Blizz needs to either: lower Timeless Isle gear Ilvl, or increase LFR Soo ivlvl req

[Soulstainer]

I dunno. Reading a LOT of hyperbole here.

This weekend I did a lot of LFR. Here were the results:

Hunter, ilevel 540: Wing 1: started on second boss. 1 shot everything.
Wing 2: started on first boss. 1 wipe on Dark Shaman. One shot everything else.
Wing 3: started on second boss. 1 wipe because a lot of people didn't realise to progress both sides equally. 1 Shot the last boss.

Blood DK ilevel 530: Wing 1: started on 3rd boss, 1 shot both bosses
Wing 2: started on 2nd boss, wiped twice on Shamans, 1 shot the others.

In total, 14 bosses, 4 wipes. 3 of those wipes were on Dark Shaman.

I honestly don't see an issue here.

LFR has been balanced such that it can handle a few people doing 30-50K dps. It has also been balanced so that most of the raid still has to have some clue, or it'll result in wipes.

The nett result is that most players seem to improve after a few LFR runs, and those that are beyond any form of help, well let's just say that they constitute a handicap which makes the LFR experience a little more challenging for those of us who know what we're doing, which, as long as it doesn't degenerate into a wipefest and hours lost to waiting for replacements, is fine by me.

My attitude is simple: I don't care how well/bad the rest of the raid is doing. I focus on my job and try to top the dps meters when I dps, and try to do my job properly as a tank. I have an interest in the overall dps to get a feeling of what is needed in the raid, but for the most part it has been sufficient, even with the few bads that tend to occupy any given LFR.

My genuine feeling is that most people in LFR are actually trying. And IMO you can't expect any more from them. I would far rather wipe a few times with low dps people trying their best than a bunch of conceited, arrogant pricks who do nothing but pollute raid chat with annoying whining the whole time. I reserve my kick quota for afk'ers, griefers and healers who decided to dps when clearly the raid didn't have enough healing.

Most people who are actively trying will improve. I don't think there is much to be done with a bad attitude though.

You got lucky as sin then hehe. My LFR This week
1st wing 1 wipe on Sha of pride.
2nd wing 2 wipes on Galakron, 5 wipes on Dark Shaman and 4 wipes on Naz
3rd Wing (came in on second boss initially) 7 wipes on Spoils 5 wipes on Thok (reque for first boss) no wipes.
11 bosses 24 wipes (still not bad for lfr) all but 1 wipe on spoils was due to 3 lvl 496 tanks who didn't know the fight.

Flex this week.
1st wing no wiped
second wing 1 wipe on Dark shaman
third wing 1 wipe on spoils (the nerf took us off gaurd) and 1 wipe on Thok
11 bosses 3 wipes.

Both lfr and flex was done on the same toon also.

But to the OP. Yes flex hurt LFR because good players no longer need to do it to have an off chance at gear from their normal/heroic raids, but it is mostly due to it being new content and just bad players in general. My 58 year old mother is usually in the top 5 dps and almost always lives to the end of a wipe. (140k ish dps from her)

[threads]

I find it quite amusing to beat i550+ raiders on the dpsmeters, with my ungemmed & unenchanted timeless isle gear.

So yes its the players.

But the poorly designed ilvl increments in 5.4 is the reason why 20+ of the people in LFR is really bad geared
- There is no good geared people who have interrest in LFR loot. (except the legendary LFR cloak)

The only way you are beating them is because theyre probably auto attacking.

[Wildtree]

The gear that was obtained from Badges of Justice in 2.4 was roughly equal to the current raid tier.

Yes, true. it was very good gear. But it took a long time to gear out that way, without getting badges from Kara, ZA..

The problem we facing has 2 roots....
1. the inflation of alts. Although I will never agree how Blizzard should tailor the game to convenience alt progression to triviality, that's what they do though, due to the ( so it seems) very vocal group of altoholics who believe alts are just as much a part of their gameplay as mains are.. The times for actually having to think whether one starts an alt, and spends almost as much time as it took to get the main toon up and geared, those times are unfortunately long over.

2. Complete new players. One cannot expect a completely new player to spend almost a whole year on leveling and progressing but one toon, to make it endgame ready and competitive. So everything got crunched and streamlined to give these people a fast track into the endgame.

The combination of the two aspects creates also negative side effects. Unfortunately.

[Soulstainer]

I think you are confused about what LFR really is. LFR is the raid for everybody......it's not meant to be hard or all that trying. A handful of strong players can pretty much carry it. You will always have bads/afks/auto attackers in there. A word of advice, do LFR as long as you have to a forget about it.

That was what it was prior to 5.4 Haldfulls of strong characters are rarely found in LFR now hehe. At-least in the same group

[judgementofantonidas]

First off, I like the Timeless Isle.
It gives people something to do, and allows returning players to catch up.

I also love LFR and Flex raiding.

However, the problem arises when the two of these are combined.
What Blizzard has created is a true hell. Screw Satan, he aint got shit in LFR SoO.

What happens now is that clueless players, new or not, can jump straight into the latest tier of LFR with 30 minutes of Isle farming.
This results in the majority of your LFR consisting of dps that hover between 30-50k dps.
Often said players are obnoxious and refuse to take advice, or follow simple instructions.

I literally had a wing 3 of SoO where 8, count em, EIGHT dps were between that margin. This was with 2 stacks of determination.
And this was not an isolated incident, earlier today I had the great displeasure of spending 2 hours on Galakras, again, because of players like this.

Ofcourse, you had this in far lessser proportions in previous tiers, with people geared in pvp crap which they got by afking BG's.
But it has never been as bad as it is now.

Therefore, I feel that something needs to be done.

Either:
Lower the itemlevel of Timeless Isle gear, but keep the stats the same.
Increase the required itemlevel for SoO, and make Timeless gear not count towards it, UNLESS you have Silver in the proving grounds.

although I agree with you on a lot of points it does need to be said that people are COMPLETING LFR with crap for numbers. LFR is designed so that they can.

numbers are not always the end all say all.

case in point, our malkorok kill last night we carried an ele shaman who had just come back to the game, had run no SOO content and did less damage than either tank.

[Thage]

1. the inflation of alts. Although I will never agree how Blizzard should tailor the game to convenience alt progression to triviality, that's what they do though, due to the ( so it seems) very vocal group of altoholics who believe alts are just as much a part of their gameplay as mains are.. The times for actually having to think whether one starts an alt, and spends almost as much time as it took to get the main toon up and geared, those times are unfortunately long over.

2. Complete new players. One cannot expect a completely new player to spend almost a whole year on leveling and progressing but one toon, to make it endgame ready and competitive. So everything got crunched and streamlined to give these people a fast track into the endgame.

The combination of the two aspects creates also negative side effects. Unfortunately.

Up until 5.3 and the Battlefield Barrens event offering t14 LFR-quality epic gear sets, MoP was one of the least alt/reroll-friendly expansions if not the least alt/reroll-friendly expansion. Blizzard got a lot of feedback on that and made a choice to allow rerolls, alts, and players new to the level cap to bypass what they saw as obsolete content (t14 LFR and 5.0 rep valor rewards), by allowing players to gather a set of epic gear on their main to send to alts, or to gather on their main for a leg up in ToT LFR.

[Mortal Strike]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

It's bad because all the good players who have been carrying the LFR baddies are not doing LFR anymore. They're doing Flex, where they can be choosy in who joins, get better gear, and boot the baddies without having to wait for a replacement.

Flex is the best thing that has ever happened to the alts of progression raiders.

[judgementofantonidas]

You are clueless if you think people can qualify withn 30 minutes on timeless island. It would take about 8 hours at minimum, and that would require some good RNG as well as not being ´clueless´ about how to do it.

People who are clueless on Timeless Island.. they are about ilvl 480ish. Sure, you get many armor slots, and even maybe 1 or 2 535s.. but you also have no 2nd trinket and no weapon. Want to buy a TI weapon ( which also will not get you into SoO).. trust me, it is NOT fun trying to farm 20,000 coins on a character that is at iLVL 480ish with a crap weapon. In fact, I would say if they earned 20,000 coins on a character with that type of gear.. they are far from clueless.

you are wrong on many counts.

i rolled a horde dk just to get double agent.
he is full timeless isle geared with two trinkets. you can equip both a tank and dps curio.

THE ONLY thing you cannot get from timeless isles is a weapon and that can be purchased.

so 30 seconds into 90 and geared for LFR.

ding

[Deleted]

LFR is over-tuned for both its purpose and its audience..... No one wants to go in there and wipe for hours due to enrage timers. LFR is a cheap replacement for new 5 man dungeons (its is significantly cheaper to take an already designed raid instance and water it down than it is to create something new). Blizzard cannot bleed 10% subs without making cuts somewhere so I am all for this being the case however it needs to be tuned in such a way as it can be zerged down as mindlessly as possible by people wearing ungemmed enchanted gear etc. Anything over 50K dps should be acceptable to get the boss down....people need to consider the purpose of the content before commenting, the next 10% of subs it might be the content I actually want to do which gets cut so anything that keeps people in game needs to be encouraged....

Oh and anyone who is able to do more dps in timeless isle gear (490-500ilvl) than they could in T14 normal gear (480ish) is only proving how bad they were in T14 since that gear was infinitely better itemised and actually contained a set bonus etc. This illusion that there has been a mass exodus from LFR to Flex is also complete rubbish its just as full of bads as LFR (just in marginally better gear).

[Durandro]

Silver on Proving Grounds is a bit much. Bronze would be enough - with the damage done by some players I see even Bronze seems challenging. Also Proving Grounds needs to be queuable anywhere, at least for Bronze.

Lowering item level on TI items would upset people. Even a few casual raiders who needed a few small upgrades using Burdons of Eternity. Raising ilevel requirements would mean potentially weeks of farming ToT, a place many people are already bored of.

Its a hard fix.

I'm temped by the idea to add item level scaling to LFR then nerf the encounters accordingly. Thus you don't need people to carry the healing or enrage timers with improved gear, just for a decent number of people who know how to play. Considering it would scale to the minimum requirement anyway, it should be fine. ...maybe.

...plus then its a true example of skill, and the slackers will be much easier to notice. Sometimes its hard to tell if someone's dps sucks due to bad gear or not.

[judgementofantonidas]

It's bad because all the good players who have been carrying the LFR baddies are not doing LFR anymore. They're doing Flex, where they can be choosy in who joins, get better gear, and boot the baddies without having to wait for a replacement.

Flex is the best thing that has ever happened to the alts of progression raiders.

I still carry baddies in LFR. Guess I get a kick out of poking fun at them in guild chat and mumble while we are doing it.

[Redcinder]

Oh hello n00b LFR player bashing thread We meet again, must stop popping in so much. I wont miss you as much.............

[VitesseEOD]

One obvious reason which the first page or so didnt mention, raiders aren't running it early in each reset to get the tokens for their legendary cloak anymore. This the "carriers" are indeed in short supply as there is literally zero point running LFR anymore

[Tinykong]

They really should just dumb LFR down to make it impossible for encounter mechanics to kill a raid, like the ball in Zon'ozz. People aren't there for the community and enjoyment. They want to see the bosses, get their bag of gold, and get out.

IMO, they should pitch it like this:

Want to see the bosses? Run LFR. Want to run in a coordinated casual group? Run Flex. Want a challenge? Run Normal. Want a hardcore experience? Run Heroics.

[Mad_Murdock]

It's bad because all the good players who have been carrying the LFR baddies are not doing LFR anymore. They're doing Flex, where they can be choosy in who joins, get better gear, and boot the baddies without having to wait for a replacement.

Flex as a whole is better than LFR, but at times, not much. I got in a group a couple weeks ago where I spent 4 hours clearing the first 4 bosses and then last night 3 hours clearing the last 3 bosses. It's pretty much a lie to think everyone that does FLEX is some kind of competent raider because they knew how to install OQ and click waitlist. The number of folks who failed on Malokorok after 4-5 tries was amazing, then number of folks that got chomped on Thok after repeatedly being told not to stand right on top of him was also amazing.
I did find a guild group that runs and luckily got into most of their flexes. But even last night, they let in a few scrubs who continued to attack Naz while in defensive and they even announced it several times in vent. Fortunately enough for those people, it was the last boss and the guild was strong enough to carry their stupid\laziness.

They really should just dumb LFR down to make it impossible for encounter mechanics to kill a raid, like the ball in Zon'ozz. People aren't there for the community and enjoyment. .

I'd mostly agree with this. Make it hard enough to get a sense of the flavor, but try to limit the amount of damage bad tanks or healers can do. The Zon'ozz ball is a great example. I don't really want to encourage the lazy and bad players to remain so lazy and bad, at the same time I have some alts I'd like to be able to run, but 2-3 hours to clear a wing is too much for too little

[Zantera]

I agree with this problem. In previous expansions like TBC, WotLK and Cata, you got those dungeons later into the game that gave you the opportunity to gear up faster. Magister's Terrace, the three ICC-dungeons and ZA/ZG in Cata. With the dungeons at least the players had to do the dungeons, and at least be forced to play their class (and hopefully learn something) while gearing up faster than before in the expansion. With Timeless Isle you're basically awarded gear for moving around and looting chests. It's not right.

[Eats Compost]

You'll get the same horrid players even with a higher ilvl requirement. It's a people problem that stems from a general lack of accountability for one's own performance in LFR. LFR, as it is currently set up, cannot possibly hope to escape this problem without making LFR easy to the point of being impossible to wipe on. What's even more frustrating is that Determination proves that they absolutely want everyone to complete it no matter how much they suck, and yet they make people jump through the "rely on the rest of your randomly-picked group to not suck" hoop anyway. Nothing is more frustrating than being penalized for something that someone else or a many others are doing when I had no part in getting grouped with them.

Honestly, though? I'm only doing each LFR wing once this patch. Flex is a much better experience, and makes LFR rewards redundant. I don't have as much of a reason to put myself through that nonsense anymore.

[Illiterate]

I've even been in normal pugs where mouth breathers and window lickers in 540+ ilvl can't pass 80k. And it's not even an exception, if I see anyone in half timeless their dps/hps/tanking is always complete shit.

[Raugnaut]

Dont really need a change. LFR is for the brainless masses imo, so let them que up with thier brainless gears. Flex is where its at now.

[Deleted]

Then kindly explain why it has never been THIS bad up until the Clueless Isle came along.

Its quite simple actually...
We said it since cataclysm and dragon soul, the minute the real raiders stop carrying all the scrubs, lfr will become hell on earth and they all the went, noo, screw you elitist no lifer...

Fast forward to flex where everyone with a brain refuses todo lfr (myself included) and you got the state lfr is in today.
Higher gear requirments, lower, nothing and i really mean nothing, will help lfr.
Maybe if they force people to get gold in proving grounds, but then your trading it for 2-3 hour queue times.

Only thing left now is to double determination stacks to 10% coupled with a flat 20% nerf across the board for lfr and you can "finish lfr on your lunchbreak"