Since the topic has been opened, here are some of my random thoughts about how to improve our loot distribution.

I have been back on my Pally for a while now as the group of raiders that were in my old guild joined together with some of the best raiders from other alliance guilds that had fallen apart. Fatal Nemesis was created and we are up to the Council in BT (Hyjal is fully cleared). We started at the early tier 5 raid and have grown into where we are now. We have always been a zero-sum DKP system (with our three main tanks having preference with any tank drops). We are seeing some noticable differences in gearing across the guild. Even with people that have very even attendance the level of gear can be quite dramatic.

My question is how can you ensure somewhat even distribution of raid loots amongst the classes? With the tier tokens having three classes how do you encourage the even distribution of the tokens?

How do you deal with alternate specs (even when the alternate specs are used to raid)?

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In my opinion, the ONLY benefit to DKP in WoW is it gives people an incentive to raid. If you can manage to find people who WANT to raid, then I suggest removing DKP all together. The items in WoW are all so close in stats that I’d think it would be hard to get people to spend their DKP on marginal upgrades. So instead, you’d have people like Rogues saving their DKP for Warglaives and passing on other loot. Hell, they could almost get by with logical explanations while doing it (“I like the 2 piece T4 set bonus too much to lose it and roll on these T6 shoulders, so I pass”). Speaking from a Rogue’s perspective, the only items I’d say are even DKP-worthy are weapons, trinkets and of course, the Tier armor. But now that bosses drop THREE set pieces, the Tier armor is easy as ever to get. And with the Badge loot being as good as, if not better than, some of the T6 stuff, is there really a justification for people to spend their points? My guess is you have some people with way too much DKP and some that have way too little. The haves and the have-nots. You probably only have a few that are middle of the road in the amount of DKP they have (who take upgrades as they come, rather than waiting on the Super Item of Purple Doom). I don’t see there ever being a solution to this problem, outside of removing DKP and either just letting people roll on loot the old-fashioned way, or having a Furor-type system where a few “loot gods” decide where items go (I’ve always preferred this system, to be honest).

We moved from zero-sum DKP to Furor in TBC, if you're guild has strong and trustworthy leadership, this is a definite change for the better.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

are there any details of the Furor-type system that lists how the loot-gods decide who gets what?

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A few rules of thumb:

1. Are they full time raiders or part time raiders?
2. Have they already got a piece of loot tonight? When was the last time they got a piece of gear?
3. How big of an upgrade is it? Does it complete a set bonus? Is said item 'best in slot'?
4. How is their personal performance?
5. Is the raid as a whole in need of more healing power or more damage?

With the amount of loot a guild can see in the run of a week, it's relatively easy to keep people content. The guild is well conditioned (for the most part) about loot, ie. have an idea of what you want, what your peers want, don't be selfish, don't whine, etc.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Most of the drops that we get are pretty well decided by the members. They agree to pass it to someone or only one person wants it. Items that are contested we use a loot council to decide. The council consists of the 4 officers in the guild plus 3 random members each night (chosen by a /random at the beginning of the night). They vote in a seperate channel to determine who gets what. We use EQDKP to track drops and who wins what just for record keeping.

It's worked pretty well for us. I like the fact that it's generally quick and there's no nightmare of point recording that some poor soul has to do every night. I also like that regular members have a voice and get to see the conversation that happens in the loot channel. It makes it easier for the members to trust that the officers aren't biased.

There is a lesser-known "Solafuror" loot system with slightly different guidelines. It only has one person in charge of deciding who gets it. I believe it was named after some player of some game or something.

The guidelines by that "loot god":

1. Can I use it?
2. Does it look cool enough to wear in Shattrath?
3. Has it been an hour since I got loot?

If the answer is NO to any of the above, continue to the next step.
4. Do I need void crystals?

If the answer is NO to the above, continue to the next steps.
5. Pick random person and assign loot.
6. Call that person names.

ok I was in Oryx and I <3 'em, but that still made me lol :p

furor is pure garbage, no matter how hard they try to stay honest, things always goes grey and friends will always start to come before those who need. Zero sum dkp >all imo

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It sounds like you are comparing people with similar attendance and hoping that they have similar gear. I don't think that's a reasonable expectation; spent DKP is what should reflect their gear level - not their attendance.

It also sounds like you are expecting is that a zero-sum DKP system promotes "effective gearing" of the raid. This is absolutely not the case, in my experience. All zero-sum DKP systems do is allow players to have control over what loot they get - and it makes a good attempt at rewarding those players relative to their raiding effort (or, rather, time spent raiding). It is not designed around "effective gearing"; to me, "effective gearing" would mean getting the most benefit out of every drop by awarding it to players who reap the greatest benefit from equipping it. I'm not advocating a "best-interest" loot system since I don't think it's at all practical, by the way. I'm just saying that a zero-sum DKP system is designed around making players happy - not around making the raid as a whole the best it can be.

Anyway, if you are noticing significant gear differences within your raid amongst consistently-attending players, I think one of the following is your culprit.

• You have some point whores. In my experience, point whores generally have good gear to begin with, so these players probably aren't really a problem from a weak gear standpoint. But if they are, something you might consider is resetting DKP with each tier/instance/whatever. When players know that their DKP will be reset in the next couple months, they're often willing to loosen up and bid on items when they otherwise wouldn't. You could also introduce DKP decay, but that's an entirely dissimilar ballgame.
• Your DKP values scale with something besides "gear goodness."
• Your raid is biased (or unbiased) towards one particular archetype (or class), so that these players are starved of (or inundated with) loot they need.
• Your system is experiencing inflation (and isn't truly zero-sum).
• Players are either getting loot elsewhere or are clinging to gear from previous tiers of instances (in which they didn't spend "current" DKP).

Any of those sound plausible?

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As for the subject of off specs, here's how we work it.

Set Items will be a fixed price and can be claimed by the raider with the most DKP of the eligible classes. Classes that can claim more than one type of Tier 4/5 etc e.g. Druid, Warrior Shaman etc, can only claim a second piece (PVE) for a particular slot if all other eligible class members present have had 1 already.

Second Tier Pieces will cost 50% of the first (20/20/40 DKP). This is to allow people with off-specs to build those sets without greatly harming their ability to build main-spec sets.

(However if a main spec person bids 70DKP (minimum bid) on say a shield, as a DPS warrior I couldn't bid 35 against them, I'd have to match/increase against their bid)

How are you finding council btw? Had our first pop at them the other night. Seems interesting but our tanking mage needs to wake the hell up :p

As of right now, Oryx is using a "Furor" system with some slight modifications. When we moved to Gnomeregan, it was decided early on that we'd forgot DKP/RPP mainly due to previous bad experiences we had with people abusing the system...Most notability when several members broke off and formed another guild, one individual who didn't leave with the majority of his friends waited for the Vael Shield and another item to drop and since he'd saved up the RPP and had 100% attendance he got both in the same night. He gquit a day or so later. We could've guessed he was going to leave but at the time of the loot drops we couldn't contest the RPP rules, he had the points and earned the right to take the items.

These are the factors we use in our Furor Style Loot Council (I'll provide an example):

1.) Has the item been predetermined to go to a specific class/type (Is it a melee item or ranged item? Is it a healer item or caster item? Is it a tank item?)
2.) Performance
3.) Gear between the people who are interested in the item (what Player A has in that item slot vs what Player B has in that item slot)
4.) Attendance

Example (and yes, this situation has happened): Gruul has just dropped a Dragonspine Trophy. There are 3 Rogues and 1 Hunter in the raid interested in the item, here is how we decide who gets it...

A.) The DST has been predesignated as a Melee DPS item over Ranged DPS item, which means that Hunters will be allowed to take it AFTER all Melee DPS interested in the item have gotten it first, so the Hunter is immediately taken out of consideration.

B.) Next we look at their DPS, not only for that fight but for previous encounters (this is one reason why keeping a thread on your guild forums of WWS reports is very important). Rogue A is between #1-5 on DPS every raid, Rogue B is always in the Top 5, Rogue C is always in the Top 10 but sometimes is Top 5.

C.) Then we look at their trinkets. Rogue A has an Hourglass of the Unraveller and a Berserker's Call, Rogue B has a Warpspring Coil (which he looted the week before) and an Hourglass of the Unraveller, Rogue C has a Romulo's Poison Vial and an Hourglass of Violent Odds. So really, all three are just about even here as it would be a viable upgrade for either of them.

D.) Finally we look at overall raid attendance. Rogue A is at 100%, Rogue B is at about 95%, Rogue C is at 95%.

Rogue A is the clear winner. The next week, another DST drops but only Rogues A and C are present. Rogue C wins the DST by default as the only other interested person is again a Hunter (and not the same one ironically enough...).

We've been approached a few times about changing the loot system to DKP, but several factors have turned us off to the idea...not to say that it wouldn't work for some guilds, but I have to agree that WoW is not the kind of game you want to use DKP in anymore as it really does turn a lot of people off to raiding.

As for dealing with items for Off Specs...if an item is going to rot, we offer it to people for Off Spec gear. Thats pretty much it. Now with the Vendor to exchange T4 and T5 tokens for Season 1 and 2 armor, I'm sure people who don't PvP much may take advantage of that (I did, I was too lazy to PvP for Season 1 legs so I got the leg token off Gruul that was going to rot and used it to get my Season 1...lol)

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To answer Myrtle:
I think one of the following is your culprit.

Yes. We have some point whores. They are on all the time they have all the badge gear, PVP gear and whatever else they want from T6 zones. Hell last night when we took down Mother the Pally that won the token still had +550 DKP and that was his third peice T6 (the token was ~150DKP). I, on the other hand, have zero T6 (and just a few t5) but I have been gearing up with some off-tier items for tanking and healing and I have -450DKP (he might attend one or two more raids a month more than me)

I don't think so. Whe should have re-set it when we moved from T5 to T6 but the value of the gear has increased so the amount of the points entering and exiting has increased the same. Where the Vashj healing mace was ~300 DKP the Hyjal healing mace is ~450DKP

to an extent yes and that ties into the point whore problem.

It looks like we will be taking tokens and weapons OFF the DKP system and having the officers and loot council determine the "most beneficial to the raid" awarding.

For the council - The SUPER BOWL of Not Standing is Stuff - we have the strat down, we had them to 15% and had a bad episode of server lag that ended up in several people getting killed. The most tricky part for us is the initial pull. We we get a good pull we are golden.

You guys are just over-thinking this, imho.

No system will eliminate retarded actions. More restrictions and more complication only muddies the water. We use zero sum dkp as well. Yes, we have point whores, but our point whores are also some of our best performers, so it's really not a big deal.

We've not had any drama whatsoever with it. I guess we're lucky. Our biggest problem gearing people is up attendance, which is another thing people try to fix with complex rules that never, ever work.

People are people. If they want to find a way to fuck a system, they will.

We don't award DKP for Kara or ZA, so as someone stated, we have items coming into players hands that they may not spend points on. But so what? you can't track badge rewards or PVP drops, which can be quite good for PVE, especially as stopgaps.

Our system is pretty simple:

1) We track DKP and allow spending on 25-man raids only.
2) Person who can use the item with the most DKP and the right spec gets the item. People are pretty good about making sure our rogues get the DST before someone else, or our main tank gets the first T5 shoulders, etc. Totally voluntary, though.
3) To prevent too many rots, we allow offspec to roll for half the price. We've not had anyone abuse this, collecting feral gear as a resto druid, then ninja respeccing. For example, I, as a resto druid, was able to get the feral tanking staff from SSC for about half the points. Eventually, I may respec, or I may use it for soloing/grinding (since my previous staff was a green). It was worth the half cost, so I got it, it didn't go to waste, etc.

Honestly, I can't imagine why anyone would use DKP for Kara and ZA.

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we didn't start using DKP until we were in T5 instances.

Me either, but I was spoiled and my Kara and ZA run was run by really good people. There were people who joined other Kara runs (and often tried to join ZA runs) who apparently couldn't be bothered to get off their ass and get even reasonably decent gear. I about had a stroke upon viewing another hunter's gear (someone who came to SSC) and saw he was in shitty greens, some of which weren't even appropriate for a hunter. I wouldn't have taken him along on a Kara run, frankly...and here he was in SSC. /sigh

Anyhoo...I think some people use a DKP system in Kara and/or ZA because of people who simply don't bother to gear themselves and come to soak up gear...which doesn't matter unless you have good gear and ONLY want itemX and have to deal with a random roll against someone who's also soaking up anything that drops for their class. Forcing them to 'pay' for it encourages them to get off their ass elsewhere, or prevents them from taking loots from others who have done more work.

Just one reason it might be done, I prefer NBG for 10 mans tho and being picky about who you go with.

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Damn that councill!!!

We spent our entire raid in there last night. (too many people going AFK between pulls really pisses me off) We had the pull down all but once. We would constantly get them under 30% then something would go shitty and we'd wipe.

Our inturrupts were horrible. I was the assigned healer to the bear tanking the rogue. Very easy. However I would get assraped by the priest's wrath. Once I got shot twice had to move away from a blizzard and the rogue spawned on top of me. Another time I got shot a few times then posioned when my bubble was down - I used it when I got posioned while healing the bear (I had no one healing me so just bubble and continue healing).

We can't seem to get past the 15-25% range. That is stupid because there is no difference in the last 15-25% than there is in the first 75-85%. We were WELL ahead of the enrage timer (several minutes before enrage). We go in and one-shot all the other bosses leading up to the council. What are we missing?

/random 32K, just like on naggy raids.

tie breaker, random 1K

double tie breaker, random 100

And always remember to save the CoF type loot for last so other people miss out on getting to roll due to already winning something!

Yeah....I laughed too Neesha, don't forget that if you were a female cleric back in Oryx i was automatically sleeping with them AND giving them all the loot, remember?


DKP's biggest problem is two things.

Badge loot > * and you can't make people raid. I went back to just handing out loot, and I have yet to have an issue, because one of two things happens, someone has badge gear and it's a sidegrade so they wait, or they got something else already, easy peasy.

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

I've never encountered anything else as fair and unbias as a point system. We used it from our first Molten Core raid until the very last day we stepped foot in Black Temple. There's always going to be minor tweaks that need to be made, but you really can't get more fair than DKP imo. Just make sure to run some kind of null system to counter inflation or your new members will never catch up.

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Avelle <Risen>
80 Mage
Ner'zhul Server (Fuck Illidan)
Avelle 75 PLD/DRG/DRK/BRD
Midgardsormr - Active again
Elidrin 75 Paladin
Midgardsormr - Retired
Elidrin 65 Ranger
Lanys T'Vyl - Retired

Honestly I think both systems can work very well under the right circumstances. I've been in a couple guilds with DKP systems(ROA being one of them), and my WoW guild has been loot council for some time now.

DKP definitely has the fairness factor down, no question about it IMO. You don't need to have many bad situations with this system *SO LONG as you lay down ground rules*. Uber ultra tank sword goes to the main tank, etc etc. It can be just as efficient for a guild's progress as loot council, and in some cases more efficient when the loot council makes an incorrect decision with the guild's progress that would have gone differently under a DKP system.

By the same token, loot council gets a bad rap for not always being fair or having biased officers. This is also a bit presumptuous. I have run into a good many guilds that have it work just fine with no sign of bitter members or anything. The solution? Good, decent officers and guild leader to make the decisions. If you have morons for leadership with little morality or sense of integrity, you're out of luck with this system. Personally, I've been fortunate in having the former situation where loot is passed out and handled very fairly.

If you have a good loot council, the officers will take everything into consideration: Raid attendance, personal performance, how long it's been since last loot, benefit to the guild, etc etc etc. If this type of criteria is followed without bias it can be a very fair system.

I might be a bit biased towards loot council since that's my current guild's setup, but I still believe DKP can be just as good given the right circumstance.

We have decided to go to a hybrid system. Tier badges will be awarded by the loot council, everything else to be handled by DKP.


Oh, and we downed Council yesterday, had just two people dead. Was amazing when everyone was paying attention.

I just can't see people spending DKP on items that they can get from the Badge Vendor, and most of the badge stuff IS as good as, or better than, the T6 stuff. I bet guilds who use DKP start to see TONS of stuff being sharded.

There are a lot of factors that undermine DKP in the way WoW works now..

1) Badge loot
2) Getting badges - most efficient way to do it is to do Kara in a single 2-3 hour run, and not only will this give you 21 badges, it will also give you good "for now" gear that makes it even less likely to spend DKP on marginal upgrades.
3) Zul'Aman
4) Ease of getting PVP gear for PVE content

I'm not really sure if having a DKP system is all that efficient for guilds that are doing content pre-T6, when so many avenues give comparable or better rewards. For T6 and Sunwell, sure.

I just saw this quote on another board and I felt like sharing....

"DKP will not get you laid"

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Got Council last night, our first full night on them Very cool fight.

Race ya to the Illidan kill krby

We hit him on Monday got into Phase Three but had lost too many during the second phase.

Phase one is super easy, Phase two is intense - make sure that your FR tanks can see the eye beam and have good healers on the barrage.

Once your tanks get familiar with the methods of tanking the Flames, execution of the fight rests solely on the ability of your damage classes not to pull aggro.

I'd also recommend treating phase 5 the same as the previous two phases; it's not worth dragging Illidan out of place to 'trap' him.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark

Phase two sucks when you only have one resto shaman and zero shadow priests in the raid. We are getting better at getting out of phase two and to the first demon shift (some call phase four) but we have yet to get through that cleanly. We have another night to work on him tonight so hopefully we will see the whole fight, if not down him.

We didn't get to go to him last night as we had a lack of tanks. So went to Sunwell to learn the trash instead.

Tonight is Illidan though (Yeah EU server) Will let you know how it goes.

we had it last night. We were in a demon phase with everyone up and in good space. Then we had a bad case of server lag where we lost a few people to DC and then it went to hell

Illy update: several attempts getting him to 36-37%. I was late signing on so I was not in the raid so I can't say exactly what happened each time. We SHOULD get him tonight.

Has been a good week for us. We have all the pre-sunwell T6 content cleared except for Illy and we hope to correct that tonight. MH is nothing but a loot run now. Other than Illidan, the only boss fight that gave us any trouble was Supremus (we were pushing too fast and didn't want to clear all the trash so we had some idiot run into the trash - not punted, RAN INTO the trash while we were fighting Supremus. Everything other boss was a tidy one-shot.

Illidan Dead. First alliance guild on Gnomer to take him down. First Warglaive to drop on the server. Good week for us

Congrats. I'm the only Sword rogue in Vita so if I don't get Warglaives, I shall cry.

Took him down again last night. All T6 content cleared (we raid Tue, Wed, Thurs, Sun, Mon) So tonight we will hit Sunwell. We very easily could have cleared it all in three days. Tuesday we cleared up to Mother. Wednesday we had a lot of people off-line so I took a backup squad to Hyjal and we took down everything except Archi (didn't have enough Shaman and decursers on-line to even try). Thursday was Mother and Council (we had a bad case up headupyourassitis on council taking way too many times to get it done). Last night was downing Illidan and Archi. If we would have had a decent group on for Wednesday Archi would have gone down and we should have taken Illidan down on Thursday.

Question: since 2.4 have you had many issues with people getting punted behind the "wall"? We use the four camps method for fighting Archi and we kept getting people Air Bursted behind the new barrier and they would spend a good portion of the fight trying to escape.

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I don't know if I've attended an Archi kill since 2.4, so I'm of little help there.

Enjoy Kalecgos.

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Kuwen Furyblades
Hunter of Memento Reejeryn
Champion of Faydark