{
  "video_id": "reddit_1vn8ml6",
  "channel_slug": "ClaudeAI",
  "channel_handle": "r/ClaudeAI",
  "title": "Opus 5 is actually almost rage-inducing to use.",
  "url": "https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1vn8ml6/opus_5_is_actually_almost_rageinducing_to_use/",
  "external_url": null,
  "upload_date": "20260813",
  "published_at": "2026-08-13T11:56:47+00:00",
  "transcript": "I've read the latest recommendations from Anthropic, I've tried all kinds of global claude.md file changes, but I just cannot make Opus 5 behave in a way that's pleasant to work with.\n\nI'm not talking about if it's \"nice\" or \"pleasant\" in its phrasing, I'm talking about the following:\n\n- Responses are way too verbose and buzzwordy and hard to follow. I legit don't read 90% of the output anymore, that's how bad it is. No matter what I put in my claude.md when it comes to communication style, after it did any type of meaningful work, it always reverts back to its extremely verbose, over-explained, buzzword heavy mess. Huge sentences & paragraphs which contain multiple concepts at once, using buzzwords constantly that serve almost no purpose except making it harder to parse, and just overall doesn't stop yapping. \n- Simple tasks turn into these huge \"projects\" no matter how small something is.\n- On the flip side, it just doesn't actually finish things properly. It made a change to a file, which invalidated something else in literally the same file. It then raises to me as part of its insanely wordy response that \"I left x unchanged, but it is now no longer valid, let me know if you want it changed as well\". It causes so much mental effort just to make sure it doesn't create rot in the codebase. The amount of times the response includes something to the extent of: \"Worth knowing: my new change introduced issue x, let me know if you'd like that resolved\" is just ridiculous. I feel like I need to prompt it 5 times just to actually finish the work properly.\n\n\nDon't get me wrong, the model is still useful, it very clearly is still strong at the underlying tasks, but it is just a disaster to work with. Fable doesn't seem to have this issue, or at least to a much smaller extent, but even on the 200$ plan the fable weekly limits are not really enough to use it for most tasks.\n\nSomehow, it has become a socially inept genius, that is both incredibly lazy AND way too overzealous at the same time.\n\nAny tips to make this better are very welcomed, but really I just wanted to vent & provide some feedback because a model like this is just not something I can keep using long-term, I have to look into alternatives for the enjoyment of my work.\n\n\n\n--- Top Comments ---\n\n\n[1 upvotes] **TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 50 comments.**\n\n**The consensus in this thread is a resounding 'YES', OP. Users find Opus 5 to be infuriatingly difficult to work with, validating all of your complaints.**\n\nThe main gripes are its insane verbosity and \"Claude-splaining\" (giving you unreadable, buzzword-filled essays for simple questions), and its tendency to create \"code rot\" by not finishing tasks properly and then telling you about the new problems it created. Many feel like they have to prompt it 5 times just to get one simple thing done correctly. As you put it, it's a \"socially inept genius\" that's both lazy and overzealous.\n\nSo what's the fix? The overwhelming advice is to **ditch Opus 5 and revert to Opus 4.8 or 4.6**, which many feel are still superior for actual work. Fable is the preferred alternative for those who can afford the usage, and some are even using Fable to \"herd\" Opus 5 agents so they don't have to talk to it directly. A few are jumping ship to competitors entirely.\n\n[56 upvotes] I fired opus 5. Worst model I’ve ever tried to use.  I refuse to use it anymore.  \n\n[25 upvotes] Opus 5 is such an annoying model and the code rot really is annoying. You have to push it 5 times as hard to follow through on ONE thing you wanted.\n\n[19 upvotes] This morning, I asked opus 5 to make a text file more concise, to reword it.  it gave me walls of text and suggested some sort of system would work best for all of this class of file.   We went ahead and tried it. After an hour it still has about ten action items on this same process.  All I wanted was a summary of two pages of rambling text.\n\n[20 upvotes] I reverted to Opus 4.8. Nothing worked with Opus 5. It was exactly as you described. Insanely convoluted writing, overly sophisticated language, stupidly messy reasoning when dealing with unexpected cases, and so damn time consuming. \n\n4.8 still works great for me. Do yourself a favor and switch back too.",
  "transcript_chars": 4267,
  "ingested_at": "2026-08-13T13:30:05.786896+00:00",
  "source": "reddit",
  "yt_meta": {
    "score": 155,
    "upvote_ratio": 0.92,
    "num_comments": 85,
    "author": "ronoudgenoeg",
    "is_self": true
  }
}