Loot priority

[Bigtime]

Hello guys,

I'm currently playing in a semi-casual raiding guild and we've decided to kick things up a notch and recruit more players for 25-man content and become a little more "serious".

I'm chalking up a set of guild rules. It makes sense to me that tanks and healers should get priority on tier tokens that drop during progression, since their gear is more important for downing new content. I know a lot of top raiding guilds give the first tier tokens to tanks and healers, I assume DKP doesn't even come into the equation.

For example if a guild is pushing for a Yogg-Saron server first, it would seem silly giving a hunter the T8.5 legs when they are an upgrade for the main tank. Am I right in thinking that?

Is this standard practice amongst "serious" raiding guilds? (I know it's silly to consider a guild "serious" - but you know what I mean.)

[MrDuck]

Well, my personal opinion on this, in my rather lazy guild (10/14 still ), i don't really favor giving tanks any prio. It's been said plenty of times for sure, but the reasons to wipe on progress fights on our case are usually way more often:
not knowing the fight good enough
failure on shock blast, snow mounds, laser barrage or gravity bomb..
enrage timer (hi XT002 pre-nerf!)
...
...
tons of things
...
...
offtanks dying
...
maintank dying.

Basically, if tanks aren't lesser geared and are pretty much on par with the raid team, they should be doing fine. Having a super geared tanks wont help you beat the enrage timer, same goes for healers.

Same thing about tanks, what's it good for to have MT prio on loot, rendering maintank leet geared and leaving offtanks behind, imo it doesn't do any good on fights such as council hard, thorim, kologarn or any other fight that requires tank switches.

[Aggronaught]

we can argue about this all day..but most of the known tanks in known guilds have tank priority.

thats a fact.

[Gretchin]

If you are going from a fairly laid back guild into something more progression wise I would think that if you have some sort of MT material (close to 100% raider) he or she would get the loot fairly quickly without having any sort of priority.

[twoswords]

Hello guys,

I'm currently playing in a semi-casual raiding guild and we've decided to kick things up a notch and recruit more players for 25-man content and become a little more "serious".

I'm chalking up a set of guild rules. It makes sense to me that tanks and healers should get priority on tier tokens that drop during progression, since their gear is more important for downing new content. I know a lot of top raiding guilds give the first tier tokens to tanks and healers, I assume DKP doesn't even come into the equation.

For example if a guild is pushing for a Yogg-Saron server first, it would seem silly giving a hunter the T8.5 legs when they are an upgrade for the main tank. Am I right in thinking that?

Is this standard practice amongst "serious" raiding guilds? (I know it's silly to consider a guild "serious" - but you know what I mean.)

Well...

If a DPS dies, does the raid wipe? No.
If a Healer dies, does the raid wipe? Unlikely, but possible.
If the tank dies, does the raid wipe? Almost always.

With that in mind, simply give the tank(s) loot priority, they will stay alive, more bosses will drop faster due to this and thus in the end everyone in the raid will get more loot.

DKP is the worst system ever. Best I have found is loot council. Give the gear to the people who need it most, jsut make sure that its fair in the end. (for example, dont give the tank a T8 and then T9 for same slot while someone else is still in T7.) (The different T's were just an example mind you.)

[GravityDK]

In casual guild: giving priority to a few tanks is a good idea, but giving just one MT priority isn't so good, because by definition casual means he might not raid a night or two when you need him.

[Mr.Winkle]

Yes it depends just how serious you plan on becoming.

However a simple look at the break down of a 25man raid group shows you why you give Tanks loot priority.

Tanks = 3, Healers = 7, DPS = 15. Typically in a 25man raid.

So thats 1 : 2.3 : 5 Or 1 Tank is effectively = to 5 DPS. So giving the tanks the T8 legs is effectively like giving 5 DPS T8 legs.

[Genome852]

Yes it depends just how serious you plan on becoming.

However a simple look at the break down of a 25man raid group shows you why you give Tanks loot priority.

Tanks = 3, Healers = 7, DPS = 15. Typically in a 25man raid.

So thats 1 : 2.3 : 5 Or 1 Tank is effectively = to 5 DPS. So giving the tanks the T8 legs is effectively like giving 5 DPS T8 legs.

I think your logic is quite flawed >_>

[orcstar]

To see where raids have problems and where the loot is distributed best you should check where the biggest bottlenecks are.

The biggest bottlenecks I've encountered in both Ulduar and Naxxramas have never been the healing or tank death but lacking dps.

Survivability on most encounters becomes exponentially better with better dps. So logic would dictate that if you are going with a lootpriority system, the priority should go to the dps.

On the other hand you have got to see what items priority effects: except for tieritems, there are almost no other items which a dps-er or healer and tank wants and for the tier items, they drop so reliably that in no time they will go to offspec so I'd say try to make a choice that avoids drama rather then min-maxing.

The last is a priority system between maintank/offtank. That's one up to personal choice, it often involves only the non-tier items and very often it's mostly about rings/trinkets/necks. When going with such a system make sure to not bring too many players into the equation but just a few select and reliable players.



Shortsighted comments making things look easy make weak decisions.

Well...

If a DPS dies, does the raid wipe? No.
If a Healer dies, does the raid wipe? Unlikely, but possible.
If the tank dies, does the raid wipe? Almost always.

With that in mind, simply give the tank(s) loot priority, they will stay alive, more bosses will drop faster due to this and thus in the end everyone in the raid will get more loot.

DKP is the worst system ever. Best I have found is loot council. Give the gear to the people who need it most, jsut make sure that its fair in the end. (for example, dont give the tank a T8 and then T9 for same slot while someone else is still in T7.) (The different T's were just an example mind you.)

DPS is most deciding factor:

-On Yogg, if your dps is lacking you wn't kill tentacles fast enough and won't do enough dps in the brain room, making the encounter harder.
-On general Vezax the higher your dps the faster he gets killed faster meaning your healers won't go oom.
-On Mimiron: yup, tankgear will make a difference in P3 because you can tank more adds with better gear. If you have lesser gear, bring another tank to split the adds.
-On Freya: well freya doesn't hit hard at all, this is can be a boring fight for a tank.
-On Thorim: Well, the higher your dps, the faster he's down in the end, maning he will get LESS stack meaning your tank gets less damage.
-On Hodir: You can avoid entire phases of frozen blows and flashfreeze if you kill him faster. High dps can help avoid extra grips increasing raidsurvivability.
-On Kologarn: yes tankgear can make a difference but not really needed.
-On Iron counsil: this is more a fight of execution: steelbreaker is the hardhitter here, but more importan then having imba gear is to move him fast enough and dispell his fusion punch. Higher dps will make him do less fusion punches and less fusion punches is better for the survivability of the tank then an extra piece of gear here, so dps wins.
-Ignis: Well, ignis I'd say is one of those fights where a geared tank and geared healers help, although, if you manage to kill him faster you will get less slagpots in a fight and less adds will spawn over the course of a fight. I'm undecided on this one.
-Razor: The ads don't hit that hard and razor doesn't hit that hard either: most important is to have the other tank take over at the right moment. More dps will mean you will have less airphases and less tankswapping in last phase making raidsurvivability higher.
-XT: XT is a big dps race.

[PrimalHitman]

I think most guilds do give MT/OTs prio on loot, especially if its to complete the 2 or 4 set bonus, that is the prio for us once they have the 4 set bonus they do not have prio on loot

With the inclusion of Archavon and Emalon, there is no shortage of ways to gear up no so this shouldnt be an issue as people are always after DPS in the dreaded PuG

my 2 pence

Primal

[Cookie]

You have to keep in mind that most top guilds also have no trouble downing encounters, which means that regardless of who they prio loot to, everyone is geared up fairly quickly, within mere weeks. In a casual guild, it is NOT like that. If a casual guild chooses tank AND healer prio, it would mean that dpsers, which make up the majority of the raid, would have to wait weeks, possibly months to see a tier token. This is not motivating.

Not to mention that hardcore guilds are usually good enough to down a raid using the previous tier's gear, so prio really is more a method of rewarding long-time members who happen to be the MT, rather than a necessity for progression.

Also, the days of a geared up MT or stacking healers being able to carry a raid are long gone. Most fights are very demanding of dps, even on normal mode. Bosses these days with no enrage timer are the minority. It would be much more fair and appropriate to use a DKP or EP/GP system. If your tanks and healers have high attendance and are loyal members, then they would have no problems getting upgrades that way. It is much more beneficial to the raid to have loyal members geared up first, regardless of their role, and even better if you're gearing all 3 roles up at the same time.

Dpsers already have a harder time getting gear because they share their slots with more people in the raid than tanks or healers. Don't make it worse by having prio on tokens.


I'm currently in a "hardcore" guild. We're one of the top on our server and working on our last 2 hard modes. We do not have prio for tanks or healers. There is only prio on offspecs for people who are asked to switch specs often, such as the OT who has to dps on some bosses. Personally, I would think twice about joining a guild which had tank/healer prio, even though I am a healer. I believe a policy like that (unless it's a top guild that can down encounters so fast that the entire raid can be geared up fast despite having prio) hinders progression.

Yes it depends just how serious you plan on becoming.

However a simple look at the break down of a 25man raid group shows you why you give Tanks loot priority.

Tanks = 3, Healers = 7, DPS = 15. Typically in a 25man raid.

So thats 1 : 2.3 : 5 Or 1 Tank is effectively = to 5 DPS. So giving the tanks the T8 legs is effectively like giving 5 DPS T8 legs.

Your logic is absolute BS.

[MasterDave]

When I'm tanking, I always wish we had better geared DPS so I could spend less time actually tanking. Less time in the fight, less chances to get gibbed by something stupid, better chances to win.

While the upgrades are nice, I've never really noticed a huge or dramatic increase in my ability to tank from them. A thousand HP here or there.. that's for the benefit of the healers and honestly if we've downed a boss it's not like my gear isn't appropriate for the encounter already. Anything else is gravy.

I like my gravy, but by no means do I think it's a priority for me to get it over anyone else.

The reality is that most top guilds prioritize their loot to tanks for one simple reason: Keeping a good tank happy is essential to guild progress, most people who play WoW are loot whores, and the best way to keep a loot whore happy is to make sure he's on top of the food chain. Guild leaders tend to realize very quickly that their guild is yet another guild in a large sea of guilds and if your main tank gets grumpy at you for any reason... you might end up with no MT. It's happened before, probably multiple times, because damn near every not-quite-as-good guild thinks they're just a great MT away from a full clear or a hard mode. And that guild is willing to give the MT priority on the loot, so you sure better do the things the crappier guilds will do.

Vicious cycle from what I've encountered, but that's human nature. I'm probably not alone in thinking that there's a lot of these kinds of tanks. Whether it's a fair opinion of things or not... that's debatable.

[Stephanius]

In my opinion sucky dps can have many more significant causes than sucky gear. Actually, known heavy hitters in my guild have demonstrated how much difference the player makes by what they can do with undergeared dps alts. Tossing gear at a sucky player is almost like deleting it, but arguably worse. It is basically rewarding someone for bad performance.

That being said, in my guild we don't penalize underperforming players as such, but invite as per the requirements of the raid in question and give better odds on loot for players who play better and have regular, reliable attendance. It is completely irrelevant for us if the players in question are tank, dps or healers.

[loquatious]

I figure if you are on Yogg (my guild is) then we are not exactly struggling for world or server firsts here. I dont see any reason for Tank prio at all - with the possible execption of maybe getting 2 crafted items made.

If you attend raids regularly you are probably damn near geared up already, I know I got my 4 piece T8 by doing VOA, badge purchases and nabbing a t8.0 shoulders out of 10 man. So now when the Legs drop I just pass and thank god Hunter/Shaman are getting a 100% benefit when I would wear my Saronite Legguards most of the time anyway.

You know whats more important that the 1-3 wipes over the course of 20 raids that might be caused by you not having that 400 extra health, a happy raid, a group of folks that feel like a team. MT prio makes sense for hard charging, task focused guilds - not guilds like ours that want to have a good time playing wow 3-4 nights a week.

[Snippy]

A few things to keep in mind.

If you put all your eggs in one basket and gear up one tank... what happens if a life events causes them to quit the game... or they say, look at the cool gear I have and go to a better guild? Well then you're back where you started.

Come up with a fair looting system and use it. You want to spread the gear around evenly among those with the highest attendance. I've always favored loot council so that people loot things that may not be their dream item, but will help the raid progress.

Another thing to point out... have you ever hit an enrage timer b/c there wasn't enough dps. Ummm yah... thats just awesome! You want your dps/healers/tanks all on around the same gear level. This way you progress together. There are few gear walls in Ulduar (before hardmodes). Its about common sense and having that base Naxx heroic (Ulduar 10) gear that will get you moving along.

Another thing you need to consider is maybe its not gear thats holding you back. Make sure you're appropriately picking people for fights that will best benifit. Example: Paladins have few cool downs.. so fights like XT, Hodir, General aren't the best to have a paladin tank - a lesser geared DK could tank those better! A warrior might not be the best class to have pick up the adds on Kolog. Sure they can do it, but not the best.

Make sure you're taking class balance into account as you move forward, not just gear.

[Gale]

In my opinion sucky dps can have many more significant causes than sucky gear. Actually, known heavy hitters in my guild have demonstrated how much difference the player makes by what they can do with undergeared dps alts. Tossing gear at a sucky player is almost like deleting it, but arguably worse. It is basically rewarding someone for bad performance.

I agree that low dps is usually bad playing, but wow is gear dependant. There's only so much you can do to improve rotations and whatnot. Going from T7.5 to T8.5 results in a 1k minimum dps increase.

Now let's assume the raid setup is an average of 2 tanks, 6 healers. Yea yea, some bosses require more or less, but we're doing math here -.-

Tanks and healers get their gear before any dps touches it. A boss fight usually averages ~6 minutes.

8 potential dps losing gear. 8x1000x6x60=2880000. Potentially almost 3 million damage lost, which can't be gotten from anything but a gear increase. Quite significant, no? Almost like going with 24 people. It's much better to use something that gears up a mix of tanks, healers, dps at the same time, preferably high attendance ones first.

[Stephanius]

Gale, I think you missed part of my response. My guild does not give anyone loot priority based on their job in the raid. I was simply making the counterargument that giving loot to dps can be a bad idea, but I was too nice about it.

If there is a tank who can't cut it or a healer who just flails their arms around, they are not getting raid invites. Mind you, I am talking about the player here, not their purpels. That is because a tank-fuckup is likely to be a wipe, which is nearly the same situation for the healers. While there are no doubt awesome dps out there and I am happy to have some of them in my guild, it is my view that accident prone and less determined players are more likely to be in dps roles and someone who puts out significantly less than the uber-dps of the guild may still score a raid invite.

Besides, even if all your dps is imba, what good is a higher damage output if it happens while the boss runs around after the tank is dead?

Tank and/or healer priority can be argued for at the cutting edge. Behind the cutting edge, there shouldn't be any priority, be it for dps, tanks or healers.

[Gale]

Gale, I think you missed part of my response. My guild does not give anyone loot priority based on their job in the raid. I was simply making the counterargument that giving loot to dps can be a bad idea, but I was too nice about it.

If there is a tank who can't cut it or a healer who just flails their arms around, they are not getting raid invites. Mind you, I am talking about the player here, not their purpels. That is because a tank-fuckup is likely to be a wipe, which is nearly the same situation for the healers. While there are no doubt awesome dps out there and I am happy to have some of them in my guild, it is my view that accident prone and less determined players are more likely to be in dps roles and someone who puts out significantly less than the uber-dps of the guild may still score a raid invite.

Besides, even if all your dps is imba, what good is a higher damage output if it happens while the boss runs around after the tank is dead?

Tank and/or healer priority can be argued for at the cutting edge. Behind the cutting edge, there shouldn't be any priority, be it for dps, tanks or healers.

I didn't miss your response, I was responding to the first part about low dps being attributed to player skill. Didn't feel a need to comment on the second part.

Lots of people argue about high dps being useless if the tank is dead, but that isn't a practical argument. It cannot happen unless they were doing something stupid like coming to Ulduar in greens. Gearing up the tank or healer after entering a raid just increases the margin of error for the tanks themselves and makes it easier for healers to heal, and prepares for hard modes. But so what? Wanting the opportunity to slack is not a good reason to have priority on gear. Trying to tell people that the tank might die is just an excuse. Why didn't the tank gear up before stepping inside Ulduar? o.O

As for preparing for hard modes, everyone needs to prepare for hard modes, not just tanks or healers.

Your guild in particular having accident prone people as dps is an indivial issue which needs solving. I also don't think that only tank screwups lead to a wipes. Ulduar is quite demanding on individual performance. There are many fights where a wipe has to be called out when one person, no matter who, dies. It's most commonly seen on progression runs and most often those deaths were not from undergeareded healers.