Flex PUGs: why always 14 players?

[Kalmah]

more players = more people who can fuck up = harder to determine who fucks up = harder play.

This is only for pugs though, if i have friends i know can pull their weight i'll bring them regardless. But i dont trust pugs to 2 heal or even do minimum dps / know tactics. Hence i bring as few as possible.

This is objectively the wrong way to do it though. It's much much better to go for as many people as possible that meet your standards and then remove those who are seriously underperforming. If you go with 10 and someone ends up sucking, you now have to waste time finding a replacement.

And if you can't spot people who are fucking up in a 25 man, I have to question your raid leadership skills.

[Siri]

NO NO NO. The entire point of Flex is that there IS no ideal.

There's always an ideal. In my experience 2 tanks, 2 healers and as many dps as you can manage without the healers struggling works best. Adding a third healer is certainly doable but it skews the healer:dps ratio and it makes spoils awkward.

[Caladia]

I actually aim for 12, but will go up to 14. I just go to OpenRaid and oQueue and fill it to that amount and go. I just ask for 520+ iLvl and experience and it should go smoothly.

[Deleted]

in a PUG environment, 10 IS optimal because it is the minimum number of players (realistically) that you can complete the content with. minimum number of players = minimum possibility for human error. i prefer a smaller group as it is far easier to quality control

In a pug environment it is likely that someone will be bad. Therefore having a few extra players so you can kick whoever is holding the group back is optimal.

In an organised flex environement, the more dps you can get the better. We have for example done flex runs with 1 tank 2 healers 15 dps in guild run environments. Which is far faster than a 10 man run.

[Kalmah]

waste time? usually at least ten dps waiting in the queue, with a healer or two. never had to wait more than five minutes for a replacement tank, people usually know someone.

So why didn't you take those ten dps and two healers in the first place?

There is no need to avoid human error since a single player can't realistically wipe a flex raid. In fact, you have more room for error with a larger raid since individual players matter a lot less and there's more rezzes to go around.

Only exception would be bad tanks, but you get the same amount of those regardless of raid size. And Thok can be fun with a bad kiter, but you have 2 bosses before him where you can judge player competence and remove problematic players if you feel the need to.

[Deleted]

Never seen anyone being specific about 14 players, really. I'd also vote 2 tank, 2 heal and as many DPS as your healers can handle, like 6-10, as the optimal. If you have a good supply of decent players, make it 2 tank 4 heal ~15 dps or so.

[Mormolyce]

There is absolutely no need to min-max your roster for flexi, however a lot of players seem to obsessively min-max everything regardless of the investment vs. reward.

Every flexi I've been in has used as many people as they could recruit and it's been pretty facerollicious.

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more players = more people who can fuck up = harder to determine who fucks up = harder play.

This is only for pugs though, if i have friends i know can pull their weight i'll bring them regardless. But i dont trust pugs to 2 heal or even do minimum dps / know tactics. Hence i bring as few as possible.

If you bring the minimum number of players and one leaves/dcs/afks/performs terribly, you have to stop the raid and go back to replace them. This is why I always used to take far more players than I needed for old content runs as well.

[Deleted]

NO NO NO. The entire point of Flex is that there IS no ideal. It depends partially on the group (you can go with fewer strong healers, might need an extra if they're unknown or average) but the point of Flex is to get away from this. You need 2 tanks. Enough healers that people aren't dying for lack of heals. That's it. There's no magic number and to the degree that people keep trying to find one it ruins the point of Flex which is to have content that's doable by average, good raiders and not fixed in a size so that you rarely have to turn people down. Want to optimize? Run Normal.

There is an ideal for your current group, believe it or not. If you're a bunch of 550+ geared players, then 13-14man with 2 healers would most likely be ideal since the additional 3-4 players subtract more hp from the boss than they add.

I'd say 10man with 2man healing is ideal for a group that actually needs Flex, then add a few dps if you can handle it without adding another healer.

If even possible, 2healing with 2 tanks and 21 dps would most likely be ideal, but I'm assuming that needs quite a bit of gear.

The true point of Flex is that there is no need to fish for the ideal setup. You're able to down bosses with 2 tanks, 4 dps and 4 healers if you want to. It's not optimal, but it will work unless people are real LFR heroes.

[rijn dael]

Joined a group on my monk, to gear its offspec with flex stuff. Had a guildy offer to come carry on his main (565 boomy).

"No, we need exactly 14".

Sheeple

Needless to say, I left, joined the next appropriate group on openraid with said friend who proceeded to do 2-2.5x anyone else...

[Mormolyce]

There is an ideal for your current group, believe it or not. If you're a bunch of 550+ geared players, then 13-14man with 2 healers would most likely be ideal since the additional 3-4 players subtract more hp from the boss than they add.

Probably depends on the fight - I mean if you're all 550+ geared then having a few extra adds is probably not going to be an issue anyway, you'll melt them.

[potis]

Its literally to reduce bad players, there is no other reason.

More players= more scaling= if someone is bad its harder for the rest.

As example on Malkorok this week, because of "I have a friend" people we ended up with like 16 people instead of usual ~12-13 we run, after the second try, 4 of them left and all 4 of those that failed completely, they just left themselves, no one said anything they just left.

Next try it was dead without a hassle.

[Strafir]

You get 3 combat resses with 14 people while it is limited to one with 10 people. Might be a bug but that's one of the big reasons.

[Count Zero]

You get 3 combat resses with 14 people while it is limited to one with 10 people. Might be a bug but that's one of the big reasons.

Far as I'm aware, in Flex you always get 3 brezzes.

[Tojara]

Just go with the people who meet your completely random criteria. As long as someone is actually good keeping add them up to the 25 person limit.

We found it harder with 10 people that we knew than it was with ~15+ people we knew. Mechanically it got more complex, but overall it just SEEMED to get easier the more people we added.

Personally we 2 heal with 10 people and start 3 healing when we reach like 12 people. Probably wouldn't 4 heal until we reach like 16 or 18 people. Essentially every 3-4 DPS add a healer.

[Mormolyce]

Its literally to reduce bad players, there is no other reason.

More players= more scaling= if someone is bad its harder for the rest.

As example on Malkorok this week, because of "I have a friend" people we ended up with like 16 people instead of usual ~12-13 we run, after the second try, 4 of them left and all 4 of those that failed completely, they just left themselves, no one said anything they just left.

Next try it was dead without a hassle.

But if you take more people at the start it's easier to prune down the underperformers :P

[Deleted]

We go mostly with 10-12 Player on flex - 2 Tanks 2-3 Tanks 7-8 DDs

[Deleted]

ive been in oqueue a few times since i installed it & have been in groups of 10 (2 healers), 11 (3 healers) & 12 (3 healers) to date.

[Tekkommo]

When I've done it in a pug, it's always been 15+, usually around 20.

[Deleted]

So why didn't you take those ten dps and two healers in the first place?

There is no need to avoid human error since a single player can't realistically wipe a flex raid. In fact, you have more room for error with a larger raid since individual players matter a lot less and there's more rezzes to go around.

You have clearly never done Malkoroth flex with 25 men. 1-2 dps not knowing what to do will easily whole raid.

[Weightlifter]

It's 3 combat resses regardless of the number of people, and the DPS requirement per person is higher the more people you have. For example, if a boss has 100 million HP with 10 people, it has 300 million with 25 people, not 250 million. Coordinating 15-25 people is much harder than 10. It is also possible to have all 8 raids buffs in a 5 man group so that's not an excuse either.