LFM - SOO Flex iLvl 535+

[imabanana]

I'm seeing this a lot in General chat.
If i had an ilevel of 535 i wouldn't be needing to run flex in the first place.

Well, I'm at 541, and there is LOTS of things I need in flex, some of them being huge upgrades from tot/t15 (trinkets/weapons/t16 mostly).

But well, same as a few other, only did flex by openraid with groups vastly overgearing instance, don't want to spend 2 hours on that.

[Deleted]

So you wanna brute force the content. I see.

Now I have reason not to group with you.

Normal/Heroic raiders have no intention of progressing through Flex. I run flex every week on alts for gear just like you ran LFR before. I rather spend 1 hour than 3 hours on each character in flex. So yes, a lot of people just want to bruteforce it. And why wouldnt you? Flex is just as easy to bruteforce as LFR is. Bosses die in like 2-3 minutes and you can just ignore all mechanics.

[kamuimac]

So you wanna brute force the content. I see.

thats the main point of gear farm - u go there to farm not to progress - progress there is seen as waste of time. people dont spend 2-3 nights a week progressing through normal/hc to add another night of progress through flex - for 540/550+ crowd flex is like lfr onlt without unwanted element of carrying someone through it unless its a new recruit to funnel gear into him .

[Durandro]

535 is overkill. 530 is probably what I'd aim for if I was running a pug (mostly due to not knowing how good a pugger is going to be), but I'd accept lower if:

1/ They were nice and polite.
2/ They knew tactics in advance.

Bonus points if they have Lei Shen killed on that character, thus (hopefully) showing some level of class knowledge.

But honestly, with a coordinated group of reasonably skilled players? 510-520 is perfectly acceptable. Maybe even 500 on a few people, so long as they aren't bulking up their ilevel with Timeless items.

[Nobleshield]

Well... to be fair though you saw this same nonsense in Wrath with pugs. "LFM ToC10 5.5k GS". Only now iLevel has replaced Gear Score. My guild has basically announced to the server that we run Flex on Tuesdays, and anyone who wants to (within reason ofc) is welcome to come along, have fun and hopefully get some loot.

I see both sides of it. On one hand, Flex is meant to be the fun/casual type of raid, where everything is not serious business. On the other hand, 540 gear is nothing to sneeze at if you weren't already in full Heroic Thunderforged gear (and things like trinkets are always great) so I can also see why serious raiders will use Flex as a tool either to round out their main or to gear up alts if they're needed (which reminds me, I have an alt tank that I might want to gear...).

It's kind of the double-edged sword, people will always look to squeeze anything they can out of something that gives a power advantage, and that often means instituting silly rules on who you bring along to minimize the failure. For a guild like ours that is slowly progressing in Normal (4/14 right now), nobody really cares if we wipe a few times learning Galakras, because we view it as having a good time and preparing for our upcoming tries on Normal. If you're into T16 heroics already or on Garrosh or something though, I could certainly see not wanting to spend time in Flex wiping, because chances are you aren't there to have fun, you're there either to gear an alt or because you want one of the uber trinkets.

Best advice I can give is just like I told people in Wrath: A group that wants to pretty much outgear the raid isn't a group you want to be a part of, because they are showing that they aren't there for a good time, they're there for business and if you DO want to have fun, you probably won't. Hell I'm pretty decently geared for my raiding level outside of the cloak (Scumbag Blizzard: Kill 7 bosses last night that could drop Runestones... gives one Runestone) and I'm not even at 535+ yet.

[Durandro]

Well, I'm at 541, and there is LOTS of things I need in flex, some of them being huge upgrades from tot/t15 (trinkets/weapons/t16 mostly).

Same here, exactly the same ilevel. Only items I don't need from Flex is a neck (I have a 561 one already), cloak (Legendary) and bracers (already got 548 Flex ones). Every single piece of tier, weapon or trinkets I can grab from Flex over the next few weeks will be a massive boost to my Normal progress.

- - - Updated - - -

So you wanna brute force the content. I see.

Now I have reason not to group with you.

To be fair, there is a middle ground viewpoint of simply not wanting to wipe endlessly on Norushan or Sha of Pride.

/shudder

[Sqeen]

535 seems quite high but you need a certain ilvl for at least the 2nd part onward. I'd suggest something around 515 which is very easy to obtain nowadays considering timeless isle gear in combination with celestials drops, cheap 522 valor gear and SoO LFR loot.

[kamuimac]

in this discussion i think we should treat gear farm and flex as pug enviroment as separate things - if someone treats flex as his own progress then ofc 515 itlv is more then enough - but if people see it as gear farm - different circumstances and 535+ is very much desirable - we shouldnt treat those things together cause then noone ever will come to any consensus -_- cause what people seems to cant agree on is case of when someone undergeared suddenly wanna skip few parts of personal progress and jump in straight from lfr to gear farm groups (cause he has "skills" ) - and this will nearly never happen uless u know someone in those groups or if ur mega lucky. ofc people desire it but in most cases it simply wont happen -_-

[Bigbazz]

LFM Naxx - 5.5kgs.
/w - I have full T7, can I join
/w - "what is ur gs?"
/w - I don't know I don't have gs
/w - hello?
You are being ignored.

Fact is many people are absolute trollop monkeys, and this sort of attitude that was perhaps most poisonous in WOTLK 3.4 will still be with us forever. I'm fortunate that I have a guild of relatively normal humans, last week we had undergeared guild alts and random cross server players from all over in our flex raid, cleared it all without issue. No silly ilvl requirements, but then on my server other people were only asking for 505 for FLEX which is just about right.

[anjan011]

It all boils down to saving time its not tough to understand that a 530+ will pump more dps than 505+ thus, 530+ all the way if i can manage it.

[khalltusk]

Make your own pug, no ilvl requirements, tell us how it went!

I've done this before in Vanilla and Wrath.

Vanilla I basically went into trade and said "LFM Molten core" I had 15 of my guild in raid on a non raid day we were done running molten core at this point we did this for fun.

I had blue and green geared people with no idea on how to do it. We got to Major domo with 2 wipes total. After that we went to rag but had to replace 10 people who were not quite good enough with some friends and we then downed rag.

We had master looter and did loot rolls if you won an item you could still roll on another item but had a lower priority than anyone who had not won an item if you had the same/highest roll. Worked rather well.

In Wrath sick of the silly pug requirements as I was wanting to do some stuff on my alt on a non raid day. I tried getting into pugs told these guys of my guild that I was in (2nd best on server at that point) still no dice so thought fuck it ill make my own raid. Did totc25 Normal. No wipes and most people got the achievement from that run and most of them were badly geared.

Doing a flex today might be slightly different so you might want to pay attention to their gear a bit more (I would set 505 as a minimum and see how it goes). I think 335 is a bit over kill.

[Deleted]

Well... to be fair though you saw this same nonsense in Wrath with pugs. "LFM ToC10 5.5k GS". Only now iLevel has replaced Gear Score. My guild has basically announced to the server that we run Flex on Tuesdays, and anyone who wants to (within reason ofc) is welcome to come along, have fun and hopefully get some loot.

I see both sides of it. On one hand, Flex is meant to be the fun/casual type of raid, where everything is not serious business. On the other hand, 540 gear is nothing to sneeze at if you weren't already in full Heroic Thunderforged gear (and things like trinkets are always great) so I can also see why serious raiders will use Flex as a tool either to round out their main or to gear up alts if they're needed (which reminds me, I have an alt tank that I might want to gear...).

It's kind of the double-edged sword, people will always look to squeeze anything they can out of something that gives a power advantage, and that often means instituting silly rules on who you bring along to minimize the failure. For a guild like ours that is slowly progressing in Normal (4/14 right now), nobody really cares if we wipe a few times learning Galakras, because we view it as having a good time and preparing for our upcoming tries on Normal. If you're into T16 heroics already or on Garrosh or something though, I could certainly see not wanting to spend time in Flex wiping, because chances are you aren't there to have fun, you're there either to gear an alt or because you want one of the uber trinkets.

Best advice I can give is just like I told people in Wrath: A group that wants to pretty much outgear the raid isn't a group you want to be a part of, because they are showing that they aren't there for a good time, they're there for business and if you DO want to have fun, you probably won't. Hell I'm pretty decently geared for my raiding level outside of the cloak (Scumbag Blizzard: Kill 7 bosses last night that could drop Runestones... gives one Runestone) and I'm not even at 535+ yet.

First of all, Flex is meant for your type of guild. More relaxed and casual, where raiding with friends and family means more than progressing. But your guild isn't what the OP is describing. He's describing pug runs and the rule of thumb with pugs has always been, that you meat the set standards (set by the RL) and that you carry your weight.

But that doesn't mean I'm not having fun in Flex. I go in there on my alts with guildies on their alts and a few social members. Then as we run out of alts, we start to pug. We set a minimum of 522 ilvl (that's not even high) and demand achievements for both wings. Then once in a while we take a chance on someone with nothing but LFR ach but decent gear and sometimes we end up carrying a nub, while other times we get lucky. But don't think that we aren't having fun. It's quite easy to have fun and speed running through Flex. You can more or less afk and still get loot.

The reason why Flex is fun, is cause it's basically LFR without all the retards and baddies. So why on earth would we invite anyone who have crap gear and no exp? If we wanted to carry, we'd go LFR lol.

[judgementofantonidas]

Remember "whisper hp if you're a tank" in TBC?
Remember GearScore back in Wrath?
Yeah, it's the same. It's fucking stupid.

I have two trains of thought when it comes to this.

It is NOT stupid for geared players to expect the same from players they are auditioning for their run.

It IS stupid for LFR geared players to expect geared players to join their groups and carry them through flex.

- - - Updated - - -

The reason why Flex is fun, is cause it's basically LFR without all the retards and baddies. So why on earth would we invite anyone who have crap gear and no exp? If we wanted to carry, we'd go LFR lol.

Flex IS full of all the retards and baddies from LFR trying to get free rides. Unless your flex is merely a guild run on easy mode.

[hablix]

I'm seeing this a lot in General chat.
If i had an ilevel of 535 i wouldn't be needing to run flex in the first place.

I got an Invite ones as 522 geared resto shaman for part 1 SOO but got kicked when they found out I've only done it in LFR.

I used to raid pretty hardcore in the past and mostly did heroic/hardmode raid content but that doesn't seem to carry any stock.

It is extremely frustrating and these groups end up weeding out a lot of good players in order to screen those they consider bad. The charm of Flex ought be obvious, that if your lack of an achievement ended up impacting your contribution to the raid then you could have been easily removed at that point without any need for a replacement. (I suppose the reverse is also true, that Flex raids don't need to fill e.g. 25 spots for and can be choosey.)

But what can you do? Start your own raid and specify whatever requirements you want, or just keep waiting for the raid leader willing to give players without experience the benefit of the doubt. Open Raid is a huge help in both cases.

[Jimson]

If i had an ilevel of 535 i wouldn't be needing to run flex in the first place.

Not completely true, as I have a 543 ilvl and run Flex. Partly for the gear, partly for the fun.

People asking for that lvl either want a carry or a smooth run. Gear trumps all in PUGs.