Together we'll stand, divided we'll fall...

Who the hell was Canned Heat?!?  I don't usually get all hippie like, but I thought the lyrics fit this topic kinda well.  Listen in the background while you read, maybe, or not if you don't want to.

So, Blizzard, they came out a few days back with this little gem.  Flex Raiding.  What in the Sam Hill is that?  Say you want to raid, current content, but LFR makes you want to vomit all over your next door neighbor who will then punch you in the face.  But, you can't get a solid ten man or twenty five man group that will dedicate the time to do normal raids.  What do you do?  Blizzard now lets everyone form a scaling raid based on number of bodies, anywhere from ten to twenty five people, assumes you know to have enough tanks and healers doing simple math (read as at least one healer for every five people, and two tanks), then lets you fight current content that is much more casual friendly, yet not the stupidness of LFR.  It won't be as hard as normals, but it won't be the Keystone Cops that LFR usually is.

Why I think this is one of the best ideas ever created:

First, all of these statements to follow are based solely on the idea of what this feature could be.  None of the WoW community has actually been able to test this to any real extent, so nobody can come out right now and say what everything is like.  It's all conjecture and idealism and people pissing thoughts out the window.  Which is great, because everyone loves to get involved in some imagination time.  Especially about WoW.

Aside aside, this feature, if done correctly, is going to be a fantastic tool to build raiders.  This mode, as Blizzard has said, will not share any kind of lockout with the other raids.  Which means that people in serious guilds can kick back with their friends that don't raid as much as they do, still do meaningful encounters, and be able to teach others and give them first hand experience at how raiding really is. 

Take my guild as an example.  We have a fairly big roster and not just a crap ton of alts.  We have a large amount of unique players.  We have a pretty kickin ten man team that is a serious set of raiders.  There are others in the guild who are trying to get a second team going, because they do enjoy end-game content and want to raid, but they are just a bit behind current content mostly because they are getting into it later than others.  Nothing wrong with that, it just means that whenever new content comes out, they get to it a few weeks after others do until they can catch up.  Then you have others in the guild that wouldn't mind pitching in from time to time if anybody needs it, but they don't want to commit to a serious schedule.  If they happen to be on, and a team needs a filler because someone is out that day, then everything keeps moving along smoothly.

But not everyone is in that situation.  Take my ten man team, we're at the point, content/gear wise, where if we have someone out on any particular raid night, then progression halts.  We usually have to reschedule, because on our server, finding a suitable replacement is very difficult.  The general raiding community, horde side on Eldre'thalas just isn't very strong.  Not many people are at the same gear level we are, or have the same fight knowledge that we have, so finding someone to fill in is nigh impossible.

So Flex Raiding, how does that actually help?  Well, those teams that are trying to build up, it gives them the ability to form a meaningful raid, because now the content is a little easier, there are still meaningful rewards, and you don't have to strive so hard for that perfect team comp.  My second team will probably use this while learning fights, or if they have to sub people in.  Our main team raiders can easily come in on a Flex night, help carry while teaching people how to handle mechanics and such, and not take up a valuable slot preventing people from learning fights or getting gear, because gear is distributed using the LFR loot system, nobody interferes with your loot.

Or both teams could group up together, plus fill in with random people in the guild, and get a taste of what twenty five man raiding is like.  Or everyone could hop onto whatever alts they have, run a Flex raid, the fights won't be as gear dependent, and everyone can have fun running through the raids while still making progress on their alts.

There are tons of possibilities for how Flex Raiding can be a huge boost to the "fun" in WoW.  There will be more pugging going on every server, because people won't have to wait longer for more gear to overcompensate for mechanics, they will be able to enter into raiding earlier, have meaningful improvements, have a meaningful learning curve, and have fun.

Wasn't LFR supposed to do that?  Well, yes, it was, but when you lack real communication in raid encounters, the developers have to dumb fights down to ridiculous levels.  Or what they did recently, which was to put in a stacking buff after wipes.  In reality, LFR leaves a sour taste for many players.  You are getting this weird roulette type experience, because unless you queue up with a lot of people that you know are good, you have no clue if your healers are going to suck, if your tanks won't know any fight mechanics, or if your dps are a bunch of tools who just auto attack and stand in fire constantly.  With Flex, you are able to hand pick people, have better communication because more than likely you will be using Mumble, or Vent, or Skype, or whatever, and have a better raiding experience with better rewards.

Flex Raiding, as long as Blizzard doesn't totally fubar it, is going to be an amazing gap closer for people wanting to get into raiding, for people looking to gear alts, for people wanting to play with friends, and guilds needing people to sub in from time to time or build up a farm team.  You can realid friends with this, on current content, across servers, and you don't have to have perfect raid comps to do it.  This is going to be a wonderful system for building a greater raiding community, for casual raiders, for heroic raiders, for guilds, for entire servers.  Blizzard, get Flex Raiding out to us ASAP!