I’ve leveled a feral druid, to primarily tank and dps on the side. I’ve already ran a few LRBS and brd. I always see people in LFG always reserving multiple items, mining nodes, orbs, and more for runs, even when they’re still looking for a tank. I almost joined an LRBS run until I saw they were reserving the gemstones.
I thought the problem with most groups is always getting a tank? If you’re reserving things, its just going to drive tanks from not joining your groups.
How is this even done? Do they change from group loot or presume you will just honor your word? How is it enforced, then? If it’s not group loot how do you prevent other loot being “ninja’d”? Who actually joins these PUGs with reserves? I have a feeling that a lot of these advertisements for runs with certain things reserved are akin to the auctions you see in the AH for rare items at ridiculous prices – the items don’t actually sell at those prices, and the runs with all the good things “reserved” don’t get off the ground.
i see it all the time, if a tank reserves trash items and someone else loots it, they just shut down or wait until its traded to them.
the groups that reserve gems for lbrs are often the only group for lbrs in a week that theyll see, so theyll join anyway knowing they could potentially roll need on the gemstone too however it does shutdown the group on the spot or forces a kick+replacement after the damage is done
you’re right that theres no enforcement, but people are pretty good at A-OHking the conditions before the group rolls out. and people honor the agreement 95%+ of the time.
As a tank when I see “x is reserved “ I auto pass on the group and join the group not reserving items 
It’s the perrogative of the person organizing a party or raid to reserve loot however they see fit. Other players are then welcome to join and agree to those reservations or to not join and form their own groups with their own loot distribution. This is the beauty of a free market.
From my experience it is only an incredibly tiny fraction of people who would join a run to ninja an item. Of course, that’s anecdotal, but I’ve only seen an item ninja’ed once.
That was during Wrath in a PuG Vault of Archavon.
While I agree with the spirit of this post there are a few things that are acceptable to reserve and were actually quite often reserved back in vanilla. Those things being:
I think it all started with the guild run ony pugs all reserving the head and then people just ran with it until it got out of control.
There was a paladin LFM UBRS with a reserve on Doomsaw a few weeks back FFS.
That group is going to be searching for hours and get a dps Warrior that has virtually no tank gear and MIGHT have a shield to tank. That’s if they are lucky.
I just watched a warrior spend over 2.5k in a gold bid MC. And this wasn’t the first time. He brags about all the gold he makes. Warriors trying to tax is BS. They can make plenty of gold soloing when not running dungeons with a shield on.
That seems fine, to me. It’s basically as simple as, “Don’t join this group, if you are trying to get that item.” If you have any reason to run the instance other than that item, then there’s no issue.
Also, literally anybody can form a group, and say whatever they would like it reserved. If it’s unreasonable, people won’t join that group.
Its very simple just make your own group.
Nothing feels better than being out ore farming and finding 6-7 rich thorium nodes (and even more regular thorium nodes) during the time that some guy in LFG chat struggles to fill his “LFM DM-E jump run (ore reserved)” group. Thank you for taking yourself out of the open world competition, I am thankful for the extra ore.
Agreements of any kind made in blizzard chat are enforceable with scamming reports, which the GMs do respond to. Idk if they trade the items or just delete them from the scammer though.
In general I agree, and I don’t join groups with stuff on reserve. But the gemstones are something of a special case. They’re no good to anyone unless they have all three, so it makes sense to give priority to people who already have them, so that more people can unlock upper blackrock spire.
Imagine you have two genmstones. You no longer care about anything in LBRS except the last one. You run the place three times before you even see the last gemstone drop. Two other people roll on it and you lose to somebody who doesn’t even have two, so they can’t make a key from it.
Are you really going to want 2-3 more time just for another chance to roll on it against people who don’t even have the other gems?
Nobody’s saying you have to tank for those groups. They want to reserve gemstones? Ok, that’s fine. So start your own group. You’re a tank. See which group fills first.
On my tank I typically charge 50g per run and limit it at 2 hours. Typically we are done far before then but if we hit the 2 hour mark it is another 50g. I don’t need anything out of the dungeons but selling my tanking services is my way of giving back to the community.
I never join a group that reserves mats that everyone needs. I can understand a low drop rate piece of gear. Righteous orbs and ore from DM jump runs though I will not help those people
anyone that joins a group where things are reserved needs to reconsider what they’re doing with their lives.
You’re far better off hiring a tank who charges gold - a tank who still needs items out of dungeons is not a tank worth having.
I build my reputation on a server then have groups begging me to run dungeons with them.
I did over 200 BRD on a private server on my hunter to help people get through it in a timely manner.
I had tanks asking me to come and secure their groups from being bad.
Overpulls? I got it. Healer is down from standing in the bad? I help the tank kite to live while we down the pull. Lose mobs? I’ll bring it back to the tank.
A strong reputation can get you invited to groups non stop.
As a tank myself, the solution I offer is that you start your own groups.
It’ll work, trust me.