I'll start out by saying in Gordias, I was a BLM that only managed to clear A3s because I talked high of myself and filled in for a group that had it on farm. They did considerably higher DPS than me and I died twice in the last ~1:30 of the fight. This was literally my only clear of it to date. I did manage to tag along as a SCH into A4s and made it to the third leg, and I've cleared that fight in i225 gear since then, even dabbling in doing Nisi properly. I'm a SCH in Midas.
A5s started ball-breakingly difficult. My first two clears of Hummelfaust actually ended with all of us dying to enrage and the boss coming with us. I feel like this fight was extremely overtuned, being to the point where if you had the DPS to kill Hummelfaust you'd literally skip the last phase of FFXIV Gil the fight, but it also served as a statement from SE that this tier was focusing more on mechanics than on DPS checks, which I honestly feel they delivered on. All of the mechanics, I felt, were creative and unique and it really added to my enjoyment of the fight, but the only thing I don't like about it is that he takes less damage when he's large. This turned into a problem for my first group, as they couldn't tune their cool downs properly and we ended up actually dying to enrage before clearing. As a comparison, sometimes we'd skip first prey.
It was weird.
A6s: Unfortunately, I can't speak for this fight pre-nerf except for Blaster, but I feel they did the right thing to nip this in the bud before it finished off the raiding community after A3s. The whole two mines bit wasn't too bad, but it caused for some confusion in my first static as that tank just would. Not. Understand. That he needed to pick the first mine up at the earliest instant possible so that I could actually precast a heal on him. Then he'd sometimes take that first mine and INSTANTLY run into the second mine and just gg.
All in all, post nerf, the fight was pretty well tuned. Not so difficult that it was too much for groups, but difficult enough that it still required attentiveness throughout the fight. I personally liked the fact that Brawler rewarded you for having good DPS in the sense that you wouldn't get a third Chakram if you pushed fast enough. It's unfortunate that you can't place waymarks until you get to Vortexer, though.
A7s: Great fight, I honestly had a lot of fun doing this one, and it really started to enhance my ability as a SCH as I learned where to use certain abilities. DPS check was a little high in my opinion in comparison to the other fights in the tier, but it is what it is. My second static hit enrage 3 times before clearing but in the end, we got it down. I especially liked the ability of being able to choose who does what jail, so you could have your healer and tank do the DPS jails in the first phase to help push extra damage, etc. My second static actually ended up having our WAR take the healing jail in the last phase to guarantee me to be out of the jail so I could Adlo spam. We elected to have our PLD solo tank and just minimize the stacks he got through the use of shielding, but also our WHM's mana was usually pretty spent by this time and it was hard on them to spam Cure II through Uplander. The randomness of the balls, though, I did not like about this fight. It kept everyone on their toes, but it ended up being frustrating more than it was challenging.
A8s: Honestly my favorite fight in the game, and I absolutely loved T9 and T13. The fact that you had your opener start at Blaster and not Onslaughter was really cool, and it really tested my ability as a SCH to their limits. The coordination your group needed to get past Phase 2 made sure that everyone was doing their part and you had to keep that level of Final Fantasy XIV Gil coordination going into Brute Justice as well. DPS checks not too tight, and still had multiple ways of doing the fight at all parts except Gavel, which was unfortunately pretty set in stone (healer had Penalty I so they had to take 3 discoid orbs before Gavel, two DPS had Penalty III so they had to take 2 J Storms before Gavel and the last orb after Gavel, other two DPS had a DoT on them so they both had to take a discoid orb with the WHM as they couldn't take the remaining two J Storms, which left the other healer and the tank with Min HP and that speaks for itself). All in all fairly well tuned. Still had tight DPS checks, but was more mechanic heavy than anything as the enrage timer was 13:30 but most people's first clear ended around 12:30.