[r/ClaudeAI] Back to Opus 4.8 High after trying Opus 5 Extra/Max

Original poster: u/Duval-Lavud
Original publication time: 2026-07-25 23:42:13 UTC
Original title: Back to Opus 4.8 High after trying Opus 5 Extra/Max
Original flair: Comparison
Original URL/media URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1v6nlvs/back_to_opus_48_high_after_trying_opus_5_extramax/

Original post body:

Boy what a ride I had today.

I have a set of skills written as a "protocol" for Claude to deal with complex projects involving several roles: a set of directives that requires Claude to follow a standard staged-process with checks, guardrails and safeguards before proceeding to the next stage.

This protocol was created by Fable 5 High and it is perfect ⭐🎉; Opus 4.8 High follows it to a tee. In every new session, I just need to feed the session with a single one-page handover from the previous session. Sometimes, I don't even feed it any handover, just ask it to follow the protocol and it picks up where the work was left without much effort, with relevant questions the handover answers.

So I got that email about Opus 5 and whahnot?

Boy, what the heck was that? It was like I was working with Gemini. I started with high, went up to extra, then upped it to max, documenting all the mistakes made by the previous sessions and feeding them to the next. The darned thing defaulted to Gemini mode and could not put two strings of thought together without me reminding it about the protocol and previous session outputs. It just wouldn't follow the chain of thought determined in the protocol. Even the language used was amateurish and unprofessional.

I am back to Opus 4.8. I am happy again 🥳. I will not give Opus 5.0 another chance.