Loot deep dive: who is getting less loot and who is getting more

Community General Discussion
1

So it seems like an almost consensus in the forums that loot is horrible and that every player is getting way less loot than before. But is that really true? Lets look at the facts.

So here are the changes:

  1. 1/3 less loot at the end of timed keys
  2. 1/2 less loot at the end of untimed keys
  3. Item level from end of M+ lowered by 3
  4. 1/3 less loot from each raid boss
  5. No random loot from pvp
  6. Doing 3/7/10 raid bosses unlock 1/2/3 choices on the vault, where it previously didn’t do anything.
  7. Doing 1/4/10 dungeons unlock 1/2/3 choices on the vault, where it previously only dropped 1.
  8. Earning 1250/2500/6250 honor unlocks 1/2/3 choices on the vault, where it previously only dropped 1.
  9. Pvp now drops a currency that allows you to buy specific pieces. This currency has a cap that increases each week.
  10. PVP and M+ now share the same end of the week chest.
  11. Titanforging was removed.
  12. Highest vault reward in M+ now drops from a 14 instead of a 15

So who are the biggest winners?
Raiders that don’t full clear the highest tier in the raid and don’t do M+ now get up to 3 times more loot than before. If they for example do 3 mythic bosses, they will get 2 items from each boss and a massive 22 items from the third one averaging out in a bit less than 9 items per boss, divided by 20 players.

Even while doing a full clear they still get an average of 4 items per boss, with 3 choices in half of them, which is higher than before.

PVPers as a whole could also be considered the biggest winners because of how insanely better their loot system is. Even with all the anti synergies between modes, they still get out on top.

Also winning but not as much are M+ players that can’t kill more than 2 mythic bosses and do more than 4 dungeons each week. The extra choice they get in the vault massively reduces the chance of repeats which now makes it possible for them to get fully geared with 226s at the end of the patch, which was arguably impossible in previous expansions. This benefit however is only at the second half of patches since at the start, choices are way less relevant and because the transitional gear got nerfed in power and drop rate.

But who are the biggest losers?

Raiders that do full clears and do less than 3 M+ dungeons and don’t do PVP at the first half of the patch seem to be the biggest losers. Since M+ is extremely vault oriented and more than half of the gear from raids are on the vault they basically cancel each other out. So while they get more choices on the vault, which tends to be more relevant at the second half of the patch, they get less transitional gear and less loot overall.

M+ exclusive players that do less than 3 dungeons are also losing since they don’t have extra choices on the chest and they had their transitional gear nerfed. This is slightly mitigated by change from 15 to 14.

Raiders that don’t do full clears, don’t do pvp and and do 1-3 M+ dungeons are also experiencing a reduction in drop rates.

But what is the logic behind the changes (in my opinion)

  1. PVP players hated the old system with a passion and the new system basically gave them everything they ever asked for, they seem to be super happy with it right now.

  2. The transitional loot from M+ (aka the end of the dungeon one) was nerfed because it was a massive infinitely farmable source of heroic level gear. What used to happen is that players had no reason to do heroic raids or lower because of how good M+ was as a source of loot.

  3. Raid loot was too good for players who full clear but really bad for players who couldn’t go far into it.

  4. The chest for M+ at the second half of each patch was basically repeats week after week and was an incredibly frustrating experience to try and get a full mythic level set.

  5. Doing M+ was almost mandatory for raiders since +15s were very easy to complete compared to mythic bosses.

  6. Titanforging was removed because it created a scenario where the the only way to get an upgrade was with a titanforging proc, and this meant that players would spend extremely high amounts of time in frustrating grinds hoping for those procs.

  7. Gearing up at the second half of the patch was excruciatingly slow and very rng heavy and got heavily buffed in the new system.

Conclusion: what system is better?

That is for you to decide.

2 Likes
2

As a casual player the gearing this expansion is the quickest I’ve seen in many expansions.
197 gear which you just use Anima that you need for other things anyway (and get a weekly quest to collect), free weapon via your covenant compaign. Free gear from daily world quests and mission table.

1 Like
3

I think quantity of loot is honestly fine everywhere, except raid. It feels really horrid in raid.

On the M+ side, I think the quantity is fine, but the iLvl nerfs were excessive. Running keys outside of getting your M+ GV slots is almost useless. Zero reason why a +15 dungeon should be dropping lower than heroic raid iLvl loot.

Ion already made a slight comment about loot drops so far. The fact that he even made a comment, imo, is a sign that they realize the nerfs may of gone too far. M+ farming was such a massively popular form of content spamming, I’m sure they’ve noticed a drop in people running keys. Hopefully, they address some issues in 9.1.

7 Likes
4

I don’t think OP is talking about casuals. We’re inconsequential. Once we finished the Renown storyline, we were done. We got what we needed. And yes, it was a great system. Hopefully it’ll continue to upgrade through the next patch for us.

5

The quantity of loot is one issue. The quantity of loot dropping is extremely frustrating.

The quality is the biggest issue. It seems if you are the type of player that does not want to be a CE raider, or doesn’t play FOTM in PvP you simply do not have gearing options. You are locked at 210 and praying to jesus for the weekly vault to not give you the same terribly statted options every week (spoilers, out of 9 options, 6 of them are usually rings). My goal in this game has always been to avoid the things I do not like (multiple days per week of raiding) and do the things I enjoy (M+) and this expansion Blizzard has told me “sorry. you have no gear progression.” It’s unfortunate. My wife and I have built a massive in game community, we have started a guild that raids once a week. But those things alone won’t be enough to keep me in this game. It’s just not fun anymore.

I stayed subbed throughout all of BFA. There were times (during s3 specificaly) where I needed a break from the game. But I never unsubbed, I never really thought of unsubbing despite the issues with the expansion. But I’ve been debating unsubbing from this expansion since before it even launched. And this has been the number one reason

1 Like
6

I just go for the covenant set. I don’t think I will ever get better gear for the whole expansion, unless they let us keep upgrading it. Or give us another set from renown. So I get the set, upgrade it and move on to another character.

7

I actually wanted to talk about you guys but I was not able to. The changes on casual loot are extremely high in every patch, it is very hard to draw parallels.

8

Agreed. Only raiding provides the least amount of loot of any system, with around 10 items a month if you are lucky.

That is far to low to support raid progression

1 Like
9

To be clear you’re only talking about raid teams, individuals are still getting less. Huge difference.

1 Like
10

There really are none. We got the best end of this loot stick, imo. A full set with great bonuses for what we do. Blizzard nailed it with that for us.

11

Yes, I’ll edit to clarify that I’m talking about a 20 man raid group

12

I’m at 191 iLevel (got my last piece for epic yesterday from a mission table mission) and pretty happy with that.
I’ve done 2 wings of LFR (once each) and no mythics, I think I’m doing ok so far.

13

Each patch the casual sources of loot change in every aspect, they are usually tied to quests and the way catch up mechanisms are running at the moment. There seems to be 0 consistency between each patch.

14

I believe and hope that is the case so Blizzard makes a change. My main was done with spamming keys by the fifth week of the patch because the gear is so bad and low ilvl it just gets replaced by heroic/welfare epics. My primary alt is almost at that point as well, close enough that I don’t have any motivation to push to get 210s vs 207s when my alt is now running heroic CN with my beer league raid group.

I’ve literally had to start pushing yet another alt just to feel like I have room to progress from M+ again beyond the cache. And we’re still only what, half way through the season? It’s absurd to me.

15

Which is why I just focused on what we can get this patch.
197iLevel full 9 piece set ( plus a legendary, free weapon and whatever drops from world quests - mine are 184 so far and mission tables - also getting 184s there) is darn good for this early in the expansion without group content.

16

The biggest winners are the people who stopped playing the endgame.

2 Likes
17

Yes but the point of the post is not to evaluate the loot system in isolation but instead compared how it was in previous expansions. Since I couldn’t draw parallels I just didn’t talked about it.

18

Ok so let’s compare, Classic → mists - 2 items drop per boss, usually 1 (max ) is useful to the group and after about 2nd time running a raid it drops even less as get duplicates when your raid group only has one person that can use.
Personal loot made it better but not by much.
Now - low drop rates and people are whining but is it really that low or just people upset that they didn’t get that one item they are looking for / need.
I would say 99% of the people that say that they got nothing in full raid runs did get an item just not the item they wanted.

19

Well if you’re just gonna assume almost everyone else is lying, you’ll definitely feel like you’re right!

20

If you are a pure raider then the loot drop in raid is abysmal. I don’t like doing M+ and wouldn’t if raid actually dropped enough gear to get a 20 man team ready for heroic. Right now the only way to gear for heroic CN is to do M+ and raid. I would rather just raid twice a week and piddle around in random bg’s for fun.

2 Likes