12-man flex

[Hildrande]

Expecting the entire group to be on a similar gear level and raid experience seems rather obvious to me. I would go as far as expecting the opposite that higher geared players and more experienced players should group with lower geared and lower experienced players is extremely silly and unrealistic.

You are assuming ilvl = skill and experience. Maybe that worked the first few months after 5.4, but as the game stands now there are so many facerollers that have gotten carried even through normal, and so many alts around from experienced players, that item level is not a good indicator of playing skill.

Rather, I believe the high ilvl requirement sometimes is used by less skilled players as a coping strategy involving overgearing and trivializing mechanics.

[xenogear3]

It is not that flex after all.

[Wilderness]

I do not find how this is silly. Expecting the entire group to be on a similar gear level and raid experience seems rather obvious to me. I would go as far as expecting the opposite that higher geared players and more experienced players should group with lower geared and lower experienced players is extremely silly and unrealistic.

Perhaps silly wasn't the best word, but I was mostly referring to people who are asking for higher ilvls when they don't really have the experience or the ilvl themselves, which I do see quite a bit. Someone looking for a fast run for a shot at an heirloom or the 1 piece that they just haven't been able to get an upgrade for is fine - those people should and do seek each other out. But, in my experience at least, there are far less of those people and far more people who are more trying to get carried than anything else.

[Deleted]

You are assuming ilvl = skill and experience. Maybe that worked the first few months after 5.4, but as the game stands now there are so many facerollers that have gotten carried even through normal, and so many alts around from experienced players, that item level is not a good indicator of playing skill.

Rather, I believe the high ilvl requirement sometimes is used by less skilled players as a coping strategy involving overgearing and trivializing mechanics.

I see no part in my post were I assumed ilvl = skill and experience. I said that I ask for both iLvL and experience, not one or the other. Higher ilvl often means more boss kills however. When I play with randoms it is my base setting to assume they will play bad. If you create a group planning around the run going good even if everyone plays badly (i.e. extremely overgearing it), the only possible outcome is that you can be possitively surprised by both the players and the run as a whole.

You do not ask for high item level because you want high skill. You want it because a bad player at 560 will still do better than a bad player at 500. There is way to much work to determine if a pug player is good or bad, so it is easier to just stack your raid full with players overgearing it and then it wont matter if they are bad or good. As I said, I still always add extra people to my raids and then kick anyone that is performing extremely poorly (as long as there is no wipe I often dont kick anyway). If you do the addition as I do to ask for experience aswell then you have a lot higher chance aswell. A player with 14/14N and 560 ilvl may be worse than a 500ilvl player with 6/14 in Flex, sure, but the odds are so insanely in favor of the higher item leveled and more experienced player and in a pug environement it is simply not worth the effort to sort out that 1 in a million low ilvl player that will be better than a higher item level player.

Exactly as you say, high item level requirements are there to cope with how terrible the average pugging WoW player is. I do not want to have to explain strategies and rather trivialise the content.

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Perhaps silly wasn't the best word, but I was mostly referring to people who are asking for higher ilvls when they don't really have the experience or the ilvl themselves, which I do see quite a bit. Someone looking for a fast run for a shot at an heirloom or the 1 piece that they just haven't been able to get an upgrade for is fine - those people should and do seek each other out. But, in my experience at least, there are far less of those people and far more people who are more trying to get carried than anything else.

Well yes, if the group leader do not meet his own requirements (For me it is fine if he is on an alt slightly below the ilvl req), then it is just silly. Still he took the effort to make the group so like it or find another group. I tend to avoid groups where the raid leader do not have the raiding experience he himself seek from others.
I have not really pugged flex with another persons group in a long time, I make my own groups now when I want to do flex nowadays, find it much faster and easier. However from my experience when I did pug a lot earlier I never really noticed the phenomena you described, think it happened once and then I just joined another group. Though I do not think I did enough runs to have a decent sample size to determine if that is common or not, and perhaps its a more common occurance now than before.

[JemiS]

I had a group leader turn down 4 14/14H 580+ DPS when we were 3 healing a Flex 4 run because "we'd have 25 man mechanics", and he was specifically referring to Blackfuse.

He wondered why his tanks and healers left after that.....

[Hildrande]

When I play with randoms it is my base setting to assume they will play bad.

That's actually a very good point

I might need to start think the same way - or just stop pugging.

[Squirl]

More people in flex is always better.

Boss health and damage do not fully compensate for the increase in output from additional raiders (source).

Boss mechanics scale via weighted randomization, or they're rounded up/down (which ever makes it easier), or they're set at a static number (such as Garrosh's MC: always 2) (source).

The 14 person breakpoint is a myth perpetuated by people who heard it once (potentially when it was true: when Flex was released) and kept repeating it. Flex has always been so easy that the breakpoints didn't matter; however, now there are literally no breakpoints and fights get easier as you add more people. People still clinging to the 14-person (or any other "magic number") template are either misinformed or outright stupid.

[hotmess]

This annoys me a lot! I love the idea of flex. I love that you need at least 10, but can have up to 25 people. I understand certain mechanics change depending on the number of people.. but when we (my bf & i) start flex runs people lose their minds if it's over 13 people. OMG NOW IT'S GOING TO BE HARDER!!

A 4th puddle on Mal makes it "harder"? How about you.. participate in mechanics and not rely on others to do it?

I can't wait until WoD and be able to do 30 man flex. Baddies are gonna bad, so baddies should be kicked and go back to LFR if they refuse to listen to mechanics.

[Dreyen]

I find threads like this quite hilarious... I've acutally been turned down from a raid because "it makes it become 25man mode", even on my full heroic geared druid lol.

Everything sclaes with a % chance, the only exception is probably sha of pride because it would be aggrivating to have a chance to get a 3rd prison.. but by that point, you should have enough people and can easily assign players to each prisons..

If there is any hard breakpoints, you probably should be able to handle it quite easily with an additional or two players... I do flexes above 13 often and i find very little differences.

[Clrg]

More people in flex is always better.

Boss health and damage do not fully compensate for the increase in output from additional raiders (source).

Boss mechanics scale via weighted randomization, or they're rounded up/down (which ever makes it easier), or they're set at a static number (such as Garrosh's MC: always 2) (source).

The 14 person breakpoint is a myth perpetuated by people who heard it once (potentially when it was true: when Flex was released) and kept repeating it. Flex has always been so easy that the breakpoints didn't matter; however, now there are literally no breakpoints and fights get easier as you add more people. People still clinging to the 14-person (or any other "magic number") template are either misinformed or outright stupid.

I wish blizzard add this kind of information in the game, with the lack of tanks for flex its retarded that people still run flex with only 11-12 people, when they can easily add 15-20 people.

[Axelond]

I run 3 healers on a lot of 25 man HC fights...For some reason people believe you need 3 healers for 12 man flex..I've even seen 10 man flex insisting on a 3rd healer. So annoying.

When I raid lead a flex group I usually heal and I get any decent 7 player I see then focus on getting what I need while still inviting carry dps. If a 565+ guy wants to join my flex group they will always get a spot. Only reason I would invite a 3rd healer would be if one healer is shitty geared.

[Deleted]

10 players 1 healer... Thats fun

12 and 3 healers shouldnt even be allowed

[Didacticus Syntacticus]

The fastest most brutally straightforward Flex clears I've seen have been with 25 man groups.

As far as the easiest group to put together and pug and hope not to fail too bad, 11-15 with 3 healers is obviously where it's at. My advice if you are in a flex pug with 2 healers, is find a different flex group.

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A 4th puddle on Mal makes it "harder"? How about you.. participate in mechanics and not rely on others to do it?

Last I noticed, what made Malk "harder" (not really harder as much as different) at the transition (14 or 15 whatever it is), is that the puddles all appear on the hemicircle near the entrance up to the break point, then suddenly start spawning all over the boss's area above the break point. So if you are used to standing clumped together near the entrance, and take on a couple more members, and don't make a effort to redistribute yourselves evenly, then you're going to have one of those lamentable wipes where everybody is calling everybody bads and so on.

[Spotnick]

I have done that fight in 10, 25, LFR, 25H and I've never ever seen people stacked at the entrance, only ranged spread out around the room.

If Flex pugs are trying to invent new ways to do mechanics, maybe Blizzard should fix that.

[Clow]

The fastest most brutally straightforward Flex clears I've seen have been with 25 man groups.

As far as the easiest group to put together and pug and hope not to fail too bad, 11-15 with 3 healers is obviously where it's at. My advice if you are in a flex pug with 2 healers, is find a different flex group.

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Last I noticed, what made Malk "harder" (not really harder as much as different) at the transition (14 or 15 whatever it is), is that the puddles all appear on the hemicircle near the entrance up to the break point, then suddenly start spawning all over the boss's area above the break point. So if you are used to standing clumped together near the entrance, and take on a couple more members, and don't make a effort to redistribute yourselves evenly, then you're going to have one of those lamentable wipes where everybody is calling everybody bads and so on.

I've never seen groups clumped at the entrance either? Where can I go to watch this strat being done?

[Terridon]

Not shure how it is other places, but my experience from pugging flex through OQ and other raids is that 11-13-man 3-healed groups has become the standard.

I find this very boring, especially the 3-heal part, which people insist on even when I go in on my normal-geared main.

Why is this happening? Is it the same in US and on EU Horde? Is 12-man really the sweet spot for flex?

People tend to want a lot of healing, because i's pugged and they have no idea how good the healers are. It's just a safety net. It's indeed boring, but it's flex, so how much power rush do you expect from joining it?
A lot of dorks think 14 is the sweet spot in EU at least.

[turboether]

The real question is how people think inviting more people that are going to ignore mechanics is going to make their raid any easier than just taking 10 solid players. If you can't count on at least one in three people in your raid having a brain there is more wrong with your raid than the amount of people in it.

[Didacticus Syntacticus]

People tend to want a lot of healing, because i's pugged and they have no idea how good the healers are. It's just a safety net. It's indeed boring, but it's flex, so how much power rush do you expect from joining it?
A lot of dorks think 14 is the sweet spot in EU at least.

If you try to 2-heal Flex 1 in an ordinary uncoordinated pug you are headed for trouble.

3-healing is comfy in a 10-15 man pug and is overkill/wasteful for a coordinated group, but 2-healing in a pug is going to leave a lot of people dead or stressed out on the first 3 bosses.

[raviadso]

How do you know this?

Edit: Found it.

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"The way Malkorok Implosions should work is that with 14+ players (yes, 14) you get a fourth spawning, and then an additional one for each 3 players past that."

Link

Your evidence is old. When someone asks you to pull a quote from December/January and you smugly post older information in order to discredit another poster, it is YOU who fails.

[Gihelle]

Here in the US people still believe that going over 14 people will make the raid go straight to 25-man mechanics, which has been fixed MONTHS ago, and...

it's in general merley cause when you hit 15 people, the raid's start's to SCALE alot more..to your group.
example.
Malk. 14 people = 3 puddles to soak. aka Ten man.
15+ = 25 man puddles.

Well, I'll be damned.