What would it be?
People just dont give a shit about your exp, not many understand that a 520 that knows what to do will do alot better than a 535 that have no idea what he is doing.
exp>gear
At least reading or watching strategy videos for Normal mode is a good start. Flex is just undertuned Normal, after all.
As for gear, 520 sounds fine. I accepted people who were 530 in a SoO Normal raid last night (though they didn't exactly impress, but hey, we needed numbers and quickly).
I'm interested just how low a really good team could go with item level. Remember Undergeared during Wrath, doing as many raids as possible with nothing but blue gear? They did pretty good as well, all things considered. Though I suspect due to extreme amounts of AoE and massive tank hits you'd struggle to do Flex in anything less then 500 ilevel raid-wide, even if you had players capable of beating the enrage.
One of my guildies tanked all 4 wings on a 515 warrior. It's cake.
Easy, I check the armory, rather invest a minute extra doing that than having to give 1hour extra to the raid.
Judging by your response you are one of those who only look at the ilvl. If you owned a business that needed people, would you rather hire the one who has done that exact same thing for years and knows what to do in his sleep, or the one fresh out of school with the fancy degree but no knowledge about the actual job?
I wasn't aware there's a "knows how to play" stat on the armory. You're just using another version of ilvl look-up.
How ironic that you would judge me so quickly without vetting me.
- - - Updated - - -
I wouldn't hire someone without looking at their experience, quality of work, referrals, comprehensive interview, etc. People generally only do this kind of vetting for guild recruitment. You're telling me you do this for PUGs?
DPS? Around 550 and you should be fine.
Healing? Anything above 500
Tank? Probably wont even Armory you
Supply and demand. My 510 healers can get a Flex group much easier than my 550 DPS can. I don't tank pugs, but given the quality of Tanks I've seen in some Flex runs, simply saying "I R Tank" seems to get you in.
560+ item level and Normal or Heroic Garrosh achieve.
510 seems to work for the first 2 wings, but for the 3'rd and 4'th wing you need to know how to play (and perform) > item level. Tried that ingame flex finder thing the other night, and people were failing so miserably at standing in the purple pools @ Malkorok. So I value experience and a common sense over a few itemlevels.
The minimum requirement would be around Ilvl520, LFR experience and knowledge of the class.
The medium requirement that you need to have in order to join groups you see in /trade chat, however, is Ilvl550+, AotC achievement, 2-3 heroic kills at least, knowledge of 4 classes, and all professions maxed.