Is there a Flex breakpoint?

[the0o]

Evening, So over the last few months i have seen RLs refused to go over 13/15/17 people because it makes it bosses harder than that number of people could handle. Now i know the magic number WAS 15 but didnt blizzard fix that?

I have done both 10-25 man flex raids and as long as the mechanics are respected and no one is AFK, its an easy day.

My question is :

Does flex still have a "Magic" number?

[Dracodraco]

No. It does not. 10 = 2 abilities. 11 = 20% for extra ability. 14 = 80% for extra ability. 15 = 3 abilities (for example).

[calinass]

No. It does not. 10 = 2 abilities. 11 = 20% for extra ability. 14 = 80% for extra ability. 15 = 3 abilities (for example).

What do you mean?
2 abilities as in two boss mechanics?

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

What do you mean?
2 abilities as in two boss mechanics?

Say a boss mind-controls 2 character with ten people in the raid and 4 characters with 25 people in the raid. If you have 17 people in the raid then sometimes 2 would be mind-controlled and sometimes 3 would be mind-controlled.

[calinass]

Say a boss mind-controls 2 character with ten people in the raid and 4 characters with 25 people in the raid. If you have 17 people in the raid then sometimes 2 would be mind-controlled and sometimes 3 would be mind-controlled.

AH! got it. Thanks.

[Teebu]

In the special case of mind controls on Garrosh, it's always only two now on flex. For mechanics other than that, Butler Log is right though.

[Stormspark]

There are a couple of mechanics that spawn different numbers based on the number of players. Norushen orbs is one. There is a "magic" number for the number of orbs he spawns. And the puddles on Malkorok also have one, but they are different. Other than that, there are absolutely NO magic numbers. They're basically an urban legend at this point.

In 6.0, ALL "magic numbers" are going away, even things like Norushen orbs.

[Spotnick]

Magic number has always been 25.

[Mormolyce]

There is no magic number, unfortunately people firmly believe there is no matter how many times it's stated to be otherwise.

You could write an essay on the chronic optimisation mentality prevalent in MMOs.

[Leih]

There is no magic number, unfortunately people firmly believe there is no matter how many times it's stated to be otherwise.

You could write an essay on the chronic optimisation mentality prevalent in MMOs.

With the exception of one or two fights (I'm thinking mainly Sha of Pride, Malkorok and Garrosh) this whole "magic" number thing was completely false to begin with, and even on those 3 fights the number at which the abilities transitioned wasn't 13 across the board either. I think it worked that way for Sha of Pride prisons and because people saw that they decided that must be how it works everywhere.

The thing is, it's bizarre how these misconceptions propagate and morph and become so fixed in the pugging hive mind's head that it's just impossible to shift. I had a 20 minute argument with the raid leader of a Flex pug I joined a week or so ago where he argued that the HP of the bosses in flex only scales at certain thresholds. So if you had 10 people, a mob might have, say 100M health. If you had 11, 12 or 13 people it would still have 100M and those 3 people are just FREE DPS. But as soon as you hit 14 people, it jumps up to 170M, which means 14 people is suicide, but the 15th, 16th, 17th people are added for free.

He was convinced if you don't take either 13, 17, 21 or 25 people exactly, you are losing DPS because the boss health only jumps up every 3-4 people you add to the group.

[kamuimac]

With the exception of one or two fights (I'm thinking mainly Sha of Pride, Malkorok and Garrosh) this whole "magic" number thing was completely false to begin with, and even on those 3 fights the number at which the abilities transitioned wasn't 13 across the board either. I think it worked that way for Sha of Pride prisons and because people saw that they decided that must be how it works everywhere.

The thing is, it's bizarre how these misconceptions propagate and morph and become so fixed in the pugging hive mind's head that it's just impossible to shift. I had a 20 minute argument with the raid leader of a Flex pug I joined a week or so ago where he argued that the HP of the bosses in flex only scales at certain thresholds. So if you had 10 people, a mob might have, say 100M health. If you had 11, 12 or 13 people it would still have 100M and those 3 people are just FREE DPS. But as soon as you hit 14 people, it jumps up to 170M, which means 14 people is suicide, but the 15th, 16th, 17th people are added for free.

He was convinced if you don't take either 13, 17, 21 or 25 people exactly, you are losing DPS because the boss health only jumps up every 3-4 people you add to the group.

thats why i do my own pugs and if i see anyone complaining about "make it 13 man " doesnt matter if he is 515 or 580 he will get nearly instant kick - this is my way of teaching people to not belive in magic numebers - cba to hear this bs how making run 13 man will make it be 50 % easier -_- (especially that thanx to brillaint oque half of my run is 560+ usually )

my runs are usually 18-20 man and if anyone complains he get kick and told that he can make his own magical 13 man groups.

and from my experience 25 man runs in flex were always since day 1 the best option due to how bosses health scaled - the more people u brought in the better undless all 25 man were 515 or something.

[Osmeric]

As I understand it, the "difficulty / number of players" (however that gets defined) is minimized when the Flex group is full. Otherwise, it would always make sense for a struggling Flex group to kick their weakest member (subject to role balancing constraints).

So: 25.

[Deleted]

Didn't blue post mentioned that nothing really changes until 16 and 18 ppl ?
I remember them saying prisons on sha wont change until 18 and malk puddles wont get an extra until 16 ?

Anyhow, i've always gone 2 tanks, 3 heals and 10 dps for the flex runs i create, proper healer to dps ratio, good scaling, no more mechanics, generally just a breeze

I've heard that 25man flex is supposed to be the easiest but its a headache getting 25 oqueue ppl to stay lol, 15 is the best of both worlds imo.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

If you are worried about needing more DPS, every additional player only adds approximately 80k to the required raid DPS to kill the boss in the same amount of time.

[Farabee]

For Garrosh where the mechanic for MCs is fixed at 2, people tend to bring 25 just to make that part easier.

Everything else, just bring whatever.

[Deleted]

With the exception of one or two fights (I'm thinking mainly Sha of Pride, Malkorok and Garrosh) this whole "magic" number thing was completely false to begin with, and even on those 3 fights the number at which the abilities transitioned wasn't 13 across the board either. I think it worked that way for Sha of Pride prisons and because people saw that they decided that must be how it works everywhere.

The thing is, it's bizarre how these misconceptions propagate and morph and become so fixed in the pugging hive mind's head that it's just impossible to shift. I had a 20 minute argument with the raid leader of a Flex pug I joined a week or so ago where he argued that the HP of the bosses in flex only scales at certain thresholds. So if you had 10 people, a mob might have, say 100M health. If you had 11, 12 or 13 people it would still have 100M and those 3 people are just FREE DPS. But as soon as you hit 14 people, it jumps up to 170M, which means 14 people is suicide, but the 15th, 16th, 17th people are added for free.

He was convinced if you don't take either 13, 17, 21 or 25 people exactly, you are losing DPS because the boss health only jumps up every 3-4 people you add to the group.

As a Heroic raid leader which had lead countless Flex PUGS I can only echo the above statement.

A part of being a raid leader at HC level is to try to find ways to gear people as fast as possible, and if there was a "magic" number it would mean faster gearing for my guild.

Therefore I spend, I don't know how many hours, on my "spare time" from my normal raid schedule to try to find these magic numbers while they still existed in hope of getting that extra edge in the gearing up race.

Besides from Sha of Pride and number of prisons I did not find a single consistent thing that could relate to raid size. Sure there were lot of theories, like Kae pointed out in the post above. But when you actually went in and did it it proved to be bullshit.

As far as I am concerned The "magic number" only existed on sha of pride, and even then stuff like individual skill and gear played a greater roll than having one too many people. It's basically a myth and nothing more.

[Raelbo]

So over the last few months i have seen RLs refused to go over 13/15/17 people because it makes it bosses harder than that number of people could handle.

Then those raid leaders are idiots and you're better off not being one of their raids....

Does flex still have a "Magic" number?

The nature of flex raiding means that there will always be optimal numbers for any fight. The pertinent point however is that it really doesn't matter because flex is not tuned to be particularly difficult.

Basically a few extra ilevels of gear, or having a slightly more skillful group will make a far bigger impact on the raid's success than choosing the optimal number of players and optimal class balance.

Honestly, the easiest way to form a flex raid these days is to set a XP/gear limit and then take anyone keen to come who meets those criteria until you have around 15 people. It's a good number because it means less disruption to the raid if someone leaves (or is kicked). It also means that if you draw a few people who aren't performing fantastically, the raid will still succeed. At the same time it doesn't take as long to find 15 people as it does to find 25, and it leaves room to add extra players if the need arises (eg someone wants to bring a friend or guildie halfway through)

Obviously you need 2 tanks, and about 1/4 of your raid should be healers, but thereafter it should be about convenience. Sometimes you may end up finding 15 dps and 5 healers before you find your second tank, in which case there is no reason to limit yourself to 15.

And if you have what you reckon is the "optimal" group and an ilevel 580 asks to come along, you'd be far better off having that player along even if it means skewing your perfect balance a little. At the same time, if you are at 13 people, and you haven't found your last 2 dps in more than 5 minutes, then just go, you'll be fine.


If a group is failing on flex, it's not because they have the wrong raid size - it's because you have the wrong people.

[Tharkkun]

If you can do 125k-150k dps or higher adding 1 person to the group will be more beneficial than the health gained by the boss. Most people do better DPS than that so it's more beneficial to bring more.

[Alroxas]

Here's the blue post.

Basically, prior to the change, there were hard "breakpoints" where adding an extra person meant an extra mechanic to be dealt with but they revised it so that breakpoints were now probabilities (like what Dracodraco mentioned). However, these mechanics are now partially mitigated because a) people (typically) know how to deal with them and b) over gearing the raid.

Additionally since that blue post, other raid changes have been made to make SoO easier.

[PrairieChicken]

Currently in Flex (not the case in WoD) the boss hp relative to # of players go down as you increase the raid size. As far as I know 25 flex has less hp than 25 LFR.

So unless the newly added player is terribad mouthbreather more people = easier