Raid Leader Mistake #32

Lord, I couldn't agree more. Unless it is completely unavoidable, I never handle loot. I let someone else do it while I'm marking up the next pulls. It's a huge slow down on the raid if I'm doing double duty as RL and Loot Master.

It sucks to be RL with loot because people think your playing favorites. I always true to do raids with my guild so the loot given out will only benefit the guild so we can all progress.

Usually when Im running a raid it is one of two things;
1) Pug, where we just roll on anything. I don't do that whole reserve thing.

2) Guild, we use dkp, if they have an issue, they can feel free to bring it up, but, "THE DKP IS THE LAW!"

I could not agree more, but I haven't led a raid since Kara was new, and sadly, I did the loot too >< lessons learned, that's for sure.

Now I handle the loot, and the raid signups / scheduling, no more raid leading.

agreed.

Every loot system has its quirks and somewhere, sometime you'll be standing there and "the [AWESOMEST EPIC ASSKICKER ITEM] goes to...erm...the new guy who was 10 min late and afk'd through trash. Crap"

It will drop again. The integrity of the system and the continuity of the raid demands that you award it according to the rules and move on. "Take it to the forums, check buffs and set up for trash"

Of course, unless you're running loot council....heh.

Plus, the loot system is part of the deal when people join the raid. Changing it on people would be a valid reason for them to quit the raid, IMO.

My role as a guild officer is solely dealing with loot and maintaining and updating our loot system. I don't do much in raids beyond handling loot when it drops and marking mobs occasionally.

this is why i like loot council.

but people tend to clutch onto the concept of "my time is earning me dkp-monies, I like this because i feel like im getting somewhere productive by being here."
People feel less motivation when they dont feel like they are tangible accruing "credit", as it were.

If you raid with a group of disciplined, self-motivated individuals, however, loot council is so much better.

Wow... we are definitely on opposite ends of the raiding spectrum here. Loot council I find to be the worst system possible with it always inevitably leading to everyone feeling like someone else is get preferential treatment.

The reason DKP is so widely liked I think doesn't have to do with my time = my loot, but more with Power. The members of your raid have so little to begin with and DKP gives them Power. They show up, they kill the both, they get loot and there's nothing anyone can do about it. They even get to choose what they want.

Vene - Loot council is the only system that proactively works to better the guild. When executed properly, anyway.

I ran under a DKP system that was engineered to be fair and it was more or less a "Fair my ass" thing.

By proactively works you mean... works until the guild falls apart from loot drama.

DKP systems have to be adapted to the style of your guild's raiders and raid schedule, but once you have it working properly... it's the lesser of all evils.

I've been in three high end hardcore raiding guilds that all used loot council. None of the guilds broke up because of the loot system. Everyone always loved the system.

In all the DKP guilds I've been in, the DKP actually creates drama. Just because something is fair doesn't mean it's just. Often times several members will feel that DKP leads to very unjust decisions based strictly on the numbers, and usually people feel not only does it slight individuals, but it hurts the guild as a whole.

You can't say one is the lesser of all evils because it depends on your crew. In my experiences, loot council is the best for the GUILD, rather than the individual.

I've been in only one high end raiding guild, they used loot council, and it was miles better than the DKP systems I'd seen earlier. We progressed, the loot was put to good use, you didn't feel like raiding was a sweat job, and it was simple.

In two other raiding guilds DKP caused drama. In one I accidentally ninjaed the T2 pants! I bid normally and somehow missed the fact that our class had planned to bid minimum. In another guild there was DKP but you also were supposed to use common sense and not bid or items frivolously when another class needs them desperately.

I'd say if you have DKP you have to leave bidding to the discretion of players, no questions asked. And that's likely to cause drama sooner or later.

In our guild we've got a kind of unique loot system, that works out very well in my opinion:

We use a "normal" DKP-System, bids are done by whisper to the raidlead (me), and the lead (consisting of a priest, a mage and me (warrior-tank), kind of a loot-council) decides, wheter someone makes better use of the item, than the highest bidder. If so, the item goes out for the DKP, bid by the one who actually gets it. Sounds somewhat complex, but in fact it isn't.
In addition the numbers are kept low, by reducing boss-values, every time the raid progresses to new bosses.

On raidleading:
In the beginning, when i took over the lead (start of Karazhan), i did nearly everything on my own (leading, marking, looting, ...). This has evolved to giving master-looter to a veteran ranged DD and letting a rogue mark the next pack, even before the current pack is down. This way everything gets smoother, little downtimes, but we kinda keep control of things.

So in conclusion, i've got to say, i disagree in the point, that the raidleader shouldn't have to do anything with the loot-system. Nobody knows the raid and its strenghts / weaknesses better. So at least influence on the decisions of the loot-council is a thing a raidleader should have.

Sorry for the mistakes in the above text, have mercy with a german with low english-skills .

Ya, I walked into this one and you guys are correct to point out that every system can be successful as long as it works for the people of that guild.

I've used a number of different DKP systems in my time in WoW. Ultimately, any of them involving bidding always failed and worse, were time consuming. The current one we run with that's been most successful is simply based on whenever an item drops whoever has the most dkp that wants it, gets it and they lose a fixed amount based on the content level it's from.

Anyway regardless... no changin' the loot systems 5 minutes before raids... it's just insane how much drama it causes.

Our bidding system is going past 3 years now, with minor modifications.
Any loot system can work, if your guild buys in, and behaves properly.
That's the bigger trick than the specifics of your loot distribution themselves. Getting everyone to buy in, accept the system, and not be stupid about it. IMO, loot council decreases the number of people who are able to interact with the system, increasing the risk if someone's felling dumb one particular day. But, as always, YMMV.

Each time I was in a guild using DKP-system, it always had a fail, and most of the time, those exploiting the "fail" were those in charge. I don't mean all guilds using it are like that, but "most if not all" previous experience were like that.

The way we choose who is in the loot coucil is, all officer in raid /roll, top 2 get in the loot channel. Same go with full members, they /roll, top 3 get in the loot channel. So far, no one used their power to give an item to friend over someone who deserved it, for the simple reason it can happen to them the next raid and in 1yrs we rarely got complain beside 1-2 lootwhore who wasn't happy to receive the loot they wanted while they received one or more item in the same night. Of course, we have some critera to decide who get what. Did you received something already this week? Are you always late? Can we count on you or you always cancel your sign-up at last minute? Are you performing as expected? Alt or Main? Main specc, Off-specc? Etc... In short, we try to use common sense and be fair with the whole raid. We also keep a track of who get what, but nothing like amount of DKP points as no one really want to invest personal time to compile datas and our officer/leads consider they have already enough task to do and don't want that raiding become another "job".

The only low sides I find is it's time comsumming, and personnaly as Tank, I don't have time to for that, specially during trash wave in MH. The other one is, not everyone know everything about other class/specc. Do that lock should need on this item? I don't know, but we expected those who roll on items know their "shit".