there will be even more high geared people there to carry them, its not a problem

woof! I bet you're right dude.

Kram, I think you are right.

However, by setting the I-level bar high, Blizzard ensures that relatively few newbies stumble into the raid finder. Blizzard also clearly signal that this is not a "get non-raiders to see the content & have something to do" feature. This is a "raid difficulty learning curve & make PUGs easier to find" feature.

Overall, I think Blizzard did the right thing here.

@gniver completely agree, but since the new heroics drop 378 gear and only require a 353 ilvl to get into (read: no raid experience required at all), there is going to be a flood of casuals with NO prior raid experience who aren't going to be afraid of RF, and will drive the quality of raids down as people get enough gear to get a leg up on normals and then don't go back. (see ZA/ZG progression from 4.2)

Enjoy the RF now while it's still good!

I ground out about 8 of the new 5-mans, got my iLevel up to spec (well, i370 equipped; i372 in bags, I had a pair of Season 10 PvP leggings in a bag, I guess) and jumped into the LFR…

Yeah, I died about half a dozen times, but I did not know any fights, nor did I want to… I wanted to see the raids FRESH, get that brand new feel from them…

Next time, I will study before, make sure my add-ons are up-to-date, and try not to die as much.

As for RNG luck, nada… Must have worn it out with the six items I snagged in the new 5-mans…!

Only thing left now is to do a BH and hope for some drops, grind out some dailies to replace all the gold I spent in the last 14 hours (food/flasks/void storage fees/xmogging fees/reforging fees/gems/enchants/etc.) and play around in the new Darkmoon Faire when it 'comes to town'. If I do grind some more of the new 5-mans for more fresh gear, it will be for gold & gear only, as I am already VP capped for the week…!

There is no way to make my point more clearly than just to quote all of boil.sans post.

Which I won't do. When thousands of him hit the RF tool on Saturday... Yeowch.

Disagree disagree disagree.

The only way RF will fail is if there is massive tank fail. How many complete casuals that have never ever raided are out there? If the stated difficulty level of "Baradin Hold" is the standard for the raid, I really can't see a lot of failures going on out there. And almost everyone at max level has at least some raid experience, I'd have to gather.

The only way I see RF raids failing is with massive tank failures (since that's about the only thing that I've ever seen wipe VOA/BH type bosses). As long as you have at least a semi-decent tanking crew, it shouldn't be a problem. I'd be willing to bet there will likely be someone in every RF raid that will be carrying the dps and healing.

I could also bring up a counter-point to which you state it's only raiders doing raid finder, which is that real guilds with real raiders would be running through the normal (non raid finder), and that they would be more likely to check out the raid finder raids on the weekend.

@ Pyromelter
To the best of my knowledge the players who do not raid vastly outnumber the players that do. Only Blizzard has the true demographics of course, and they aren’t telling… but you will note that they set the item level as high as they possibly could.

@pyro I'll see your point and raise you a question. What about these encounters makes them a tank-check? On RF difficulty, the fights aren't tanking or healing intensive, they are an exercise in getting 25ish strangers to not be idiots.

If you haven't tried the last two fights on the PTR, I urge you to wait til you see those. They require a level of team coordination that the first 4 miss. To be honest I saw more incompetent folk on the PTR than I've seen on live so far, and all I'm saying is its only a matter of time until they too can join RF.

What does anyone think about RAISING the min ilvl to 379/380 in a month or so? Or higher? To keep people who will have 384 (RF) or 397 (VP gear) in the queue but leaving out those who won't put in that time?

I agree with Kram. I'm a pretty prolific heroic dungeoneer on a tight time table. And with what Valor I scrounged up, along with Molten Front rewards, and buying (now old) Valor with the Valor -> Justice conversion I'm still at a iLvl 365 gear level.

My first two 4.3 heroics (End Time and Well of Eternity) netted me a 378 upgrade to one of my 353 weapons and it barely registered on my avg iLvl (guess I need 2 x 378 weapons for that). So in the end, no RF for me this week.

/sadpanda