Raid Looting Method Analysis
Nothing seems to cause drama quite like looting disagreements. While most looting decisions are usually pretty clear cut, all it takes is one bad decision to upset someone. While it’s difficult to please everyone, there are a few ways to keep loot distribution as fair as possible. Here’s a brief analysis of all the possible looting methods you can use for your raid team:
Group Loot: This is probably the worst of all the methods. You can let people roll Need/Greed on the honor system, but this is probably best saved for 5 man dungeons.
Loot Council: This is the system we currently use in our guild. Officers will look at everyone’s gear who is rolling, and determine who should get the loot. Most of the time it’s pretty clear cut, but sometimes it’s difficult to hand out an item without someone getting upset. Subjectivity plays a large role in loot council. Many factors must be taken into account such as how much time each member has contributed to raiding, how good their current items are, and if healers & tanks should get priority.
DKP: Taken from the term “Dragon Kill Points” this is a system used by many hardcore raiding guilds. You earn DKP by participating in raids, and use the points to bid on items that drop. It’s a fairly complicated system for a casual raiding guild to use, but more serious guilds swear by it.
Loot Ladder: With a loot ladder, if you win an item, you move to the bottom of the “ladder”. This gives people priority to win loot if they haven’t won any in awhile. The problem with this system is that it does not take into account the amount of time each member has contributed to the raid, and does not take into account how big the gear upgrade will be. Nonetheless it’s a fairly balanced, and rather simple system to use.
Which loot system is the best for your raiding guild? If you’re a hardcore raiding guild, DKP is probably the only way to go. If you’re a more casual guild, Loot Council or Loot Ladder are probably more feasible. If you’re a dedicated 10-man team, Group Loot might get the job done just fine.
Just remember: You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time. But you can’t please ‘em all every time.