Ditching EPGP for Loot Council

Crimson’s nearing a giant roadblock called Heroic Spine of Deathwing. It’s one of the most DPS-intensive, class-restrictive, optimization-focused fights ever put in the game. And I’m having doubts EPGP– our loot system- is going to let us defeat it.

I know what you’re probably thinking. “Why would you totally alter your loot system for one fight?!” Or maybe “That’s crazy, EPGP/works great for our guild and we progress fine!”

What’s So Scary?

But Heroic Spine of Deathwing is a different beast. In its current un-nerfed state, your only chance of downing this fight is out-gearing the damage check. Otherwise you’ll die from too much damage that stacks higher as the fight progresses. And what makes this fight different than any other is the fact the only thing between you and victory are these tiny little tendons that get exposed once every 2 minutes for a scant 20 seconds.

Now if you’re thinking like a DPSer, you know 20 seconds lasts about as long as APB. It’s certainly not enough time to gradually ramp up DPS. And these tendons are beast. And if you can’t meet the 2-burns-per-backplate pace, your raid’s dead.

Fairness and Kindness Don’t Kill Bosses

So what’s this got to do with EPGP (an otherwise fair and reasonable loot system)? There’s obvious class bias on this fight, and raid gearing inefficiencies are made glaringly apparent on H Spine.

Suddenly, passing around gear “fairly” and “equally” doesn’t apply. You’re bringing in all your Rogues, Rogue alts, Arcane Mages, Mage alts, and you’re benching a good 20% of your raid team to even make this fight feasible. All that awesome lewt and player skill benched? It’s suddenly moot.

EPGP would allow people to win loot who simply won’t be there next week on H Spine. Now, from their perspective they’ve earned the gear. But from a raid perspective, it’s holding us back from achieving a kill. What matters more here- players getting their due, or the raid getting a kill?

With enough time, H Spine will die even if we alter nothing. Enough weeks of gear drops, enough attempts to practice, enough epic gems slotted, the impending 5% nerfbat… it’ll all put us closer to that kill. But as we sacrifice nothing, other guilds vault above us and gain higher standings. Recruitment declines as rank declines. Players quit (primarily the bench team, if H Ragnaros was any indication) as we’re stuck on one boss. Being fair would make us take an arrow to the knee.

Suddenly, the EPGP is Now DIAMONDS

I proposed today that we temporarily suspend EPGP in favor of Loot Council for the upcoming weeks to overcome this raid wall. I have no idea who’ll support or decline the idea, but it’ll get discussed in due time. The benefit of Loot Council is making sure the classes who a) will be present b) will perform highest and c) aren’t ‘wasting’ stats get the gear ahead of others. H Spine was practically designed for guilds who employ Loot Council.

One example a fellow raider used was “Why would we give [Tier] gear to healers now if they’re capable of meeting the healing requirements? The gear is better sent to DPS. If the healers can keep us alive, then we need to redirect the gear.” And this is something EPGP can’t control or account for. But Loot Council can.

The Times, They’re A-Changin’

Crimson really went through a radical shift these past 2 patches. We went from moderate to competitive progression without vastly increasing our hours, losing our personality, or gutting our raid team.

But altered guild philosophies call for altered gearing strategies. If we’re keen to keep our pace, this is something we’ll have to fix.

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