Badges Badges Badges...Loot!

So 2.4 arrived, but the badge vendor had not yet. We did our dailies - every day, and every one, on two toons, no less! And now, the BADGE vendor has arrived. Deressy has been hoarding her badges for weeks now, in anticipation of this moment. Still about 200 badges short, she did go and pick up a few items!

Of course, what every healer has been ogling since it was first announced, Deressy's first purchase was Gavel of Naaru Blessings. Now, she had to decide whether to wait and save 100 badges or pick up another slightly less expensive item. Deressy chose to spend spend spend and finally got rid of her T4 gloves, replacing them with Oakleaf-spun Handguards. It was an obvious choice due to the fact that she was using her T4 shoulders (even though she had better shoulders, Gnarled Ironwood Pauldrons) in order to take advantage of the set bonus with her T4 gloves/shoulders combo.

Deressy's +heal is now a whopping 1961! She can also regenerate 195 mp5 while casting.

Guild Loot Systems

So, I've been thinking about various loot systems used by different guilds, and trying to figure out what really is the 'best', if there is such a thing. It all really came to a climax tonight when Essy went to Kara with another guild. She was on standby with one guild, but they didn't need her, so when a friend was having internet connection problems, she stepped in on his behalf. She saw three events - Shade of Aran, Chess and Netherspite. There was some confusion on what loot rules applied, since she was not part of their guild, and it turned out she was not permitted to roll when Drape of the Dark Reavers dropped. She was told that Mr.X would be allowed to pick up an item first, and she could roll on anything after that. So, Mr.X got the loot and on we went. The Chess event only dropped plate items, both of which were sharded. Then we went to Netherspite, who dropped Skulker's Greavers and Mithril Band of the Unscarred. The rings Essy has are better but the leggings would have been a substantial upgrade. She asked again if she could roll on the legs, and was told, no, another rogue would be getting them.

Essentially, this guild's loot rules are members first. I can understand this in a way. However, Deressy's guild has different rules, and I agree with them too. In her guild, anyone in the raid has the ability to roll on items. There is no member/non-member distinction. Sure, someone may be running Kara over and over for a single drop. I've seen this happen, actually. In one case, a hunter had been running Kara weekly for over 7 months for the chance to pick up Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix. This hunter was not in our guild, and yet when it dropped, not only did she get to roll on it, but she won it (she was ecstatic). But essentially, anyone who is spending the time and money to raid with us (once they've come in, they are saved to the instance and essentially can't go in elsewhere) is eligible to roll, as if they were a guild member.

Our guild did recently make a change to a rather interesting/odd set of rules - I have been worried it would be hard to enforce, and I've seen a certain amount of exploiting of the rules, but in reality, there have been no "real" problems. In each night of raiding, each person has 1 need and 1 greed roll available. Then, if any item is going to be sharded (no one needed or greeded) then anyone who can use the item has a "free roll". If you roll and lose, it doesn't count against you. The idea is to keep one person from walking out with all the loot. For the most part, this system has been successful. (One of our guild members even went so far as to give away the T4 helm he had just won to someone else who had been trying for it for several months longer).

But then there's also the issue of folks (we had one recently) who join the guild, come on one or two runs, pick up a bunch of loot and then quit the guild. How does a guild prevent this? I'm not sure other than making people wait for loot, but that won't keep them from quitting once they *do* get it. And often it's the newest members who are most in need of new gear. Some guilds, particularly those who have progressed beyond Kara, farm Kara and take new members in there for the specific purpose of gearing them up.

To a degree, I think the loot system a guild uses is somewhat indicative of the character and values of the guild itself. While dkp systems might make some of the issues go away, smaller guilds and/or smaller runs (Kara, ZA) might not find dkp worth the hassle until they get into 25-man instances.

I'm curious what other systems are out there, and how successful they've been. If you have a system that you use, please post the details in a comment. I'd love to hear how it works and how successful it's been for you.