Here is a quoted blue post preserved on wowhead from Blizzard explaining how the need/greed loot rules work:
Some highlights that might help:
First off, you can never Need for anything your class cannot wear. No warriors sniping cloth robes with a need roll and giving it away or trolling.
Players won’t be able to win multiples of the same item - say that 2 sets of Shoulders drop. While you can roll Need on both of them, winning one will ‘remove’ your roll from the other.
Additionally, players can’t Need on a piece of loot if they’re wearing the exact piece at the exact item level, though in the event where this occurs but the dropped piece has a Tertiary stat or Socket, that roll would be possible (as those are upgrades).
If you didn’t get a Need roll option on a piece of loot, it might have been a piece of gear meant for a different spec. If you try to click the grayed out dice icon to roll Need, some red error text usually appears in the middle of your screen to explain why you can’t roll. For example, a pretty nice looking mace dropped in an old mythic Sanctum of Domination raid I ran last night, but I was unable to roll Need on it because it was an agility or strength mace and I was on my healer and my spec uses intellect maces. I could technically HOLD it, but it wasn’t meant for my spec, so I could not Need on it. I could Greed or Transmog on it, though.
There’s nothing in there saying you can’t roll Need if you have a higher powered piece equipped.
I’m not saying there’s no possibility of bugs (hehe) BUT what I am saying is that there’s nothing against the rules (loot or otherwise) for people with higher powered pieces in various slots rolling Need on lower powered gear. That’s why people are doing it. They may have mythic level gear in all slots, but they are allowed to roll Need on a LFR piece because it’s not exactly the same. As long as they can equip it and they rolled for it on the appropriate spec it’s meant for, of course.
People do this because they want the lower version because it’s in a different color that they are trying to collect for transmog.
I think it is somewhat easy so long as there are some people in the group that outgear it and probably don’t belong there, but overall it seems like a lot of the fights are needlessly long and tedious, almost as if they’re designed to chew as much time as possible, as if multiple wipes and a few stacks of determination are the baseline if the group is full of the actual target audience.
To be fair though, i have done very little LFR in recent years, things could be very different these days.
Those technically aren’t “loopholes” those are ways that the newer item is potentially an actual upgrade. At least the first three. And it’s also possible that their current “same ilvl” item has secondary stats that are less ideal than the secondary stats on the item that dropped, which again, would make it an upgrade.
This has devolved to the “it’s a bigger upgrade than me so I should get it” cryfest that these things always turn into.
Blizzard refuses to give me appearances of lower difficulties even if I get the same sets on higher diffs. So I end up running LFR trying to finish them every week. People say there is a transmog roll but it’s literally redundant because I’ll never get gear if I click that
The folks that care about being elite have a unique color scheme only they can acquire
The folks that care about the transmog colors that actually look good are usually good enough to do the hard content and will also do the easy content for the transmogs
The above ensures that the folks that aren’t good both get carried by the good and that there’s enough people doing the queued content to keep it full and churning constantly
If they just went to a dye system folks would dye the color they want and simply stop the hampster wheel. This way they get repeat play without really having to design new content or rewards. It’s both lazy and profitable.
I want it for mogs. Yes my toons are over 480 ilvl and I am there mostly for mogs.
You see OP you are the type of person who made me when doing LFR use last season gear (roughy 440 ilvl) instead of using 480ilvl which will make it easier to kill the boss, more hp to survive and also by using lower ilvl gear I am making the healers work harder since fights take longer and might lead to a wipe.
I do it this way so I don’t have people like OP complain raid I am rolling need on something lower ilvl.
Also I help down the boss my roll is equally important as everyone else. Heck I don’t even need to have a reason to roll need. I can roll need and vendor it for gold and my reason for rolling need is just as important as something rolling need for gear.
Don’t like it then don’t do LFR
Hai so check out my character in raid all you like. All you will find is someone using least season gear. Now what you going to to do? Complain I roll need when I am using something that’s lower ilvl?
My individual intent or preferences isn’t going to make this issue go away.
Players are still going to feel robbed of loot when higher geared players come into LFR, hit need and take gear they don’t really need as an upgrade as a mog or gold.
This needs to be addressed by Blizzard, since the transmog roll appears to do nothing.
People have been rolling on things they didn’t necessarily need since forever. Transmog made it a bit worse in that regard though, but I still believe that it’s working well and as intended, at least for the most part.
Not at all, since that is an upgrade for that toon.
Look, I get what you’re saying. Overall, it’s a flawed system, but it’s the one Blizzard has provided. It’s a system that causes discontent in any case.
One thing I wish would happen at times is if all but one rolls Tmog on an item, and it is not an upgrade for the one that rolled need, it gets changed to pass and they get a debuff, call it greedy, that bars them from rolling on ANY loot for the rest of the week (PL like in M+ still works as normal)
For Tmog, if I want the LFR colors, I convert WQ gear to tier and possibly upgrade it to max (vet gear upgraded fully has the same look as champ/normal, champ gear upgraded fully has the same look as hero/heroic, etc).
I never roll need unless it is actually an upgrade or trinket for me, and on some things (read: cool looking int weapon when I am on a str or agil class that does not have on off spec that uses int or vice versa) I am locked into rolling for Tmog as I can’t use the stats on the drop.
I’d be all for a set up where the winner of the Tmog roll gets the mog but not the item if not all who roll for mog get the mog, win or lose. But anyone that games the system by being the only one rolling need when they are rolling just to get the mog needs to be denied both for being selfish.
Which is more selfish, everyone getting a fair shot at the loot due to everyone rolling the same or one seeing everyone roll for mog and gaming the system by rolling need when it is not an upgrade for them?
If it is an actuall upgrade for one, all well and good, but Tmog, gold, D/E mats, etc are never going to be a “need” in my book, due to a few factors:
Tmog: for tier, there is conversion and upgrading, and most raid gear shares looks with a tier set anyway, so barring weapons, why roll need when after the mog on it?
Gold: there are a lot of ways to make gold, selling loot from LFR/raid is going to be a drop in the bucket for most, not to mention clearing each wing provides like 200-300 gold the first time each week
Mats from D/E/for enchanting: I might be the odd one out here, but I have 2 enchanters that D/E WQ loot and get sent BoEs to D/E.
Really, the only thing I saw wrong with my idea is how hard it would be to program.