We need them.

There was a 23k hp assassin "tank" and an 18k hp sorc "dps" in an HM Mando. They claimed that because the were level 55 they (and I sh*t you not) had 'a natural right' to be there. Needless to say, I got out of there as fast as I could.

Situations like this are getting distressingly common. To the point that, I think we need a minimum required average level of gear before someone is allowed to queue for certain things.

Leave the ability to manually walk into any instance you meet the level requirement for. Thats fine, if you know up front what youre getting into, thats cool. But with Group Finder the system we have now needs to be changed.

We need them.

 

There was a 23k hp assassin "tank" and an 18k hp sorc "dps" in an HM Mando. They claimed that because the were level 55 they (and I sh*t you not) had 'a natural right' to be there. Needless to say, I got out of there as fast as I could.

 

Situations like this are getting distressingly common. To the point that, I think we need a minimum required average level of gear before someone is allowed to queue for certain things.

 

Leave the ability to manually walk into any instance you meet the level requirement for. Thats fine, if you know up front what youre getting into, thats cool. But with Group Finder the system we have now needs to be changed.

To be fair, the sin was 'almost' geared. Recommended rating is 148, which gets you 25k hp. If he had a set bonus, he would have been fine. The DPS on the other hand...

This is where Im confused. My powertech tank was in a mix of 146 and 150 rated gear at 50. It was mostly 146, campaign stuff (IE, the average was below 148). I had 26-27k hp. No endurance augments. By the time I was level 55, without changing any gear at all, I had about 30k. I think it might have been closer to 31.

There is no way there can be a difference of 6 or 7k purely going from 148 blues to 146/150 artifact.

It seems to me like a lot of people take "average item level of 148 or higher" to mean "if you have a couple 148 pieces, youre good to go."

Thats not what it means.

Recommended rating is 148, which gets you 25k hp.

Not with tank gear, no (but 148 tank gear is atrocious, full of alacrity enhancements, so you don't want that anyway)

I have never and would never queue for tank in a 55HM with less than 30k HP.

The worst I've seen was a 19k HP assassin tank who was in dps gear and spec, and put on a dark ward at the beginning and called it a day. That was Mando raiders HM and I was healing. I decided to stick with it just to see how far we could get (up to the hound pack inside the first long corridor). I hope that lesson was learned but I'm skeptical.

Not with tank gear, no (but 148 tank gear is atrocious, full of alacrity enhancements, so you don't want that anyway)

I have never and would never queue for tank in a 55HM with less than 30k HP.

 

The worst I've seen was a 19k HP assassin tank who was in dps gear and spec, and put on a dark ward at the beginning and called it a day. That was Mando raiders HM and I was healing. I decided to stick with it just to see how far we could get (up to the hound pack inside the first long corridor). I hope that lesson was learned but I'm skeptical.

I guess you misinterpreted what I meant by 148 gear

I meant this:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/fa4697d8-7afe-4584-8e02-c2f1fbace9d2

And yes, I tanked a HM FP with a guildy while both of us were using equivalent gear to that, him as the healer. He never complained about my squishyness. I used resolve armorings so I could hold threat better, because nothing in flashpoints spikes for more than 10k anyway unless you stand in stupid.

Now can I improve that? Of course! Everything used is the crafted rating 148 stuff. You can get the rating 156 crafted stuff for slightly more than that. The earpiece/implants are the blue version of the veracity implants/earpiece, just without the extra shield rating which comes from the good earpiece/implant. There are no augments. No stims. No Datacrons. IT DOESNT HAVE RELICS.

It was all put together with the GTN and a bit of money. And 50% more money turns those blues into much better purples, and lets you tank operations.

Yet its more than tough enough to tank any flashpoint in the game.

Except Czerka Labs. But only because of the eradicator droid -_-

Oh and just remember, askmrrobot is still in the past, and refuses to acknowledge the changes in patch 2.5 to the skill tree, so the armor rating is much lower than it should be. Its about 38.1% with shadow protection up

And yeah, if you want to actually pay attention to semi-decent gear, use this one for optimized for HM FPs + Dailies tank set:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/af3877fb-f696-4ea1-8c11-0fc23d5ad655

Note: This is a set up purely obtained from the GTN and classic comms vendors. No basic+ comms required! (use basic comms for iso-5s, which you then sell for money to buy BiS mods/enhancements of the 34 variety)

Ill share with u a ridiculous story.

I had my fair share of sub standard geared folks queing for 55hms, so I decided to take it to the extreme and put my sniper in mostly dromund kaas lvl gear (pretty much all crappy greens). I purchased the worst green relics I could find on the dark/light side vendors, one of them was I think a defence chance boost relic lol.

Anyway, that type of gear netted roughly 11k HP and 140 ish ranged bonud dmg (I did a short test parse on a dummy with 94% acc and maintained just below 700 dps in marksman).

A friend of mine on his almost full DF sin tank and myself queued up and got a pop for an HM CZ labs of all things.

We got an average healer, some 35k cant remember and a 30k juggy vengence dps. Literally no one said a word, there wasnt even a vote kick, and no rage quits over my sniper' HP, I was quit surprised to be honest.

Now comes the crazy part. Remember those times when u enraged on the first droid boss with 20k something HP dps? Well guess what, that comp one shot it, I kid u not. My gimpy 11k sniper survived all the machanics and was able to put out enough dps to not hit enrage. I wish I timed how long it took us but didnt feel longer than usual.

Every other boss was one shot as well, and I did not die a single time on my sniper (though I admit it got VERY close a couple times, just pure skill with cooldowns saved my ***).

So there u have it. An 11k sniper and a 30k juggy beat all of HM cz labs cleanly, not a single death. Ill let you conclude what to think about those folks who cannot achieve this on 20k something dps toons.

Apart from that, that run was amazingly fun, I learnt to use cds extremely effectively to survive in very close calls. In esssence I learnt a lot about what I can do on a sniper.

So, in other words you and your friend decided to deliberately troll two other people and force them to carry your dead weight through the entirety of a flashpoint (no, Im not buying it that "you did enough DPS to justify the slot your were wasting)? Just because it is possible to complete a flashpoint with a single dps does not excuse forcing the issue.

This kind of thing is exactly why I think an iLevel requirement is necessary. Although it now seems clear that it would need to be extended to equipped iLevel. And perhaps a notification to the group that "X player no longer has an equipped average iLevel of 148" if they decide to emulate that guy and troll.

I can do more DPS in rakata gear than some people can in 180's. Just play it out, a bad dps is a bad dps and a bad tank is a bad tank, minimum item level requirements generally won't fix that. If it looks borderline doable and their gear is meh you can suggest them to upgrade it, but remember these were meant to be doable in Black Hole gear when 2.0 came out, that has not changed.

I wouldn't be upset unless the person had on leveling greens or something, but that's just me.

And how many of the absurdly undergeared derps that queue up for HMFPs thinking they will get bolstered are actually experienced players who understand the ins and outs of their class and how to eke out every last bit of power out of it?

You cant present an extreme (and extremely unlikely) case and then use it to justify the general situation.

Besides, this thread has nothing to do with the quality or skill of the people you get in a random pug. It has to do with the people who are not ready for certain content being allowed by the system to get into it anyway. It isnt fair to the other members of the team that gets stuck with them, even if it is possible for them to "just deal with it."

And how many of the absurdly undergeared derps that queue up for HMFPs thinking they will get bolstered are actually experienced players who understand the ins and outs of their class and how to eke out every last bit of power out of it?

 

You cant present an extreme (and extremely unlikely) case and then use it to justify the general situation.

 

Besides, this thread has nothing to do with the quality or skill of the people you get in a random pug. It has to do with the people who are not ready for certain content being allowed by the system to get into it anyway. It isnt fair to the other members of the team that gets stuck with them, even if it is possible for them to "just deal with it."

Right, so what is your magic gear minimum that people have to have? You keep complaining about it but haven't even clarified what that is.

Unaugmented in Black Hole (146) gear, the recommended gear level for hard modes, a DPS actually will have around 18k HP, maybe a tad higher, I haven't checked in a while, also depending on what relics he's using and whether he went out of his way to maximize his mods/enhancements (which would actually lower his HP).

The problem is, everyone is so overgeared now that you have elitists moaning the second they see someone under 30k HP (or 35k even I've seen in some groups), people so bad at the game that they need to be carried themselves and cry because you obviously can't carry them.

If its not a super smooth "skip all skippable trash, SPACEBARRRRR, rocket boots between all trash and burn boss super quick" run a lot of people throw a hissy fit. That's the real problem (and this is coming from someone in full 180's/partial 186 that works on nightmare progression).

If you can only tolerate a hard mode when its one of those types of runs, queue up with guildies and make it happen. But don't expect pugs to give you that. The only thing I expect from pugs is the bare minimum gear required (146's I guess) and the ability to listen to directions, along with a polite attitude.

Unaugmented in Black Hole (146) gear, the recommended gear level for hard modes, a DPS actually will have around 18k HP, maybe a tad higher

Commando in 146 gear has ~22K HP:

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/f80e2847-c63c-4db4-8108-d16900158b3c

For the AMR, I picked gear bought with comms for the most part. Note that there is only one lettered mod, and only one enhancement that isn't low-endurance. So while not perfectly optimized gear, it is mostly low-endurance.

Your point about people being used to overgeared toons is valid. But someone that shows up for content with less gear than the recommended level shown right in the Group Finder itself isn't really doing anyone any favors.

I had a tank show up HM Mando Raiders with only 17K HP. Luckily, one of the dps was overgeared, and he ended up "tanking" by default (as the tank couldn't hold aggro).

Right, so what is your magic gear minimum that people have to have? You keep complaining about it but haven't even clarified what that is.

Its 148. How do you not know that?

- Blah Blah Blah, self-righteous 'stuff.' -

All Im asking is for the people who queue up for random HMFPs to have what the game considers the minimum amount of gear you should have before trying that content.

Im not demanding that everyone be as geared as my characters are. Im not even asking for them to be good. All Im asking is that, at the bare minimum, their character is statistically prepared for whats in store.

You say that if I want all my flashpoints to be complete faceroll speedfests, I should make my own group. Irrelevant, because thats not what Im asking for. Not even close. In fact, I can turn that statement right back on you. Random HMFPs are not training academies for undergeared brainless twerps to come get carried to free loot and commendations. If youre expecting the people you get pugged with to cheerfully explain to you how to play the class you have been for the past 54 levels, jovially do all the work effectively a man down, and carry you through to loot and "glory" and be happy about it, MAKE YOUR OWN GROUP.

If someone cant pull their own weight, they dont have any business inflicting themselves on other people and expecting them to do it for them. Its rude.

And with bolstered KDY from 15-54, Bioware has only made the situation worse.

Oh man, item level requirements won't fix anything ...

With several pug runs with "well" geared 180 comm-gear junkies in my mind, the real reason for not getting past the droid boss cause of enrage was not gear, it was a lack of knowledge of the own class ...

I remember the first runs with guildies on the "old" 55HM with beeing freshly 55 after the release of makeb with my shadow tank, wearing a mix of augmented rakata & campaign token gear which gave me around 24k HP, while my dps had less than 20k HP ...

It was tough but doable, with those bonus bosses beeing really tough, but it worked!

So all those discussions about item level requirements are totally useless since it's not the gear that matters but skill ...

It's the totally wrong way to simply try to outgear content !

Oh man, item level requirements won't fix anything ...

 

With several pug runs with "well" geared 180 comm-gear junkies in my mind, the real reason for not getting past the droid boss cause of enrage was not gear, it was a lack of knowledge of the own class ...

 

I remember the first runs with guildies on the "old" 55HM with beeing freshly 55 after the release of makeb with my shadow tank, wearing a mix of augmented rakata & campaign token gear which gave me around 24k HP, while my dps had less than 20k HP ...

 

It was tough but doable, with those bonus bosses beeing really tough, but it worked!

 

So all those discussions about item level requirements are totally useless since it's not the gear that matters but skill ...

It's the totally wrong way to simply try to outgear content !

Please explain how you test for and limit groups by skill. Or rather, dont even try because we all know already that such a thing is impossible. Id love for there to be an IQ test or in individualised interview that everyone is required to pass before they are allowed to queue for anything. It sucks getting saddled with idiots. But any thing you suggest along this line is NOT GOING TO WORK. PERIOD. Not the least because theres no way for Bioware to feasibly implement it.

So, once we eliminate all of the things that are clearly and obviously impossible, what do we have left? What might help the situation? What could we possibly do to prevent at least some of the people who should not be queuing up for hard mode flashpoints from doing so? What is the only method we already have in the game that objectively gives a measure of how powerful (or not) a character is? Their gear.

Would this prevent every single bad run of an HMFP for everyone? No, of course not.

Would this make every single pug HMFP a success? No, of course not.

But would it HELP the situation? Definitely.

At the absolute least, minimum iLevel requirements would mean fresh 55s would have to do something, put some tiny bit of effort into their character after derping through the last 54 levels before they go into radically different group based content.

There is no reason why a system like this should not be put into place. None.

the "minimum gear requirement" is actually the shortened (and more polite) Version.

actually it should be "minimum gear requirement so that almost any *censored* or group thereof who would equip alacrity and accuracy as a tank and have to look up the word "mechanics" in Wikipedia can do this"

which was to long, so they shortened it.

instead of looking at the useless gear score or the even more useless HP value would have been looking at the actual stats, or better jet watch them play.

a good DD will get good gear soon enough but a bad DD will be bad no matter the gear.

so instead of teaching people what they need to know in 4ppl modes, you want them to go into Operations and either wipe them or get carried, without learning anything at all in either case?

kick people (or leave) for pulling before the tank, kick them for being plain bad, kick them for not being able to learn, kick them because you don't like their skimpy cloths.

Do any of that, but kicking(or leaving) them before the first pull because of digits some anonymous Person wrote down after observing two squirrels, a cat and my grandmother clear the content (none of them had seen before) in off the shelf commendation gear with that rating somewhere, more then 20 patches(? (probably more)) ago. are you serious?

There is no reason why a system like this should not be put into place. None.

there's at least one very good reason it might get you (and others) off their lazy Asses and cause you to help others (and yourself maybe?!) improve, instead of discriminating them.

which by itself would be worth it

I dont know where youre getting that. Im seriously questioning whether you even read the thread or looked at the title, decided what you wanted the posts to say, and then responded to your own imagination out of some need to spew indignant rage at something.

In any case, ignoring how angry you seem to be about whatever it is youre angry about.....

Hard Mode flashpoints are not where you go to learn how to play. Its not the responsibility of anyone there to teach you anything beyond a simple explanation of boss mechancis that realistically you should be able to grasp immediately on your own. There are a few out there that youd probably have to fail first before you could reasonably be expected to understand them without outside info, but not many. There is a reason why they are called Hard Mode flashpoints and not Introductory Learning Flashpoints.

Furthermore, as I have stated I dont know how many times now, Im not asking that people prove they have a functioning brain before they can use the group finder queue. I think such a requirement would make for marvelous improvement for everyone, but I dont for one second think its feasible. Im asking for their characters to be at the level they should be for the stuff they want to do.

If I tried to tell people that "Oh, Im level 55, that means I have a RIGHT to go do NiM DF/DP and you have to take me even though Im only in arkanian with a 2 set," everyone would, rightly, laugh in my face. This is the same exact situation. If you do not have the gear to reasonably do something, you should not be able to force other people to deal with you, even if it only amounts to wasting the time kicking you and waiting for a replacement.

Im not even saying that you should be barred from doing HMFPs if you dont have enough gear, Im only saying you should not be able to use the group finder to do them. There would be nothing preventing you from making your own group and getting your butt carried through it manually.

Im not even advocating an unreasonable barrier to being able to use the Group Finder. An average iLevel of 148 is trivial to accomplish. You get 5 free pieces of 156 gear just for doing a few missions on oricon. There are tons of incredibly easy dailies out there that reward either the commendations to get the gear or the credits to buy it. You can even start this entire process BEFORE you hit 55.

There is simply no legitimate logical, eithical, or even moral reason why this would be a bad or undesirable thing.

None. No matter how angry all you forum-democrats want to get.

It might be too late as this post went from a good idea to name calling and party generalizing. I have a recent experience with this, as I went to run a HM Athiss FP as a BH Healer. I had a mixture of 146, 156 and a couple 162 gear from doing the Xeno SM and HM runs the last week. Then I had an embarrassingly low 118 earpiece. Everything else was 146 or higher. I had 23600 hp. Before anything started, I had someone try to kick me. They said they needed a good healer. I'm thinking, ***, you haven't even seen me heal yet.

The kick didn't go through, so he quit. Luckily he was DPS so it filled up pretty quick. Then we proceeded to go through the entire flashpoint without anyone dying except for the sniper at the last boss of Vodal, where she set up to snipe smack dab in the middle of the purple circle. That thing kills QUICK!

So, I feel like that first guy missed out on a run, but I don't feel bad for him. I do think there should be a lower level gear lockout, but it shouldn't have to be that 148 gear average, maybe something like a 140 gear average, but something like 3/4 people of the group have to have the 148 average, with the 1/4 having to have above 140, lets say. You could even add something in the group finder like a check box for "You are willing to help newer toons" or "willing to work with groups less than X rating". The problem is, if you never get to run a FP, then you won't learn the mechanics.

I just believe if people are close enough, then give them a shot. And if they keep dying but the rest of us don't, then I feel like it makes me a better player since I have to try harder and use some of the more advanced skills to keep from dying or stay on top of my game and improve it.

The only thing that would be frustrating is if they are doing stupid stuff like aggroing a bunch of mobs, or pulling as a DPS or not listening to directions and boss fights. But those kind of things are gear-independent.

I don't think anyone here has really disagreed with the notion people should have at least 148 level gear for a hard mode. What they're disagreeing with is when people do have that amount of gear and people still flip out on them.

As for your one isolated experience, that's just what that is. It hardly EVER happens. I play on an RP server and I can count the amount of times I've ever seen someone show up to a flashpoint in less than 148 gear on one hand. I can't even remember the last time it happened.

So acting like this is some huge problem that needs fixing is a huge exaggeration. It happens every once in a great while, big woop, and there is a votekick function so you can take care of it anyways. Things like PvP have a much larger problem with people showing up in bad gear, and in PvP you can't even reliably votekick.

As for your one isolated experience, that's just what that is. It hardly EVER happens. I play on an RP server and I can count the amount of times I've ever seen someone show up to a flashpoint in less than 148 gear on one hand. I can't even remember the last time it happened.

For me personally (on Begeren Colony), I've been running a lot of FPs on my new Operative healer. About 50% of the players have been are overgeared, about 40% have been good enough for government work, and about 10% have been undergeared (as in, below the recommended gear level for the flashpoint in question).

Luckily it's been rare that the majority of the players are undergeared, so we can still muddle through. And is also rare to see the absurdly undergeared (e.g. 17K HP tank).

But there have been 4 times in the last few weeks where the group was just not capable of finishing the flashpoint. And mind you, I'm a persistent bugger so I didn't abandon these runs, I stuck with them until they finally crumbled.

you say you'd prefer an Intelligence test instead of the gearcheck but since we can't get the intelligence test we must have an gearcheck?

Im not even advocating an unreasonable barrier to being able to use the Group Finder. An average iLevel of 148 is trivial to accomplish. You get 5 free pieces of 156 gear just for doing a few missions on oricon.

but that Oricon comment points once more to your seeming lack of knowledge (or ignorance) that People were doing HC Flashpoints before these easy ways to gear up were in game and while some Classes were beaten to the floor by the 2.0 changes.

yea 18k dds (with correct itemization) are on the low end, but they can do enough DPS if they know what they are doing, and when do you have two 18k live dps in the same HC FP?.

the Mood is far better when you're running with People that aren't afraid to loose a handful of game money,

what's the worst that could happen? the Undergeared player realizes the Group can't do it with him/her and leaves but if everyone did their best up until then then everyone will have learned something from it.

the Drama raises proportionally to the gear People have and I don't play a game to have people capsloc at each other.

because a marauder in appropriate ilevel gear that is wrong for his class by having light armor with lots of willpower or cunning as its primary stats would meet the ilevel standards if not the intelligence standards and would ensure group success!!! need to get around that little glitch because i have seen people geared like that, and i am guessing you have too. or the trooper wearing juggernaut gear because hey its heavy armor and it has a higher item level!

lol

you say you'd prefer an Intelligence test instead of the gearcheck but since we can't get the intelligence test we must have an gearcheck?

Yeah, Id definitely prefer an intelligence check. Then we could get you out of there.

but that Oricon comment points once more to your seeming lack of knowledge (or ignorance) that People were doing HC Flashpoints before these easy ways to gear up were in game and while some Classes were beaten to the floor by the 2.0 changes.

Unless you are using a magical time machine and playing in the past (and are willing to share so that everyone else can, too) I dont see what your point is. Right now is now, Oricon exists. That means there is a completely free and easy way to get gear that is significantly better than the 148 recommended. In other words, it is even easier now than it was before to meet the minimum reccomended gear. In still other words, you have even less of an excuse now than you might have before.

because a marauder in appropriate ilevel gear that is wrong for his class by having light armor with lots of willpower or cunning as its primary stats would meet the ilevel standards if not the intelligence standards and would ensure group success!!! need to get around that little glitch because i have seen people geared like that, and i am guessing you have too. or the trooper wearing juggernaut gear because hey its heavy armor and it has a higher item level!

Yet another guy who seems to think "Ah, look, a minor flaw, that means the entire thing is useless and should be abandoned." Nothing in life is ever completely, 110% perfect. Nothing. There are pretty simple ways around this though. All you have to do is code it in such a way that mods with the wrong main stat dont contribute to the way the system calculates your average iLevel. We already know that the game can look at individual mods in an item when calculating bolster, so the architecture is there.

Even if they did not do this, I would still rather have some dork wearing a few peices of incorrect gear to meet the iLevel requirement because that shows they are capable of even minor amounts of abstract thought. That they have a little bit of creativity and problem solving ability. That they can look at a problem and figure out a solution.

Those are all much better signs than some 16k HP KDY graduate who thinks they are greatest thing since sliced bread.

Not with tank gear, no (but 148 tank gear is atrocious, full of alacrity enhancements, so you don't want that anyway)

I have never and would never queue for tank in a 55HM with less than 30k HP.

 

The worst I've seen was a 19k HP assassin tank who was in dps gear and spec, and put on a dark ward at the beginning and called it a day. That was Mando raiders HM and I was healing. I decided to stick with it just to see how far we could get (up to the hound pack inside the first long corridor). I hope that lesson was learned but I'm skeptical.

You and I really should do some flashpoints together lol ...... You seem to have very very strange believes. in fact you should have been able to heal that 19k HP assassin 'tank'. I have done so myself on a sub rakata geared healer in Mando raiders. We votekicked our tank out quite early on and my friend who played assassin dps slapped on a lv38 shield and tanked the rest. If i can do it than so could you.

I think you are confusing lower gear with lower skill.

Anyways .......... people people people ...... Please try to remember when the 55 flashpoints were launched. What was our gear at that time? Do you guys really think everybody started out with full UW on these FP's?

NOPE!!!!

Best you had in these days was 63 dreadguard gear, added with a few 66 pieces you obtained on Makeb. But THATS it. The fact that we are being spoiled with the gear on oricon DOES NOT change this. Its a free and optional boost.

I made a quick AMR profile of what bioware is currently RECOMMENDING (please note that recommending is NOT a bare minimum, at least in my dictionary it hasn't changed meaning yet).

http://swtor.askmrrobot.com/character/16348685-ed30-46e7-8640-a429141428cb

This gear is very badly itemized with not remotely enough accuracy but it is enough according to bioware. Associated HP is 25k HP for a guardian/jugg dps

Taking it 1 step down to full 63 DG gear which was the best we could get in the prelude towards 2.0 .....

again, I didnt bother to properly itemize it since bioware doesn't require you to min max gear for anything other than highend raiding.

HP this time slightly less than 24k HP

Having said all this..... 18k HP is rather low BUT if said person has a main/offhand which compensates the rest of the gear its fine.

As final closing note I want to share 2 stories with you guys.

1st story:

When I was solo'ing hammerstation HM on my shadowtank I never got to the enragetimer of bosses. I had to skip the bonusboss because back in those days I had insufficient gear on my comp and myself. Every other boss proved to be no issues.

2nd story:

On my 162/168 geared merc healer I joined a flashpoint in progress and got Cademimu HM. I found out fast why the previous healer left since both the tank and the 2 DPS were very new at it with very low gear. Also they were screwing up tactics royally on the 1st boss thanks to the stupid SM tactics of killing the boss 1st and ignoring the droids. Anyways ... not the point. I instructed them how to do it properly and from there on we had no issues. I convinced them to do the bonusboss too while all 3 were a bit skeptical since they read that the bonusbosses were quite hard to do.

1st try we had an enraged boss and wiped because the tank forgot to properly position the boss. 2nd try I did a little off DPS on my healer and we managed to beat it without issues.

Last boss also was a breeze.

Long story short. These 3 guys were people who would have been ridiculed by most of the persons in this thread. I gave them a chance and they proved to be able to kill it.

I guess I want to say this:

Stop looking obsessively to HP and gearlevels. Lower gear doesn't mean not enough gear. Be patient with people, teach them the ropes. After all, they are the future of this game just like kids are the future of yourself.