LFR Worse than usual?

[Warstar]

Has anyone else noticed the general quality in LFR taking a huge dump lately?

The new LFRs are pretty challenging (not really the biggest challenge is getting 24 other people to not screw up) but I don't think they're too bad really. Just gotta get people used to them. They're still new so people who haven't done normal or flex are still just learning them. But, the quality of people in there is pretty horrendous. People's dps is ridiculously low and no one is able to follow simple mechanics that have already been dumbed down for LFR.

But, the biggest surprise to me has been ToT LFR. You'd think that by now everyone and their mother would have run this place at least through LFR and get a basic understanding of how it works. It's been out for a long time. There really aren't any difficult tactics that you need to learn to complete ToT LFR other than don't stand in fire which is pretty much the first rule of raiding. But seriously LFR has gotten really really bad the past couple of weeks. It's like all the 50k dps LFR heros moved onto SoO and now LFR is populated by the 20k mouth breathers.

Also tanks apparently became the dumb dumb spec to roll. I think most tanks out there think that taunt is their main tank CD to spam since most tanks I find spam taunt even if it means that they're going to take an extra tick of something and since they're bad and under geared they're going to die they still spam taunt over and over and over and over again. Even with all the threat changes lately and the dps increases to every class LFR tanks still seem to do 20-30k dps even with lots of vengeance and they can't hold threat against me auto attacking the mob. Yet they want to tank the mob so they spam taunt. The average LFR tank seems to go stand in front of a boss and not move for the rest of the fight. They'll stand in fire. They'll not dodge avoidable mechanics. They will stand there and do only God knows what except for properly tank.

I just want to know what happened? Is it because of the timeless isle loot that all the really bad players who couldn't get gear for anything now seem to think they're geared and awesome so they want to do LFR? I just don't understand. These old LFRs should be super easy now yet because the quality of a lot of people running them now they're harder than ever.

[moremana]

There is like 20 other posts just like this one.

Yes, most decent players are doing flex, all thats left for dumbdumblfr are the "carry me baddies".

[Deleted]

I agree, i think the problem with the new LFR is that people are given 496 gear practically for nothing now from the timeless isle, so they ding 90, loot gear from the chests and enter LFR without making an effort to learn about their class or gem/enchant/reforge for raiding. The last few LFRs i have entered in SoO the average dps was 40-60k without any stacks of determination (which was pretty average dps in MSV times) I think the entry requirements should be higher so people put effort into gearing their characters instead dragging the group down. Usually you need to hope that two or three decent dps can carry the raid to get through it without stacks of determination.

[Venant]

Its not so much about bad players, I don't really give a damn if people are doing bad dps, I believe that LFR is pretty much designed to take this into account.

However, what really does bother me are people who act like it is their right to either AFK through LFR or to troll the hell out of the group. I hate when players decide to wipe the raid then drop group, just to screw everyone over. I also equally hate when players die on purpose at the start of a fight so they can afk.

My opinion is that there is so much hate for LFR being stoked among certain groups that it results in players who have so much disdain for LFR that when they run it they troll the group and make completing the run difficult.

[Trix]

No, you just forgot how bad every other LFR was the first weeks.

It's a bit like how people thought WotLK was awesome.

[Fevyz]

I dont even try to put in effort when I do LFR on my alt because I know 75% of the group are bads and/or afk all run.

[barackohmama]

SoO have quite alot of "complex" fights early on which requires a brain. We've seen such fights before, but there were not many in ToT tbh. most of the ones were quite late, like Durumu, animus and Lei shen, now we see these types of fight in the first half.

[Ibis]

But, the biggest surprise to me has been ToT LFR. You'd think that by now everyone and their mother would have run this place at least through LFR and get a basic understanding of how it works. It's been out for a long time.

I just want to comment this. LFR doesn't have a normal raid progression and it never will. It's not like your guild group that struggles to get the first kills but after that it's smooth sailing and only gets smoother the further you get. LFR will always have those who have never been there on that character or any character.

You shouldn't be surprised that older LFRs get harder when new LFR opens, it's quite obvious that those who had been farming the old ones would move to the new content and not need anything from the old LFRs. Those that are left are those that still need loot (gear, sigils, whatever it may be) or even the achievements for completing those raids. Of course not all are new either, but not everyone has been playing since day 1.

Now, I'm not going to say if that means everyone still should know all the mechanics and tactics or not...

[Bryntrollian]

I would more-so believe that you are just waiting too long into the week to do LFR...

[RoKPaNda]

There is like 20 other posts just like this one.

Yes, most decent players are doing flex, all thats left for dumbdumblfr are the "carry me baddies".

Nope. LFR still does and will continue to be ran by the vast majority of the playerbase. Very few players will stop running LFR entirely in favor of Flex. Flex is great, don't get me wrong, but it's less convenient than LFR, it's something that has to be scheduled or ran when a PUG is forming, etc. LFR will still be ran by Flex raiders to fill in holes in their gear. The reason that LFR right now seems worse than usual is because it's the very beginning of a new tier. It always feels like this.

Edit: As for ToT LFR, yes, that does seem worse than usual, and the reason for that is most likely that there is very little reason to actually run it or anything older now.

[Hexotic]

Nope. LFR still does and will continue to be ran by the vast majority of the playerbase. Very few players will stop running LFR entirely in favor of Flex. Flex is great, don't get me wrong, but it's less convenient than LFR, it's something that has to be scheduled or ran when a PUG is forming, etc. LFR will still be ran by Flex raiders to fill in holes in their gear. The reason that LFR right now seems worse than usual is because it's the very beginning of a new tier. It always feels like this.

Edit: As for ToT LFR, yes, that does seem worse than usual, and the reason for that is most likely that there is very little reason to actually run it or anything older now.

a lot of people have been doing flex through oqueue, and similar to lfr, with mixed feelings.

[Deleted]

Nope. LFR still does and will continue to be ran by the vast majority of the playerbase. Very few players will stop running LFR entirely in favor of Flex. Flex is great, don't get me wrong, but it's less convenient than LFR, it's something that has to be scheduled or ran when a PUG is forming, etc. LFR will still be ran by Flex raiders to fill in holes in their gear. The reason that LFR right now seems worse than usual is because it's the very beginning of a new tier. It always feels like this.

Edit: As for ToT LFR, yes, that does seem worse than usual, and the reason for that is most likely that there is very little reason to actually run it or anything older now.

I think that sums it up quite nicely really.

I'd love to run Flex but can't, as my guild consists of my wife and I. All our old friends left the game a long time ago and other guilds either proclaim to be ultra-hardcore with schedules to match or 'random invite' types. I'd try a Flex PuG but you get the usual 'link achievement and ilevel' stuff that's been prevalent in WoW for several years, in one form or another. Don't get me wrong, I understand why people do that and it's entirely up to the raid organiser - it's just never going to be an accessible alternative to people like me.

That leaves me with LFR, which at best is just frustrating and at worse brain crushingly annoying. Still it IS a way to see the raid content without an organised guild or relevant achievements for pugs, for that I'm grateful. I can even gear out my character in a multiplayer environment, giving some form of power progression even if it's not really raiding.

I'd love to raid properly again but unfortunately I can't regularly commit to a schedule each week due to family and work considerations and that's unlikely to change (downside of getting older.) I am sure I'm far from alone in that and LFR offers us something convenient, even if it's like pulling teeth from time to time

[lopk]

Well, we had 11 people fall to their deaths when fighting Elegon, but I think that's normal.

[slime]

Well my guild disagreed with me last night that LFR in SoO is worse than before - they said just wait a week or 2 and it'll all be faceroll. And it's not that i don't agree with that comment, it's just that the mechanics for these bosses are very dependant on planning things out and I just don't think that transfers well to LFR.

[Etrigan]

The good players who usually carry LFR's are doing Heroics, Normal. When the patch isn't so fresh, they will be queuing up for LFR on their mains/alts and helping the rest of the raid. Should be the usual after that. Well, maybe not as they do have Flex now.

[Adhemar]

Nope. LFR still does and will continue to be ran by the vast majority of the playerbase. Very few players will stop running LFR entirely in favor of Flex. Flex is great, don't get me wrong, but it's less convenient than LFR, it's something that has to be scheduled or ran when a PUG is forming, etc. LFR will still be ran by Flex raiders to fill in holes in their gear. The reason that LFR right now seems worse than usual is because it's the very beginning of a new tier. It always feels like this.

I think both sides of this argument are wearing blinders. I know for a fact that most of my raiding guild members are no longer willing to touch LFR because Flex provides better rewards with less effort (for us). I'm still going for Immerseus's trinket, but I only stay for that boss, myself.

However, I also know that many skilled former raiders who couldn't keep to our one night a week schedule because of life commitments are still doing LFR for the reasons you stated above.

I think it's much too early to predict the death of LFR, but I think it's also pretty obvious that Flex is having a significant impact. LFR may recover some lost ground when people transition to gearing up alts for second or third raids.

[Shampro]

Flex > LFR.

[Warstar]

Mostly my OP was aimed at ToT and tanks. I understand that new LFRs will always be harder and it's been like this every patch where the current LFR seems harder than heroic content to most people.

Mostly though it's really just noticing how bad ToT LFR has gotten. Main switched so I get to have fun and farm ToT again for secrets/eventually runestones. While I know I could just do this in SoO I'm trying to get them asap to catch up so I'm kinda stuck doing ToT some more. It just seems like the place went from almost tolerable but not really to just poop. I guess the better players running their alts through are tired from new raid progression though.

Also I seriously want to know when it turned into the fashionable way to tank by spamming taunt. Was there a memo out there that I didn't get or something? It's like the LFR tank population took a massive IQ dive and they refuse to learn how to tank or how the actual mechanics work just know that tanks are supposed to keep aggro so they proceed to spam taunt... and then conveniently after I've taken 8 stacks of talon rake they forget that they're supposed to taunt off that...

[Daffan]

I agree, i think the problem with the new LFR is that people are given 496 gear practically for nothing now from the timeless isle, so they ding 90, loot gear from the chests and enter LFR without making an effort to learn about their class or gem/enchant/reforge for raiding. The last few LFRs i have entered in SoO the average dps was 40-60k without any stacks of determination (which was pretty average dps in MSV times) I think the entry requirements should be higher so people put effort into gearing their characters instead dragging the group down. Usually you need to hope that two or three decent dps can carry the raid to get through it without stacks of determination.

Hey now, there are plenty of dps with 240+ stam and no enchants/reforges!

[xfreeder]

Free 496er gear boosted many people in lfrs they shouldn't have acess to. Stop the presses.