10 man gear frustrations

[shiftybear]

Ok, this is a bit of a whine post, so skip it if you don't care... you've been warned.

I've become increasingly frustrated lately with the number of classes that roll on cloth/healer gear. This is not the fault of the people playing the class, but rather Bliz's homogenizing of stats and who finds them useful.

I raid with two Locks, a Mage, a Resto druid, and a holy pally. I have to compete against 5 people, in a 10 man raid, for misc. items like rings, trinkets and necks. And 3-4 people on cloth drops. So every time an item drops that I need, I have less than a 25% chance of winning the roll, not taking into account the fact it even dropped! Grrrr.

I find this frustrating because when an item has hit, it goes between the DPS casters only. But, if it's just spirit, crit or haste, suddenly it's for anyone because moost casters are over hit cap you can't say "roll on hit gear only". Meanwhile, our Enhancement shaman keeps everything that drops that he can use, our two tanks only compete against each other, and our DPS DK keeps all the strength DPS plate.

Yes, I do realize we could drop the casters, but that's not going to happen. I just wish sometimes things still had +healing on them to define them as a healer only piece.

FOr amusement, I'm gonna break down typical gear drops and who uses them

Plate DPS:
- DK's (all)
- Ret Pally's
- Warrior (Fury/Arms)
6 possible specs

Plate Tank:
- DK
- Prot Pally
- Prot Warrior
3 possible specs

DPS Physical Mail
- Enh Shaman
- Hunter
- warriors(Fury/Arms)**
- DK(Unholy/Blood) **
6 possible specs

Caster Mail
- Resto & Elem Shaman
- Holy Palidan
3 possible specs

Caster Leather -
- Resto & Boomkin Druids
- Resto &Elem Shaman**
4 possible specs

DPS Physical Leather
- Rogues(all)
- warriors(Fury/Arms)**
- Hunters(all)**
- Shaman(Enh)**
- Feral Druids
10 possible specs

DPS Cloth (+hit)
- Mage(all)
- Shadow Priest
- Warlock(all)
- Boomkin**
- Elem Shaman**
9 possible specs

Caster Cloth
- Mage (all)
- Priest (all)
- Warlock (all)
- Shaman (Elem & Resto**
- Druid (Boomkin/Resto)**
- Paladin(Holy)**
14 possible specs

Caster Misc (trinkets, rings etc)
- Mage (all)
- Priest (all)
- Warlock (all)
- Shaman (Resto/Elem)
- Druid (Resto/Boom)
- Paladin (Holy)
14 possible specs

** not ideal

So yeah, 14 specs for Caster cloth/Misc. And typically more casters than melee in a raid. >.< When you consider the fact that each type has an equal chance of dropping, those resto/elemental shamans sure are lucky!! Time for a reroll me thinks, priest gets the biggest shaft of all the healers.
</end whine>

[seam]

Our guild has armor priorities.

Cloth goes to clothies first.
Leather to leather
Mail to mail
plate to plate.

Then is no clothies want cloth(For example) anyone else can roll on it.

[Kaneiac]

Stop using a flat roll system?

A serious suggestion: try to push for an armor priority system.

It's also partially Blizzard's fault for the horrible itemization that is placed on some gear, forcing them to actually choose cloth/leather/mail that is superior. The rings/necks/trinkets have always been fair game for everyone, and that's fine, really, since there's no restrictions on that.

[shiftybear]

Stop using a flat roll system?

I agree, but unfortunately my GM doesn't.

We do use an armor level priority, my point was more that cloth/caster gear is desirable by far more classes/specs than any other. This isn't an issue with my guild really, but with 3 casters and 3 healers in a 10 man group, that's a lot of caster gear getting divided up/rolled on.

At the very least it would be nice to have caster/cloth gear rated slightly higher in the % to drop than say mail caster gear. I've gone entire nights of clearing the first 2 wings of ICC and had nothing but mail/plate drop. Often times it seems to be the same items week after week, like the freaking axe and shield off of gunship that has dropped every week for 6 weeks straight >.<. But, when that 1 piece of caster gear finally drops, 5 people roll on it. I dunno, maybe our group just has shitty luck.

[shoju]

you missed a couple of things.


ret paladins will roll on phys dps mail and leather as well, and a lot of times, those lesser armors end up as BiS for them because blizzard effed the stat ratios for them.

If a DK rolled on mail they should be laughed at.

Your holy pally should roll on all non spirt non hit cloth, and there is a ton of it in ICC. The healing plate in ICC10 is not very well itemized.

[tatienne]

so you're in a 10man guild? then it shouldn't really be too hard for people to write their wish-lists.
their best set-up options and probably a backup or, in some cases (trinkets for example) in a small list. this way if there's one thing you want but others have as their backup your ML probably will give it to you, and you'll just have to pass on things that others have as prio1 and you have as a backup (or not even in the list but might want anyway).

but yes, the system isn't perfect.... especially if you're in a semi-casual guild (well, one who doesn't raid 4-6 times a week and don't have over 35 raidmembers)

[Intiriel]

Try rolling an elemental shaman.
Cloth gear with spirit sucks.
Leather gear with spirit sucks.
Mail gear with mp5 sucks.

Yeah, I compete only with 2 other specs, but my drops are REALLY limited. There are bosses in ICC that don't even drop a single caster mail, but drop 2 cloth items.

[Splewsh]

I can't even count how many times I QQ-rage in vent to my guild over items.


Pre-WoLK, it seemed like any cloth piece with spirit was generally 'healer first' Now, every DPS class gets a huge benefit out of spirit.



FML

[sicness]

I agree, but unfortunately my GM doesn't.

We do use an armor level priority, my point was more that cloth/caster gear is desirable by far more classes/specs than any other. This isn't an issue with my guild really, but with 3 casters and 3 healers in a 10 man group, that's a lot of caster gear getting divided up/rolled on.

At the very least it would be nice to have caster/cloth gear rated slightly higher in the % to drop than say mail caster gear. I've gone entire nights of clearing the first 2 wings of ICC and had nothing but mail/plate drop. Often times it seems to be the same items week after week, like the freaking axe and shield off of gunship that has dropped every week for 6 weeks straight >.<. But, when that 1 piece of caster gear finally drops, 5 people roll on it. I dunno, maybe our group just has shitty luck.

If you don't like how your guild does loot get a new guild imo, simple as that. Keep in mind that the reason most cloth gear is homogenized is because you have 3 classes that need it and a few others can use it as well, similar to the plate classes, and so the items are more homogenized so all the available classes that can use that proficiency can take advantage of the majority of gear that drops. Otherwise you'd have healing cloth gear that drops that one person needs, whereas instead you have caster cloth gear that drops that 3-4 people need. While it may seem worse that you have more competition for gear the other option would be that gear getting d/e'd because no one else needs it, like what happened in BC. The current system allows that to occur less often while also cleaning up the loot tables by making less specific gear that only one or two people in a raid could use.

Cloth is also the proficiency that will have the most assortment as well as most people wanting the items because everyone can use cloth while not everyone can use leather/mail/plate. So while it can seem to be a disadvantage that cloth is so homogenized, cloth is the most abundant proficiency.

[shiftybear]

If you don't like how your guild does loot get a new guild imo, simple as that.

This really doesn't have anything to do with my guild, aside from not using a DKP system. We are a casual guild, we run three 10 mans a week for our members with fairly steady groups. But, we are all adults/parents and thus often have to switch/drop last min etc. The GM doesn't like the idea of DKP that penalizes parents that sometimes have to miss a night, and it works well for me also. So, I will agree that the roll system is a guild specific problem, but the root of the problem goes beyond that.

While it may seem worse that you have more competition for gear the other option would be that gear getting d/e'd because no one else needs it, like what happened in BC. The current system allows that to occur less often while also cleaning up the loot tables by making less specific gear that only one or two people in a raid could use.

Ah, but here's the issue, now instead of DE'ing healing gear, we are DE'ing Plate/Mail/Leather and DPS/TANK items week after week because the 1-2 players that can use them already have them, while 5 people fight for cloth/caster. I'm not sure things improved all that much. This is likely less of an issue in 25 mans, but in 10's where casters/healers tend to dominate the group make-up, it is an issue.

The ultimate solution would be for dungeons to drop loot according to group make-up, increasing the drop rate on items like Cloth/Caster when 6/10 people use it. But I know that'll never happen, so instead I'm whining about it here

[Revak]

It seems that your guild is unfortunately rolling with a lot of people that can use similar gear. 10 mans can easily have that issue.


My guild raids 25's and 10's (10's when we are short or off-nights except for Naxx 10 as we always had enough for T7 25 man raids). For my guild we've always had the issue with 2h axes, swords, maces for melee.

In T7 we had only two Betrayers and one 2h mace from Maexxna drop, and two of the swords from the 4 horsemen (with 3 fury warriors and 2 2h DK's that consistently raided).

In T8 we saw only one 2h axe drop from Ignis 25, one 2h sword from Iron Council 25, one from Hodir 10, and zero from XT hard mode 10 (same melee set up as above).

In T9 we saw ZERO drop from ToC 25, one from Ony 25, ZERO from ToGC 10, and three from ToC 10 (with 3 fury warriors, 1 2h DK, and 1 ret pally that consistently raided).

I actually used Betrayer and the 2h mace from Maexxna all the way up until I got two of the 2h swords from ToC 10 (twin valkyr) about a month before ICC hit because of how unlucky we were with those drops. And I'm an officer with 95% raid attendance through those tiers.

So far in T10 we've gotten 1 Bryntroll from Marro2 25(downed the boss every week), and two 2h weapons from ICC 10.


However; our rogues and dual-wield dk have so many weapons it makes me sick. Please make fury warriors dual-1h wielders again. ;D

I guess what I'm saying is everyone has their bad luck. Ours tends to be with 2h melee weapons and yours is with spell caster gear. Hopefully you guys get a good clothie/spell power-accessory week this week

[shiftybear]

Well, Revak, it's nice to know I'm not completely alone in my sorrow. And it's funny you mention rogues, my alt is a rogue and I have zero issues with gear on him. Often I'm the only one that can use the AGI gear/1-handers... so yeah, I think he has like every 1-hander from TOC/ICC (thus far). About the only thing he competes on is DPS trinkets.


Hmm, maybe that's part of the reason I get so frustrated... my main is my disc priest who goes weeks on end with no upgrades, where as my rogue gets something every week. It's to the point that my rogue really doesn't need to run it anymore.

[GISP]

I dont know why you re complaining tbh, they said as early as on the blizzcon, they would redo all the gear in Cata, and fix it so poeple no longer will downgrade there gear to a lower armor tier.

[tekoix]

Here's the solution.

Join a guild that isn't scrubs and gives the proper gear to the proper class. We only allow, for instance, leather or plate wearers to roll on cloth if no cloth wearer wants or needs them. If we pug people for anything, we tell them the same thing.

Even though they are fixing it in the new expansion, it is at least 6 months off at this rate.

[Banibaq]

Quite honestly, I run into the same problem with my 10man. We also raid 3x a week with me (as shadow priest) competing with a holy priest and 2 mages for caster gear. Now, if you are, as you mentioned, in a casual guild with all adults, I don't see why you would not be able to just talk this over. A lot of times we have several people roll for an item but would give it to our healer if he hasn't been lucky for a while.

On the other hand, our shammy healer has a pretty good offset in any spec that he was to chose, because over the past few weeks, almost every mail piece possible dropped for us.

[walexia]

We ran (and still run now that we got back together) an epgp system in which works like a dkp sytem so we save up points for items that we really do want , the one highest in points wins.

advantages of the system:
--People can't be lewt whores coz they need to beat out other dkp earners to win an item, so unless your miles away from the other gp earners you won't be baggin a ton of stuff in a run.

--Even a person with zero epgp can roll and win an item, lets say for example your saving up to buy the disloged foreign object , and your luckily on top of the other casters who may want it, you may end up passing on alot of items just to get that item.The other casters below you are free to save up and fight amongst themselves for gear they will know you will pass on.SO typically if you know who are on top of you it makes it easier to plan what your gonna buy next