Officers’ Quarters: Tier token tiff

Who should get tier tokens first? This week on OQ, one guild’s raid leaders give them to tanks and healers, but a raider disagrees — plus losing your spot on a PvP team and finding a guild that raids at the times you prefer.

This is the problem with “loot council” systems: players will always disagree about the best way to distribute items. Tier tokens are the most desirable loot, even beyond weapons and trinkets usually, so of course debate about the proper distribution of tokens becomes fierce.

Since I’m assuming you’re not part of the leadership or the “council,” all you can do here is voice your opinion and then abide by their decision.

However, I do agree with you that gearing up tanks and healers first is a bit old fashioned nowadays. For most bosses in early WoW, enrage timers weren’t your top concern and most wipes occurred due to tank deaths and/or inadequate healing. Today, gearing tanks and healers only helps with some fights. Tank gear is important for Gruul, for example, while healer gear is important for Kromog and Iron Maidens. But some bosses require good DPS — like Thogar, where burning adds fast is vital, or Blast Furnace, where better DPS directly translates into less raid damage. Every encounter requires competent DPS.

If your raid uses a loot council, a better policy might be to figure out which 2-piece bonuses are strongest and prioritize those specs first. Granted, your loot council might have the opinion that your guild’s DPS is strong enough already and their bonuses are just icing on the cake, while your tanks and healers need more help. It’s impossible for me to say what’s best for your specific raid team.

Sorry this happened to you, Tisnas. It’s not very fair that they replaced you after missing one day, especially given that (a) it was not your fault and (b) you took the time to notify the guild leader about your unexpected absence. I’m not sure what else you could have done in that situation.

Organized PvP in WoW has become very different from raiding simply by not changing as much. Whereas most raid difficulties are now flexible and missing a run here or there isn’t the end of the world, battlegrounds and arena matches still require specific numbers.

Even so, I don’t like the way your guild handled this situation. I imagine there is an underlying reason for this switch that has nothing to do with your one absence, and your guild leader won’t even be honest with you about the reason. Thus, I don’t see any reason why you should stay in a guild that treats a member like that.

I wouldn’t recommend transferring until you find a guild with raid times that work for you. It’s too expensive to transfer on hope alone. Also, raid times do not necessarily reflect a realm’s time zone. Some realms actually changed time zones when they linked up with other realms (like my realm Khadgar-US did when we merged with Alleria). Most guilds have not changed their raid times just because their realm’s native time zone changed.

Instead, raid with a guild a few times first, make sure you get along with them and enjoy the experience of raiding with them. Then transfer.

I’m sure if you look around you can find a guild that raids at the exact times you prefer. Blizzard still has a Guild Recruitment forum and so does Reddit. Advertise yourself there. Put your preferred times right in the topic. Check out OpenRaid and see which guilds are raiding and in need of PUGs at the times you want. There are probably other tools that readers can suggest — this is not my strongest area of expertise, since I’ve never actually searched for a guild myself. Many guilds are still trying to recruit up for mythic raiding, so now is a good time to look!