Raid Leading Loot Discussion
Hi there!
I’d like to start by saying thank you and your team for everything that you all do, these servers have given me more enjoyment than all other games I have played combined. Also with all things covid and social distancing, this virtual place has given me a real community when community is so hard to find. Thank you.
And to help this community in the future I’d like to have an open discussion about loot and how to best go about distributing loot where items are best served. I’m not entirely sure how to start the discussion but I know that it’s worth it.
I have a lot of questions for you all about items and different scenarios and how to best go about them. I am putting together a rather in-depth raid leading guide to hopefully help this community like pugs and to give a helping hand with the knowledge I’ve learned by leading over the last few years. The answers from this discussion will be added to my guide. A lot of people refrain from making pugs because of the underlying fears of getting banned for distributing loot and some of the overall vagueness of loot distribution guidelines from the moderators.
Before we get into the questions, I think it would be helpful for you all to get a little bit of an understanding of how I operate as a raid leader. I have a discord channel dedicated to Horde raiding on Lordaeron with well over 600 people on it and I am one of the most prominent pug raid leaders on the server, my main's character name is Havikurah. My server is a place where people can connect with each other and join each other's raids aside from just mine. I have led every raid imaginable in this expansion, even making some of my own achievements up along the way. The link below is a doc of my raid and loot rules should you be interested in how I operate, I come across as more of a hardass than I really am in my raids but I have these in place so I have the option to be lighter on my raids :). https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
With that said, let's get to the questions.
Loot.
I have talked to quite a few members from Lordareon's top players and top guilds to put together a bis list that has consensus from top players. Where there were discrepancies or other options I listed them but there is an overall consensus of this BIS list from top guilds on this server. This document is what I have been going off of to distribute loot to raiders, BIS loot being prioritized as mentioned in my raid https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing. I have this list posted under my loot rules in my own discord channel so that raiders that join me know where loot is going before joining. For the raid leaders who don't have this list, I would like to ask a few questions.
As mentioned in a forum, Warmane doesn't support a rogue rolling on a caster trinket. At what point does the line get crossed when it applies to trinkets to different melee classes? Does it go to a class that it’s okay for over a class that it’s exceptional for? Does it always have to go to the highest roller? Like a frost dk wanting to use tiny abomination trinket from pp 25 when it’s exceptionally better for rets?
Do I give someone an item that is really good to them just because they won the roll? Or should Best in Slot (BIS) gear be prioritized?
How does a raid leader navigate this and make it fair to all parties? Because if it goes to the highest roller where the loot is mediocre for over the loot going to the person it is truly best for doesn't truly seem fair to everyone.
It was mentioned in a forum post about loot that cloth gear will go to those who use cloth gear first but this doesn't acknowledge BIS items that do not fall into that category. BIS gear is not always specific to just the proficiency. For example, a Boomie's BIS belt is the cloth belt from Marrowgar but if loot is proficiency specific then they will never be able to roll on this item and a leader will potentially get banned for giving it to a boomie. Another example is RS 25 HC, the leather caster bracers are bis for all casters with leather, mail, and plate proficiency... meaning its BIS for Restoration Shamans, Holy Paladins, Elemental Shamans, Boomies, Restoration Druids.
Is it loot priority done by proficiency? Like cloth and leather caster bracers in ruby sanctum? Spindle/Marrowgar shield? Is it the armor that makes the difference? Does it only apply to heroic gear or also to normal gear?
A topic that is not talked about but should be...
Loot banning.
This is a topic of much debate and I believe there needs to be a discussion about this. On Lordaeron, the content is significantly harder and because of it there is less room for error, more problem solving to manage different mechanics and raid coordination is necessary to achieve most kills. You cannot just DPS and ignore boss mechanics on this server because of it. Most people join raids because they want a specific item, mount, or achievement. If people are rewarded for performing terribly and not helping contribute to the kill what is that saying to the rest of the people?
Scenario: We do the Obsidian Sanctum 25 man with 3 drakes alive achievement (OS3D), this achievement drops a mount 100% of the time. During this particular fight, the same person died twice in the same encounter before the 2nd drake even lands. We used both battle resses on this person and wasted both because they died twice. The overall damage from this person by the end of the fight was less than the tank's overall dmg.
Would it still be fair to give the person who died a mount in this scenario because they won the roll? Which they did.
What is truly fair to the raiders who know the content, did well, and were the reason for getting the kill?
If the tank or healers aren’t doing their “jobs” - like the healers not actually healing and the tanks just getting one shot and dying constantly - is that the same as a DPS not actually doing DPS?
Is this left up to the leader to make this judgment call?
Is one avoidable death worthy of a loot ban? Two? Three?
You only get so many battle resses in a given fight.
At what point does someone's avoidable mistake become a detriment to the rest of the raid? If everyone was running around like a chicken with their head cut off we would not kill anything.
Other miscellaneous questions about TOS gray area.
Selling parts of the Shadowmourne quests, like infusion quests and selling Festergut and Rotface blood? It doesn’t explicitly say these cannot be sold in the raiding rules that have been outlined on the Warmane website but would this be viewed as a TOS violation? There are many people looking to do the Shadowmourne quest chain and not many guild runs will take people for them, much less pugs. Is it acceptable to put a group together for these people and charging them gold for it? They would be present for the kills and would be paying for a service in-game by the raid leader.
