My worst flex experience yet. How has everyone elses been?

[Toiran]

People talking about not being able to get into OpenRaid groups...

Join staff groups, they usually have an ilevel of 510+ for full 14/14 flex runs, designed to allow alts/beginners/return players to come, and usually have 10 or so people that are normal/heroic geared that practically carry the group that are friends.

I'm friends with two staff there, and run flex every week, for fun and for the heirlooms, and we one shot it in around 2 hours, we have done speed runs racing other staff, heroic ToT, ToES, Heart of Fear, MSV, Challenge modes, etc, are pretty common too.

If you sign up for a normal run by a "normal" person, it's just a random guy, just like the random guy making a group on oQueue, so you can have badluck, or they might have ridiculous requirements, just look at feedback and rep and votes etc.

[Avatarlol]

I raid with flexible i had no problem so far

[Rimailkall]

So far, Flex 1-2 have been great, Flex 3 has been unlucky for me as Malkorok kills the groups for some reason. I'll keep at it though. It's still better than LFR.

[daehin]

Why not hop on and look for yourself? I just did and I didn't see a single one of the flex groups mentioning item level in their LFM blurb.

wait what?????

You haven't been much in OR wow eu chat then ... Cos it is just 550+, 540+ ... and a few 530+ for FLex1 and 2 ... plainly stupid. And i do it every week with at least 3 toons ... And i have bad experience usually with Siege and Dark Shamans because of tanking issues usually.

[ripponesan]

No offense OP, BUT if you really want People to read what you write, you should Format it.
Make use of paragraphs (hit the ENTER key more often).

Maybe even use bold and unerlining for important stuff.

[enragedgorilla]

Had a GS of 545 and got invited to a flex 1 , 2 . Some player saw I was " a low GS" and had the leader kick me. I haven't bothered to try flex or anything beyond wing 1 in lfr since then .

[Last Starfighter]

Isn't Openraid these days basically just people asking for 550+ people to complete Flex so they can boost their 450-geared friend or alt?

This is a fallacy. Nobody is asking 550+ for their 450 friend.

[Peng]

Those who are already too bad for LFR find their ways into Flex nowadays. Useless to PuG with <540. It´s no fun to watch so many underperforming people.

Flex (and its audience) was better when it was new.

[Snaige]

This is a fallacy. Nobody is asking 550+ for their 450 friend.

Huh? For 3 weeks or so now every oqueue group with 550+ requirement has a leader who, once several important slots (tanks, healer and one-two dps) are filled with 550+ people invite their fresh lvl 90 guildies/friends/girlfriends who haven't even bothered to do timeless isle at least for some 496.

When complaining about it there are two outcomes:
a) you get kicked immediately
b) you are told to thank the leader because without those low geared characters there wouldn't be a raid at all. Then you are kicked.

[thedingleberry]

It's WoW. You have a 50/50 chance of this everytime you queue for anything with strangers. Expect it...

[Hound02]

Openraid is just as bad to be fair..

I have 3 characters, 574 Prot Pally, 561 Hunter and a 535 Fury Warrior. I obviously don't need flexi on my Pally or Hunter who are mostly normal / heroic geared (Hunter with flexi pieces) so I try and find a group with my Warrior. I have 12/14 Heroic experience which is a lot higher then the average open raider atm. I get refused for every single Flexi going because all they do is care about ilvl.. It's extremely sad.

I even joined one team with my hunter and left after 10mins (used the excuse - "You have 4 hunters here.. I'll bring my Warrior") so I could join on my warrior, did first boss (malkorok) and I out DPS'd everyone in the team who were 545+ ilvl.. Then got kicked for having to low ilvl lol.

[Sonnillon]

I run my own FLEX groups. 7th week for full clear and 4th week for part 4 only (and many more to come). Both are fast, enjoyable clears with 535+ ilvled people. You do a successful run once/twice and you get fixed set of people who keep joining.

I stopped joining the pugs from raid finder, /2 and the ones from Open Raid chat cause of the massive fail rate of those groups (and the rest groups organized there had none suitable times for me). Got into 5 groups in a row on 2 consecutive days with not able to getting past Galakras or not managing Siegecrafter. Hence I gave up on all the PUGs which are not lead by me .

[Bluesftw]

i do flex with guild, no bad experiences whatsoever , you should try it ^^

[Sonnillon]

i do flex with guild, no bad experiences whatsoever , you should try it ^^

Well unfortunately not all are that lucky ^^ to have guild members who are willing to run the same content on FLEX difficulty each week on multiple chars, specially when you do normal clears/heroic progression.

[Toiran]

Openraid is just as bad to be fair..

I have 3 characters, 574 Prot Pally, 561 Hunter and a 535 Fury Warrior. I obviously don't need flexi on my Pally or Hunter who are mostly normal / heroic geared (Hunter with flexi pieces) so I try and find a group with my Warrior. I have 12/14 Heroic experience which is a lot higher then the average open raider atm. I get refused for every single Flexi going because all they do is care about ilvl.. It's extremely sad.

I even joined one team with my hunter and left after 10mins (used the excuse - "You have 4 hunters here.. I'll bring my Warrior") so I could join on my warrior, did first boss (malkorok) and I out DPS'd everyone in the team who were 545+ ilvl.. Then got kicked for having to low ilvl lol.

Do what I posted above? I've never seen anyone, ever, kicked from an Openraid group, like I said before, go for Staff runs not random people, if its a random person, they can do whatever they like, just as with OQ.

Staff runs for flex require 510+ generally, some random guy, will ask for 540/550+, staff runs have a higher win rate, faster clear rate, well ran and organized.

I'm 11/14HC, guild is 14/14 (New), need nothing from flex, but I run it with my main every week on Openraid because it's fun as hell and I've made a bunch of good friends there, and now I'll start taking alts.

[Hound02]

Do what I posted above? I've never seen anyone, ever, kicked from an Openraid group, like I said before, go for Staff runs not random people, if its a random person, they can do whatever they like, just as with OQ.

Staff runs for flex require 510+ generally, some random guy, will ask for 540/550+, staff runs have a higher win rate, faster clear rate, well ran and organized.

I'm 11/14HC, guild is 14/14 (New), need nothing from flex, but I run it with my main every week on Openraid because it's fun as hell and I've made a bunch of good friends there, and now I'll start taking alts.

How do you go for a "staff run" on open raid exactly? Or just wait until you see one advertising that they've started up a team?

[kamuimac]

This is a fallacy. Nobody is asking 550+ for their 450 friend.

no thye are not cause multiple people are experiencing it even in thoe wednesday 2 hours per whole flex clear groups -_- its always 1-2 firends of RL being boosted in hc blues but nobody is complaining cause expet those groups most of openraid groups sux beyond belief nowadays -_-

from my recent experience - lfr is really much more gearing up friendly then flex and by the time u will get cloak on alts ull be nearly 550 (which is funny cause most of normal pugs look for 550 for normal while peopel look for 540+ for flex -_-) and wont have slightest problem to jump straight into normal clears - clearing it weekly on 2 allience chars experienceing maybe 1 wipe through whole runs and not having to care about anything while i can just alt tab and do other stuff while on flex u actually have to do stuff i rather have instant lfr ques as tank/healer then look for hours for group on +/- 525 alts only to find that the groups sux and disband after killing 1-2 bosses - just cba to deal with it -_-

unless u have alts in guilds which do guild flex clears i really find lfr just ...easier and strangly faster unless of u join one of those wednesday 2 hours flex clears groups then of those are lovely but most of people work while they happen

[Lalicat]

When oQueue flex groups first started forming, and people had fairly low ilvls and were inexperienced, I did have a few bad groups...but nothing horrible.

I usually form my own group and pick/choose who comes. If you set the ilvl req. high you're likely going to get more experienced people. That said, I've had 545+ warlocks doing sub 100k dps and standing in crap all day, so it isn't a guarantee. My ilvl req. is usually fair based on the content, unless I know I'm already carrying people whose ilvls are low, but whose experience is fine.

Warn people at the beginning of your run what you expect of them. If they don't comply, then tell them why and find a replacement if they're really that bad. There's a reason flex isn't completely random like LFR - take charge.

If you're in a random group that's failing that hard, and your raid leader isn't doing anything about it, then leave and find another group.

Flex allows you to have a good raid leader, good communication, and a decent group make-up. It gives you/the leader more control. This is why normal/heroic raiders are successful - because if someone is failing, then changes can be made.

[Gangplank]

Hardly surprised. Blizzard wanted their raids to be more accessible so more people could see their hard work, but what they didn't count on was that letting ANYONE into an environment where dps minimums are still necessary is not a good model. I do honestly believe that there are players incapable of producing decent dps -- we're not all gamers and some people simply play for casual entertainment. Does this mean it's acceptable to allow them to experience ALL content? Absolutely not. Raiding, whether in LFR or otherwise, is a competitive mode (with varying degrees of difficulty) and shouldn't be openly available to anyone. As much as my 80 year old grandma might want to see Garrosh die, her 40k max dps (basically right-click attacking) should be a red flag that this player does not deserve to be in this content. Just because you pay a sub doesn't mean you get to experience all the content.

Blizzard should have kept their high standards for dungeons and attunements. If LFR and flex are going to have minimum gear levels to enter, then getting the gear should also have its own difficulty. What's the point of having a minimum gear level requirement if obtaining that gear is easy? There needs to be some barrier to keep the lowest players from participating in content that they have no business being in.

Had Blizzard taken precautions to protect the community from itself, LFR might not be the joke it currently is.

[Tharkkun]

and what has experience which u even use capslock for with 550+ gear ? -_- when people have shitload of alts and for what u know this 520 itlv person can be alt of 14/14 hc raider -_- which u can eaily check on openraid if he only has listed his main there -_-

Can you actually play your alt? It your gear enchanted, gemmed properly and do you at least have a 528 LFR weapon? If not I would maybe take you for flex 1 + 2 but not 3 + 4. Achievements don't give people a free pass on alts.

I won't let my friend bring his 525 ilevel warlock because he does less dps than the tank, yet he has a 8/14 heroic hunter at 574 ilevel.