Forcing us to LFR to have succes in normal mode.

After 2 weeks of raiding, we haven't killed the Stone Guards yet.
This is not a problem in tanking position, low dps or bad healing. Its a gear only problem.

Stone Guards is mostly a coordination check between your tanks, the folks with Jasper Chains, and not much else. Certainly is not a DPS check (that would be, for some guilds, Gara'jal the Spiritbinder).

02/11/2012 13:13Posted by Inoruk

If you don't LFR (or you are a pro), you fail. So in certain mode, you are forcing us to get gear first from LFR and then go to normal mode to succeed.

Many players (not saying it's your case, of course) believe that they are on par with the skill level of players further ahead than them, and that the only thing separating them from players with more progression is just gear. More often than not, the issue lies on the skill side, either your group is not really making the most of their dps rotations, cooldown usage is not being proper, etcetera, or it may very well be that your group is still undergeared for that fight (as long as everyone is decked in blue heroic gear, you'll be fine).

02/11/2012 13:13Posted by Inoruk

I think the problem is LFR is extremely easy and normal mode is a bit overtunned. Normal is a step above where it should be if you want an easy transition. That way probably, you shouldn't be forced to gear up in LFR and let it only for casuals who doesn't raid normal modes.

You're not supposed to transition from LFR to Normal. You're supposed to start on Normal (in fact, LFR opens a week after the normal mode of the raid has). So, if you want to get every possible drop to advance in your progression, yes, sure, you'll want to raid the LFR if you're not doing Heroics, but there're more areas than just gear where all raid groups should be looking at when having issues with a certain encounter. Most of the times, unless it's a dps race, it comes down to something else (bad strategy, for example).

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7006893247?page=12#221

Our goal isn't to make sure progression raiders never want or need to run LFR. Having experienced raiders queuing up is usually going to be a net gain for everyone (in terms of wait times, success rates, etc.). There is usually some benefit to most level-90 players running Raid Finder

There it is folks. Plain and simple. Blizzard will keep forcing Real raiders with the scrubs... i mean "casuals" so they dont wipe 4 hours on the first boss.

If you're going to quote Zarhym's reply, quote the full paragraph, please:

Absolutely, and that's okay sometimes. In my first post I said that one of our goals is to ensure that Raid Finder has a healthy pool of players from which to choose. Our goal isn't to make sure progression raiders never want or need to run LFR. Having experienced raiders queuing up is usually going to be a net gain for everyone (in terms of wait times, success rates, etc.). There is usually some benefit to most level-90 players running Raid Finder, but that's obviously very different from "forced content."

It kind of depends on your goals, your guild's goals, and what you want to get out of the game. I'll still assert that Raid Finder isn't a progression roadblock for those who prefer to stick with normal/Heroic raiding.

As he clearly said, there're benefits to having experienced raiders queuing up on LFR (shorter wait times, higher success rates, etc), and there's usually some benefit for level 90 players in there. Which still means you can skip it altogether if you're raiding Heroic (and that'll be particularly true moving forward since LFR gear from the following tier will have a lower ilvl than current Heroic gear).

02/11/2012 13:59Posted by Monkylord

But you still ran it for a chance to upgrade some slot and valor, correct? I won 2 lfr items last week and i replaced them in a matter of days, but i still ran it 3 times. The thing is a lot of us dont want to run it AT ALL.

Then don't. It's obvious that you are well beyond the skill level of any player posting here and that you'd rather not play with "mouthbreathers", as you so elegantly and politely put it in your previous post. So, by all means, open Vent, repeatedly tell your guildmates how awesome and uber skilled you are and run with them Normal and Heroic raids, but the attitude you display towards players running the Raid Finder is completely unacceptable and needs to go.

There's a code of conduct when posting on these forums, so please, stick to it.

Blizzard is hiding from the fact that there are blockages in current Normal raiding progress. Every boss is tuned for maximum buffs and if you are missing one you will require extra item lvl to make up for it. And that is hard when you only have like 4 raid bosses to work with like is with Elegon. It is an overtuned fight atm for its gear lvl if you dont have all the buffs and the best way to beat that fight is to go LFR and get the 476 weapons on boss AFTER Elegon. The chance of getting 476 weapons in HCs is way to low and you can go for months and months and never get them.

I dare any person to go to World of logs and compare the bosses in Vaults. The success raid for Elegon is under 5% for 10 mans while beeing well over 10-15% for all other bosses - even the last one. That should be very obvious that its overtuned - and the best way to beat him is to get items from 6 bosses in LFR rather than wait once every week for the 4 bosses in normal.

Elegon is a very complex fight. There're many things to be aware of, experiment with and so on. But once you master them all, he goes down relatively quickly. It just takes time to adapt to all the mechanics that encounter has. Don't give up!

Having said that, the current buff system should allow most 10 player groups to get all the buffs (at least the important ones) as long as the composition isn't terribly strange. If that's not the case, I'd say please point it out and we'll let the developers know about. It might be that it is indeed an oversight or that in fact they don't expect raid groups to necessarily have that particular buff.

The thing you ask and pressure: It is not MANDATORY in order to beat the encounters, no.
But, as I stated above, why on earth would you make it just so much complicated to you by not running those things and making it harder for the 24 or 9 other people who you run the raids with? That's just selfish and piss poor excuse for one who wants to complete all HC encounters, or even people who just want to clear normal and are in more "casual" environment.

If you are pursuing realm firsts or world firsts. I definitely understand you might feel you need to hit LFR for every possible gear upgrade to those 463 blues you're missing. But that's a playstyle choice. If you're playing at your own leisure and not too bothered by the competition, you don't need to hit LFR at all. The jump from 463 to 476 for a couple items is minimal. Of course, if you expect to be stuck on this one boss forever, you should definitely go and visit LFR. The fact is, under normal circumpstances, it's unlikely your guild will get stuck for any noticeable period of time if what you're aiming in fact is to clear Heroic modes.

If you're a newly formed guild that needs LFR, then I'd say more power to you, because that's a setting where the room for error is big enough that you can just focus on improving your coordination without fear or meeting enrage timers or wiping because someone still getting the hang of things.

You choose how to play the game. From a tuning point of view, the content isn't tuned accounting for LFR gear in every possible slot.

EDIT: missing part of a sentence

02/11/2012 15:39Posted by Nymíra

It's pretty much mandatory if you're doing heroic content.

That will be true only for so long. Heroic Mogu'shan Vaults gear is higher ilvl (502) than that of Normal Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring (496), and well above the Raid Finder of those two raids (483).

But in all reality, let's put things into perspective in that regard, anyways. Let's assume that you do take all your 25 raid members to the Raid Finder in order to clear it. And that you are a Heroic raiding guild at the top of progression. How long does that really take? A guild of a friend of mine, still scratching Heroic raiding, can clear the two halves in something like 40 minutes. So, I'd go and argue that a Heroic-level guild could clear the whole place in 30? minutes.

What else could you do in that time? You could do dailies for a particular faction, surely. You could harvest materials for your profession or trade. Or play some pet battles. Thirty minutes. Unless you raid for thirty minutes as well every week, that doesn't sound as a massive time investment to me. So, is it really as demanding as some of you seem to pretend to imply?

Some of us want to put in effort in order to kill bosses. we're not gonna let outselves slack behind on gear, when there's some easyly attainable for almost no effort. asking us not to do LFR if we dont want to do it, would be like telling us not to gem or enchant or gear.

we're not gonna let outselves slack behind on gear, when there's some easyly attainable for almost no effort.

And you wrote that back to back. The thing is, you are not forced to do it. Neither dailies for that matter. Dailies can be already considered obsolete gear wise because you can already get item level 496 gear from Heart of Fear.

It's a conscious choice you're making. You'd rather go through the LFR and pick that gear than wait until you get the appropriate drop from the normal/Heroic raid. That's alright, but it's your choice.

02/11/2012 16:39Posted by Monkylord

It's not a "choice". It is Mandatory. You have to do it if you want to be competative even if you are not in a realm first guild.

Please, by all means, define competitive. What is competitive when you're not pursuing a realm first that actually warrants running Raid Finder on every single reset? Because frankly, I can't see it. And it might be a perfect valid point.

So then, please answer this for me. Lets say everyone else in my raidteam makes the choice to do LFR, because better gear obviously helps progression. I choose not to do LFR, simply because i do not want to do it. Now can you honestly with a straight face tell me that i am not holding my teams progress back?

Thats right, you cant.

I can. Your kill will be slowed by a fraction of time (seconds). But by no stretch of the imagination your team will be meeting enrage timers unless you're just undergeared. Once you're at the point to which the content is tuned for, the only thing preventing your raid from killing the boss is perfecting the execution. The very tight dps races are on Heroic (Gara'jal Heroic comes to mind as an example) and in that setting unless you're at the very top of progression, LFR gear will do you no good (it's very likely you'll need a fair amount of normal gear to take him down).

03/11/2012 21:41Posted by Zainstorm

(as long as everyone is decked in blue heroic gear, you'll be fine).

Blue Heroic Gear that is fully gemmed and enchanted I hope!

Never forget them gems and enchants...

Of course! Echanting, gemming and reforging gear will always be very useful for any character that intends to take part in raiding.

04/11/2012 12:25Posted by Nymíra

You don't need to use LFR to clear normal (this is evident). However to say that LFR wasn't required to clear heroic (all of the top guilds ran LFR as a group for in-guild drops) is a bit ridiculous. It might not be needed when everyone is decked in 489 gear, but when the gear inflation between heroic blues (463) and the first tier (489) is so large because of LFR (476) there is an obvious problem. This wasn't a problem that existed in Cataclysm.

And it's a problem that won't happen past Mogu'shan Vaults Raid Finder. Heroic Gear from this tier will be higher item level than gear from the Raid Finder of the next tier, therefore heroic raiders won't feel obligated to enter it for gearing purposes.

04/11/2012 16:14Posted by Meesh

We aren't supposed to, Yet the majority of players do. It's badly designed imo, and I was hoping to see it rectified in early MoP. Are players supposed to be able to clear normal in a week before LFR is released?

Players have certainly cleared MV before LFR was opened. Of course, that takes a level of skill and coordination that not necessarily all raid groups have.

05/11/2012 07:26Posted by Rilgania

So there's why doing LFR - or dailies - isn't a choice. We've got the option of better gear, then we'll do it. We need it. I was in big need for a weapon until yesterday, so I'd run every opportunity to get one (Gate of the Setting Sun and LFR). I needed the upgrades certain factions offered on hitting exalted, so I did the dailies. The only choice involved here is my choice for raiding, and this includes pressure to not waste the time of my fellow raiders by not pulling the maximum of my char. We raid because we want to progress, not because we like to wipe to enrage timers and gear dependent mechanics. Of course competition is part of raiding, even on server level, but this isn't the sole reason why a raid wants to advance quickly. So yes - almost anything that improves performance will be felt mandatory not only by hardcore, but also semi hardcore raider folks.

And that's part of what implies picking that particular play style. If you aim to be hardcore/semi hardcore, of course, you'll need (and want) every possible gear upgrade you can get. Because that's what you've chosen to do. You want to be at the top of your game. So it makes sense you'll go out of your way to pick every possible upgrade lying ahead in hopes of edging your competition.

That's precisely what competition is about. Getting the upper hand over everyone else. And for that, I'd argue it's just logical you'll go and do everything that's available. For Heroic raiders, though, LFR will slowly fade away as you replace your gear with Heroic gear. Because come the next tier, you won't have a reason to go there. On this tier you'll experience the same already with Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring LFRs. For those slots you've got gear from normal Mogu'shan Vaults, there'll be no reason to go and visit HoF and TES LFRs (when those are open), since it'll still be higher item level than that of LFR.

05/11/2012 11:46Posted by Krovnaya

I find it rather mind-boggling that the idea of competitiveness coming from blue posts can't get beyond getting realm/world firsts. For one thing, there are lots of things people would probably consider as 'realm firsts' that aren't recognised as such. For example, the vast majority of world/realm first kills are going to come from hardcore guilds running 16-20+ hours per week. Guilds running 2 or 3 3-4 hour raids per week may well consider themselves in a separate bracket with others with similar time limits.

By this definition, I should be able to walk up to Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, Sebastian Vettel, Roger Federer... (you get the idea, I guess) and tell them I'm being super competitive in their respective sports because I'm competing in a local league putting a fraction of the time they are. The thing is, when looking at the grand scheme, I'm not. Not even close. There's a reason why the world first quality guilds usually get world firsts, and it's not just skill, there's also commitment, coordination and a myriad of factors.

Of course, if we start removing factors that we can't or don't want to meet, even playing rock-paper-scissors with your friend on the middle of Times Square is competitive, but the moment the discussion goes down that path, it's very unlikely we'll reach any kind of agreement on what's being discussed.

However, for people with less ability to perform DPS/other roles, it makes no doubt to me that they are indeed having trouble on enrage timers and such, or at the very least be close enough that they'll absolutely want any possible upgrade.

When we raided during the first week with raids full of 463~ ilvl geared characters enrage timers felt quite tight, and we're a world-class guild. I can safely assume that a raid of players that perform sub-par, despite their much higher ilvl, will not be dishing out much more DPS/healing than our raids back in 463 gear, and will probably encounter a lot of trouble with enrage timers or other numbers-related issues rather than mechanics issues.

Isn't this another reason why it'd do good to those players that feel they need the gear to instead improve their dps rotations, talents, gearing choices, etc, so that they can make the most benefit of their class rather than relying on getting higher gear? (I'm talking about those encounters that aren't dps checks, of course, at some point the developers expect the raid to be at a certain treshold of gear, and if that's not the case it's very likely you just won't be able to move forward until you get more upgrades)

Of course, not everyone can play at the 100% of their spec, but the jump those players may see from wearing all 463 to 476 compared to the jump from perfecting their rotations (working on them, or whichever area they might be failing in) would probably yield a greater result, and one that will outlast gear replacements in the long run; you're not likely to lose skill once you've acquired it after all.

What an enormous spit in the face of every guild that tries their best but just isn't world first material. To hear this from a Blizzard employee...

You heard it people, Blizzard doesn't consider you competitive unless you're Paragon or Method.

What about competition on a realm? Competition between guilds of similar amount of raiding days/raid philosophy? Between people in a guild? Competition between players of the same class on a realm? Competition on WoL?

Are they less important because it's not about world firsts?

There're varying levels of competitiveness. The folks playing at a local club are competitive. But on a different level (of skill, most often) than professional players. This is kind of the same, there're competitive guilds out there that just can't perform at the level of world first guilds. Are they less important? No.

But coming here and saying that you need to do all this because you are competitive and complaining about it's just weird. That's why it's called competition. You need to edge your opposition one way or the other. There're many ways to gear up these days, and you don't need to use them all, but of course, if you do, you'll gear up quicker.

Asking, in consequence, to shut down those things you don't want to do (and therefore reduce the quality of this game) just because you don't want to use those venues cannot be seen as a benefit (especially by the players that do use those).

Of course, in a world where you compete against other guilds, folks using those venues will most likely progress faster than you in the same timeframe, that's competition. And that's part of choosing which playstyle you want to pursue.