My guild was 6/7 FL, on 6-9 hrs/week of raiding. We could have gotten Ragnaros in the next week or two without nerfs as well, the biggest part was getting everyone to understand that in the transition, adds far from the hammer just need to be slowed as quickly as possible, instead of focusing on one and letting others go full speed. With the nerfs, he'll drop this week because 25% is a huge nerf.

We took our alts in last weekend (pre-nerf) for our first serious attempt at Firelands on those. Previously our alts only had a few attempts on Shannox, so most were in 353-359 gear and lower. We also had a hunter who was maybe 348 ilvl, hadn't even been to the Zandalari dungeons yet. Of the tanks, one had never set foot in Firelands and the other had seen a few attempts on Shannox. We killed Shannox in a few attempts and Beth'tilac in probably 5 attempts. We'd have gotten Beth'tilac an attempt or two sooner but it took me a bit to learn the damage patterns toward the end of the fight and how to heal while avoiding meteors up on the web (my main is a hunter so I'd never been up top). Once everyone picked up their new roles (mostly me, I'm not the best tank healer) it went down pretty easily.

With Rhyolith it was pretty much the same, except it was the tank who'd never been to Firelands at all learning how to drive Rhyolith, and getting the tank with sparks to not run all the way to the edge of the island out of healing range, and Rhyolith dropped as well in a few attempts.

The point is, you don't need everyone doing 20K+ to down bosses in FL. It doesn't hurt anything, but it's not necessary. It helps more on Baleroc, allowing you to run 3 healers, and Staghelm, but the first bosses are pretty much entirely about technique.

Someone mentioned they didn't want to pug undergeared alts of those that have done the fights on their mains, but really, the undergeared alt of a raider is exactly who you want to pug in. They can give you a different perspective on the fight, maybe show you something you missed that makes the fight easier. In addition, even some undergeared alts of raiders can do surprising dps. Just this morning my assassination rogue in mostly blues (350 ilvl) was consistently beating a marksman hunter with all the FL BOE pieces and 2pc T12 (ilvl 365 or so) in a Zandalari by a fair amount. On my hunter main at that ilvl in zandoms I was generally over 20k, while that hunter was doing 12-14k. Most pugs would take that hunter to FL over my rogue, and yet my rogue would pound them on every fight, in addition to already knowing the mechanics.