VOTI Loot Issues ("Very Rare" Items)

Community WoW Community Council
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Raid loot has always been a contentious topic in WoW. From the Vanilla/Classic days of ninja looting, to tier, and numerous BiS items over the years, we have seen our fill of drama and frustration when it comes to loot.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest an overhaul to the way loot is handled or dropped at the moment. I was happy with the return of group loot instead of personal (though IMO fully tradeable personal would still be better as it would solve issues for casual groups and some unusable loot)

The problem I have with loot in VOTI is specifically related to 3 of the 4 “Very Rare” items. The four items, as we all know, are:

  • Eranog Ring, Seal of Diurna’s Chosen
  • Council Trinket, Whispering Incarnate Icon
  • Diurna Ring, Seal of Filial Duty
  • Raszageth Bow, Neltharax

These items are all really cool. The two rings have unique effects based on a damage type (which also makes sense within the lore of the raid, but we aren’t going down that rabbit hole with this post) and the trinket also has a cool effect, and the bow (pre-nerf) is essentially required for most hunters, and ALL BM hunters.

Aside from the fact that they also had a bow in Sanctum of Domination, I don’t mind the bow. Yes it’s too strong, it got nerfed today, (in 10.0.7) end of story.

But, the two rings and the trinket have one common problem. They are BiS for MOST, if not ALL of your raid group. EVERYONE wants the trinket. ANYONE who deals Fire damage (with crafted items this extends to almost every spec in the game) wants the ring(s).

Let me make one thing clear. I am not opposed to rare drops. I think they’re a good addition and great for the game. I AM opposed to said rare drops being BiS for 90%+ of the raid group.

This is a serious issue I hope to not see again. I’m the raid leader & GM of my guild. We had our first Mythic Incarnate Icon drop the other week, and instead of being excited to see such a rare item drop, I was filled with dread and fear about the discussion that would ensue in fear that it would go to the “wrong person”. It’s a terrible feeling to have, and frankly I’m worried about the next one to drop for the same reason.

So here is my solution for next tier. Don’t take the rare items away, their drop rate is reasonable for a “rare item”, and it gives us a reason to go back to those bosses on a lower difficulty to help improve our gear. But what I would like to see is 1 rare item per boss. But an item like the whispering incarnate icon should have been 3 trinkets. One geared at tanks, one at healers, and 1 at DPS (maybe one for each melee and ranged). 4 secondary stats, 4 trinkets. Have at least one of each to get the maximum benefit, only people of your role are competing for the item. Easy enough to do, MUCH less issue within a raid group, and 0 items that 20 people are need rolling on.

Going back to the rings, I think these types of effects are fine, they are powerful, but not build-defining like Icon is.

Please consider this for next tier. Please keep the rare items, add one to every boss to increase the incentive to go back for them, and please don’t ever make an item that every spec in the game needs again.

Edit:formatting

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I wanted to add a blurb about the rare weapons.

Neltharax is required for hunters (especially BM at the moment) (pre-nerf).
Looking back over SL & before… other weapons have also had this priority…

  • Sepulcher : Gavel, Antumbra, Genesis Lathe (this was an attempt at a special effect but wasn’t widely used)
  • Sanctum : Jaithys, Edge of Night, Rae’shalare, Jotungierr

… and I digress. We’ve had lots in the past.

These weapons are super cool and I don’t want them to stop being made. Add them where they’re thematically appropriate, but make their effects less build defining and more unique and fun. Rae’shalare vs Neltharax is a decent example.

Rae’shalare was very good, because Wailing Arrow was strong, and it was a higher ilvl than any other attainable ranged weapon. Neltharax has the same ilvl advantage and the effect was insanely overpowered with the pet scaling (intended or not) to the point that any BM hunter without it had no real hope of being on a level playing field to their Neltharax-wielding-brethren.

Anyway, my point is, that unlike incarnate icon, these are generally targeted at specific classes/roles, as it should be with all rare items. Aside from the power level of Neltharax, it was a great addition to the raid loot pool and I hope to see more like it in the future.

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I love that we can look at the same situation and see things so completely differently. It is one of the wonders of Warcraft.
For as long as there is loot there will always be loot drama. If the ring was not BiS for many classes those bosses would be less desirable for many raid teams and then we would see posts conceivably from those who hate the fact that the ring they desire is so rare and their team no longer farms the boss. Such items would then be thought of as a bad experience because X and y spec “need” it to perform much as you have said about the bow.
More than this, I don’t think that every single boss should have a rare item to chase after. I am incredibly happy to leave certain bosses off the list for farm and it makes the bosses that do have those items a bit more special. One thing I would like myself is if those rare items had a unique visual. I like that there is a fiery red bubble when the Seal of Filial Duty procs and I wish the Icon also had a unique visual effect. Perhaps future rare drops could be cloaks with unique appearances or have we done too many unique cloaks?

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Should there be desired items in the first place? If they drop more often the competition on those slots feels wasted.
Less specs need them (armor restriction): Those classes get ahead or the loot is wasted when the roster doesn’t need it.
Now if those drops were additional drops on top of the regular outcome it would feel less like that.

My gripes with VOTI and basically Sepulcher: Why only 2 tokens for 20 players?
Posed the question last year, radio silence from the devs.
TBC up until some point mid expac would drop 2 tokens for 25 players, then they changed it to 3. In 5.4.7 (Early 2014) difficulties changed to flex nhc/hc and mythic (20man), 3 tokens for 20 players stayed the same. In addition to bonus rolls. From then on until the end of Legion you CAN make the point that titan forging added some reason for more drops, but you also had the chance of 4 or even more tokens for the raid from just one boss kill. Ever since 9.2 re-introduced Tier Tokens 2 drops for 20 player raid size without bonus rolls feels like an absolute drought, no matter when the Catalyst is implemented.

It could be 50% more, why isn’t it?
Can we finally get a response?

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I’m not saying there won’t or shouldn’t be. We’re competitive players and items like the bow, Gavel, Old Warrior’s Soul should be wanted by many people, but I can’t think of any item (in my memory of raiding) that was wanted by literally every single spec in the game. There can be lots of desire for an item without it being to this extreme.

I’m down to bring back bonus rolls, on a similar charge as catalyst. 1, maybe 2 rolls per week max. Easy to earn, no RNG hiding extras, etc. But also, week 6 for catalyst is WAY too late. It was said in Sepulcher and it was said now. I’d like it to be week 1-3, but I’ll take anything sooner than 6 at this point.

I heard this mentioned - I think - on Maximum’s stream today, and honestly yes. This would be a great change.

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Aman’Thul’s Vision Trinket from Antorus, the Burning Throne comes to mind readily. There are also many dungeon trinkets like Inscrutable Quantum Device or World Boss Drops like the Unstable Arcanocrystal with similar levels of desirability.

I think that bonus rolls and high drop rates were this almost degenerate loot rampancy that put us in places where you were starting the first couple of bosses in a raid with nothing on the loot table because you were already over-gearing from other sources (even more so with Titanforging.) The slower pace of loot has allowed them to create some of the best-tuned raids in recent history (except SFO).

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Dealing with loot this tier has actually been incredibly frustrating from a guild perspective. I think over 90% of our icons came from vault because it never dropped, and the rings in particular are frustrating because they were the only rings to drop from raid. We handle them with the priority of “Bigger DPS gain” for the one off Eranog, and “Who needs the survivability the most” from Diurna.

Healers feel incredibly left out, because they don’t match their of these. I think even if we were to change it and go to a /roll system, with our luck I think the common complaint is that the only rings to drop from the raid are rare in the first place.

I think the rare loot it nice and flavorful, but over 80% (maybe even 90%) of the ‘rare items’ we’ve received from this tier are weekly vault acquisitions. We actually see them as rare vault drops in our guild more than a raid drop. On top of everyone wanting them except the hunter bow, it’s like the entire raid wants it so it becomes even more of a contention

I think if the rare drops were isolated to be obvious melee dps / ranged dps / healer / tank procs, if we were to associate a proc/effect with them, it would make it significantly easier - But also don’t make them the only source of that slot in the raid.
(Example: I know before the nerf the Rasza bow was unbelievably powerful, but at least there were other bows in raid. Same with the incarnate icon, disregarding the strength - other trinkets. But no other rings besides the two rare drops.)

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We do have this to look forward to. https://twitter.com/ScarizardPlays/status/1628566105613815809

it may not be this week - but soon enough gonna make an update post on the revival catalyst, class set acquisition, raid rewards & how we think they went/how we’re planning to iterate on them based on feedback. it will also probably be very, very long. (sry abt that)

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I forgot about Aman’Thul, so point taken, but I was not a guild leader at the time so I can’t comment on any issues it caused.

The dungeon trinkets for me don’t come close to falling in the same category, for 3 reasons.
#1) You’re competing against 4 other people, not 19.
#2) Dungeons are spammable
#3) They aren’t usually a lower drop chance than other items.

I don’t think you can compare such items, and even IQD was not as “necessary” as WII is now.

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Not only that, but there isn’t really a quantifiable way to determine how much more throughput they will gain with it, at least to the knowledge of myself and my healers. Which to your point is incredibly frustrating.

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In general:

  1. The Seal of Filial Duty is a tremendous amount of Stats and the increase in survivability is not really the selling point for DPS, damage-focused tanks, nor healers that do not desire to contribute to DPS.
  2. People looking to get the most from the Whispering Incarnate Icon do want to have at least one person in each role with it equipped.
  3. The bow is not sought after by the large majority of classes.

Is the Seal of Diurna’s Chosen a mistake because “everyone wants it” or is the tension between the high demand and the low availability too much? I think that is an interesting discussion. I think there have been those that argue that tier gear is too scarce and that follows a similar line of thought. Many teams will farm tier bosses for longer than other bosses to complete the team’s set bonuses. I would expect that the Ring has much the same effect. When I consider this, I also consider the boss that drops the ring. To me, I think it makes a tonne of sense that the most widely desired item is on the boss that you will kill the most. It gives the team a reason to look forward to killing the first boss repeatedly because even without Titanforging, many can still get a powerful upgrade from Eranog.

As you said the fact that the only non-Super Rare ring in the raid is the Trash BoE ring was a mistake in my mind. Rings are unique and you have two slots for them. I would hope in the future there would be less reliance on sources outside of the raid to fill certain slots. Items that are Super Rare mean that other items in that same slot are still valid gear options.

A side effect is that smaller loot tables in general help increase the chances that you get any particular item from the raid row in the Great Vault. Obviously, there may be some hidden mechanics in the Vault that might mitigate this in the Vault but a dev would have to explain how the Great Vault interacts with Super Rare loot.

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My issue with this is how much of a discrepancy hunters with and without it have.

They have to tune the class based on if you have it - but if RNG hates you, you may never get it.

So you’ll be underperforming the entire tier because of it. An LFR Neltharax is 3000 dps above a max level M+ bow that’s almost 40 ilvls higher. How is that okay? (And even more dps as beast mastery, but that part’s being fixed in 10.0.7)

I think what they need to do if they continue with this “Very Rare” system - is bring back the Broker Token system they had in season 4 of Shadowlands - so if we get very unlucky, we can still earn tokens to buy the rare weapon/trinket we want. (Or in VOTI’s case, add the special rings too, like how the hunter quiver was added) - and have it active in every tier.

(I’m still bitter Raeshalare was not included in that vendor though, they screwed over so many hunters)

Just instead of Brokers, since they can’t leave the Shadowlands, have it be the Tortollan or such.

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Regarding basic access to tier sets as a raider:
I went through older discussions I had about that topic before. And the prime example for how far away we are from the basic tier progression pace without the catalyst active (and getting lucky with the vault) would be BRF in WoD. You had 5 bosses drop 3 tier tokens each for 20 players + an endboss also dropping another 3 universal tokens (starts turn-in quest for picking a slot).

So nowadays it’s 10 tier tokens in one run compared to 18 back in BRF. Both times for 20 players. Now you could argue that this would also play into the Warforging system and excess tier tokens weren’t really worthless. But: What if there was a vendor that gave you regular raid drops for turning in 1 token or weapons/trinkets for handing in 2?
That way these slots aren’t wasted on the long run when everyone has a full tier from the vault and catalyst.

Note: In this case I am talking about getting 3 instead of 2 tokens per boss and maybe those extra ones from an endboss.

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It seems that there is another trinket in the 10.1 raid that works similarly as Whispering Incarnate Icon. I can only hope that this isn’t going to be absolute BiS for everyone again, or that it isn’t a “rare drop” this time around.

I don’t mind trinkets that can be universally used, but like I mentioned in the original post, when they’re a low drop chance and BiS for everyone it’s really rough. I hope those same issues are not repeated.

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I think rare loot is fun and flavorful but I still feel what has been proposed for 10.1 is a bad idea and I haven’t found many people, if any, in favor of it. It’s overwhelmingly negative =/

Please reconsider the function of these rare drops or remove the ‘rare drop’ aspect entirely.