What do you think about the new World Boss loot mechanic in patch 11.1?

The new world boss in The War Within patch 11.1 is the Gobfather. It’s a particularly nasty sort of fight with bombs everywhere and knockbacks galore — usually into said bombs. However since it’s a world boss fight it’s pretty easy to down for loot (it would be a lot trickier if part of the raid). There’s a new wrinkle with Undermine(d) though: the Gobfather drops a guaranteed piece of equipment for your first Warband kill of the week! The catch is that it could be any Warbound Until Equipped item from the boss’ loot table. Oh, and it’s also the only item that can drop from the World Boss. For those whose primary reason for killing the boss is to get gear this completely removes the need for subsequent runs.

To call this controversial is probably understating things as it’s easy to see where criticism could spring from. On the one side you have players that only bother playing and gearing a small number of characters; on the other you have those who previously sent a couple dozen (or more!) alts against the World Boss in the hopes of getting a drop. In the former case you could find yourself with useless gear while in the latter there’s a possibility you’re getting less gear that before.

It’s an interesting conundrum especially since the “fewer toons” scenario actually should prefer the new mechanic! For any given character there are three of nine items that drop which could be useful. That’s a 33% drop rate which is substantially higher than your odds with previous world bosses. Not everything will be an upgrade of course but that’s always been the case since personal loot was added.

Despite the mathematical improvement it still doesn’t feel right though. Since the goal is a piece of equipment that your account can use, why not just drop a token players could exchange for an item on the loot table? While that level of control isn’t often added to the game we have been seeing more of it lately. Would it really imbalance things if each account gets one guaranteed useful piece of gear each week?

This doesn’t solve all problems though. As previously mentioned those with numerous toons may feel like the new system is a downgrade. In addition you run the possibility that it’s harder to put together a group to fight the world boss later in the week because players have gotten their one reward already. Maybe the solution is to also drop lower-level Warbound Until Equipped items like the raid does? Doesn’t have to be guaranteed, but Veteran track items dropping at a 15% rate would help players with numerous alts gear up.

What do you think? Were you surprised by the new loot mechanic? Do you like it, hate it, or not really care? Has it made any impact on how you approach tackling the world boss? And what changes would you make?