Offspec Tank Loot Priorities
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!
Armory Feed
Interesting, but what you say makes a lot of sense! My guild is oddly fortunate when it comes to our tanks. Each of 4-5 tanks except one also has an equally well-geared DPS or Healer spec or class, or sometimes both. And we only run 10 mans! So we’ve been lucky in that we never really have a tank shortage.
Also, being a smaller 10-man guild that is 95% RL friends, there usually isn’t even rolling loot, we just determine who could use it most and give it to that person. Lucky again there I guess.
Rades’s last blog ..Downing the Lich King- Money is no object!
@Orthien
12 August 2010 at 7:45 pm #
I think those people who are willing to fill that sometimes needed 3rd tank or 6th healer etc and do so regularly should indeed get priority. After all you are there to raid and that players sometimes used tank set is far more important to your progression that random DPS number 8′s tank set that gets used for faster Heroic ques.
Once the content is on farm and those players have decent gear sets then it should go back to even share to those who want it.
Ofcause and decent raider should offer to pass on that gear anyway knowing that tank #3 will get more use out of it.
Orthien’s last blog ..Podcast Recomendations
Edge runs loot council. General priority of upgrades goes: Mainspec Upgrade > Raiding Offspec > Mainspec Rotblock > Other offspecs.
Terminology:
Raiding offspec is for people who maintain that spec in a raid-ready state, and who are capable of playing it at a level that we use it and consider it raid-capable in progression fights.
Mainspec Rotblock is for sidegrades or “minor upgrade later after I get these other two pieces of gear”.
We only run 3 mainspec tanks, so especially in 10-mans, where we’ll run 2-3 progression 10s early in content, it’s important to have strongly developed tanking offspecs in the melee group, and strongly developed healing offspecs in the caster group. We tend to take loot priority questions pretty seriously, and the general goal with ANY piece of loot is to put it in the place that best helps the raid succeed. Generally speaking this means that “I want to learn to tank” or “I’m bad at tanking” offspecs don’t get the tank loot early.
We don’t tend to have very much drama about loot. I don’t know if that’s a success of the system, or the culture, but we always try and push a “raid first” mentality.
@Anafielle
12 August 2010 at 11:08 pm #
I forgot about Loot Council. Of course it would bypass this concern.
How interesting that you should mention that your 10s affect how 25 man offspec loot gets handed out. Of course, you run at a level of progression that basically requires 10 man farming for BIS gear and hard modes experience. And hybrids with effective raiding offspecs are vital – just incredibly vital – to having multiple fuctioning 10 man raids. So you think about 10s with regard to loot. How interesting…
From your description, it looks like you prioritize raiding offspecs over even mainspec sidegrades or “later”-grades. That seems damn sensible.
As for drama, and what succeeds and what doesn’t….
My vote is a success of culture. I believe everything from Loot Council to DKP could fail when people bring a me-first attitude, and even the simplest loot system will succeed when everyone brings a raid-first attitude.
You guys just appear have a raid-first mentality built into the loot system in more depth & detail than most.
Meloree pretty much nailed it. We also use loot council and prioritize loot based on what will make the raid stronger. Two main spec tanks, one 25 man os tank/dps, three off spec 10 man tanks.
Right now our bigger challenge getting healers strong dps off specs and figuring out who is challenged by gear and who just really needs to stay a healer!
Lark’s last blog ..Raid Bitch Ramblings
“Gather round, children, as Anafielle spins you a tale.”
Yeah, I liked that.
On topic now; I believe that the best loot system is (and will always be) loot council. Every other structured loot system that depends on rules are flawed (as seen above, or worse).
You do have a problem, however, when a loot council is being directed by your typical immature asshole who keeps his decisions secret and ends up promoting drama.
You where probably doing yourselves a disservice with not having a 3rd mainspec tank. But yes we have a prioritized person for offspec tanking gear. Our 25 man raid leader mostly tanks the 10 mans and is our fill in if one of the first 3 does not make it. Offspec offically is prioritised for those who wil use it in raid. The rest of us just take it before DE. I dps’ed for 1 hard mode fight in Uldaar. Everything else heals.
This is pretty much what we do also. And it works well because two of our tanks have melee dps offspecs, one has a moonkin offspec, and one has a healin offspec so they arent’ always after the same gear. Plus it gives us a bit more flexibility on the fights that only need 2 tanks.
Argh sorry, meant to reply to post underneath this one.
We have a tank team of 5 tanks. That is their main spec. Regardless of who is tanking, they all have the first option to use EP on gear.
If they are not tanking, they are DPSing. Therefore they have first rights to DPS gear if no DPS main wants it.
Works for us.
We actually had this exact problem in E.S. for some time a long while ago before Rhidach or myself were in charge.
Before the days of DKP the old GM had no problem with people deciding what they wanted their main spec to be even if they didn’t raid in that spec and decide on a raid by raid basis. So if the healer really WANTED to be a tank he could and did roll on tank gear. So the actual tank was losing upgrades and thus hurting the raid overall so the healer could have a shiny set in the bank.
After I harassed him on a nightly basis I convinced him to go to DKP and let me run it (the first concession that lead to me becoming GM). It was great and I put the kibosh on people choosing their own main spec that differed from the actual role they played in the raid. We chose an off tank that would get loot priority on tank gear after the main tanks didn’t need it. It unfortunately lead him to want equal priority with the main tanks because he “wanted to be a tank” even though he DPSed 90% of the time. So his DPS set was never getting upgraded and when it came time for the progression fights he was DPSing in sub par gear with BiS tank gear in his bags that could really help the main tanks.
It was a lot of drama and stress but we eventually ended up where we are now and everything seems to be going well.
@AvengingWrathy
13 August 2010 at 12:59 pm #
We have many priority off spec players. We run three main tanks three dps with priority off spe tanks, and healers with priority dps off spec for certain classes who have important buffs. We have a dkp system which works fairly well, there will always be skeptics but it has served us well for a long time.
In addition to that, as some have mentioned around tank gear, we loot council all tank gear to main tanks to ensure our tanks are geared enough for progression.
@HanaMoonfire
13 August 2010 at 2:49 pm #
My guild only does 10-mans, but because we have such a small roster we exercise loot discretion a lot since we generally have a good idea of what everyone else is wearing.
The rogue will pass me sidegrades and minor upgrades for my bear spec and our holy pally will pass on tanking gear to our ret paladin so we’re well positioned having back-up tanks.
Hana’s last blog ..Vanilla Quest Chains To Do Before Cataclysm
We run two MTs who tank every fight, and two OTs who take turns stepping in for three tank fights or having both stepping in if a MT (on the rare occasion) is absent. They’re really both main spec dps who are good at tanking when they need to…not guys who are dying to MT but don’t have the spot. It works pretty well.
We use loot council though…so it’s a little more simple. When we put our name in the hat for an item we say whether it is main spec or side grade or off spec, and the officers consider what our last loot was, who it’s a biggest upgrade for, attendance, effort, etc. Mostly it’s about the last upgrade.
From a technical perspective, main spec wins over side grade wins over off spec. But our guild almost *never* has anyone play an off spec…except the two OTs. There’s a fight or two where we bring in an extra healer for a fight like Valithria, or we have a dps go heals for a night do to RNG attendance, but we run a tight roster, and generally do well.
I’d never thought about it before, but I would expect that the two declared OTs would win a tank set roll over the Ret Pally who has never tanked in a 25 man main run. It seems like common sense that anyone rolling for offspec would pass to someone who actively used the spec for progression versus setting up a spec they never use. I’d be stunned if anyone in our runs expected they would win a piece of tanking gear off spec before our two OTs.
You could make the same argument about the third healer in a ten man who switches in and out of dps/healing to suit the encounter. In order for progression to work, both specs have to be geared.
I am really fortunate in that I run with a group of adults. Mature people who want to see content, not have the highest gearscore. So when a tanking piece drops that the tanks have the warrior dps main would simply say to the dk dps main “I’m building a tank set, but you should have it because you tank more often”.
The gear is just non-consequential, whatever improves the group. Really, its all gonna be replaced soon anyway, so why get upset over it?
Like you said, watching offspec gear go to someone who would never feasibly use it in a raid is a stupid way of distributing loot. Our guild sees giving loot to people as gearing up the raid, not the individuals. Who cares if that person uses their tank set to get instant ques for their daily heroic?
We had a very similar situation. We had 2 solid tanks, and 2 iffy tanks. The 2 solid tanks showed up every night, the iffy tanks were suffering some RL issues when we were doing H 25 Putricide progression. So, one of our fury warriors was the 3rd/4th tank for our Put attempts, and any other fight where we needed him providing the other tanks bailed. He was also our 2nd shadowmourne. Lot of other people complained when they didn’t get offspec tank loot, as it got defaulted to him. Thing is, he was integral to the progression of the guild in the fact that he was changing to his offspec on a regular basis to fill a needed role, and he needed to be prepared to do so, because even one tank death in p3 25 H Put means a wipe.