FLex worse than LFR? That awkward moment when....

[DeadmanWalking]

Flex is for pugs.

First week of pugging Flex went smooth for me, wiped once on the 3rd boss, was pretty easy.

Flex is for anybody who damn well wants to use it for any reason they want to use it.

[Felarion]

ever heard about openraid ? Most people that use this site are very decent players. I suggest opener to check it up

[HeedmySpeed]

Let me ease your pain a little:

1. Guilds that want to progress in Normal still can. It's not like Normal went away or anything.

But how can they if their roster isn't online?

2. Guilds that have a few more than ten, are friends and don't want to sit someone out for the night now can do something else.

It's still not Normal mode which is what everyone desired.

3. Guilds that have had some difficulty with Normal for whatever reason--maybe they are small, maybe they are recruiting and haven't solidified their raid group yet--and don't want to bother with LFR now can do something else. They can tune up, learn the mechanics, get some gear and move on when they want to.

This is getting absurd. Ok, by this reasoning, why don't we make a 4th option for players who "haven't solidifed their group" but don't want LFR but also don't want Flex?

4. Guilds with friends on other realms can group up and run the current tier on Flex.

Can't they run the current tier in LFR? Why wouldn't that be easier to implement?

This isn't really that difficult to figure out.

You did a terrible job, I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

[Grubjuice]

But how can they if their roster isn't online?

It's still not Normal mode which is what everyone desired.

This is getting absurd. Ok, by this reasoning, why don't we make a 4th option for players who "haven't solidifed their group" but don't want LFR but also don't want Flex?

Can't they run the current tier in LFR? Why wouldn't that be easier to implement?

You did a terrible job, I award you no points and may god have mercy on your soul.

you are not even trying to engage in a discussion; you are just ignoring arguments, and willfully pretending that perspectives varying from your own don't exist.

1. if the roster is not online, it is the RL's responsibility to incentivize all raid-team members to attend scheduled raid times if running normal or heroic raids is the agreed goal of the group. It is the guild's responsibility to incentivize the RL to incentivize the roster.

2. the goal of any guild is the perogative of the members of that guild. if running with friends with more important than accomplishing normal mode, they use flex. if accomplishing normal mode is more important than runnign with friends, they sit people. all choices entail opportunity costs.

3. Argument ad absurdem/strawmanning is an invalid rhtorical strategy.

- - - Updated - - -

Flex is for anybody who damn well wants to use it for any reason they want to use it.

Correct!!!

[Adjusting]

Oh get off your high horses. So tired of the name calling. It's like be in a play yard with a bunch of bullies!

[Hexorcist]

My guild uses Flex as a way to assess newcomers. We cleared first wing of Flex as a guild in one evening, it's extremely easy and was a nice avenue for seeing the fights before we tackle them in normal mode.

But we use it to assess newcomers and teach newcomers, primarily, because we can bring as many of them as we want, their little mistakes aren't as unforgiving as in normal mode so we can actually see how many little mistakes they make without worrying too much about the whole encounter going to hell, and the lower damage and lower stress from normal gives them some confidence.

Where people are getting this "flex is for pugs" and "flex is new lfr" attitude from, I dunno.
Flex's original design was for groups of friends who had more than 10 but less than 25 who wanted to experience the content together in an organized setting, rather than the clusterfuck that is LFR; it can be used for pugging, but that wasn't it's original purpose given that pugs often don't work well together, and that is why pugs don't tend to do particularly well in it, while those of us with guilds that ordinarily do normal mode cleared it no problem.

[Deleted]

Some form of ingame pve rating would be decent.

Blizzard added that already. You can check if they achieved proving grounds gold for their spec.
If they achieved proving ground endless wave 30+ they are very good.

[Caliph]

flex is imo a good teaching guide for normals. once people learn their class and how to do mechanics normals will become the next progression for flexers. it's good in the long term for raiding because they'll be more adequate raiders available. Unless of course the community devours all of the raiding students and forces them back to lfr.

Bring them along, teach them a little, send them to wow sites to learn and hopefully they'll get better. otherwise just ignore them altogether, or just kick them if they're that stupid.

[Breccia]

Sometimes it's the crowd. But other times, it's That Guy.

My guild is exceptionally casual. Like, raiding 2 hours a night, 2 times a week, we never even fought Ji-Kun on Normal casual. Flex is perfect for us, in terms of ilvl required, challenge of the encounters, and accepting different numbers of players. And with some planning and coordination, we're getting the Flex bosses down, one at a time.

But.

Last night we did the first 3 bosses in Flex and I solo-tanked each for at least half the fight. Our other tank, let's call him Moon Moon, has continued to develop as an embarrassment to raiding, not just in our guild but in the game in general. Take Immersus. We wiped pretty quickly our first pull, since I tried to duck quickly through the Spray with 2 Stacks of Suck on me. Why two stacks? Because the other tank wasn't taunting. Or using any form of communication. Was he AFK auto-attacking? No, he went after the blobs no problem. He just wasn't doing his job. So the next pull, we kill him, with me tanking the entire time (and being far more careful about mechanics than Flex normally requires). Turns out he was on the phone the whole time. Didn't think to tell us he was on the phone, or to, you know, see I had a Stack of Suck and taunt like it's his role in the raid. Didn't stop him from linking the loot he won, though (and yes, other players called him out on that part).

Fallen Protectors? My job's He Softfoot, his is Rook Stonetoe. Why? Because we don't trust Moon Moon to avoid Gouge or the poison pools. Just let me get into position and OH CRAP I guess we're starting! Easy enough fix, but a little warning before the pull would have been nice. Then he pulls Stonetoe, and his frontal attack, facing into the safety bubble during Sun's Desperate Measures, and the whirlwind kick as he leaves is icing on the cake. Then Rook summons his adds and Moon Moon stands in the Shadow Zone of Suck and dies. Again. So I end up tanking He and Rook for the last few minutes. Yes it's Flex and I can do this, but I shouldn't have to. Rook and He have specifically crafted mechanics that make tanking them both at once between "chore" and "nightmare". Don't Stand In The Fire isn't exactly new, and he died exactly the same way last week.

Aaaand the third boss. Our entire battle plan literally revolves around Moon Moon being so inept that we don't trust him to do the Tank Trial. Less well-known, it also involves me tanking every single add because I don't trust Moon Moon to pick them up in time, plus he can't eat the void zones since he doesn't go in the Trial to get purified. Then he taunts the boss back while he still has Stacks of Suck and gets demolished DAMMIT MOON MOON so now I have to tank the damn thing from over 50% to the ground with steadily increasing Stacks of Suck and steadily decreasing available cooldowns.

And since we had a couple minutes left we took a few swings at the Sha of Pride just to get an idea of the fight. You've probably already guessed that he didn't taunt off for Wounded Pride, despite being told to do so literally minutes before, then wondered out loud why his character had caught fire. But the pivotal point was when another raider was sent to the prison literally less than 5 yards from where he was standing. I shouted into my mic:

"Moon Moon, get in the red thing! Moon Moon, get in the red thing! Moon Moon, get in the red thing! Moon Moon, get in the red thing!"

as if he was a small child, at which point the other raider died. "I didn't see the red thing!" Moon Moon called out. The Titan Locks are the size of Cadilacs and he was standing RIGHT THERE.

Other raiders, I'll remind you these are other casual raiders, were dumbfounded by his lack of ability. We've been raiding for years, and gotten to know his little quirks and downsides, but such as it taking forever for him to learn a new raid mechanic. But it's been particularly bad recently, and while I haven't run LFR SoO yet, I can't possibly imagine a tank that could do a worse job. If this had been normal, we'd still be on Immersus.

Dammit Moon Moon!

[Grubjuice]

Sometimes it's the crowd. But other times, it's That Guy.
[snip]
Dammit Moon Moon!

that's the tank i am always afraid people think i am
but i guess the fact that i even care that people might think i'm That Guy means i am not That Guy.

[Deleted]

Just pugged flex with 2 wipes on the 4 new bosses, get people with a brain and there won't be any dissapointment, also 1shot everything in lfr without a problem. So i don't really get what your problem is, if you say people in flex are stupid, well that's just up to yourself...

[Grubjuice]

i also think some players get too wound up by wipes.
There is a learning curve for all players, whether you are in Flex or LFR or Normal mode, just because you know the fight and it's easy for you doesn't mean it's fair to assume everyone else knows exactly what to do or that it's easy for them

you will make your game betterfor yourself by teaching people how to play rather than being mad at those who are struggling.

[Lukazor]

Did Flex for the first time last night with 14 people, 12 from my guild and 2 from another guild - We 1 shot all 4 bosses and was actually quite fun.

On Normal however my guild are a little stuck on Norushen, we keep hitting the enrage timer around 18%. Probably a combination of getting our tactics right and a lack of dps, possibly due to gear. We cleared 12/12 Normal last tier but never attempted any HC modes.

[mmowin]

that's the tank i am always afraid people think i am
but i guess the fact that i even care that people might think i'm That Guy means i am not That Guy.

How can you be so sure though?

[Deleted]

all these new bosses are far too advanced to LFRabble.

Blizzard should make all the bosses in LFR into tank and spank with a dps check, but ofc not too high, otherwise the baddies still wont be able to beat them.

[Breccia]

How can you be so sure though?

No no, I'm with him on this one. People who are worried about being the incompetent raider, actively try not to be incompetent. The ones who are completely useless never care what people think about them.

[Grubjuice]

The problem with this statement is this is exactly how Flex was invented in the first place. We had normal and heroic until Dragon Soul, when they added LFR for people who didn't want to be forced into a raid schedule/couldn't raid normal because they weren't skilled enough. 5.0 and 5.2 rolled out new raids with at least a couple bosses that actually required people to do something in order to kill the boss, even on LFR. But moreso, there was a jump in difficulty from LFR to normal. Which should have been expected, but people were upset because they were too good for LFR but not good enough for normal. They whined about Normal difficulty being... Well. Normal.

Rather than nerf normal, Flex was made. Guarantee you, by this time next expansion we'll see people complaining they don't want to be forced into a flex schedule and we'll have a difficulty between LFR and Flex. Then we'll hear that people are too good for Flex, and we'll get a difficulty between Flex and Normal. Then the jump between normal and heroic will be too big and they'll want semi-heroic mode. Because if we're catering to every group of player, we might as well just make a raid difficulty for every different player.

yes but your argument is based on a valid analysis of possible trends. I was merely criticizing the rhetorical couching of that argument.
I agree that flex does not solve the 'I don't want to be forced to play the content one step below the content i want play' problem. but that problem is not solvable by adding more content. it is only solvable by removing content.

it's like traffic. you can't solve the problem of traffic by increasing the number of roads, because the number of drivers on the road increase at >1 exponent of increase of road. you can only reduce traffic by actually eliminating roads. (ok this analogy is bullshit and you can ignore it)

what i am trying say is that so long as their are tiers of raiding, raiders will 'force' themselves to clear the content immediately below their personal raid level.

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that's the tank i am always afraid people think i am
but i guess the fact that i even care that people might think i'm That Guy means i am not That Guy.

How can you be so sure though?

No no, I'm with him on this one. People who are worried about being the incompetent raider, actively try not to be incompetent. The ones who are completely useless never care what people think about them.

i am definitely not a Pro-gamer, i have average skills.
but i am not an oblivious asshole who does not even care if i make mistakes. I can at least be taught based on my mistakes.

[Firebert]

I wouldn't mind if LFR gave no loot and was only there to see content, but then noone would do it and I couldn't see the raid content >.>
Oh and please tell me where to find raid around 9am PST, thank you.

Try find one on OpenRaid or create one there

EDIT: Went into LFR Sha of Pride, 3 stacks of Determination before we got him down. If people are wiping 3 times to Sha in Flex before getting him down too I don't think it's been poorly balanced.

[Deleted]

After attempting the first wing on LFR last night on an alt, I've basically decided that I'm just not going to bother with it at all this patch. My alts will be getting geared up from Flex from now on.

[DeadmanWalking]

The problem with this statement is this is exactly how Flex was invented in the first place. We had normal and heroic until Dragon Soul, when they added LFR for people who didn't want to be forced into a raid schedule/couldn't raid normal because they weren't skilled enough. 5.0 and 5.2 rolled out new raids with at least a couple bosses that actually required people to do something in order to kill the boss, even on LFR. But moreso, there was a jump in difficulty from LFR to normal. Which should have been expected, but people were upset because they were too good for LFR but not good enough for normal. They whined about Normal difficulty being... Well. Normal.

Rather than nerf normal, Flex was made. Guarantee you, by this time next expansion we'll see people complaining they don't want to be forced into a flex schedule and we'll have a difficulty between LFR and Flex. Then we'll hear that people are too good for Flex, and we'll get a difficulty between Flex and Normal. Then the jump between normal and heroic will be too big and they'll want semi-heroic mode. Because if we're catering to every group of player, we might as well just make a raid difficulty for every different player.

Whats a 'flex schedule'? Have you actually Flexed?