Something needs to be done about raid loot

[crakerjack]

Sounds like you guys need to motivate people in your raid to try a little harder. Being casual isn’t an excuse for playing bad, even though some people try. My approach to raiding is that it’s not just my time, but the accumulative time of everyone in the raid. That motivates me to try my best so that I can help my raid progress. If someone plays poorly and doesn’t care that they’re bogging down a raid, that means they’re uncaringly selfish, which is the worst kind.

[Argorwal]

The loot this xpac so far has been very disappointing

I didn't get SL until Christmas, so I'm a few weeks behind

So far I have killed 21 Normal bosses, 6 heroic bosses, and 5 World bosses

Out of 32 boss kills, I'm wearing 2 pieces

Can you link your armory so we can have a look?

[Thirtyrock]

I'm in a very casual guild that clears normal raid easily but struggles in hc. We're currently 5/10.

Killing only a few bosses means most people get no loot.
Meanwhile those people easily do m+9-11 and prefer to farm the dungeons, ending with 2-3 ilvl 220 choices from the Great Vault.
Even Great Vault hc raid choices are weak compared to that.
It just makes people put less effort into doing the raid.
But can you blame them?

We've outgeared normal and just clearing it with alts. Nobody wants to go there with their main.
Get good? Hardly needed, we don't care about WoW as much.
Bring back those damn tokens that let us do extra rolls!

I understand how you feel, but I don't feel the same. I have done 0 pvp and about 50 M+ dungeons. I've raided 3 weeks going 6/6/10 on normal cleared for the three weeks. With my vault and lego, I'm 205.

I feel completely satisfied with the pace of loot. I feel like upgrades are REALLY upgrades, they're exciting, because I'm not getting multiple upgrades a session.

I'm not telling you to feel differently, and I'm not going to tell you what others have about how to get your slots filled out. Just putting it out there. I like the way things are going.

[Marrilaife]

If they go back to the amount of loot that dropped in vanilla, then they also need to make the loot special as in vanilla and to be honest, the amount of meaninful loot is less than in vanilla because in vanilla you had raid loot but also craftable and some rep gear.

The difference with vanilla is while raiding was a long ass grind to get any loot, pvp was ALSO a long ass grind to get any loot so those two were balanced against each other. Meanwhile nowadays a guild can do 1 evening of RBGs, cap conquest, get half the anima weekly, get guaranteed item, and the vault, meanwhile that same guild spends 3 days mythic raiding and most people can barely expect the vault choice, drops are next to non-existent, anima drops are poor, badges / valor / bonus rolls aren't there either so it's unrewarding as hell.

[KaPe]

Current loot situation is pretty absurd, especially on Mythic. You can get more random BoE from trash mobs than from bosses, especially if you're progressing some of the earlier bosses. Sure, you don't need to aim for specific corruptions or count on titanforges - but as a primary gearing method, raids suck. If you're really serious about progression, better get those pvp ratings - guaranteed loot for much less effort, no randomness. Or you can buy 4 different BoEs on auction house - it would take you at least a month to get the same average amount of drops from Mythic. Assuming you're farming 7 bosses... at which point you're probably geared already anyway.

It's especially funny since we had a "double loot bug" in the first raid week, with bosses dropping far more items than they should have. Did I miss some massive complaints from the playerbase? Were people angrily quitting over that? Hell no - some of us even though that Blizzard changed their mind and decided to keep 5 items/20 players system. But nope, nerfed in the next reset. Maybe there were some random people who were satisfied by that change, but I really doubt it - unless it was primarily M+ players, "happy" that raiders will be just as miserable as them. They even nerfed the amount of loot from Timewalking raids - because clearly, these were far too rewarding.

It's quite telling that (rated) PvP feels like the only really rewarding option right now. Other than that, it's both raiders and M+ players are miserable. Good job, Blizz.

[kevincuomo]

If you don't raid mythic or do tons of pvp then you get screwed on loot. The item levels for gear this xpac has by far been the worst ever, its terrible.

[Jastall]

Yeah, the problem isn't the M+ weekly chest, although it should probably just look at your highest key for the week rather than lowest in your top 4/10. Because who actually cares if a few people run 1 high key and then fill with +2s? That way it matches how PvP works as well, where it looks at your highest rating.
The actual problem for raiding is that the amount of loot dropped is probably a touch too low(a currency to buy an item every other week could help this a lot) and that the weekly chest is absolute garbage. Requiring 3/7/10 bosses for the slots is already stupid, because it means that once you have mythic on farm, you still won't get the full 3 slots unless you're a tank, healer, provide a buff or one of the few DPS that don't ever get benched. It should be 1/3/6 at most with the current ilevel rules, or stay at 3/7/10 but all slots give rewards based on the difficulty of your top 3 kills(instead of your top 3, then your top 7 and then your top 10).

The raid weekly chest in particular is just... bad. I've never touched an item from it, the only time you would if you do even remotely comparable M+ runs is if a raid trinket is your absolute BiS and only a few specs have that right now. Only Mythic raiders might consistently get upgrades from it, and even then mostly those who kill latter bosses, and even then as you said that assumes you're on every kill or close to it in a guild that clears fairly early in the tier.

I'm not sure about another currency for guaranteed loot. The Great Vault basically IS that already for all intents and purposes, just make the adjustments you suggest and bring drop rates back to what they were before, or mayyybe slighlty less than them.

[KaPe]

I'm not sure about another currency for guaranteed loot. The Great Vault basically IS that already for all intents and purposes, just make the adjustments you suggest and bring drop rates back to what they were before, or mayyybe slighlty less than them.

I don't see why they reduced it in the first place. The one argument I kept seeing was "someone would immediately quit if they got their BIS" - but somehow, the same person would be patient enough to farm unrewarding content for several months.

I don't see how this makes sense - but even then, removing Titanforging already makes sure that you won't get BIS from a random world quest/low level content. Last two raid bosses offering higher ilvl makes sure that people who only care about loot have a reason to progress them. And even if raids dropped the exact same amount of loot as before, gearing would still be slower than BFA (outside of corruption, which was another layer of rng).

One does not need to look further than the sudden "popularity" of rated PvP to see what's going on. It's not because Blizzard has perfectly balanced everything and thus attracted so many players. It's the reward structure, which is far superior to other types of content. Why nerf two of them, while buffing a third?

[Valysar]

Current drop rate is okay, there's no need for extra RNG

For you maybe. If like me, you only looted 2 stuff in 1 month, you wouldn't say that. Only way to increase my lvl is looting the great vault.

[huth]

Thinking the first half of mythic raid is equivalent in difficulty to +20 keys. MUH FUCKIN' SIDES!

It's also ignoring that the raid bosses also reward iLvl 226, while the M+ do not. The raid is already rewarding more.

[Jastall]

I don't see why they reduced it in the first place. The one argument I kept seeing was "someone would immediately quit if they got their BIS" - but somehow, the same person would be patient enough to farm unrewarding content for several months.

I don't see how this makes sense - but even then, removing Titanforging already makes sure that you won't get BIS from a random world quest/low level content. Last two raid bosses offering higher ilvl makes sure that people who only care about loot have a reason to progress them. And even if raids dropped the exact same amount of loot as before, gearing would still be slower than BFA (outside of corruption, which was another layer of rng).

One does not need to look further than the sudden "popularity" of rated PvP to see what's going on. It's not because Blizzard has perfectly balanced everything and thus attracted so many players. It's the reward structure, which is far superior to other types of content. Why nerf two of them, while buffing a third?

To be fair, all I heard from PvP was that the reward structure was beyond atrocious in Legion/BFA for them. I wouldn't know as I don't touch PvP with a ten foot pole, but it was a common enough sentiment that Blizzard paying special attention to it is a good thing.

What they shouldn't have paid attention to are the players who think slowing down gearing to a crawl makes it oh so incredibly satisfying. It's not, it only magnifies the effects of RNG and BoEs more than Titanforging ever did. The haves that get lucky/buy BoEs thrive, the have-nots can be stuck at 213/214 even as 6/10M players because all their chances at upgrades are a 15% roll per boss of even getting an item, let alone the one they want, and the Vault. I like the Vault a lot, but it shouldn't be such an incredibly important part of gearing if you don't PvP.

[Varolyn]

I actually don't have an issue with the low drop rates on raid loot. What I do have an issue with is that if you are gearing strictly with pve, it starts to get quite difficult to push your ilvl up when you get like to like 205 or so. A badge vendor would help with this, as even though you may not get a single piece after a raid run, you will at least be building up some currency to get something. If pvp can have a vendor that allows to you to target specific pieces of gear, I don't see why pve can't. Also they should increase the amount of anima a boss drops per lockout. 35 anima per boss is an absolute joke and should be 100 anima at least per boss.

And yes, the covenant and honor gear is helpful in getting characters to at least geared enough for normal. However, like I said earlier, a wall is hit when you get to like 205 ish ilvl, and the gearing process slows down dramatically, with the vault being your only guaranteed piece of gear weekly, and they may not even give you an upgrade.

[Strawberry]

Well, I'm going to add something more to this thread.

My pve priest (5/10hc) is 210 ilvl. A char I played a full month longer than my warrior.
My warrior is 215 ilvl.

The difference?
The warrior is pvp gearead.

I got to 1800 3v3 rating and since then just upgraded my gear with honor.
With the priest I've been doing m+9-11 4 or so times per week and also heroic raids, where we are 5/10.

Now, getting to 1800 rating wasn't extremely easy, but I went from 0-1811 rating in 35 wins and 63 matches played. That's 55% win rate which is not much.
By comparison, killing those hc raid bosses was muuuuuch harder and we're still not done, yet the gear is noticeably worse.

[Philomene]

For you maybe. If like me, you only looted 2 stuff in 1 month, you wouldn't say that. Only way to increase my lvl is looting the great vault.

Care to read my entire post? The drop rate as always been quite low if you only consider raiding (as mythic+ didn't exist) when you didn't get the endless loot shower in Legion and BFA. The badge system was a good way to offset the RNG by offering deterministic rewards. That's basically what PvP players get - conquest are the badges allowing to counter the unlucky vaults.

[intenz]

They think "meaningful loot" means nothing dropping. Meaningful loot is when you don't replace all your gear every 6 months and where gear has character and uniqueness, not just the same template increased by x% ilevel every content patch.

[Orwell7]

Care to read my entire post? The drop rate as always been quite low if you only consider raiding (as mythic+ didn't exist) when you didn't get the endless loot shower in Legion and BFA. The badge system was a good way to offset the RNG by offering deterministic rewards. That's basically what PvP players get - conquest are the badges allowing to counter the unlucky vaults.

Wait-wait-wait - you are comparing things in a vacuum.

In SL, we are talking about the GENERAL loot scarcity in PvE.
You are talking about "drop rates".

1; drop rates were higher in wotlk
2; the best gear in wotlk (277) was awarded only in ICC25 hc. In SL this is 226 in Mythic CN.
The best pvp gear in wotlk was 270.
ICC10HC AND ICC25 normal dropped 264. So the best pvp gear was in-between. The AMOUNT of loot for 264 was dramatically higher than right now.

For comparison, 264 in ICC is 213 in Heroic CN.

Now, where could you get 264+ in wotlk?
-ICC25 hc
-ICC25 normal
-ICC10 hc
-the pvp world boss
-pvp
AND YOU HAD EMBLEMS. From "hard" content like ICC 5-mans, ICC10-25, daily heroic, etc.
Emblem of Frost got you 264 gear ON TOP of standard loot drops. Usually 1 targeted item per week from these.


Where can you get 213 now?
-PvP
-Heroic CN
-Mythic CN
-1 item per week in the Great Vault

Also ICC10-HC dropped 3 items for 10 people.
Imagine going in Heroic CN and getting 3 items per 10 people...

So, more loot sources which were ALSO more rewarding (and interesting, remember, ICC25 and ICC10 had different loot tables!)

[Argorwal]

Wait-wait-wait - you are comparing things in a vacuum.

In SL, we are talking about the GENERAL loot scarcity in PvE.
You are talking about "drop rates".

1; drop rates were higher in wotlk
2; the best gear in wotlk (277) was awarded only in ICC25 hc. In SL this is 226 in Mythic CN.
The best pvp gear in wotlk was 270.
ICC10HC AND ICC25 normal dropped 264. So the best pvp gear was in-between. The AMOUNT of loot for 264 was dramatically higher than right now.

For comparison, 264 in ICC is 213 in Heroic CN.

Now, where could you get 264+ in wotlk?
-ICC25 hc
-ICC25 normal
-ICC10 hc
-the pvp world boss
-pvp
AND YOU HAD EMBLEMS. From "hard" content like ICC 5-mans, ICC10-25, daily heroic, etc.
Emblem of Frost got you 264 gear ON TOP of standard loot drops. Usually 1 targeted item per week from these.


Where can you get 213 now?
-PvP
-Heroic CN
-Mythic CN
-1 item per week in the Great Vault

Also ICC10-HC dropped 3 items for 10 people.
Imagine going in Heroic CN and getting 3 items per 10 people...

So, more loot sources which were ALSO more rewarding (and interesting, remember, ICC25 and ICC10 had different loot tables!)

You bought 1 item a week with emblems of frost?

Items costed 60-90 badges and you only got them from the daily heroic (2) and ICC bosses so how does that work?

ICC 10 dropped 2 items.

1 item per week from mythic+, which covers all slots (something emblems of frost didn’t come close to doing, nor did the world boss) is a much faster pace. And mythic+ only takes a +7 to reach that level, and can go to a weekly 226 (277 ICC equivalent) item every single week.

Also in Wrath the PvP gear had a wasted stat with resilience, which made it worse than PvE gear despite the same item level since an entire stat was missing. In SL it doesn’t do that.

[Trend]

I mean the point is if top guilds could clear HC before any nerfs with 187 ilvl and my more casual guild with 197 ilvl it's not about the gear. 207 ilvl which is +20 ilvl more (which is HUGE) than first guilds had is easily obtainable, so my point was the gear is not an issue.

So you honestly think this thread was created by someone who is running with a top 500 raid? Like seriously?

You comments are completely irrelevant and unhelpful in this thread. Gear is an issue for the OP because their raid is not at the same skill level. It's like an NBA player telling you that you should make millions of dollars playing basketball because it's easy and then justifying that bad advice by pointing to the fact that the top players are even better than they are and it's really easy for them. Just totally illogical.

Nobody ever said it was impossible at a given ilvl. They said that for them the gear and lack up upgrades was a wall.

- - - Updated - - -

Does everyone deserve heroic raid loot? You are only skilled enough to be 5/10. Practice and get more skill / attempts in and you'll progress farther. Or slowly wait for the gear drip to push you farther

a) That has nothing to do with anything I was saying.

b) There has been a change due to gearing being harder, especially for non-top players. Contrary to your assumptions, I don't personally have a problem with it. But I can understand how the change can be negative for some and I don't think the "git gud" advice from top 500 mythic raiders is helpful.

[ellieg]

So you honestly think this thread was created by someone who is running with a top 500 raid? Like seriously?

You comments are completely irrelevant and unhelpful in this thread. Gear is an issue for the OP because their raid is not at the same skill level. It's like an NBA player telling you that you should make millions of dollars playing basketball because it's easy and then justifying that bad advice by pointing to the fact that the top players are even better than they are and it's really easy for them. Just totally illogical.

Nobody ever said it was impossible at a given ilvl. They said that for them the gear and lack up upgrades was a wall.

- - - Updated - - -



a) That has nothing to do with anything I was saying.

b) There has been a change due to gearing being harder, especially for non-top players. Contrary to your assumptions, I don't personally have a problem with it. But I can understand how the change can be negative for some and I don't think the "git gud" advice from top 500 mythic raiders is helpful.

Dudes crying that they get less loot cause they can't full clear. You start talking about how not everyone is the same skill level. I am asking if everyone is entitled to heroic loot, regardless of skill level.

[Stormwolf64]

Well they can bring back tokens. You have to be a major blizzard shill to look at it negatively anyway. Not like it affects anyone negatively.