Thoughts about the Halls of Flesh Shaping in LFR

[Auyssaelre 5]

When the Halls of Flesh Shaping came out, I was really suprised by how nerfed Durumu and Dark Animus are. When we wiped 6 times on Durumu with 6 stacks of Determination, he changed so much in LFR that it barely resembles normal lol. On Durumu you kill all the adds instead of the 3 reds and the maze is pretty brutal. Now I'm going into quite a bit of detail about Dark Animus. When I did the LFR version it really took me by suprise; all you do in the LFR version is stay out of the fog and just kill the adds all at once. It seems to me you just ignore the Anima system completely like it isn't there. What are your thoughts when the Pinnacle of Storms comes out, especially the Lei Shen fight how much are they going to nerf it? It seemed to me in my opinion that they nerfed the Halls of Flesh Shaping so much that it's way different than normal.

Thanks :)

[Damien 1,514]

When the Halls of Flesh Shaping came out, I was really suprised by how nerfed Durumu and Dark Animus are. When we wiped 6 times on Durumu with 6 stacks of Determination, he changed so much in LFR that it barely resembles normal lol. On Durumu you kill all the adds instead of the 3 reds and the maze is pretty brutal. Now I'm going into quite a bit of detail about Dark Animus. When I did the LFR version it really took me by suprise; all you do in the LFR version is stay out of the fog and just kill the adds all at once. It seems to me you just ignore the Anima system completely like it isn't there. What are your thoughts when the Pinnacle of Storms comes out, especially the Lei Shen fight how much are they going to nerf it? It seemed to me in my opinion that they nerfed the Halls of Flesh Shaping so much that it's way different than normal.

Thanks :)

I'll take this chance to make a more general comment about LFR. I never understood why Blizzard didn't make a matchmaking system where you could be able to sign up for cross-realm raid events (either immediate or in the future) and you'd be graded/ranked according to how successful your raids are in average and whether or not you do show up for events you sign up for.

I mean, LFR is so dumbed down that I don't understand where the fun is in it. You can just walk in with barely any knowledge of the fight and still do OK.

[Nekkrosis 2]

I got some sort of twisted amusement out of seeing 3/4 of the raid die to the first beam on Durumu, but other than that it was pretty meh. Just another LFR to grind out because my luck sucks in regular ToT.

[Auyssaelre 5]

I do agree with both of your thoughts about how run-down LFR is, and that it should be more fun. I hope the last leg of ToT is less fustrating and more fun than the second to last leg was. Sorry for the late post. :)

[Cruzan 71]

Having been forced to spend a lot of my time in LFR due to not having a ToT raiding guild I have to say they definitely wouldn't be able to tune these fights to be much harder. With an average Determination stack count of 7 so far on Durumu with 2 runs getting up to 10 stacks it's pretty clear that the mentality of the people going in to these LFRs is one of not wanting to put much effort in to learning how to do a fight. I can't imagine what Dark Animus would be like if we actually had to juggle the Anima system.

Like Nekkrosis said though it is pretty funny to watch 20 people get one-shot, but after a while it gets frustrating. Having Primordius be a one-shottable boss is kind of a nice change of pace after dying so much on Durumu.

That all being said, I would LOVE to get a glimpse of what these fights are actually like. I feel like the jump from LFR to Normal is going to be a huge shock once I do finally get in on a normal run.

[Peelyon 416]

This goes back to an older discussion on the use of LFR. Initially when it was released for 5.0 I was fairly annoyed that I didn't have a chance to progress through normal content before it was released (I'm by no means a player used to clearing normal content in week 1!).

It annoyed me that the LFR gear was basically essential to our slow normal progression and to be at your best you really did need to grind LFR to get rid of a few blues / quest gear to help you with the first few bosses in MSV.

Fast forward to 5.2 and now all of my (hard worked for) gear from Heart of Fear / ToES normal etc plus all of the normal 489 MSV gear (nope never got a chance to run heroics) is made utterly obsolete by the new LFR 502's.

It's annoying for myself that if I want to progress or be part of my current team I have to raid these un interesting nerfed encounters just to be able to compete with other guild members for a spot, and for our guild to progress we need this LFR gear.

Like I said last time the ONLY thing LFR should be used for is for players to see content when it is still "current".

For me this could mean releasing LFR during non tier raid patches. So for example, MSV / HoF/ ToES LFR should have been made available at 5.1.

All those that wanted clear normal progression (like me) would have been able to attempt the tier as it should have been, seeing the bosses for the first time on their normal difficulty not some face roll encounter. Players that arent in a raiding guild or arent able to raid STILL see the content while it is "current" as there are no other tiers or raids available, and yet players like myself get to experience the game as it is meant.

At the moment I have completed 9 bosses in LFR and we only got a Horridon normal kill last Tuesday. I am already 7 bosses "ahead" of my normal progression, and chances are Horridon would still be our progression boss as we wouldnt have had the extra "gear" obtained from LFR to actually kill it.

In terms of Flesh Halls, Im sorry to say I didnt read anything, didnt see anything, just queued and went along with the rest of the sheep to get some "must have" 502 purples to help our progression on Council normal.

To be honest it makes me a little sad....

[MoacaBogdan 23]

I have to agree with Peelyon here, LFR should not be used as current content and in no way should it be a means of achieving better gear in order to progress in normal mode content.

Also, just this last week I have progressed through the Halls of Flesh Shaping 10man, then decided to go LFR on an alt (still on the 6k VP step on him, need the fast cap), and I was completely surprised at how entirely different Durumu and Animus are from their counterparts. No holding back on adds on Durumu, Anima golems have a total of 80(!?!) Anima to juggle between them, essentially making it impossible to wipe there.

After 2 wipes on Durumu, I just couldn't take it any more. People are so obsessed with that damn Recount, they can't be bothered to actually run for a bit to save their sorry lives. After I marked myself and told them to stack on me during beam, wonder of wonders, only 1 guy died, because again, his Recount numbers were dropping, and let's just cast another Arcane volley, because why not ?

But here's my problem. This completely altered approach to bosses means that LFR only players that will possibly progress into normal raiding will have a really hard time adapting to the true mechanics. I try to understand that LFR is a means for the regular Joe to see the content, but this approach is just sad and ridiculous in my opinion.

Edited April 8, 2013 by MoacaBogdan

[Krazyito 521]

I always look at recount.. The difference is, I actually want to stay on top for fun, so I do the mechanics correctly.

Though it helps that I already know what to do.

[Khalam 3]

Hi,

I don't agree with some points.

1) LFR gear is not needed to progress ToT. My group started raiding 6 weeks before 5.2 and we all got to around 495 which is more than enough to start progressing ToT. If you want to get a spot to the main team, you should be more focused on getting 522 items for reputation as those boost your ilvl/stats by a lot. Also if you are still wearing blues/old lfr items its a great time to do some Hof/toes. I am only doing LFRs to get items/rep for my alts or to check the boss mechanics before our raiding day since we got a bit of delay before starting ToT (members leaving/joining).

2) Mechanics in ToT are dumbed down to maximum since people that go there have no idea (and don't want to bother to actually read/watch them on sites like IcyVeins) what to do. Due to squad problems (people on vacation) we are struggling with Durumu with 1-2 random members and all I can say this fight is impossible to do if 2 people are failing despite all the explanations. I can't even imagine how the LFR would look like if he was even a bit more like normal one. On the other hand if you are frustrated about others failing please bear in mind that it is not something you cannot fix! Since I have normal experience all I do is ask for assist and mark myself. When beam phase is coming I use /rw to tell others to stack on me and run with me. So far I am clearing Durumu on 1st try, without any problems.

3) Like I said earlier, groups that actually care about their progress can use LFR to test the mechanics. They are dumbed down but they are still there. Get most of your squad to enroll and see in real fight what the guide was actually about. See if you can get the flying on Ji-kun correctly, run from the beam on Durumu or have a tank get bats before they attack the healer on Tortos. Instead of complaining about LFR try to see positive aspects of it!

Remember that there are actually people that like to do LFRs (I am not one of them despite defender position in this thread) and that you do not have to do it.

[Zagam 1,982]

As a player who conquered all of the normal content before LFR came out, I've got some comments and some foreshadowing on LFR.

Jin'rokh: trivial in LFR, normal, and heroic. I know saying heroic is trivial makes me sound like an elitist douchebag, but it really is very accessible. The mechanics aren't difficult...it's just that one person's mistake can cause a wipe. The jump from LFR to normal is almost not noticeable.

Horridon: LFR makes it so that if you tunnel the boss and only a few people do adds, you'll be fine. In normal mode, it is always adds > boss, or you'll be overwhelmed. The Sand Traps, Poison, Frozen Orbs, and Totems hurt FAR less in LFR than they do in normal or heroic.

Council: LFR horribly understates this fight in normal mode. In normal mode, standing in sand will kill you. Not having the appropriate DPS on the proper target will wipe you. This fight will be a minor wall to guilds going from LFR to normal because LFR GREATLY understates the importance of switching. That famous yellow battle text by Blizzard should have been implemented in LFR to show players that they needed to switch at appropriate times.

Tortos: This is the worst LFR fight they designed aside from Dark Animus. There is absolutely no urgency to kicking the turtle shells in LFR. Players who only do LFR then make the jump up to normal will be dreadfully surprised to see that if a turtle isn't zerged down immediately, your raid will wipe immediately. LFR should have had a mechanic that FORCED you to kick the shell at some point, with a much lower leniency of course. Perhaps an unending breath until a turtle shell hit him. In normal, if you don't interrupt the breath before it comes out, enjoy your run back from the graveyard. In LFR, ignore it. Mechanics should never be that different.

Megaera: This is properly done from LFR to normal. You can still wipe in LFR if tanks don't direct the heads' breath attacks appropriately. The Poison Bomb, Ice Beam, and Cinders CAN kill you in LFR, but these attacks are not as deadly as they are in normal mode. The same mechanics exist, but with less stress to your raid, which is what LFR should be. Anyone who has seen LFR should be able to execute the normal mode mechanics without any worries.

Ji'kun: Well...this one isn't HORRIBLY undertuned, but it is noticeable. As long as a few players in your LFR group have experienced the fight and understand the nest/bird mechanics, then you'll be fine. Similar to normal mode, actually. If you're in an established group, you'll have one of two jobs...adds or tunnel boss. In LFR, more people tunnel the boss.

Durumu: I can't speak for this one in LFR because I've only done it once and Durumu stayed in the air (did it Tuesday when it was bugged out). Not sure how other Tuesday groups faired because we took our heroic geared 25 man guild into LFR and used Bloodlust to burn through his HP pool before Disintegration Beam. His graphics and other effects were 40 yards above our head, so navigating the maze was really fun. The maze is unforgiving in normal mode, but it was also unforgiving in LFR because you couldn't see it.

Primordius: This fight is undertuned in normal mode as it is in LFR. Just get buffs, zerg boss. Here's hoping heroic mode requires some thoughtful mechanics (I will likely regret saying/wishing this).

Dark Animus: Ok. This fight in LFR will COMPLETELY destroy players' expectations when they do this on normal mode. In normal mode, each person has to be responsible for an add, kill it at a designated and precise time, then avoid ground effects, a transportation debuff, and other various damaging abilities. The fight is very trivial if you have 10/25 players who can be individually responsible but a nightmare if one person doesn't get it. Imagine my surprise after downing this boss 4 times before it came out in LFR and having us prepare for it accordingly. Then someone notices that when beside each other, they don't empower...so we pull them all to the middle, AoE them down, and finish the fight. LFR Dark Animus is a glorified trash pull. This is HORRIBLE design. Proper design would have been to only activate less adds (10 instead of 25) and make you do the fight correctly by not enabling larger Anima to activate until you killed a lesser beside it. This would have given players an idea of how the fight was to be handled in higher difficulties.

PREDICTIONS

Iron Qon: Likely to be trivialized in the following manner:

P1

Fire stacking debuff won't stack.

Lava Lines won't provide a debuff increasing fire damage taken

P2

Tornado phase won't hurt

Lightning debuff won't be able to be passed

Storm targets can be clicked to remove debuff, but will likely wear off in time as well, unlike normal mode

Lightning lines won't stun

P3

No shields put up, or perhaps a small shield

Ice Lines won't give casting/haste debuff

P4

Increasing damage mechanic won't really hurt because LFR won't coordinate cooldowns like is necessary in normal mode.

They COULD make this fight resemble normal mode and provide the urgency to avoid ground clutter by making things hurt, but not kill you. Will they? Hard to say.

Twins: already trivial. Seriously. Twins is the 2nd easiest encounter in this raid tier. The only way they can make it easier in LFR is make the Tidal Wave attack do very little damage and lessen the raid damage to not require the celestial's help. TL;DR of this fight is spread out and nuke boss.

Lei Shen: It's extremely difficult to say what they will do with this in LFR. Being the last boss of the raid tier, I have only Madness of Deathwing to compare it to. Madness required all of the same mechanics as normal, but with fewer penalities for mistakes. I have a feeling that this will be similar to that as there really isn't much you can remove except damage. I anticipate the winds in P3 not existing. Perhaps Thunderstruck damage will be GREATLY lessened. Ball Lightning may not hurt. Adds may not spawn for incorrect positioning in transition phases. Who knows...but I actually think this fight will require people paying attention unlike most of the other LFR bosses.

LFR was SUCH a great tool to introduce raiders to raiding mechanics. LFR should be harder than 5 man heroics but less difficult than normal raiding. They accomplished this with Jin'rokh and Megaera to near perfection while absolutely butchering it on Council and Dark Animus. For those who are doing LFR now and plan on stepping it up to normal modes, be prepared for some significant changes.

[Auyssaelre 5]

As a player who conquered all of the normal content before LFR came out, I've got some comments and some foreshadowing on LFR.

Jin'rokh: trivial in LFR, normal, and heroic. I know saying heroic is trivial makes me sound like an elitist douchebag, but it really is very accessible. The mechanics aren't difficult...it's just that one person's mistake can cause a wipe. The jump from LFR to normal is almost not noticeable.

Horridon: LFR makes it so that if you tunnel the boss and only a few people do adds, you'll be fine. In normal mode, it is always adds > boss, or you'll be overwhelmed. The Sand Traps, Poison, Frozen Orbs, and Totems hurt FAR less in LFR than they do in normal or heroic.

Council: LFR horribly understates this fight in normal mode. In normal mode, standing in sand will kill you. Not having the appropriate DPS on the proper target will wipe you. This fight will be a minor wall to guilds going from LFR to normal because LFR GREATLY understates the importance of switching. That famous yellow battle text by Blizzard should have been implemented in LFR to show players that they needed to switch at appropriate times.

Tortos: This is the worst LFR fight they designed aside from Dark Animus. There is absolutely no urgency to kicking the turtle shells in LFR. Players who only do LFR then make the jump up to normal will be dreadfully surprised to see that if a turtle isn't zerged down immediately, your raid will wipe immediately. LFR should have had a mechanic that FORCED you to kick the shell at some point, with a much lower leniency of course. Perhaps an unending breath until a turtle shell hit him. In normal, if you don't interrupt the breath before it comes out, enjoy your run back from the graveyard. In LFR, ignore it. Mechanics should never be that different.

Megaera: This is properly done from LFR to normal. You can still wipe in LFR if tanks don't direct the heads' breath attacks appropriately. The Poison Bomb, Ice Beam, and Cinders CAN kill you in LFR, but these attacks are not as deadly as they are in normal mode. The same mechanics exist, but with less stress to your raid, which is what LFR should be. Anyone who has seen LFR should be able to execute the normal mode mechanics without any worries.

Ji'kun: Well...this one isn't HORRIBLY undertuned, but it is noticeable. As long as a few players in your LFR group have experienced the fight and understand the nest/bird mechanics, then you'll be fine. Similar to normal mode, actually. If you're in an established group, you'll have one of two jobs...adds or tunnel boss. In LFR, more people tunnel the boss.

Durumu: I can't speak for this one in LFR because I've only done it once and Durumu stayed in the air (did it Tuesday when it was bugged out). Not sure how other Tuesday groups faired because we took our heroic geared 25 man guild into LFR and used Bloodlust to burn through his HP pool before Disintegration Beam. His graphics and other effects were 40 yards above our head, so navigating the maze was really fun. The maze is unforgiving in normal mode, but it was also unforgiving in LFR because you couldn't see it.

Primordius: This fight is undertuned in normal mode as it is in LFR. Just get buffs, zerg boss. Here's hoping heroic mode requires some thoughtful mechanics (I will likely regret saying/wishing this).

Dark Animus: Ok. This fight in LFR will COMPLETELY destroy players' expectations when they do this on normal mode. In normal mode, each person has to be responsible for an add, kill it at a designated and precise time, then avoid ground effects, a transportation debuff, and other various damaging abilities. The fight is very trivial if you have 10/25 players who can be individually responsible but a nightmare if one person doesn't get it. Imagine my surprise after downing this boss 4 times before it came out in LFR and having us prepare for it accordingly. Then someone notices that when beside each other, they don't empower...so we pull them all to the middle, AoE them down, and finish the fight. LFR Dark Animus is a glorified trash pull. This is HORRIBLE design. Proper design would have been to only activate less adds (10 instead of 25) and make you do the fight correctly by not enabling larger Anima to activate until you killed a lesser beside it. This would have given players an idea of how the fight was to be handled in higher difficulties.

PREDICTIONS

Iron Qon: Likely to be trivialized in the following manner:

P1

Fire stacking debuff won't stack.

Lava Lines won't provide a debuff increasing fire damage taken

P2

Tornado phase won't hurt

Lightning debuff won't be able to be passed

Storm targets can be clicked to remove debuff, but will likely wear off in time as well, unlike normal mode

Lightning lines won't stun

P3

No shields put up, or perhaps a small shield

Ice Lines won't give casting/haste debuff

P4

Increasing damage mechanic won't really hurt because LFR won't coordinate cooldowns like is necessary in normal mode.

They COULD make this fight resemble normal mode and provide the urgency to avoid ground clutter by making things hurt, but not kill you. Will they? Hard to say.

Twins: already trivial. Seriously. Twins is the 2nd easiest encounter in this raid tier. The only way they can make it easier in LFR is make the Tidal Wave attack do very little damage and lessen the raid damage to not require the celestial's help. TL;DR of this fight is spread out and nuke boss.

Lei Shen: It's extremely difficult to say what they will do with this in LFR. Being the last boss of the raid tier, I have only Madness of Deathwing to compare it to. Madness required all of the same mechanics as normal, but with fewer penalities for mistakes. I have a feeling that this will be similar to that as there really isn't much you can remove except damage. I anticipate the winds in P3 not existing. Perhaps Thunderstruck damage will be GREATLY lessened. Ball Lightning may not hurt. Adds may not spawn for incorrect positioning in transition phases. Who knows...but I actually think this fight will require people paying attention unlike most of the other LFR bosses.

LFR was SUCH a great tool to introduce raiders to raiding mechanics. LFR should be harder than 5 man heroics but less difficult than normal raiding. They accomplished this with Jin'rokh and Megaera to near perfection while absolutely butchering it on Council and Dark Animus. For those who are doing LFR now and plan on stepping it up to normal modes, be prepared for some significant changes.

Thank you Zagam for stating this. :) Blizzard made some of these bosses not make any sense at all or it is way too tuned. I agree with you on Tortos. Tortos is a fight to determine if you really payed attention and have DBM or you just kicked the turtles just because you want to. And I do see what you mean about Dark Animus. They made the fight pretty straight forward and I wanted to be challenged in LFR. Hopefully the last leg will have better results.

[Jenaye 9]

Zagam, you are a god amongst warlocks.

That being said, since my raid team hasn't quite the gear to progress (still on Horridon, waiting on a few people to stop fucking up, and gearing new tank), I took a few of the more progressed raiders from my group and we did a clean run through all of the LFR for 5.2. The Horridon fight is one of the more noticeable things, where in Normal, if those adds don't go down in a timely manner (fast as hell), prepare to eat dirt and see your ghost form again. My group can get past the doors reliably, but people are low on mana from cure-bombing our lesser geared tank and we can't quite push it. Then we check out the LFR, and after the doors are down, people ust focus down Horridon and don't worry about whatshisface that drops in from below that most groups lust on (if not the 3rd door)... how on earth is this really a fair representation of the fights? For people looking to getting into raiding, the shock of difference from just that fight and Council alone is going to frustrate raid leads beyond measure as they see that sure, mike does 120k on LFR horridon, but make him actually HAVE to kill adds, and all of a sudden, you have a guy in a mixture of 522s and 502s that doesn't pull nearly the dps actually required. We got to Durumu, and after 7 wipes, I told my guildies "this is going to be a fucking nightmare," it was so bad. when we finally killed him, out of 25 people, there was a tank, 1 heals, and 3 dps left. Absolutely insane, and if he's gimped as bad as you say, then my goodness.

I went as far as to come to Icy-Veins to read up on the newest 3 fights to attempt to familiarize myself with the fight, and I was ridiculed for suggesting certain things to help with (lol) progression on the fight. Personally, I think LFR has ruined "mainstream" raiding, but maybe it's just me that thinks that.

[Vladamyr 169]

Here's to hoping that Heroic Scenarios replace LFR!

[MoacaBogdan 23]

Here's to hoping that Heroic Scenarios replace LFR!

Not sure what the rewards are, but it's a safe bet they won't be above 502 ilvl, so LFR will still have attendance.

[Zagam 1,982]

LFR has bolstered the mentality of most WoW players in the "I want something for nothing" in that they want to just queue for LFR and get loot. There's no excitement with LFR. Even if someone gives clear directions, someone will say something stupid or do something stupid then troll the raid group. I had this happen the first week of the 2nd wing. I'm sitting there explaining Megaera to the raid group and the DK tank goes 'shut up noob, you don't know anything' and proceeds to pull the Venom head and face it towards the raid group. After we wipe, we replace him, I repeat the explanation to the new tank, and no one dies at all to anything. On Durumu, it's amusing to hear how many people 'lag' because of the purple stuff. LFR brings out the best in groups rarely, but more often than not, it just takes one rotten egg to not allow a successful LFR run.

[Vladamyr 169]

Not sure what the rewards are, but it's a safe bet they won't be above 502 ilvl, so LFR will still have attendance.

Actually the datamined Heroic Scenario epics are ilvl 516. They require a pre-made group and award quite a bit of valor. I'm really hoping this is the return of Heroic dungeoning that I miss since initial Cata.

[Peelyon 416]

I don't agree with some points.

1) LFR gear is not needed to progress ToT.

that you do not have to do it.

The thing is about these 2 points.

I agree both in their own right are correct, but put this in a competitive environment and I'm sorry they are wrong.

Given a choice any player whatever the game may be would take any advantage that they have over their competition. Whether that competition is against another member of your guild who is challenging for your raid spot, other another guild you are fighting with in the rankings, the vast majority of players will want to ensure they are the best they can be.

My argument has always been that LFR can exist, just don't make the items available an upgrade on previous items. Initial LFR items shouldn't have been any higher ilvl than heroic gear for 5.0, this new LFR shouldnt be higher than 496ilvl from normal HoF / ToES.

You could argue that the difference between a normal 496 item in HoF isnt much worse than a 502 item from the new LFR's but when you translate that across characters and a raid group it can have an effect overall, even if its just a placebo effect that you have better gear!

The ONLY reason Blizzard puts higher ilvls into LFR than previous content is to "force" regular players who wish to raid normal or heroic raids into them. Imagine LFR if the group comprised 100% of casuals who only ever raided through LFR.

I'm not sure about your experiences but you always find 5-10 "normal" players in vital roles. Durumu saw my entire raid wiped out apart from about 12 people who had clearly done it on normal mode who literally 12 manned the encounter.

No we shouldnt need LFR gear to progress, no we are not literally "forced" to do it, but ultimately when your raid spot or guild rank is on the line you can really give the excuse of "I don't like LFR" to your raid leader can you?

[Khalam 3]

If this is you new character (you didn't raid in previous content) then leader may force you to do LFRs as well as old raids. But any character that raided through 5.0-5.1 should be geared at around 497+ easily (remember that you had upgrades back then). Like I said even my group and we created it like 6 weeks before 5.2 got to 495+

I do not see a reason to make people go to LFR to have a chance to get some 6 ilvls higher gear (in some slots you can even have 504 items thanks to upgrades). This won't change anything. You need around 3 "new" items to get upgrade of 1 average ilvl. Compare it to valor items which gives you around 2 average ilvl just for 1 item.

The fact is that bigger boost you get for actually downing the bosses on normal. Even if you starting group, killing 2-3 first bosses should give you around 6-12 522 items if all of you used coins (which you should since no point hogging them).

For medium groups its reputation > items from new LFR. Good groups should have already downed everything and don't need that 6 ilvl upgrades to help them in heroics.

[Vladamyr 169]

The difference in gear levels for your situation may not be enough to warrant running LFR, but for many it is. For instance let's take a frost mage in full 496 gear. He's about 20k dps below a frost mage in 502 lfr gear. Is each piece of equipment a game changer? No, but for many guilds in varying situations it is a requirement to gear up in LFR. It can supplement missing gear from drops you just aren't getting through bad luck. Also unless you are on full ToT clear currently, you should be running LFR just for the Rep to gain access to other Valor gear (once again used to round out gear you aren't getting through random drops). I think you'll find the common feeling is that a lot of Raiders feel like they are being pushed into running LFR and they just don't want to.

[Khalam 3]

Well there are groups that are now doing full clear or close to and they weren't full heroic geared at the start of the patch. If something is holding you down in doing ToT, it is not gear.

Any group that were fully geared from hof/toes normal, should be able to clear ToT by now. Unless they are like super unlucky with drops and keep getting items they are forced to disenchant.

The only situation that require you to use LFR is when you have just started since right now there is no quick way to get into ToT raiding. Currently there is no other way that helps you gear your toon midexpansion. In the ending patches of the expansion blizz is releasing some heroic content that helps you get the gear for last raid without a need to visit the olds ones (for example fos/pos in wotlk). The question is if you would rather have wotlk model:

- no lfrs to help you gear midexpac, you have to do old raids to get gear (pugs are very similar to LFRs :/)

or the cataclysm model:

- LFRs which are almost free loot and with a bit of frustration let you get some gear to get into current raids

I am waiting for Blizz to get some new ideas. I liked the Wotlk model, but would love to see some improvements like more drops from old content (3-4 items in 10man rather than 2 from bosses).

Edited April 10, 2013 by Khalam