something makes me think that this will be implemented in all lfg

Blizzard stance on LFG items is very loose. They want players to be able to reason and decide on their own, and you can run heroics all day if you want.

When it comes to LFR, though, I assume they have to put this in place because of the lack of a master looter system or similar, and you can only down each boss once per week for loot.

I'll be happy if this goes in for everything so that when I'm getting gear for my healer or tank role I can keep it away from the grubby fingers of the enchanter without stepping on the toes of the folks who are actually healing or tanking.

I see one situation where this a problem. Feral & Boomkins both flagged as DPS. A piece of Agi gear is flagged as dps & probably tank. Who gets it in that situation if they all need? Seems like they should all get the bonus if it's just based on what role you queued as & not stats/spec.

Its still useless, there will still be feral druids able to need on caster dps loot while being a cat. The system needs to check talent specs not just roles.

I just wish it would actually look at SPEC. I'm sick of cat druids coming in with no Thick Hide and trying to tank in my heroic dungeons for a quick queue. DKs do this occasionally but it's more obvious now since their only tanking spec is Blood. People see a Feral druid and just assume he's a squishy tank -- not that he's a cat. :|

@Chrisvanren
They state that at least for now it doesn't read spec, but I'm fairly sure that they'll still be working that out as we get closer to 4.3 release. If by spec is not in place by 4.3 it'll probably be soon(tm) after.

Spec will be read indirectly, as the Need option is only available to appropriate gear/class matchups. Just as they are now. So that should help, though it's certainly no substitute.

@Bellajtok

As it stands right now Boomkins can need roll on any piece of leather no matter the stats. I still see there being a problem. They'll have to implement spec/stat match checking for this to work imo.

It might be wishful thinking on my part, but:

"""We are considering expanding this system to apply to the new 4.3 dungeons as well, though it is unlikely that we'll see the system apply to older dungeons or raids for now."""

It seems to me like the plan is to do this also for LFD, for all dungeons released from now onwards.

"""Please keep in mind that, at least for now, this system will only look at class role, and not player spec."""

I would like to think that this means that eventually Blizzard plans to look at specs. Not sure why they don't do this right now, though - the only potentially problematic spec is Feral Druids, out of all 30 specs in the game; all other specs have a well defined role.

I still prefer GW2's method for rewarding the "raid" fights (individual loot plus per-event rewards that can be used to purchase loot that would drop at the event), or even TOR's method for the easy difficulty "raids" (per player loot container).

At the very least, Blizzard should make items won through a "need" roll unsaleable and non-disenchanteable, besides being soulbound as of now. Make it so items won through a "need" roll are only useful for actually equipping, so players that already have better gear would be better served by not rolling "need" at all, as the item would be completely useless for them.

@Outdatedkero "Useless"? Not at all. Still some issues left unresolved? Sure. If they can't yet make everybody happy, a step in the right direction that resolves 80% (obviously pretend stats) of the problem still seems like a no-brainer, and calling it useless is ridiculous. Glad you're not on the board of decision makers at Blizz or nothing would probably ever get implemented.

I too wish this rule applied for ALL LFG instances. I hate loosing a great piece of tanking gear to a DPS because they can hit the Need button and do so...

How would Feral Tanks work though? My Bear likes the same gear as the DPS, am I automatically going to loose the roll because I have my role set to "Tank" (All other tanks are Plate and want Dodge/Parry, Bears want Leather Agility gear - much the same as a Rogue or Fearal DPS)? Will this only work against Tank/Healer gear and it is a free for all with regards to the DPS based gear?

This must be what the new client string refers to:

LOOT_ROLL_ROLLED_NEED_ROLE_BONUS = "Need Roll - %d for %s by %s + Role Bonus";