Posts with tag loot

I'm going to have to humbly beg everyone for their forgiveness for my terrible title pun. Get it?! Okay, but seriously. We know we've got Phat Loot Friday and all that, but Kang's Bindstone is such a neat item that it deserves its own post. The Bindstone is an item that buffs you with a chance to turn an enemy to stone upon delivering a killing blow instead of triggering the normal death effect. Loot and such is unaffected - this is a purely cosmetic item. The buff lasts ten minutes and works against critters, mobs, enemy players, and even bosses.

Kang's Bindstone drops from Kang the Soul Thief, a rare mogu elite in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. He can be found in the far west of the zone, on Autumnshade Ridge north of the Five Sisters site on the map. He's a mogu sorcerer and does some nasty shadow-based attacks, but he should be soloable for a level 90 character. Happy hunting!

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I am a total WoW packrat. It's a little embarrassing. My void storage has been full for ages; stuffed with transmog gear, rare and epic archaeology items, and, in particular, old quest rewards or dungeon keys. Those last two, I realize, are kind of ridiculous to keep, but I worked so hard getting that Seal of Ascention! And completing the Scepter of the Shifting Sands is one of my most prized achievements in the game, don't you dare tell me to throw it, or any of the items I got along the way, in the trash!

"But you can't even use rings or necklaces in transmog!" my friends remind me. I know, I know, but guys, that's not the point! The point is... the point is... I just can't let go, okay?!

Are you a WoW packrat? What items do you hoard, beyond all logic or good reason? With bag and bank slots becoming ever more precious commodities, how do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of?

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While perusing Wowhead's blue tracker the other day I stumbled across this thread on the EU forums about the LFR loot system, its frustrations, and potential alternatives. Community manager Draztal is pretty active in the thread, which is nice to see -- there is plenty of back-and-forth and, despite player accusations of just parroting Blizzard policy, Draztal has a lot of good points to make about the nature of effort and reward.

The truth is that WoW has never consistently rewarded players for running dungeons or raids. I still get a little involuntary curl to my lip anytime I think about Burning Crusade-era heroics, particularly Magister's Terrace, and how often I ran them trying to get some piece of gear, and how often my groups wiped and nothing I needed dropped anyway (and all those useless PvP gems).

I agree it's frustrating to run LFR and only get gold, though I did have to sit down and think about why, in particular. After all, I killed Saurfang in Icecrown for probably upwards of three months before I finally got the Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff. During all that time it never occurred to me that my failure to receive loot was an indication that the entire system needed an overhaul. After a couple minutes ruminating, though, I think the answer is pretty obvious: loot is the only real reason to run LFR (with the exception of just experiencing content, for those who may not have the opportunity to raid otherwise).

I'm a fairly methodical player. I dodge entire swaths of the game (pet battles and holiday events, I'm looking at you) because I don't have time to get sucked into the inevitable completionism. But despite a fondness for checklists and planning, I'm dissatisfied in a system centered on buying gear with tokens, points, or other currency systems. I'm a fan of throwing my fates to the wind and diving into an instance to see what luck may bring me. I like not knowing if or when a particular piece might come my way, and I'm fully open to the possibility that it might not ever come at all. (Although I reserve the right to grouse about it. That's part of the fun.)

For me, this bit of RNG design is part of what keeps the parameters of a game world feeling larger than the sum of my ambitions. The envy of seeing someone in town stroll by wielding the massive two-handed staff that I've always admired, the unchecked line item on my gear list ... I like knowing that there exist parts of this world that I can't manhandle into submission. After all, my dream gear list wouldn't be very dreamy if it were merely a shopping list.

We do need alternatives. We need ways to fill in holes for things that never drop, and we need drops for players who prefer not to run dungeons and raid content. (I wish more of that were based on player-made items, frankly -- but that's another Breakfast Topic.) Most assuredly, we need a selection of rewards for players whose souls crave predictable, regular infusions of upgrade juju.

I appreciate WoW's current mix of methods, although for my own tastes, things have slid a little too far to the predictable side of the equation. Knowing what my upgrades will be and when I will get them feels dully inevitable. I'd welcome a little more reliance on the RNG, with the opportunity for a little more chaos surrounding any given drop (and therefore a little more passionate hope beforehand and a little more unbridled joy afterwards). As Matt Rossi puts it, "loot is the carrot; not getting loot is the stick."

Open country vs. mapped road -- where do you stand? Do you prefer plotting your path to purple glory with gear that lies reliably in your path, or do you wish there were a little more crazy RNG splashed into the mix? Should the mix of gear acquisition methods balance differently in different areas of the game, and if so, do you think the game already does so with success? And most importantly, how has the mix of predictable vs. unpredictable gear upgrades worked out for you?

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One of the more volatile announcements that we've heard so far from Blizzard regarding Mists of Pandaria is the fact that Mists will not include any more 5-man dungeons. In an expansion where new content seems to be rolling out on a much faster, tighter basis than any expansion prior this seems a little bizarre to players, particularly those that enjoy dungeon-based content. Yet one of the things Mists has been doing consistently throughout the expansion is delivering a wider array of things to do. In fact, there's such a variety in endgame content that players sometimes feel legitimately overwhelmed by the sheer amount of it.

But just because we aren't getting any new dungeons doesn't mean we aren't getting alternate ways to obtain all that sweet, sweet gear we know and love. Patch 5.3 will see the introduction of heroic scenarios, slightly tougher versions of the scenarios we've already seen this expansion. In addition to valor, the heroic scenarios will offer raid-finder level rewards for players that choose to participate in them -- better than any gear you'll find in a heroic dungeon at this point.

While this may seem pretty cool for some people, it does make one wonder -- what's the purpose of heroic dungeons?

The new Thunderforged loot designation -- much like the affix Raid Finder -- was introduced into Patch 5.2 for a number of reasons by Blizzard. While the affix does stay certain pieces from disenchantable execution on farm bosses, players largely regarded Thunderforged items as another attempt to help 25-man raiding guilds stay afloat. The developers didn't want to go back to late Wrath of the Lich King model of completely higher loot in 25mans, so instead Thunderforged items can drop in both sized raids. However, the drop rate in 25-mans would be higher than that of 10-mans.

"How frequent is more frequent?" players would ask, especially when given the chance to chat with the developers about patch 5.2. Ghostcrawler deflected the question on TotemSpot's interview, preferring to let players figure out the drop rates themselves.

Fortunately for us, WoWProgress has analyzed the loot drops using its database of characters, guilds, and bosses killed this first week of Patch 5.2. Looking at loot gains from Jin'rokh the Breaker, specifically:

• 11.7% of the 10-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged
• 25.7% of the 25-man loot equipped by characters was Thunderforged

Even figuring in disenchanted items, WoWProgress figures the drop rates to be approximately 10% for 10-man and 25% for 25-man. From personal anecdote, my 25-man raiding guild saw usually one but sometimes two Thunderforged drops per boss in addition to four to five regular mode drops. Tier pieces, of course, will never drop as Thunderforged.

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Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.

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The release of a new raid tier means new challenges to face, new bosses to crush, and of course, new loot to covet. If you weren't already familiar with it, Wowhead user Hhalle567 has a brilliant guide to the PvE gear of Mists of Pandaria, including tier 15 iLevel 522 drops. You can sort by slot, boss, class, and spec so that you know exactly what you're looking for -- and where to use a Mogu Rune of Fate.

Note that the guide doesn't yet seem to include all the loot from world bosses Oondasta and Nalak. Oondasta, at least, is known to drop items that are unobtainable in the Throne of Thunder itself. Until those bosses get added in, you can check out other Wowhead guides for the missing pieces. Hats off to Hhalle567 and Perculia for these great references!

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Therapsid Scale Gloves. With this one drop, Blizzard has found a way to get me to level my shaman again. This and much, much more have been found by the fine folks at Wowhead on the mighty Oondasta's loot table, much of which has similarly interesting names. There's the Overcompensating Chain of the Alpha Male, the Carnotaur Battlegloves, the Breastplate of the Iguanocolossus and more. There's also the Reins of the Cobalt Primordial Direhorn, for those of us who like riding in style.

If you know me, you know I love all things paleontological, but especially therapsids. I'm so excited that I would go camp Oondasta right now if I could. Well, okay, I would badger my guild to go camp him. So go over to Wowhead and check out the full list of Oondasta's goodies.

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Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.

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Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook.

Lately Blizzard has been moving toward making 25-man raids more rewarding again. They've already done so in Asia. Elsewhere, they are trying something new with Thunderforged items, which will drop more frequently in larger raids. Time will tell if this is enough to save 25s. In the meantime, some guilds, like the one in the email below, are thinking about making the leap from 10s.

Hello Scott!

Very long time reader - first time writer! I love this blog - you have given some really awesome advice, and now I'm looking for some myself, oh wise one!

I'm a GL of a 10 man raiding guild. I've seen guilds fall apart around me, and I've seen guilds hold strong through the past 6 months. I'm proud to say that my 2 year old guild is doing fantastic.

So, what's the problem? We're doing perhaps a little *too* well. We've been getting applicants without having been actively recruiting. We've brought in some great members. We rarely turn applicants away - if they seem like a great fit, we work with them to give them the opportunity to raid with us. We run two 10-man groups, but with new members coming in that want to raid, we're having to sit people.

Now there are rumblings and whispers about running 25s.

Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of the checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your realm.

We are still compiling our results edition, so if your letter was answered and you'd like to tell us what happened, please send an email to robin@wowinsider.com. In the meantime, let's talk about loot rules.

Dear Drama Mamas,

A few months ago I joined a guild so I could finally have some people to talk to (I tend to go alone for a long time until I see a guild that interests me) and to have the chance to raid. As I play a healer I was immediately accepted in the raid team and, although we're not even done with normal progress in the Mogu'shan Vaults, we've done relatively well. Some of the people in the guild are pretty nice and I like to be around and play with them, but there is one problem little that's been bothering me for a few weeks now: loot drama.

Our loot rules are simple: if you can use it for main spec, roll for it. Everyone seems to love that system, except for me. I prefer systems like EPGP or something similar because, in my opinion, when you're raiding with your guild you should be rewarded for commitment and not just luck (that opinion might or might not have something to do with my terrible luck... >.>).

Have you ever noticed that the bosses in the oldest dungeons drop much less gold now that they can be soloed? Blizzard Game Designer Watcher says the developers felt the gold drops were too high for the difficulty of the battles, so they nerfed the amount of gold you can loot in dungeons like Magtheridon.

In Mists of Pandaria, rather than retroactively nerfing legacy content, dungeon bosses will drop the same amount of gold per player, regardless of how many players defeat them. So if a boss drops 100g for 25 players, it will drop 20g for 5 players. This change is retroactive for all dungeons from previous content.

The full text of Watcher's clarifications as follows.

Watcher

In general, enemies in raids and dungeons drop significantly more gold than outdoor foes, specifically because we are assuming that the gold is going to be split 5, 10, or 25 ways. As player power rises over time, it obviously becomes possible to complete old content with significantly fewer players, such that the gold rewards become disproportionately high.

In the past, our only solution was to drastically reduce the gold dropped by legacy content across the board (e.g., Magtheridon, much of Karazhan, etc.). In Mists, we have a new system in place that normalizes gold yield based on the number of players involved in the kill. If a Black Temple enemy drops 100 gold today on live, and you kill it with a 25-player raid group in Mists, it'll also drop 100 gold and each player will get 4 gold. If you solo Black Temple, that enemy will also give you 4 gold. If you do it with 4 friends, it'll drop 20 gold and each of you will get 4.

In other words, the gold obtained from killing raid or dungeon creatures no longer depends upon how many people you bring, or do not bring, with you. This system does not apply to anything in the outdoor world.

source

Watcher

Quote:

If this is the case, will the original gold values of the bosses in Gruul's Lair, Magtheridon's Lair and Karazhan be restored so groups will once again get more gold from the boss than from a single trash mob?

Yes.

source

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It's open warfare between Alliance and Horde in Mists of Pandaria, World of Warcraft's next expansion. Jump into five new levels with new talents and class mechanics, try the new monk class, and create a pandaren character to ally with either Horde or Alliance. Look for expansion basics in our Mists FAQ, or dig into our spring press event coverage for more details!

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