This is just another incomprehensible rant about my “progress” and the way player behavior in random groups is right now.
TLDR version: Instead of crafting one hide, killing a Celestial world boss and ordos and killing four (out of 14) LFR bosses and most of flex mode, I can now look forward to just killing Ordos, two lfr bosses (not really worth the effort though) and still most of flex mode, because I got two item upgrades.
And: Random players are insanely lazy, impatient and/or incompetent idiots. They have lots of time, but no skill and can’t do real raids, while I assume I’ve got what it takes for normal/heroic raiding, but don’t have the time. So I’m stuck with those players, which is great for them, but sucks for me 😉

Here’s the rest, but don’t expect anything interesting. I’ll write another more focused article soon enough.
I just wanted to give you a small followup to the previous posting and let everyone know how it’s been going so far this week.
Last week I complained about having too little options and listed the small amount of endgame content available for me, even though I don’t do normal or heroic raids, which ~should~ increase my gearing options, but it doesn’t.
Yesterday was the weekly server maintenance, and all raids/bosses reset. I’ve gotten one item that day, which eliminated two of my sources for gear.
You see, I was patiently crafting hides for the 553 leatherworking pants, the last (of two) useful items from my profession. When I killed the Celestials World Raid boss that week, they dropped, yep, the 553 Tier 16 pants. Yay! Then I found out, that the Celestials drop only two PvE items (T16 gloves and pants) for each class and the rest is PvP junk. Good thing I got the gloves a couple of weeks ago, now there’s one (trivial!) upgrade source less. No, wait, make that two, because leatherworking doesn’t offer anything as well now. Removing all pants from the LFR and Flex wishlist.
I’ve got a new helmet from flex raiding, as well, so I’m not really sure if I need the LFR Tier16 helmet. While it would enable the 4 piece set bonus, even with the bonus the upgrade is very marginal.
So my options are down to killing the other worldboss each week and going through flex raids, which are somewhat frustrating.
Today I got “lucky” and got into two groups which cleared Flex1+2 relatively quickly.
But here’s the problem: People in random pick up groups usually can’t play. I mean, the group was asking for an average iLvl of about 550, which I had at that point and everyone in that group was around that level.
Flex is tuned for an iLvl of about 510, so we should absolutely destroy that raid. Which we did, but my problem is, that I had the damage lead…and by lead I don’t just mean “Number 1 dps”, I actually had a significant lead before the rest of the players, which had pretty much the same gear level I had. Most of them were ranged dps as well, and should have a clear advantage in most fights.
And even with such a clearly overgeared group we managed to wipe because people did stupid stuff. But those are clearly people who are above the LFR crowd. You can’t get to a 550 average with just LFR. Maybe if you’ve got the legendary cloak and are really lucky with the weekly drops from Celestials and Ordos, but these players had Flex mode gear and experience. They knew the bosses, but it’s the small details that make a difference.