Loot priority

[Sanji]

Hello, i'm not too sure if this subject has been discussed already; however when i face reality and see the fact that this forum is major. I cannot imagine that this has not been brought up before.

on topic:
My guild is currently progressing through the heroics and we have currently 7 founders which kind of lead the guild. Everytime we have a opinion poll about wherether we should give roles in the raid priority over the others, most of the founders do agree that healers and tanks should get priority over DPS.

Their argument is: "If a tank does not die, the raid will not wipe thus have a bigger chance on a succesfull kill However if a healer does not go oom, the raid will have even more chance in a succesfull encounter".

I'm not gonna go into this and argue that this is wrong because it is what it is. It is the truth, however i do think that DPS is on the equal level, having high DPS is a neccecity for alot of bosses. Maybe the enrage timers of the normal modes are long enough for a low geared DPS to handle however the further you progress the harder DPS is required and the faster things go down which gives healers and tanks an easier time. So my view of this is that every single role in the raid counts and that none should get a priority. What do you think? How does it go within your guild?

If you have any statements to back up my opinon please do reply. If think i'm wrong then please do explain and convince me.

Discuss

[Deleted]

Well loot priority shouldn't be depending on what style you are playing. I'd vote for the priority to make the guild go forward and to people that show the guild good attendance etc.

In the end all people will get their shinies. usually just take time
(Opinions are like assholes. Everyone got one)

[underdogba]

There is definitely some rationale behind prioritizing tanks and healers, because those roles are traditionally profoundly more gear-dependent than dps.

[sicness]

Unless you're in a heavy progression guild then prioritizing healers and tanks for gear won't help you that much. It's more designed for guilds who are pushing encounters to extremes to get world/server firsts.

This loot distribution method relies on the fact that your dps will always improve from encounter to encounter with experience, but a tank will always, ALWAYS, take the same damage from the boss regardless of how he tries to tank it and only gear can adjust that.

[evan_s]

I'd say the simplest answer is where are you struggling? Are you tanks getting blown up from massive damage? Gear them up. Are your healers running oom and the raid is wiping when people aren't taking a bunch of avoidable damage? Gear them up. Are you hitting enrage timers because your dps is too low? Gear them up.

Typically speaking, when starting a new tier of content you are more likely to have problems with tanks dying and healers going oom than hitting an enrage timer.

[Sansnom]

Hello, i'm not too sure if this subject has been discussed already; however when i face reality and see the fact that this forum is major. I cannot imagine that this has not been brought up before.

on topic:
My guild is currently progressing through the heroics and we have currently 7 founders which kind of lead the guild. Everytime we have a opinion poll about wherether we should give roles in the raid priority over the others, most of the founders do agree that healers and tanks should get priority over DPS.

Their argument is: "If a tank does not die, the raid will not wipe thus have a bigger chance on a succesfull kill However if a healer does not go oom, the raid will have even more chance in a succesfull encounter".

I'm not gonna go into this and argue that this is wrong because it is what it is. It is the truth, however i do think that DPS is on the equal level, having high DPS is a neccecity for alot of bosses. Maybe the enrage timers of the normal modes are long enough for a low geared DPS to handle however the further you progress the harder DPS is required and the faster things go down which gives healers and tanks an easier time. So my view of this is that every single role in the raid counts and that none should get a priority. What do you think? How does it go within your guild?

If you have any statements to back up my opinon please do reply. If think i'm wrong then please do explain and convince me.

I personally disagree with the loot system but I can understand why they would they do this. The reason would be is that in any new encounter, particularly a new tier of raid, having a better gear tank and healer would increase the chance of survival. The rational behind this is a better geared tank would increase his or hers chance of surviving beating hit by the boss. Which means the less chance a lose boss running around smacking people.

Likewise a better geared healer would mean a higher chance of other raiders staying alive and beat down the boss. A better geared DPS would certainly mean the boss would die quicker but a lesser gear DPS would just mean the DPS is doing less damage but may not actually kill anyone in the raid because of it. Unless of course you do not beat the enrage timer, but that is at the end of the enounter whereas a badly geared tank could mean getting killed in the start of the encounter.

[Nightstormer]

If you gear up tanks and healers enough, you take enough less damage to bring more dps, which is a bigger dps increase than gearing dps. It also helps survive the encounter.

Consider: Paragon downed H LK 25 at 0% (initially at 5% but later 0%) and no one else could without 15% because they could five heal it to meet the enrage timer. It wasn't because they had 8 warriors with shadowmourne.

[Ormula]

In this tier, healers > dps > tanks. The healing is intense in most heroics, and so are the enrage timers. The damage a tank takes, however, only goes so far. Nothing is more aggravating than being stuck on H Maloriak because your DPS isn't high enough to kill vile swills in time.

[Ineras]

Yes, tanks that have better gear will take less damage, but dps who have better gear will kill the boss faster which translates to less single-target damage to the tank and less raid-wide damage to everyone.

[Deleted]

All fights really benefit from all 3, geared healers, tanks & dps. I'd say always assign loot to whoever it gives the biggest upgrade to assume all other things being equal (performance / attendance etc). Or use a DKP system and lets the numbers decide :d.

[Dr420]

You have to look at it like a puzzle and what parts need filled in. Healers and tanks need to be geared first up to te point where you have the option to drop a healer and then the dps can get in on the action. Dps is nice, but knowing your healers and tanks can get you to enrage and give you the chance to down the boss is pretty nice. As a boomkin i pass any piece a healer needs with spirit on it ( and some without e.g - chogal's mace ).

Dps who complain about not getting gear are usually the ones who flip out and cause guild problems when you kill the "hard" bosses and they dont get the piece they want. just in my experience btw, but bottom line you have to pick a system and stick to it. Dont change your mind when someone is bitching or crying, tell them why it went where it did and that the decision is final. Makes you feel like a prick every now and again but it works out in the long run when ppl just dont bitch because it wont do any good if they do.

[Robotron]

Always gear tanks first. Healers need priority on gear to a certain point. Once their stats reach acceptable levels (mainly an issue in the first tier of an expansion only), gear won't scale as well for them, so then you switch to tank > DPS > healers.

[killars]

Tanks > DPS > Healers

Healers are absolute last priority as gear plays a lot less of a factor in their role than it does for a tank / DPS. Healing is reaction, awareness, strategy and composition. DPS / Tanks cannot do more damage or take less damage over what their gear allows them to. Mathematically it's impossible to output more than you are capable of. Healers vary in potential depending on the above attributes I've listed. Fights end faster when your DPS is better and therefore you have less chances of going OOM. DPS should take as little damage as possible to control the damage they are taking. Healers should learn how to properly heal effectively and not pad meters and over heal. Learn the fight and heal accordingly, you are not supposed to just tunnel HP bars and top people up ASAP with mana inefficient spells if there is no immediate danger.

The next time you wipe to a boss think "If my healers had 2000 more mana and 3% more healing would we have wiped?" or "If our DPS did 3% more damage would we have wiped?". I'm being a bit crude, but all this is backed up by how a lot of other top end guilds do loot.

[Sanji]

Tanks > DPS > Healers

Healers are absolute last priority as gear plays a lot less of a factor in their role than it does for a tank / DPS. Healing is reaction, awareness, strategy and composition. DPS / Tanks cannot do more damage or take less damage over what their gear allows them to. Mathematically it's impossible to output more than you are capable of. Healers vary in potential depending on the above attributes I've listed. Fights end faster when your DPS is better and therefore you have less chances of going OOM. DPS should take as little damage as possible to control the damage they are taking. Healers should learn how to properly heal effectively and not pad meters and over heal. Learn the fight and heal accordingly, you are not supposed to just tunnel HP bars and top people up ASAP with mana inefficient spells if there is no immediate danger.

The next time you wipe to a boss think "If my healers had 2000 more mana and 3% more healing would we have wiped?" or "If our DPS did 3% more damage would we have wiped?". I'm being a bit crude, but all this is backed up by how a lot of other top end guilds do loot.

I guess this was the sort of statement i was waiting for. I couldn´t agree more to this point

[Maruka]

Tanks > DPS > Healers

Healers are absolute last priority as gear plays a lot less of a factor in their role than it does for a tank / DPS. Healing is reaction, awareness, strategy and composition. DPS / Tanks cannot do more damage or take less damage over what their gear allows them to. Mathematically it's impossible to output more than you are capable of. Healers vary in potential depending on the above attributes I've listed. Fights end faster when your DPS is better and therefore you have less chances of going OOM. DPS should take as little damage as possible to control the damage they are taking. Healers should learn how to properly heal effectively and not pad meters and over heal. Learn the fight and heal accordingly, you are not supposed to just tunnel HP bars and top people up ASAP with mana inefficient spells if there is no immediate danger.

The next time you wipe to a boss think "If my healers had 2000 more mana and 3% more healing would we have wiped?" or "If our DPS did 3% more damage would we have wiped?". I'm being a bit crude, but all this is backed up by how a lot of other top end guilds do loot.

This is how it should be always. DPS gearing is so vastly underrated in most average guilds.

[givemefive]

Everything you listed about DPS not outputting more than they can be mathematically projected to output can also be applied to healers.

Same goes with DPS having reaction, awareness, strategy, and composition.

Healers can learn to heal more efficiently just as DPS can learn how to move less while taking less damage in order to DPS more.

So now where are we at? ...still haven't answered the question.

Granted there is more to assignments in healing than DPS and that can have a major role but the fight lasting 15 seconds more or your healers having 15s left in mana to cast spells its kind of a toss up.

Look at Nefarian. Your healers must have enough gear to top up the raid using mana efficient spells before your DPS push the next aoe phase.

At what point do your healers have enough Spellpower and Regen where you can do with 1 less healer? That's quite a bit more significant than just a couple hundred dps on each dps.

Luckily there is spirit gear for healers and everything else for DPS. Blizzard kind of made up their mind for you in regards to loot distribution. Hell, holy paladins don't even need tier, warlocks have shitty bonuses, and probably other classes too

[Zheryn]

You won't kill a boss with crappy geared healers and tank and good geared DPSers, altho you can kill it with good geared healers and tanks but crappy geared DPSers.

Early in the progression I feel like tanks and healers should have more prio to make you able to actually survive through different fights to see what they are about even if you later on wipe because of enrage timer. Once you've cleared some bosses I think it should be pretty equal, giving tokens to people with good set bonuses etc. Late in progression it's all up to the fights/the reasons you wipe.

If there are fights with tight enrage timer that you have trouble beating, prio DPSers.
If there are fights with heavy damage that you will kill if you "just survive" the different abilities, prio healers and tanks.

[Christan]

Yes, 1-2tanks that have better gear will take less damage, but16-18 or 5-7dps who have better gear will kill the boss faster which translates to less single-target damage to the tank and less raid-wide damage to everyone.

there you go, it is much faster to down a boss getting 1-2 tanks geared, than THAT many dps.
(the 5 implies 2 tanks and 3 healers... yeah gogo progression fights where everyone is learning extra heals do help.)

[sicness]

Yes, tanks that have better gear will take less damage, but dps who have better gear will kill the boss faster which translates to less single-target damage to the tank and less raid-wide damage to everyone.

Tanks take static damage, something that can't be decreased really outside of chaining cool downs. Dps and healing however can easily increase with experience in encounters, which typically is more of a dps increase than the one item you'll end up giving a dps over a tank. To add, with less tank damage you also get less healing necessary and possibly an extra dps spot over a healer. There's a reason why top guilds continue to gear out tanks first because it's not only the most efficient way to give away your gear it's also much faster to gear up 2-3 tanks than gearing up 15 dps. You can always pull that little extra out of a dps or healer to down a fight, you can't expect that with a tank.

[Deleted]

The main tank is typically 1/10 or 1/25 of your raid-group.

Having his or her stats increase by 15% within two weeks will have a larger impact on your performance and ability to kill bosses than improving each of your DPSers output by 1%.

With healers it's a little less clear-cut. I find that healer gear and DPS gear improvements contribute roughly equally towards progression. Healing is a job you need to do "as well as necessary" while DPS is a job that has no performance cap.

However, Tank gear rarely competes with DPS gear so the competition is minimal. So in practice, this is really a non-issue.