Breakfast Topic: Murphy's Alt Law
by Zach Yonzon 
Feb 28th 2009 at 8:00AM
The other day while doing her usual mystic rituals at the Auction House, my wife who was on her recently-turned-80 Priest saw an LFG for 25-man Archavon. She decides to hop onto her Warlock, who still needed the Valorous version of her gloves, and proceeds to do the raid. When the group fells Archavon some minutes later, surprise surprise -- the big lug drops the Valorous Leggings of Faith and the Valorous Robes of Faith. The painful irony is that there wasn't even a Priest in the raid. Head against keyboard, she couldn't help but think "if only I had brought my Priest..." but I've got a feeling that if she did, the Valorous Plagueheart Gloves would've dropped. It's kind of Murphy's Alt Law. Whatever loot drops will be what you alt needs.It's something that everyone who has an alt has experienced. Last week while doing Malygos, one of our officers hopped onto his Mage to give the raid some more DPS since his Paladin tank wasn't needed for the fight. Sure enough, Alexstraza's Gift opened up containing the Barricade of Eternity, which his alt needed. Have you guys ever experienced this? Running on your tank only to see the drop, which would have been better suited for your caster, get disenchanted or rolled off for greed? The kind of situations where you wish everything was Binds-to-Account, instead. If only you could pay off the RNG...
Filed under: Items, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Justin Feb 28th 2009 8:17AM
First from Australia lawl
A situation described as experienced by everyone with alts. I too have a main mage and a pally alt, and saw some great pally gear DE'd as I was on my mage in our 25 man naxx run last night.
A1CYancy Feb 28th 2009 8:42AM
Why isn't anything written into the game to prevent BOP drops for classes that aren't even in the game?
Aykwa Feb 28th 2009 1:45PM
Yeah, with so many people having 2 or more characters, I would love to see a new class of binding called Account-Bound BOE. That way you can still only use it for one toon (instead of passing it around between your multiple toons), but that way we don't get so frustrated by the RNG. Other day ran Naxx, normally I bring my resto druid, but needed my warlock for DPS in this case. There were 4 or 5 pieces of resto druid gear that dropped, 3 of which would have been upgrades, which nobody else wanted. What a waste, and how frustrating not only for me but for everyone else who saw epics wasted and/or sharded when they knew they had asked me to switch to another toon for the benefit of the raid. =(
Sentient Mar 1st 2009 2:15AM
Small point here but think about what would happen to the high end enchanting market if only epics that people needed were dropped. There'd be an Abyss Crystal drought and nothing you could do about it save DE'ing something someone actually needed.
max_bmw Mar 1st 2009 3:23PM
Its called Waaahhh! We have an officer in the guild I'm in with three alts who cries (this is a grown man btw) every time any piece of loot drops that any of his alts could have ever possibly equipped. It got to the point this week that we lost our guilds top healer because she was finally fed up with listening to him be a whiny little bee-otch.
This is why I always tell people, do not stop running your main for any reason until it is geared to your liking.
If you are not running your main, that is the choice you made, and possibly seeing that one piece that your main needs drop is the consequence. If you can't handle that, perhaps Hello Kitty Island Adventure would be a better game for you. Otherwise - grow up, man up and stfu.
Andrew Feb 28th 2009 8:18AM
I have a similar case of luck, although slightly more favorable for me. No matter whether I play my tankadin or my resto druid, naxxramas reeeally wants to drop resto druid loot, and since this has been the case for some time, there ' s no real competition for the tier tokens, either.
So after two weeks' time raiding, my tree is nearly better geared than my months-of-effort main! Such is RNG.
Evi Feb 28th 2009 8:21AM
I've experienced it plenty of times. As you say, there seems to be some kind of law or rule. I only have one 80 right now, partially because I don't miss this kind of thing. I hate being asked to bring an alt for the good of the team, only to miss out on gear I need for my main. So frustrating! I decided with WotLK that I would focus exclusively on my main for quite some time before fiddling with alts.
Outlier Feb 28th 2009 8:25AM
In BC< i had 4 lvl 70s. Not only did the drop for another alt thing happen, but I was never ever abl to get epic flight on a single character as I paid for professions and normal flight forms. When WOTLK launched, i decided to stick with my pally and her ALONE, now I have close to full ilvl 213 gear, an Albino drake and a Mechano-Hog. Specialization on one char rules!
Batleth Feb 28th 2009 8:34AM
Yeah, the same stories of horror and frustration above, I've witnessed as well. Back in the day, when everyone was trying to kill the Prince in Karazhan, I had two level 70s...my main Tank and my mage. Nearly everytime I tanked him, the Mindblade dropped. If I added DPS to the fight with the mage...the T4 helm dropped. FUN TIMES let me tell ya!
Viper007Bond Feb 28th 2009 8:36AM
On one hand you just remember it more 'cause you're going "D'oh!", but on the other hand it really does seem like everything you need always drops while you're on the wrong toon. Sucks. A lot.
Neirin Feb 28th 2009 8:56AM
Just yesterday almost the exact same thing happened to a friend of mine. Except he decided to go on a priest instead of a lock. The Valorous chest and Deadly Glad gloves dropped and no one could use them. At least the Tier gear is disenchantable.
One of our guild officers also had this happen to him. He brought his rogue to Malygos instead of his shaman because we had enough healers and 2 pieces of mail caster gear dropped. He was speechless for a good 5 minutes after that.
Tumleren Feb 28th 2009 9:05AM
Experience with this? You bet your ass I have
Every time I've geared up for another spec for my Paladin, all the gear i needed for the last spec (e.g. Holy) started dropping for me:
I'm holy - I go through Kara and ZA - All the protection stuff drops. Not a lot of great drops for me as Holy.
I respec protection, gear up (got some gear when tanks didn't need, but mostly had to start from scratch) - I go through Kara and ZA, even a little bit of TK. All the Holy stuff i needed drops. Only a few drops i really need for protection.
I gear up to Retribution from scratch, get myself into raiding again, and wouldn't you know it - All the good Protection stuff i needed starts dropping. Finally this time, I get some nice Ret drops.
But oh god how I hate the RNG
Maycer Feb 28th 2009 9:10AM
While I haven't had that experience, I've had the experience of being extremely blessed in the world of off gear. More resto shaman gear than I could imagine... sheesh. So not only do I have a set of dps gear, but I have a nearly-full-epic set of resto gear as well!.. If only I enjoyed healing. : \
(and if anyone's wondering, my guild at the time was very priest/druid heal heavy, no paladin/shamans who could get use out of any of it.)
Scalin Feb 28th 2009 9:12AM
I only have one 80, but back in BC I had a couple 70's. Kara was complete crap for me. Whenever I'd bring my warrior in to tank, hunter gears galore. When I brought in the hunter, every single boss would drop a tanking piece I needed. I got a King's Defender my last run through there with my warrior, but was DW'ing them on my hunter (with double crusader, of course), just because I could.
Za Feb 28th 2009 4:43PM
That's why my main is a druid. My next highest-lvl alt is my old main who's still 70, sitting at Valgarde or something.
No headbashing here, just off-spec rolling.
Chukie Feb 28th 2009 9:17AM
And this is why I don't raid on alts the heartache can just simply be too much...
Its bad enough to watch patchwerks shield and last laugh go to a different paladin in my raid in the same week I would hate to be on a lock when they dropped.
Urza Feb 28th 2009 9:33AM
I happens.
Celeane Feb 28th 2009 9:44AM
I'm planning for my 78 priest to be my new main, but the other night I was helping out in Naxx on my rogue and Je'Tze's Bell drops. We allow people to Need on BoE items if they're an upgrade, so of course I didn't get it. I guess that's not as bad as watching a BoP get sharded, but it was still a Doh! moment.
FFTARoxorz05 Feb 28th 2009 9:50AM
Actually it hasn't all that often, though most drops end up being hunter or ele shaman drops regardless of the raid's composition.
dave Feb 28th 2009 9:56AM
In before "this isn't news."