Comparing SoO Flex to Highmaul Normals - WHY?

[Thaylen]

I've been reading posts all day from groups that are surprised Highmaul normal wasn't a complete faceroll. And statements like it was "much harder than any Flex fights we've ever done". No kidding.

I think that people forget that when SoO Flex came out, many groups going into them SIGNIFICANTLY out-geared the fights. If you were coming out of ToT heroics, your ilvl most likely already exceed the 540 loot that was dropping from Flex mode. In perspective, average groups doing the Highmaul normals are 15-20 ilvls short of the 655 gear that is dropping in them. Even the guilds that have been gear farming the past two weeks are only high 640s or low 650s.

Ilvl aside, what about tier bonuses? Going into SoO Flex, nearly all were sporting 4pc tier bonuses. Now there not only are not the tier bonuses to aid in Highmaul Normals, but because of the random stats on the gear and the lack of reforge, many of the pieces of gear people are wearing aren't optimized from a stat standpoint.

I don't get it. Highmaul Normals vs SoO Flex is about as apples to oranges as you get IMO.

[Solial]

They feel the same to me, we did 2 6/7 Normal Highmaul groups in about 3 hours. Combination of mains and alts trying to gear our mains up a little before we the same thing in heroics. We saved imperator, didn't even touch his trash, for after we killed a few heroic bosses tonight in both groups. He was the only boss we didn't kill in beta when normal was up for testing... In beta at least, he felt a bit overtunned for 630 gear (everyone was scaled to 630), but my main is 653 and my alt around 635 so we already have a huge gear advantage over that.

[Myrkur]

My guild and I did not play MoP until nov. Or dec. Of last year. We geared up through timeless isle and 1-3 LFR runs depending on the person. We went straight into Normal SoO at just over 510 ilvl on average. Normal was challenging but we were able to move through it and were attempting garrosh in 3 or 4 weeks. Flex was incredibly easy for us the few times we ran it.

We went into heroic Highmaul last night with all members at 630-633 with 2 out of 14 being lower at 620. The Butcher is not possible for us to kill at this gear level. So we will be doing normal tomorrow night.

The reason you are seeing people comparing normal Highmaul to flex siege is because that is what blizzard has done. They explicitly said that normal would be the same difficulty of flex of old. Heroic would be the normal of old but scale to the size of the raid. And mythic would be the same as heroic of old. First impression is that they over shot the difficulty by a large margin. This is where the confusion comes from. Blizzard implied or flat out said Heroic is tuned for 630 ilvl, but in practice it is not even close outside of ridiculous raid stacking. You need 640+ dps to reliably kill heroic butcher.