You know, I had a whole string of posts planned for today, but I got completely distracted by something I think you readers might find interesting instead.
Let’s discuss offspec tank gear and who gets priority.
A Story From My Past
Gather round, children, as Anafielle spins you a tale. I’d like to tell a little story about my old guild (called Brand New Day, on Drenden) and our troubles with the very first fight in ICC …. Marrogar 25.
When Brand New Day hit Marrogar for the first time, we used a 3 tank strategy. A lot was going wrong, but a disproportionately large number of wipes were to tank death. The MT and I were fine. But our third tank was a DPS warrior in a pretty weak tank set, and the healers just couldn’t keep him alive.
Our very first Marrogar kill took two weeks and no less than eight battle rezzes. I’m not even kidding. We had eight druids in the raid, and every single battle rez got used on a tank.
No problem. He’ll gear up, right?
But our third tank was DPS main spec – in fact, he would have been our first Shadowmourne recipient – and therefore he was “offspec” for tank gear.
Let me tell you. It’s really painful to face a fight like that, struggle with it as progression, struggle specifically with tank death, and then watch some beautiful offspec tank gear go to a healer’s bank set through the vagaries of RNG.
From Marrogar forth, Brand New Day quietly put an unofficial loot priority system in place. Throughout my time there in ICC25, our “third tank” quietly got priority on offspec tank loot. Several officers made a big deal out of passing loot to him on vent until no one had the guts to roll against him. The MT and I would even pass him sidegrades and make comments on vent like, “He needs this more.”
Does this sound familiar to anyone?
Offspec Loot Priority: An Argument For It
When you only have two mainspec tanks, you’re going to occasionally run into a situation where your DPS offspecs will play a major role in your raid’s progression.
In an ideal world, offspec loot gets distributed evenly. Only people who will use their offspecs will bid on loot. But sometimes, that doesn’t happen. Sometimes you have to give someone priority. It really just depends on how many of your raiders are polite enough to distinguish between Druid #11′s fourth set and your raid’s desperate third progression tank.
It may not be entirely fair, but it’s true. If your progression is dependent on someone’s offspec gear, you have a vested interest in making sure that offspec gets geared up.
Offspec Loot Priority: An Argument Against It.
Loot priority is entirely reasonable when it affects your progression. But in my opinion, this is the only time when it should occur. Even if someone is tanking that week – even if someone ends up tanking a whole lot of the time – even if someone is a totally excellent person who I like, and who I enjoy tanking with – my personal opinion is that they shouldn’t get priority over other, raid-capable offspec tanks.
I’m complaining, in a really circular way, about a very minor loot issue last night. Since I’m a super pro Bitcher and Moaner, I decided to hop up on my soapbox – well, alright, I decided to take over Rhidach’s soapbox – and write a big long post about it. Even though it was probably a very minor error or a reasonable part of the loot rules that I just didn’t know.
Anyways. It begs an interesting question!
How many guilds have done the same thing? Prioritized someone’s offspec tank set in some kind of official or unofficial way?
Opinion of the Reader
Am I crazy for thinking this is reasonable sometimes? Am I crazy for thinking this is unreasonable sometimes?
How about you?
Do you have enough mainspec tanks that all tank positions are filled by mainspec tanks, or do your DPS end up tanking a fair bit in raids? Have you ever given certain offspec tanks in your raid priority on loot?
Let’s hear it!
