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  1. #1

    Flex PUGs: why always 14 players?

    I'm just curious why this is. Most oQueue Flex groups I've done have been with a specific composition: 2 tanks, 4 healers, 8 DPS. Is there a particular reason for this? E.g., is 15 players some sort of scaling threshold?

  2. #2
    Deleted
    4 healers for 14 players? o.O

    A lot of fights got some sort of mechanical scaling thresholds at 15 players, but nothing really important.

    Using openraid we always try to fill a 25 man pug going with 2 tanks 3 healers + 1 smiter and 19 dps. That way you can remove people that are not performing well enough.
    Last edited by mmoc4d8e5d065a; 2013-10-08 at 06:25 PM.

  3. #3
    Most of mine have been 10 or 12 through oQueue
    I am the one who knocks ... because I need your permission to enter.

  4. #4
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    superstition. Probably someone, somewhere promoted this as optimal and people are being sheep.

    However, note that you want healers to scale with DPS too - if you have 17 dps it's harder to 3 or 4 heal the group just because there are more targets to heal. So, if you can only get 3 or 4 reliable healers then roughly 6-10 DPS would be right.

    Also, there's no magic formula, but the playerbase keeps believing that there is in many cases even if the difference is non-existent or so slight that it's not going to matter. This isn't new. I remember having discussions with people in TBC T6 about 20 dps differences (this is when endgame dps was about 2000). My point was that gearing at that fine a level wasn't really relevant unless the player was clockwork perfect... they kept insisting that it was. Of course, for some very cutting edge guilds with incredible players they were right, but for 99% of us, eh. Yet people still will argue something isn't viable because it's 2% worse than optimal.

  5. #5
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    For every player in instance group, bosses get buffed. But perhaps its somehow optimal.

  6. #6
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    It's not.

    10 man is ideal, 2 heal 6 dps

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Belloc View Post
    I'm under the (possibly incorrect) assumption that Flex mode scales with every 5 players. In other words, bosses and trash with 14 players is the same as if you had 10 players.

    This could be false, but that's the impression that I get.

    - - - Updated - - -



    If my post, immediately below yours, is correct, then there is, in fact, a very good reason for it. That reason is that you can bring 4 extra DPS for the same health values on the boss. 14 people fighting a 10 man boss are going to have a much easier time than 10 people.
    Boss health scales for every additional player, I'm fairly sure of that.

    25-man with 5 healers is in my experience the easiest way to do flex. Deaths are a lot less punishing, you're less reliant on everyone executing somewhat properly and you can very easily get rid of dead weight. Only downside is that it's a bit longer to get going and mainly Norushen becomes a clusterfuck.

  8. #8
    Every flex I have done has had 17-20. 14 does sound like a solid number tho =D

  9. #9
    I've never seen people specifically stop at 14 players. That seems strange. Most of my flex groups end up at 20-25 players.

  10. #10
    Bloodsail Admiral Annarion's Avatar
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    Scaling for Flex works as follows:

    Each additional member, regardless of spec/role adds a flat amount to mob health. This is to discourage stacking healers, as it will be harder to make enrage timers for each additional healer.

    At certain number thresholds (I am not 100% certain on the exact numbers), Damage and mechanic complexity steps up. For instance bringing 15 instead of 14 on Sha of Pride spawns three sets of orbs instead of two. Boss damage does not scale evenly, but instead also steps up at pre-determined numbers.

    Bringing additional dps is qualified by assuming that they can outdps the appropriate health pool increase. I believe that Sha of Pride increased by 20m HP for each additional member, and given the enrage timer, I think that if a dps can do more than say 100k, then they do more for the raid than take away. Consider if you added a healer to the fight instead, then each dps would have to step up by an amount to achieve that extra 100k.

    Adding additional dps either hurts or helps the healers, depending on the fight. Some fights have raid-wide damage, these fights make it more difficult to heal more dps. Some fights have dps that is split between targets or randomly chosen, this gives healers a bit of a break by reducing the chances people will be already injured when they are damaged again.

    The thing about all that is Flex is easy enough that you don't have to worry about most of those numbers. 1 healer for every 3-4-5 dps, depending on how good the healer is and how stupid the dps is.

  11. #11
    This is probably a left over of Flex wing one mechanics which, with the exception of Immerseus, had major mechanics changing in 5 person intervals.

    Fallen Protectors: Every 5 players means one more Bane debuff is sent out, meaning you need another healer to dispell it.
    Norushen: Every 5 players a new orb appears for people to go into the challenge realm. Having teams of two go in at a time is just way easier to manage
    Sha of Pride: Every 5 players a new person gets imprisoned. When you only have two prisons is almost trivial since the tanks can get the one near them. More players also means more large adds right before the swelling pride.

    Since most people doing Flex are probably most used to the 10-man mode, keeping the mechanics as close to 10 man as possible has proved ideal.

  12. #12
    I've seen it fairly often.

    Works for me. I just make people take 2 healers in that case, and more dps. Healed spoils with 1 strong healer on one side for 14 people.

    Though I think it's silly to kick people (I've seen this) because it would make 15. Sort of defeats the spirit of flex...imho.

  13. #13
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    when pugging im usually in 10man groups.

    when doing with guild runs either 10 (with pugging) or however many show up (without pugging)

  14. #14
    Brewmaster MORGATH99's Avatar
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    10 man flex its faceroll its the optimal number

  15. #15
    Elemental Lord clevin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Qaniki View Post
    It's not.

    10 man is ideal, 2 heal 6 dps
    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.

  16. #16
    For those who are doing Flex groups with 17-25 players, what's the source of your groups? Guild runs, server pugs, etc? Seems like maybe this is specific to oQueue.

    Quote Originally Posted by Firefly33 View Post
    4 healers for 14 players? o.O

    A lot of fights got some sort of mechanical scaling thresholds at 15 players, but nothing really important.

    Using openraid we always try to fill a 25 man pug going with 2 tanks 3 healers + 1 smiter and 19 dps. That way you can remove people that are not performing well enough.
    Yeah, it is often that specific composition, though maybe 3 healers. I just finished W2 with an oQueue group that had 13 players with 3 healers. Many oQ groups seem to specify 4 healers as a goal at least. I prefer bigger raids, more fun factor for me for whatever reason, but oQ tends to be so much quicker and easier to get into a group, and 14 is almost some kind of standard. I did Wing 3 with a 10-player group last week, but that was an exception.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    the more people you take the more health and damage the boss does. you actualy want less people, 10 would give you the weakest boss ever. the thing is, the more people there are, you need to believe in them all to have skills and experience to avoid shit and do damage

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Eonwenian View Post
    the more people you take the more health and damage the boss does. you actualy want less people, 10 would give you the weakest boss ever. the thing is, the more people there are, you need to believe in them all to have skills and experience to avoid shit and do damage
    The thing I wonder about is why this specific composition is so common. For example I signed up for a Wing 3 event tonight on Open Raid... the roster? 2 tanks, 4 healers, 8 DPS. For what it's worth, the couple times I have done >14 player raids (which honestly hasn't been since maybe the 2nd week of Flex, and I've only done a couple), I haven't been able to tell any difference tuning-wise.

  19. #19
    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.

  20. #20
    ive had a 25 man flex on Gates and it was actualy pretty good. the fight was more complex thats for sure but most of the dps had legendary cloaks on. although i have seen 14man flex groups and people are quickly catching onto the notion that its the magic #

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