I hear it all the time in Trade chat and it makes me nauseous. It really does. I don’t know what it’s like on your server, but on Bloodhoof every half hour after school is out there is a debacle in trade chat about how so-and-so is a “ninja” and that you shouldn’t group with him because you will lose the gear you rightfully earned if you take him or her on an instance with you.
B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t. Hot, steaming b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t in fact.
I’m sorry. I know that last bit will have offended someone, but I just don’t care anymore. Just because you disagree with the Master Looter, doesn’t mean the person who got the loot is a ninja. I’m getting sick to death of Azeroth being turned into an episode of Hook where the children scream “Kill the lawyers!” every ten minutes for the sole purpose of their own entertainment. But before I go off on an adult-only server rant (which I’m sure I’ve done before), allow me to digress. The doctor told me to lower my blood pressure anyway.
Blizzard Customer Service – in their infinite wisdom, glory, and acute level of helpfulness – published a link today on their Twitter feed to a document outlining their stance on ninja looting. Being the sharp and astute individual I am, as soon as I saw the title, I wondered if they were going to branch into a tutorial of the mechanics of the looting system and lo and behold my prayer was answered!
In my usual level of dwarven helpfulness, allow me to summarize the key points.
- If you know how to use the tools that are provided to you in-game and take the time to utilize them properly, ninja looting will not happen.
- If you either don’t know how to use the tools, or you are connived by someone disreputable (something Blizzard claims hardly ever happens legitimately) Blizzard will help you re-provision the loot.
- If they find someone with a Wile E. Coyote level of deviousness behind a legitimate loot defrauding scheme, they will throw the book at them with the option available to temporarily suspend the player from the game. (Bear in mind, and this is very important, that even if you are the one who complains about another person’s conduct in-game, Blizzard Customer Service will never tell you what they did or how they penalized someone else. It’s one of their cardinal rules.)
So you wanna know how to use the loot system to it’s maximum potential. I bet some of you have never even looked at it before and always used the defaults. The good news is that the defaults will service 99% of the looting scenarios you’re bound (no pun intended) to find yourself in without problem. But for those times when you need to take the road less traveled by, let’s take a look at those other options.
For the sake of my helpful examples, we will assume that we are in a three-man group comprised of Rockhead (who is a warrior), Qqplz (who is a priest), and Backtickle (who is a rogue). (If the names might happen to be one character too long… deal with it.)
And, you guessed it, here comes another bulleted list. I love ‘em. I’m a point-form kinda dwarf.
- Group Loot – This is the default loot setting for World of Warcraft. In this scenario, each player gets a sequential turn to loot any creature or chest that they encounter as a group. Any item whose rarity exceeds the threshold will be rolled on, and the winner of the roll will take the item. (More on this later.) So to use our example, Rockhead would loot a corpse, then Qqplz, then Backtickle. Rinse and repeat.
- Need Before Greed – As complicated as this sounds, it’s really only a slight modification of the Group Loot system. In this scenario for example, our priest Qqplz would not be able to roll on a mail item that dropped. Why? Because he/she can’t wear them. In a Need Before Greed scenario you only be presented with a rolling box if you’re actually able to use the item. Makes sense doesn’t it? So even though we used an example let’s make another one. Rockhead loots the first body. Qqplz loots the second body but there is an Uncommon (green) item on it. The item is a shield. Qqplz can’t use shields. Neither can Backtickle. So the item goes to Rockhead. Then the cycle carries on in circular motion just as it did before with Backtickle getting the next loot.
- Round Robin – Contrary to popular belief this has nothing to do with a fat bird that eats worms on your front yard. Next to Free For All, this is probably the simplest loot system available. In our example, the loot would go Rockhead, Qqplz, Backtickle, rinse and repeat. There is no rolling in Round Robin. The loot goes to the person whose turn it is. No questions asked. I’ve never used Round Robin and I never want to.
- Master Looter – This is the method most often used in large raids, and I also (personally) call it squirrel mode. For two reasons. First of all because the master looter hoards all the loot (above the threshold) like a squirrel and is responsible for provisioning it to the group members, and second of all because anybody would take this job in a large raid has got to be nuts. Obviously the person who is selected for this task needs a lot of bag space depending on the instance or raid. So in our example, we shall assume that our three intrepid adventurers have agreed that Qqplz will be the master looter for the group. Qqplz would be the recipient of any item above the looting threshold. Round robin style looting would continue for money and vendor trash and everything else below the threshold. Yeah yeah, I’m getting to thresholds in a minute. Keep your pants on.
- Free For All – Free For All is total loot anarchy and in my not-so-humble opinion is best suited for farming expeditions with friends. It has few other practical uses. The person who loots the item gets the loot. Plain and simple.
So What’s A Threshold Anyway? The threshold is defined as the item quality at which you want to invoke a roll. By default it is set at “Uncommon” (which is commonly referred to as “a green item”). Meaning any time an item drops that is green or “higher”, it will go to a roll to the players in the group that are eligible to roll. There are very few practical reasons to ever change the threshold except maybe if you’re running Black Temple with a bunch of 80′s and you don’t care about the lower quality drops. That’s the only thing I can think of at the moment.
What About Quest Items? Regardless of common belief, quest items are completely excluded from loot rules. The honest truth is that most often when players “miss” quest items it’s because they didn’t see them on the corpse. When a mob hits the ground, the person whose turn it is to loot needs to loot the corpse first to gain “loot” items. After that is done, the corpse may begin to “glow” for other players to indicate that it contains quest items for them as well. For this reason, it’s very important for you to loot every corpse that is rightfully yours, especially if people are doing quests in your group. If you leave unlooted bodies behind, people can — and likely will — get deprived of quest items.
Pass On Loot Is Another Useful Option Many Players Don’t Use Or Know Exists. You can employ any of the options specified above and any character in the group can opt to pass on all loot. (They’ll still receive their portion of the cash though.) Let’s say Rockhead is level 80 (because we all know leveling warriors is brainless) and he wants to “help” his two friends Qqplz and Backtickle by “running them” through Stockades to get some gear. Fine and dandy. It ain’t the brightest thing in the world, but they’ve chosen to do it and that’s their decision. Rockhead can click on his own portrait and select “Pass On Loot” and toggle it to “On”. Now Rockhead will be excluded from the loot round robin, and will not be asked to roll on any items.
I hope this article has clarified a potentially muddy issue. And I should point out as well that all of these options are selectable from the portrait menu!
