I think my last bit of faith in the WoW "pug" community has been killed today.

[PrairieChicken]

There is still flex? Everyone moved on to normal / heroic

[Phookah]

That's really because damage is pretty much never high enough in flex to warrant the use of anything other than atonement and T90 talent, save for extremely few exceptions.

Hilariously enough, thats more or less all you need even in heroics.
You make a couple of macros for IF and SS, and you largely just atonement heal with a PW:S every 10 seconds or so.

[Forgottenone]

There is still flex? Everyone moved on to normal / heroic

Unfortunately not everyone is geared enough to do normal/heroic Myself and a friend are not in a raiding guild and gearing up alts and things go like this

LFR (Timeless Isle + PvP gear)
Flex (530+)
Normal (555+)
Heroic (I assume 570?)

That is how it has roughly been so far in Openraid, oQ and trade chat. Mind you I have gotten into groups with lower ilvl requirements but that seems to be how things are for us. We essentially have to fully outgear the place before we can do it, luckily my alt shaman gets more leeway

To the OP, I feel bad for you but I have only had good experiences with my pug Flex groups :-\

[Sageofthe10paths]

I'm sorry OP! That sounds like a nightmare. I was in a bad flex4, after two wipes I realized that the group was shit and me staying would only make me crazy so i just left and played GTA online and ni no kuni lol. Don't let bads ruin your day.

[Buildapanda]

90% of the people in this game are bad. In a 25 man group you'll maybe get 2 or 3 people that can outshine everyone else in their role, the rest are just dead weight.

[RaenavenBlacksun]

Gearscore, and later ilvl, killed the community more than anything. Even in your arguments you are often stating people's ilvl and others in your raid won't take people based on ilvl. Ilvl ilvl ilvl.

Well, the funny thin about ilvl is people want you to be literally higher than what drops from the raid. I wish this was an exaggeration, but it's not. It comes from an assumption that everyone massively sucks and that gear will fix it. Not only is this lazy, it is poisonously destructive. Raids are tuned to be cleared (admittedly with a degree of real challenge) with the gear of the previous tier. A 525 ilvl whatever is technically geared for SoO normal. Yes. Yes. That is how the design works. If they are underperforming it is because they are underperforming.

Sorry for the rant, but I've had elitists rage about gearscore and ilvl since Wrath and it has always been so stupid to me from the beginning.

So, so much of this. I can't possibly agree more. And then the toxicity of the individual realms lead to the Finder systems being developed in the first place.

[cFortyfive]

Well low skill is kinda common in gaming and in this game in particular. I still think that my usual experience isn't that bad even in pure random groups from that lfg tool.

[Razorice]

That is exactly why I can't progress my alts properly. I just don't have the patience of spending half of a day wiping on Flex/LFR.

[Constraint]

Mm, took you a while. Mine's been lost for many years, ever since I started running into guild leveling groups in lowbie dungeon runs while leveling alts. People will be assholes for the sheer pleasure of being assholes, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Accept it, embrace it.

[Deleted]

At this point I just logged, what the heck is going on with the community?

Tbh your story sounds like a typical example of the Wow community atm

[Deleted]

I rarely have trouble with flex, but i rarely have pugs with all complete strangers. just take a core of friends, add some people from their or your friendlist and if you still miss a few then go to open raid to get the last few. Never run into much trouble that way, always get boosted pr boost a few guildies that way.

[Deleted]

The game is just too complex for most raiders. It's already a blessing when they actually know their own class and roughly the encounter mechanics - those people are heroic raiders in most cases (not some 8/14 but at least the 12/14hc crowd)... Most people in normal and flex are very clueless. Alone on siegecrafter (in pugs) I always realize how poor peoples knowledge about the class's expertise are (belts, mines...), what raidcooldowns are available and when to use them or how damage works (single target multi target damage priorities). Many of those people even read logs for hours without ever reading it correct / understanding what they read / focus on minor stuff ignoring major. Did you ever try asking your pug raidleader why to do damage stop on naz ? It's awesome. Or why the unholy dk is assigned for belts, why using the chosen side on garrosh p1 and so on. It's just pitiful...

But tank god for all the videos and guides. Just copy it 1:1 even after 8 months, do some randoms stuff about parts you do not remember and thanks to high itemlevel everything dies nonetheless

[Deleted]

When it comes to threads like this I always think people are focusing on the negative runs and are totally forgetting all of the positive smooth runs they have had.

[Axelond]

I have never had any problems with Flex on any of my alts or when I join on my main for OS trinkets. quality of pugs in my experience is as follows Openraid(event)>Openraid (chat)>Raid browser>oqueue>trade. Although I rarely list myself in raid browser I just look for groups listed and whisper them but I've gotten invited to decent groups while being listed as well. Only problem with listing yourself is that you tend to be spam invite without any whispers and it feels like nobody reads your comment.

On fresh alts I tend to just download the plugin for oqueue that lets me change my ilvl just to get past retarded restrictions because I know I will most likely outperform people of that ilvl. If I have the energy for it I just make my own flex raid, Post in openraid, trade, make a oqueue event and whisper a few people in raid browser and you got a group in no time.

Once you get into harder content the raid browser is very limited...You might find someone that is looking for normals listed in it but it's very rare so I tend to just stick to openraid and oqueue. I had a few bad groups on oqueue that just falls apart and filled with Russians that don't speak English and have names that mess up your UI. But most groups I join on oqueue gets the job done pretty quickly but again just fake your ilvl and join the higher ilvl req ones because once your in the group nobody cares if you have shit ilvl.

I have a mage alt that I joined openraid events for HC SoO multiple weeks in a row and I can say that most events with a exp leader is very good and almost always clears what they promise. I even joined a chat pug from openraid that cleared 6 bosses on HC but they don't really match up to the quality you get from event pugs. I've seen many events for 14hc but so far I only done 12 hc in a pug so far.

Only problem with openraid events is that it can be a bit tough to get accepted you generally need to be a few days early or for the big SoO runs you almost need to sign a week in advanced to have a chance for a spot. Some runs even require you to have X hcs down on the alt you are joining with even if you have a 14 hc main but once you get into one you can pretty much just join the same one week after week if you showed up and did decent damage

[Firebert]

90% of the people in this game are bad.

Definition breaker

Any non-anecdotal evidence against bell-curve distribution of skill in WoW?

[Grimtide]

A couple of days ago I joined a pug for normal 10 man garrosh, we killed him on the first attempt with 9 people, so there are still nice surprises to be had.

[Ossandran]

This sort of behaviour is what prompted the creation of the dungeon and raid finder tools.
The game did not make people like that.

No it didn't. The LFD system was created so you could find PuG's faster, and often with shittier attitudes. i.e LFR

[Xucuroz]

I think the bigger problem is people thinking the WoW community consists solely of people from dungeon/raid finder and pugs. Of course the better players are going to stick to proper organised guild raids for their main raiding needs (this even goes for stuff like flex). I know that sucks for people that don't have much choice other than to run stuff like flex but it is what it is sadly.

[CandyCotton Marshmallows]

Did we read the same post?

Yeah, but it is the mage he had problems with

[Xires]

I'm not calling you a liar but it sure is amazing how often people on this forum manage to out dps/heal/tank people with much better gear. I'm an okay player and I know for a fact on my rogue without the cloak at 530 I was not coming close to the dps I am at now(561).

As to the topic here its all random. I had gotten amazing groups on my alt rogue and was clearing most of regular through openraid. Went like three weeks without wiping on a boss and even cleared 14/14 one week, the others were to thok and paragons. Then last week I had to look for a group starting at Malk, 5 times I joined pugs looking for 550+ to 560+ and we never even got close. Ranged and heals never standing in puddles, tanks messing up the taunts, no one stacking, it was a nightmare. Mu approach now is to give it three wipes. If after that nothing has changed I just leave and start looking again.

Believe it. My Mage was 573 and the other who had joined our guild was 571....I was consistently doing 100k-150k more dps then him...which means he was doing the equivalent DPS of someone who was 30 ilvl's below his and my level. Why? He didn't know how to play the class. He was using nether tempest on every single fight and he was only putting it on 1 target...and even then he wouldn't keep it up 100% of the time. That's a LOT of missed DPS. He said he was originally a DK tank but had to switched to his mage and his former guild carried him to 570+ ilvl. So while ilvl isn't everything it is still meaningful. A skilled player in 570 ilvl is going to destroy a skilled player in 550 ilvl because his gear is more powerful. Where as a 550 skilled player will destroy a 570 ilvl player who has no clue what they are doing.