.