I’ll give you the full story, starting with some background information, and a list of people involved. There are a few key players in this whole thing: Myself, a RL friend of mine (L), the guild leader (GL), the raid leader (RL), and two officers: (B, and K). Up until BWL was released, the loot rules were always 1 MS item, 1 OS item, with resets at Domo, and who the item went to was based on a roll. After the first day of BWL, the guild leaders made the decision to switch to a loot council.
So I guess it all starts on BWL day 1. It went smooth. Downed a boss, rolled on loot, everyone’s happy. On our second raid for BWL, we downed some more bosses, and loot was distributed via loot council. At this point, we had all been instructed to send a loot list to the RL that included what items we needed. The first week of BWL went well as far as loot is concerned, mostly because we got some icky drops. After night 2 of BWL, we decided to do an Onyxia run for those who weren’t saved. Myself and another resto Druid (K) were in the raid. K whispered me that he needed the T2 helm, and that one of us could do Onyxia the next day if that was cool. I told him I was unable to raid the next night and he said “that’s cool I’ll go tomorrow” and left. Well, the RL whispered me asking if I’d be cool with reserving the Druid t2 for K. I said fine, but it didn’t drop.
Fast forward to next week’s BWL. I was benched. No biggie. My friend L was not, and his T2 belt dropped, which he had included on his list. The guild asked if anyone needed it from their list. L said he had it on his, and was ignored. They proceeded to send the loot to their friend, another mage, who was still in greens and down towards the bottom of the meters, saying he needed it the most. Obviously L was not happy about this. Moving forward to last night, we ran Onyxia again. Lo and behold, myself and K are once again the only resto druids. No mention was made of reserving the Druid t2 helm this time. In fact, the only item that we reserved was the Onyxia head. Everything else was to be rolled on. People even asked if we were going to use loot council on anything, to which the reply from B, who was in charge of the raid and ML, was “we are only using loot council for BWL and Rag.” Well, the T2 Druid helm dropped. B linked it in chat and said “ROLL.” I rolled an 82. I was happy, but you could hear the disappointment in discord everyone expressed their displeasure with a fellow guild member rolling a high number on an item that was a huge upgrade. Then they gave the item for K, who hadn’t even rolled.
When I asked why we suddenly changed the rules for one specific item, I was told “you were told we were reserving it for K last week.” I explained that yes, I was cool with that for last week’s run, but I probably would’ve chosen a different ony night if I had known that I wasn’t able to roll on the item (plus, they literally told everyone that needed it to roll on it, and that no items from Ony would be subject to loot council). Throughout the entire thing, the GL and RL were present and said NOTHING. When I asked about it, they pulled me into a private channel and basically told me I was being selfish about it and that it’s “only Ony loot.” One of the officers proceeded to tell me that I’m “just some guy in the raid.” as well.
Why am I posting this? Two reasons. To serve as a warning to anyone considering joining this guild first and foremost. The other reason is because I submitted a ticket, and while the GM agreed that this was a clear cut case of ninja looting, they also told me there is nothing they can do about it and the best thing I could do is bring it to the attention of the WoW Classic community.
Here’s the kicker: I had already agreed to pass on the helm before. All they had to do was ask. But even when I won the roll, I never got so much as a whisper saying “hey we didn’t mean to tell you to roll on that” or anything. They just disregarded my roll (and their stated loot rules) as soon as it became apparent that one of their officers may not get the loot they wanted.
So, there you have it. Another case of a guild using loot council to gear up their inner circle while screwing their members. The cherry on top of it all is that in both cases, both L and I outperformed the people who were given the loot… by a lot.
TLDR: Don’t join FEAR unless you like getting gear ninja’d.