I like the idea of guild bound materials.

I still don't like the idea of farming tons of shards. Shards frankly don't make any sense.

My idea is that there is a starter quest that any caster can do, and to complete that quest you need to kill a certain boss (on normal or heroic). Only one quest item will drop, however, similar to rotface/festergust bloods. That way, if you have 8 caster dps, you can prioritize your best caster, but it won't take 6 months for your 8th caster to get that starter quest item.

After that, the individual should have to grind for a primordial-saronite type material to make it uber expensive, possibly along with other crafting mats. Make that the beginning part of the staff, then require the player to obtain either power infusions or items to buff the staff, that would drop off of certain bosses. At this point, you can start making the drops 50% on normal and 100% on heroic.

The idea is that you need simply one item from each boss, as opposed to getting shards from the same boss over and over.