SO, Flex Raiding!

[Trix]

It's ok, but still too easy. Just go in and faceroll everything easily in a pug. My group didn't even bother with tactics.

[Slapsgiving]

I was skeptical at first, but I have come to see its value. We have organized 2 flex raids in my guild so far, Sunday evenings, and basically invited people from former guilds and friends: it has been a great success. Some of those guilds don't have the numbers to keep raiding any longer, other people (some of them hardcore raiders in the days of yore) just cannot keep a raiding schedule... plenty of different cases where Flex suits a desire to raid.

It still gives you the chance to tease friends over DPS meters, practice a little for normal or just try different tactics, and friendly banter does not get in the way of killing things. Hats off to Blizzard for it, I never thought I'd say that over the feature in question... Scary that they know us better than we do ourselves :-P

[Deleted]

Can't be bothered to deal with PUGs/a raid guild, so I don't care about it.

[-Psypher-]

Haven't tried it yet - still gearing up to the point where I feel I won't be a drain on the raid, but from what I've read and what I've heard, I can't wait to do it.

[BellularGamingFanboy]

I like it. my guild runs a 25 man normal, but many nights we fall short a player. with flex we can at least run SOMETHING if someone doesn't log on.

[brok3nh3lix]

I have mixed feeling about it.

Although it is great to be able to run with other people I know across servers, realizing half of them are horribly bad players who are trying to get carried isn't pleasant

this is about where i sit with it. I like it, and my guild has even used it a little bit so we can raid if some one was missing or going to be late. (currently 4/14 normal). But when it comes to pugs, i havnt had good luck with them yet, even on open raid. the few times i have done it, most of the players were there to get carried or were at least at that level of play currently (doing 70-80k dps on phase 1 galrakas for instance). It makes me hesitant to look for or sign up for pug based groups.

[Breccia]

It fits my guild perfectly. We have more than 10 but less than 25 raiders. Some of us aren't able to be consistent, and a lot of us just aren't that good (quite possibly including me). Flex raiding could not possibly have been a better option for us.

Flex raiding was clearly created to fill a need (otherwise, why make it?) and what worries me is this: was it made for the number of players, so Blizz could pretend 25-man raiding wasn't dead? Or was it made for bad players? I hope it's the former.

With Flex in place I felt much less obligated to run LFR which also pleases me.

Huh..hadn't thought of it that way. That's a really good point.

[h4rr0d]

love it. with my guild its soooo much easier then lfr and you get better gear

I have exactly the same experience. Pretty sad if you ask me.

[Amerissis]

LFR is an uninspired zerg fest where people move from loot pasture to loot pasture, endlessly grazing on free epics with no incentive to learn or see what real raiding is all about.

Why can't you accept that there are people who don't want to move on to 'real raiding' and just enjoy the 'zerg fest' and 'grazing on free epics' (whatever that may be, after 16 wipes and waiting 2 hours for replacements)? The people LFR is meant for, will not move on to 'real raiding', ever... No matter what loot you throw at them, so stop trying!

*stares at you with misty eyes* *starts chanting* 'These are not the people you are looking for, in your precious Normal or Heroic raids'. *ends chant*

[Spl4sh3r]

I don't think most of us can give a honest opinion. If you raid Normal or Heroic than Flex is just the same thing but with random amount of people between 10 and 25. The only real reason to do Flex is either for Achievements (when the guild don't want to do them on Normal or just because they are easier there) or to get gear at the start of a new tier.

If you don't do Normal or Heroic and mostly just LFR then Flex is still the same thing for you, but it might take longer to get a group for it. Also other reasons as above, you do it for Achievements which can't be done in LFR and for gear.

Also OP, really biased poll. Our choices is either to hate it or like it. I would have liked to vote on being neutral to Flex, but no such option so I won't vote.

[Karragon]

For my guild Flex is "progress raiding" as we've struggled with normal modes since they broke the raiding model after ICC (we're a 10man guild). And I for one like it, certainly more than the normals we've been subjected to in the last 2 expansions.

But one thing we've found slightly odd has been the scaling. Has anyone else had a problem going from 10 to 11 people? 3rd boss for example we have no trouble downing with 10 people but bring 11 and our healers are all oom at 50%, similar problem on protectors.

[chezwickcheese]

Yeah lets go back to 5% or less seeing content in the game and the rest watching it on youtube, great plan for returning to those thrilling days before.

You mean when WoW had 12 million subs? Thrilling days indeed

[judgementofantonidas]

I like it. It's more of a gift for pugs than guilds, as I said it would be. On the other side of the fence, it's gutting LFR, which is something that Blizzard will certainly want to address somehow.

up the required ilvl and difficulty closer to normal. also increase the ilvl of the gear closer to normal and allow the organized raid to distribute it. this would stop the influx of LFR heroes into flex and plunk them right back in LFR until they improve.

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as we've struggled with normal modes since they broke the raiding model after ICC expansions.

Wrath was the broken raiding model. Everything has been repaired now.

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Why can't you accept that there are people who don't want to move on to 'real raiding' and just enjoy the 'zerg fest' and 'grazing on free epics' (whatever that may be, after 16 wipes and waiting 2 hours for replacements)? The people LFR is meant for, will not move on to 'real raiding', ever... No matter what loot you throw at them, so stop trying!

*stares at you with misty eyes* *starts chanting* 'These are not the people you are looking for, in your precious Normal or Heroic raids'. *ends chant*

I think that LFR zerg fests are perfectly acceptable, however more discussion is needed on why these Zerg fests need to be rewareded in any manner even approaching real raids. They just should not drop any form of tier bonus gear. It is questionable if they should be a gearing vector at all.

[Louis CK]

up the required ilvl and difficulty closer to normal. also increase the ilvl of the gear closer to normal and allow the organized raid to distribute it. this would stop the influx of LFR heroes into flex and plunk them right back in LFR until they improve.

- - - Updated - - -



Wrath was the broken raiding model. Everything has been repaired now.

- - - Updated - - -



I think that LFR zerg fests are perfectly acceptable, however more discussion is needed on why these Zerg fests need to be rewareded in any manner even approaching real raids. They just should not drop any form of tier bonus gear. It is questionable if they should be a gearing vector at all.

That's the beauty of it, though. You make your own groups. If someone doesn't fit what you're looking for, don't invite them.

Am I mistaken in this? I haven't gotten to hop in one just yet.

[Evil Inside]

I like it. It's helped my guild too, we have quite a few people that want to raid but either 1. arent quite adequate for norms or 2. we have no space on the raid team at the time. Flex really helps by keeping those people happy by raiding plus doesn't harm the main raid team. Plus it's cool raiding current content with friends from other realms.

[Nobleshield]

Personally I like it a lot. It's a good training tool to experience fights and prepare for Normal, my only issue thus far has been making people too complacent if they say oneshot a boss on Flex, and then have issues on Normal due to tighter mechanics (Norushen comes to mind). Personally I loved the Wrath model and I've hated the changes since then to make 10 and 25 the same difficulty, as most of the people I have run with have had major problems in 10s now when in Wrath we didn't have too many problems (also in DS which was tuned roughly the same).

My only issues with Flex have been the stigma of being "easymode" which discredits anything you do on Flex, and the LFR loot system; I would have preferred a straight Need/Greed (like LFR before MoP) since the typical Flex guild uses a straight /roll anyways for loot distribution.

[Karragon]

Wrath was the broken raiding model. Everything has been repaired now.

Disagree, cata/MoP normal modes have been too hard for "normal" 10man guilds. Without wishing to offend, the opinions of heroic raiders on the difficulty of normal modes are somewhat irrelevant.

[thatmikeguy]

Although the idea is great, it doesn't solve any of our current problems; non raiding-guild players will be obliged to simply start up flex raids rather than at least make an effort to do a legitmate, 10m or 25m run. During 5.2, I saw ToT 25m Heroic PuGs pop up on trade chat all of the time. Now that Flex raiding is out, i've have yet to see even ONE SINGLE SoO 10m Normal, instead all I see is SoO flex. This is a problem for me, because I have 5.2 BiS gear but I can't get 5.4 BiS gear because there are no SoO 10m or 25m PuGs happening, and I'm not in a raid guild.

IMAO, flex was meant for casual groups of 10 people or less, not 20 people looking for easy gear.

No 5.3? If you do not have 5.3 gear, I do NOT even want you in my FLEX team! Try harder..

[Azrile]

Flex is cross realm and you can use tools like oQueue and openraid to form groups.

On-Topic: It's great. I hope oQueue and Openraid get widespread recognition and no heroic or normal raider sets foot in LFR ever again, even on alts. Some people predict this will destroy LFR but I'm more optimistic and hope that people will step up and do the bare minumum thinking and DPS required for LFR instead of being afk carried through it.

I really disagree about Flex and Oqueue and OpenRaid becoming more populuar. One of the reasons that OpenRaid and oqueue ´Pugs´ are able to beat flex is because they are only used by players who have done some research on the game.

There is a HUGE HUGE difference between an openraid pug and a /2 pug. I run an openraid pug every week, and it is very fast and successful.. because at the start of a new boss, each and every players already knows what I am going to say. They know all the major mechanisms from icey veins and only need to know orb order and stuff like that.

My actual biggest fear is that everyone starts knowing about openraid, and it ends up just being an ingame queueing tool. I love flex because you can´t ignore mechanisms and you have some personal accountability.. There needs to be a barrier to entry for LFR players... they shouldn´t be able to just queue for it like LFR.

[Louis CK]

Although the idea is great, it doesn't solve any of our current problems; non raiding-guild players will be obliged to simply start up flex raids rather than at least make an effort to do a legitmate, 10m or 25m run. During 5.2, I saw ToT 25m Heroic PuGs pop up on trade chat all of the time. Now that Flex raiding is out, i've have yet to see even ONE SINGLE SoO 10m Normal, instead all I see is SoO flex. This is a problem for me, because I have 5.2 BiS gear but I can't get 5.4 BiS gear because there are no SoO 10m or 25m PuGs happening, and I'm not in a raid guild.

IMAO, flex was meant for casual groups of 10 people or less, not 20 people looking for easy gear.

How will you get BIS gear from Normal?