Tanks have moved on to Flex

[Tankitbetter]

As long as people require 530+ ilvl for flex, I don't see people moving to flex very soon

Why in the world would you not require 530+ for flex? You can get a free 535/543 piece for every slot but 1 trinket and a weapon from Timeless Isle and 553/559/561/567 pieces from the easily killable world bosses. Even if you discount Ordos, the 535/561 pieces from Celestials is a lot. You can get a full set of 528/536 pieces from LFR.

To get an average of ilvl 530, you would only need 3 timeless pieces for every 5 pieces of LFR gear - not counting the +8 ilvls from LFR.

I'm ilvl 555, thanks to six timeless pieces, gloves+legs+chest from world bosses, and a super cheap crafted belt.

[Blachshma]

As a tank I can say the only reason I did ToT and 5.1 raids on LFR is for the Legendary quest. The gear was never an issue cause I always had better on normal, so I almost never equipped LFR gear as well. Now that there is no longer Legendary quest progress, I stay away from LFR. I don't even do it for the valor.

[Otimus]

Ignoring the fact tanks are unpopular due to being boring, most tanks that suck it up and play as such will eventually ditch LFR.

EVERYONE will eventually ditch LFR unless they like running with bots, mouth breathers, and players who purchased their level 90 and only know how to spam Heroic Strike.

People in the original LFR audience are more likely to just flat out quit than they are to move onto Flex or above, I imagine. So, if you're correct, time for another subs dive!

[Blachshma]

The 2 people saying tanks are boring and easy are SOOOOOOOO wrong! I as a tank will be responsible for most of the fight planning and execution, I will have the most uptime on all enemies and be responsible for keeping myself alive while also focusing on max dps to all targets. I think its really funny when a dps says tanking is easy and boring when if we were in the same raid I as a tank would be top 3 on the meters and still have to worry about tanking and staying alive. So in summary a good tank will be as good as a dps at dpsing but also flawlessly mitigate dmg and correctly execute fight mechanics. So boring lulz

Many dpsers just play as one because they don't have the courage to play a healer or a tank, far more intense and tough roles to play (coming from someone who plays all 3 roles). Tanking in MoP has been really fun for the most part.

[Otimus]

I will not be surprised if by the end of next XPAC LFR will be phase out and Flex will takeover as the normal raid alternative with an increase in dungeons and scenarios available compared to MoP. Just my 2 cents.

Why would you even say that? LFR is still much more popular than Flex :x

If anything, as LFR degenerates, more and more people will have less they can do, and more and more people will just wind up quitting. Most people don't pug and most people don't do guilded activities. LFR doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it came into existence for a reason.

[Tankitbetter]

I think that now that the good players who were doing LFR for "that one trinket" or "that one set bonus" can do Flex, you'll see LFR become vastly easier. Like, mega easier. 5-man DS heroics easy.

[AVPaul]

I have alt tanks that I use in LFR. I don't ever plan on taking them into flex or normal raid.

Same for me, but there are additional problems:
1) Not enough catch ups: even after grabbing all gear from chests and rares+spending about 10k coins opening chests in the cave on every of my 6 fresh 90 chars I have only about 470-480ilvl(due to same gear dropping as always - Blizzard, I don't need another 21st plate shoulders!), which means I'll have to grind valor and do obsolete LFR on them. This will take a month with my schedule, so I just don't want to do it.
2) Some bosses are overtuned for fresh tanks - Shamans are impossible without 3-6 stacks due to almost one shooting damage.
3) LFR takes too long for my schedule (due to being overtuned most likely) - I just can't sit in one wing for 5 hours without a break, sorry.
4) Also I have to sacrifice tank specs on 3 of my 5 tank-capable characters due to lack of 3rd spec: Blizzard made dps spec mandatory and healer - is my favorite spec, so there is no room for tank specs.

[Deleted]

personally I used to tank on 3 different chars but i refused to tank lfr on any of them because of peoples attitudes towards tanks.

[Pyromelter]

My goal this tier was to completely avoid LFR. I had to farm a piece or two on my shaman, but on my 2 pure dps toons and my dk tank, I've not set foot into LFR, and I'm very thankful that I will never have to.

The thing is, it's not that it's boring. There are times it's quite fun. I just don't want to sit there and wipe for 4 hours on one boss when I can clear an entire wing in an hour (or two, for a newer wing), for far better rewards in flex and/or normal mode. By no means does LFR need to be hard/challenging to be fun. It has to have a few things for fun factor:

1. Maintain most of the mechanics of the normal mode version, with far less punishment for messing up, but never insta wiping.

2. Trash must be un-trollable.

3. Boss pulling must be un-trollable, or, at the very least, something in the game needs to be able to rat out the non-tank that ninja pulls.

4. Some sort of scoreboard to oust the AFK's/underperformers.

That's it. Just some sort of system to a. not let people troll and b. give some accountability to player effort. Without accountability, people are going to slack, and tanks, healers, everyone, are not going to want to do it.

There's also the issue that 25man raids can cause significant strain on some computers.

Add it up, not much incentive to do LFR if you can avoid it in any way.

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I think that now that the good players who were doing LFR for "that one trinket" or "that one set bonus" can do Flex, you'll see LFR become vastly easier. Like, mega easier. 5-man DS heroics easy.

I feel like this is the only way LFR can work in the future. No one is going to want to be in a raid where you wipe 10 times on nazgrim over 4 hours because people keep dpsing in defensive stance.

[Deleted]

I have no incentive to run LFR's now, I would gear up to do flex if I were to tank on an alt.

[Gospels]

Well that explains the rest of your post.

Huh? Lol. Yes, it did explain the rest of my post. It was the last line of my post. You know, the conclusion, where you sum up your point...thanks? You are good at this forum stuff.

[melodramocracy]

Why in the world would you not require 530+ for flex? You can get a free 535/543 piece for every slot but 1 trinket and a weapon from Timeless Isle and 553/559/561/567 pieces from the easily killable world bosses. Even if you discount Ordos, the 535/561 pieces from Celestials is a lot. You can get a full set of 528/536 pieces from LFR.

To get an average of ilvl 530, you would only need 3 timeless pieces for every 5 pieces of LFR gear - not counting the +8 ilvls from LFR.

I'm ilvl 555, thanks to six timeless pieces, gloves+legs+chest from world bosses, and a super cheap crafted belt.

Ah, it's the daily "I got extremely lucky, so that must be everyone else's experience too." post.

Nothing wrong with carry-me types demanding 530 for flex of course, but your story is far from typical.

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Blizzard made dps spec mandatory

what am I reading

[judgementofantonidas]

We have to do LFR to meet some of the insane ILvL requirements people want for Flex!

what do you feel is an insane ilvl request from pug players that you have never run with and cannot confirm their skill or lack thereof on quick perusal of their armory?

when I am putting a flex group together I shoot for players who have completed it at least once on normal.
why? because "I aint got no time for dat" when it comes to explaining the fights to absolute strangers.
it is que, grab your loot or more likely gold, and move on.
babysitting is for the guilds that choose to do so.
regrettably there are much too many of those.

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Nothing wrong with carry-me types demanding 530 for flex

I am 554 equiped should I choose to go for ilvl instead of important stats.

So when I ask for 545 ilvl players I am asking to be carried how?

[Belloc]

We have to do LFR to meet some of the insane ILvL requirements people want for Flex!

Honestly, I do LFR because I still need gear and I can do it on a whim. I don't pay no attention to all the bitching and moaning. Ain't no one got time for that!

Or you could do ToT, especially now that it has received a 20% nerf and there are tons of pugs running heroics. Or you could do the Flex raids that aren't asking for high item levels. Or you could collect Burdens of Eternity from the Timeless Isle.

The point I'm getting at is that there's nothing stopping you from meeting the "insane ILvL requirements people want for Flex" except that you choose to do other things in the game. Further, those groups are hardly the majority -- there are PLENTY of groups that have no such high item level requirements... unless you consider 515-520 to be a high requirement.

[Count Zero]

My primary alt, who is mainspec tank -- I've given up tanking LFR on. Too much blame when things go wrong, too little reward when things go right.

I'll tank dungeons if I'm bored, but that's about it. Scenarios we usually go all dps. Flex I DPS 'cause our maintanks are much better.

It's just not worth it for me, for a while now. They'd have to significantly buff the random satchels for me to tank LFR again. For tanks/healers, always a spec-appropriate flask, and then either gold or a pet/mount. I don't see the blame game changing.

[Otimus]

what do you feel is an insane ilvl request from pug players that you have never run with and cannot confirm their skill or lack thereof on quick perusal of their armory?

when I am putting a flex group together I shoot for players who have completed it at least once on normal.
why? because "I aint got no time for dat" when it comes to explaining the fights to absolute strangers.
it is que, grab your loot or more likely gold, and move on.
babysitting is for the guilds that choose to do so.
regrettably there are much too many of those.

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I am 554 equiped should I choose to go for ilvl instead of important stats.

So when I ask for 545 ilvl players I am asking to be carried how?

Essentially, you're saying anyone who was to allow people to do content, before they've done the content, is babysitting? I confirm and accept that you are very self centered and selfish. But hey! We already knew that :x

[judgementofantonidas]

Or you could do ToT, especially now that it has received a 20% nerf and there are tons of pugs running heroics. Or you could do the Flex raids that aren't asking for high item levels. Or you could collect Burdens of Eternity from the Timeless Isle.

The point I'm getting at is that there's nothing stopping you from meeting the "insane ILvL requirements people want for Flex" except that you choose to do other things in the game. Further, those groups are hardly the majority -- there are PLENTY of groups that have no such high item level requirements... unless you consider 515-520 to be a high requirement.

I ask nothing more when I post to oque than I have already accomplished myself. matter of fact less. I posted for a 550 group yesterday for wing 3 and finished it happy and without a migraine from trying to hand hold or teach others simple class mechanics they should have learned in 90 levels.

[Belloc]

I ask nothing more when I post to oque than I have already accomplished myself. matter of fact less. I posted for a 550 group yesterday for wing 3 and finished it happy and without a migraine from trying to hand hold or teach others simple class mechanics they should have learned in 90 levels.

And that's perfectly alright. Personally, I rarely even bother looking for Flex raids, but when I do, I look for ones that sound like they're going to be successful. In fact, I don't think I've ever even joined a group that advertised a minimum ilvl... but, if I saw a 550 req flex raid for Thok or Garrosh, you bet your ass I'd join just so I'd know that we'd have less hassle than some of the lesser geared groups.

But, as I've said, I've had success with pretty much every Flex group I've joined and I don't think any of them have had any achievement or ilvl requirements.

Side Note: I find it odd that no one is making similar complaints for Normal Mode pugs. Or, rather, very few people are -- everyone is fixated on Flex. There's a guy on my server that runs a SoO normal pug every weekend... requires 545 min ilvl and 11 or 12/14 experience. He personally armories players and makes sure they are going to work out. I managed to get my alt into his group last Friday... and, by the end of the run, we were at Garrosh. The run was fantastic. Minimum requirements work.

[Tankitbetter]

Ah, it's the daily "I got extremely lucky, so that must be everyone else's experience too." post.

Nothing wrong with carry-me types demanding 530 for flex of course, but your story is far from typical.

I wasn't aware that timeless coin drops varied so greatly that it was "RNG" to buy Burdens from a vendor.

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Essentially, you're saying anyone who was to allow people to do content, before they've done the content, is babysitting? I confirm and accept that you are very self centered and selfish. But hey! We already knew that :x

Actually, I expect groups of similar skill and similar progression to work together. First time in flex? Why should I carry you? Why don't you go and do Flex with other people who are doing it for the first time?

Trying to say I'm "self centered" and "selfish" because I want a clean run is like calling a company selfish for hiring the most qualified candidates.

[Skippy88]

Speaking from personal experience from a DPS POV I have been running the original 5.0 raids plus TOT the last 4 weeks for Valour mostly. Sometimes the wait is 20 minutes but overall the wait for them hasn't been very long. The weird one last night was I joined and the popup appeared almost immediately and it was a fresh run.

It will be interesting once I start getting into SOO what happens though.