Blizz needs to either: lower Timeless Isle gear Ilvl, or increase LFR Soo ivlvl req

[The bearer of truths]

First off, I like the Timeless Isle.
It gives people something to do, and allows returning players to catch up.

I also love LFR and Flex raiding.

However, the problem arises when the two of these are combined.
What Blizzard has created is a true hell. Screw Satan, he aint got shit in LFR SoO.

What happens now is that clueless players, new or not, can jump straight into the latest tier of LFR with 30 minutes of Isle farming.
This results in the majority of your LFR consisting of dps that hover between 30-50k dps.
Often said players are obnoxious and refuse to take advice, or follow simple instructions.

I literally had a wing 3 of SoO where 8, count em, EIGHT dps were between that margin. This was with 2 stacks of determination.
And this was not an isolated incident, earlier today I had the great displeasure of spending 2 hours on Galakras, again, because of players like this.

Ofcourse, you had this in far lessser proportions in previous tiers, with people geared in pvp crap which they got by afking BG's.
But it has never been as bad as it is now.

Therefore, I feel that something needs to be done.

Either:
Lower the itemlevel of Timeless Isle gear, but keep the stats the same.
Increase the required itemlevel for SoO, and make Timeless gear not count towards it, UNLESS you have Silver in the proving grounds.

Nerf gear because bad players wear it, pretty much sums up your post. I got this gear, rocked it into lfr and we downed everything with no issue.

Now read your arguement back to yourself..

"Nerf gear because of bad players" and then "If you give shit better gear, it's still going to be shit"

[Gandrake]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

because lfr too stronk, ned nerfz

increasing item level requirement to 520 would be sacrilege

i have a wife and 3 kids and a job and play world of warcraft 10 hours a week, i dont have the time to get good gear or learn how to play my class. this is just something i do for fun! its almost as fun as my favorite sport, competitive breathing

[Zaelkath]

My biggest issue with the gear on the isle is the god awful stats on the gear. When I finally wiped the dust off my mage and decided to gear her up I got gear from the isle and, no matter how hard I tried, the poor thing couldn't push past 90k dps.

[Bremmon]

I attempted to do LFR once or twice this tier, but after 3hr wipefests on shamman while people are doing 60k dps in their 496 epics, I quickly backtracked. Not one person in my guild or on my friends list still does LFR. With oQueue its to easy to get a decent flex group without having to carry baddies and their welfare epics.

[Lochton]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

I have always found looking for raid in the worse end, but it is useful as a stepping stone.

The Timeless gear is as it is to make more people try the raiding.

[Deleted]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

my LFr has been just as good. LFR is so easy as it is.

[lavaalamp]

ever since Flex i haven't stepped foot into LFR, and when i do i normally leave after the second wipe because seeing the whole raid pulling 20-50k isn't even gonna get 1 boss down.

[Redlokyldoreifanggore]

Afraid I have to agree with others here. The issue is not Blizz or the ilvl's, it's the players. While I wouldn't mind raising LFR SoO's ilvl requirement, I'm fairly certain the same idiots would still plague it, once they get better gear from ToT LFR.

There's always going to be worthless players, whether they choose to be (trolling) or are simply not that good (bad players are bad). I personally feel that the vote system needs redone so that these players can be removed quickly and easily. However then that runs the risk of abuse.

My solution: Deal with it. If you dislike the mouth-breathing morons populating LFR then don't utilize it. Do flex, which, from what I've heard, is more rewarding, simpler, and a better experience overall in comparison.

[Raelbo]

I dunno. Reading a LOT of hyperbole here.

This weekend I did a lot of LFR. Here were the results:

Hunter, ilevel 540: Wing 1: started on second boss. 1 shot everything.
Wing 2: started on first boss. 1 wipe on Dark Shaman. One shot everything else.
Wing 3: started on second boss. 1 wipe because a lot of people didn't realise to progress both sides equally. 1 Shot the last boss.

Blood DK ilevel 530: Wing 1: started on 3rd boss, 1 shot both bosses
Wing 2: started on 2nd boss, wiped twice on Shamans, 1 shot the others.

In total, 14 bosses, 4 wipes. 3 of those wipes were on Dark Shaman.

I honestly don't see an issue here.

LFR has been balanced such that it can handle a few people doing 30-50K dps. It has also been balanced so that most of the raid still has to have some clue, or it'll result in wipes.

The nett result is that most players seem to improve after a few LFR runs, and those that are beyond any form of help, well let's just say that they constitute a handicap which makes the LFR experience a little more challenging for those of us who know what we're doing, which, as long as it doesn't degenerate into a wipefest and hours lost to waiting for replacements, is fine by me.

My attitude is simple: I don't care how well/bad the rest of the raid is doing. I focus on my job and try to top the dps meters when I dps, and try to do my job properly as a tank. I have an interest in the overall dps to get a feeling of what is needed in the raid, but for the most part it has been sufficient, even with the few bads that tend to occupy any given LFR.

My genuine feeling is that most people in LFR are actually trying. And IMO you can't expect any more from them. I would far rather wipe a few times with low dps people trying their best than a bunch of conceited, arrogant pricks who do nothing but pollute raid chat with annoying whining the whole time. I reserve my kick quota for afk'ers, griefers and healers who decided to dps when clearly the raid didn't have enough healing.

Most people who are actively trying will improve. I don't think there is much to be done with a bad attitude though.

[Exeris]

Only real difference I have noticed so far is that SoO have more unforgiving mechanics and needs better coordination, can't say I have noticed much else compared to older lfr raids. Previous lfr was more or less filled with the same high and low dps/healers.

[zephid]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

LFR has ALWAYS been this bad.

[Ijoemomma]

install oqueue and do flex with pugs - lfr is dead to me.

I'm with you on this. I haven't touched LFR until I geared up my alt on Timeless.
People are right though. This is a three tier problem. First the ilvel allows people to walk right into the new tier. second most people who are raid aware aren't doing LFR because of reason 1. 3 is that a lot of the people in there are running with a green weapon and no enchants, gems etc. And why would they? They are going to replace that gear quickly with all these wings to choose from. Bot ToT and SoO.
So yeah, I agree completely that the gear from Timeless should get you into ToT lfr, at best.

[Deleted]

Would be better if the gear from TI actually wasn't so randomised, honestly as a protadin I get more gear suitable for ret or useless gear altogether (A helmet with a billion hit, wat).

[Wulfstan]

LFR is what it is. There is no sense in whining about it.

[Ugum]

The quality of lfr players does seem bad atm but I don't think its just down to one reason. These are but some of the reasons imo.
Timeless isle and ease of gearing

This is great for people such as myself with lots of Alts. I also make sure I'm gemmed, enchanted and reforged before I even step into SoO (I usually do a full run of ToT first just to get a better "feel" for how the class plays in a raid setting).

Flex taking many good players

With separate lockouts, I doubt that people "only do Flex". They dabble in LFR as well. Granted, not as much as they did before, but they didn't just up and disappear.

Simplification of leveling dungeons

Not sure how this has anything to do with raiding as these dungeons have always been easy.

The panda and pokemon factor

Again, not sure how this affects raiding and pressing buttons in a pre-determined order and not standing in stuff.

No reason for well geared players to do lfr now

There wasn't a reason for well geared players to run LFR before (once their Legendary was done), other than boredom.

No 'requirement' on joining lfr apart from gear - personally I would like to see silver in proving grounds on at least 1 char

PG is different for every class. I know on my Monk it was pretty easy. All PG teaches you is how to fight a set of very scripted fights, in order without any real randomness (like other players dropping shit where they shouldn't).

However having said that I don't think its necessarily a bad thing that lfr isn't face roll now (at least in terms of you aren't guaranteed to kill the boss), it was never designed to be a turn up = loot thing, more a taste of raiding for those who cant keep a raiding schedule

This is basically what i use it for. I would absolutely LOVE to be in a normal or even hard mode raid guild but the scheduling restrictions are tough with my schedule.

[ReleaseDay]

How about making Timeless gear better?

[Soulstainer]

You are clueless if you think people can qualify withn 30 minutes on timeless island. It would take about 8 hours at minimum, and that would require some good RNG as well as not being ´clueless´ about how to do it.

People who are clueless on Timeless Island.. they are about ilvl 480ish. Sure, you get many armor slots, and even maybe 1 or 2 535s.. but you also have no 2nd trinket and no weapon. Want to buy a TI weapon ( which also will not get you into SoO).. trust me, it is NOT fun trying to farm 20,000 coins on a character that is at iLVL 480ish with a crap weapon. In fact, I would say if they earned 20,000 coins on a character with that type of gear.. they are far from clueless.

LFR is always going to have people not giving effort.. who cares.. bosses are dying fast already in everything but the latest wing, which is basically same as it´s always been with LFR.

Actually by using a main well geared char of the same armor type you can get a full set of 496 (minus a trinket) in about a half hour if you farm well. I have a lvl 6 priest with a full set of 496 timeless gear (minus belt and leggings since my tailors will make those) including weapon and off hand made by a BS (502 item lvl) and an off hand which is currently 476 though next week in flex ill prolly get the off hand BoA for him).

My monk walked into ToT LFR 15 minutes after hitting 90 due to taking the time to give him full exalted reps and making the gear for him prior to hitting 90, and that was before Timeless Isle. He was a full 500 item lvl by 3 hours played at max level and less than 3 days total played.

[Coorpse]

I think you are confused about what LFR really is. LFR is the raid for everybody......it's not meant to be hard or all that trying. A handful of strong players can pretty much carry it. You will always have bads/afks/auto attackers in there. A word of advice, do LFR as long as you have to a forget about it.

[epLe]

I find it quite amusing to beat i550+ raiders on the dpsmeters, with my ungemmed & unenchanted timeless isle gear.

So yes its the players.

But the poorly designed ilvl increments in 5.4 is the reason why 20+ of the people in LFR is really bad geared
- There is no good geared people who have interrest in LFR loot. (except the legendary LFR cloak)

[Thage]

Isle of Why The Fuck Are We Here gear needs a rework for sure...lame as hell that the "catchup gear" ilvl base is the same as the first tier of raiding....

Blizzard didn't see any point in keeping t14 LFR relevant when t16 was out. Same reason they buffed the crap out of t14 and t15 drop rates in LFR.

Anyway, OP, random groups are random. I can't tell you how many t14 and t15 groups I got since the expansion hit where the groups wiped seemingly nonstop in the first weeks of a raid's release, as the LFR crowd adapted to the boss strategies. It wasn't until maybe a couple weeks before 5.4 hit that the LFR groups in my battlegroup began regularly oneshotting Lei Shen. Siege bosses have a lot more responsibility placed on individual players, so it's going to take a while for players to readapt and get into the groove for each boss in LFR. 'Til then, you may want to stick with Flex pugs and use Burdens to up your item level on Timeless Isle gear, or get a full set of upgraded LFR ToT gear, to meet the ilvl needs for Flex.