On Need, Greed, and Disenchant
Loading ...A quick catcher-upper: in WOW 3.3, if there is an enchanter with a suitable skill level in the group, group members will be given three options when loot drops: Need, Greed, and Disenchant. Disenchant is a fancy way of saying “Greed, but I want the enchanting mats rather than the item”. If you click Disenchant, you are treated exactly as if you had rolled Greed, and roll along with the other people who rolled greed, but instead of Spellweaver’s Skullcap of the Skunk, you’ll get seventeen Infinite Dust in your bags. (That I initially typed “Arcane Dust” should tell you that I don’t deal with enchanting very often.)
This is being implemented because in WOW 3.3, you’ll be able to PUG with characters from other servers. This sounds awesome in theory, but in practice it’s limited because you can’t trade items to characters from other servers. That includes enchanting materials. So the common practice of letting the enchanter in the group roll Greed on the drops, and then disenchant at the end of the run and hand out the proceeds, won’t work if you have someone from another server in your group.
There are four main objections I have seen to this. They are:
- The game is using my tradeskill without my consent.
Well, no. The game is using your level of skill with a given profession to trigger a flag in the system; if the flag is triggered, the game does the disenchanting. You don’t have to do anything. Your profession isn’t being used. You’re just toggling a yes/no switch.
- Sometimes I don’t want to give my fellow party members enchanting mats, because they haven’t earned them.
I will be blunt: you are a douchebag who needs to put the game down and spend some time in social-acclimation classes. These folks come highly recommended.
- If anyone can generate enchanting mats, the market for them will go down.
- If people can roll to disenchant, I should be able to roll to get the contents of mining nodes, herbs, and skinnable mobs.
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You haven’t thought this through. Here’s how economics works: People roll Disenchant because the mats sell better than the gear itself. The supply of enchanting mats grows slightly (but not very much; as a rule, roughly the same amount of mats is going to be on the market – it’s just going to be coming from different people). The price drops. People roll Disenchant less because the mats aren’t selling as well. The market price stabilizes at slightly under the original rate.
So yes, instead of 100g for an Abyss Crystal you might get 95g. Forgive me for not feeling particularly sorry for you.
Nope. 100% wrong. Here’s why: you can’t pick up a Saronite Vein and cart it back to a vendor to sell. End of story. Without an enchanter in the group, the gear’s still there to pick up and sell. Enchanters just make it easy to turn gear into mats; this is especially true of BOP gear, which – in the absence of an enchanter – can only be vendored.
Without a miner, that Saronite Vein might as well not even be there. Without an herbalist, every single Frost Lotus in the instance goes to utter waste. Without a skinner, those worgs will just lie there and rot.
The only valid comparison is suggesting that maybe cloth (Frostweave etc.) should have a Need/Greed/Bolt option, and if you want to suggest that, well, be my guest. I suspect that that and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, but you’re welcome to try.
The bottom line is this: the Disenchant option is an unqualified positive addition to the game, and the people who are complaining about it either haven’t thought it through or probably shouldn’t be interacting with other human beings.
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I don’t know if it was ever brought up, but I’m mostly interesting in the following scenario:
5 bosses drop an item that get’s DE’ed to an abyss crystal. With the GREED for DE option, does everyone in the group get a single abyss crystal. Or “in the worst possible case of random” does one person get 5 abyss crystals?
(in a regular run, the disenchanter would distribute the abyss crystals at the end of the run)
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“If you click Disenchant, you are treated exactly as if you had rolled Greed, and roll along with the other people who rolled greed”
Are you sure it will work that way? I’m German, so I’m not always sure I understand Blizzards explanations, but if it will be like that, there is a reason to complain.
I started healing heroics with my new Resto Druid, and many upgrades I would like to have are cloth. With the new system, I will not be able to roll need on cloth, I’m restricted to leather. So, if a cloth piece I want drops I can only beg in chat that I would really like to have this if no clothie needs the item. If someone doesn’t read this, doesn’t care, etc., it will be sharded and gone if I do not win the greed roll…
I agree with your other arguments, but for non-cloth casters the new loot system could be really frustrating.
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I have got to install threaded comments!
@Jeroen, the second is correct: in the worst possible scenario, one person could get all five Abyss Crystals. It’s a pretty remote possibility, though, and over time you’ll average out to the same number of crystals you would normally have received (remember, sometimes the guy getting the five crystals will be you!).
@Agape, yes, it’s been verified to work that way. And yes, it’s unfortunate that Blizzard’s chosen to pair this with a system that prevents you from rolling Need on gear that’s not in your armor class, without ensuring that the real upgrades are in your armor class. That said, hopefully you won’t have too much trouble convincing someone to help you out. (Since – as far as I know – you can transfer a looted BOP item, within the 2-hour limit, to someone on another server who was eligible to loot the item, it may be worthwhile to ask another player who is in the right armor class to roll Need for you and then transfer the item to you.)
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BIG drawback. The roll only on your class of armor system screws the non-cloth healers, and casters in general. Because Blizzard does not itemize well, and they quite understandably make more spellpower cloth than leather, plate, or mail. And changing the system to force people to their class of armor without changing the ability to acquire decent gear screws Resto druids, resto shammies, moonkin, and holy pallies. So, I guess we should all roll priests?
I love the de option. I don’t love the associated cost.
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@Berry, I’m seeing the Disenchant button and the “no Needing on stuff not in your armor class” conflated a lot, probably because they were in the same place in the patch notes. While I agree that the “no Need on stuff not in your armor class” change is for the worse, it’s not really the same issue at all as the Disenchant button, and I wouldn’t hold the Need issue against the DE system. :)
That said, I would not be surprised if the NBG system were changed so that the “classes are limited to their dominant armor type” part is removed, or changed to “classes are limited to armor they can wear”. Otherwise, yes, there will be circumstances where you’re going to have to ask the group to let you Greed for an item – or ask someone who is of the appropriate armor class to Need it and then transfer it to you.
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They get conflated because they are currently tied to each other in the same system. ;) I love the DE half of the change. The gear restriction is eeeeevil.
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quote
“That said, hopefully you won’t have too much trouble convincing someone to help you out. (Since – as far as I know – you can transfer a looted BOP item, within the 2-hour limit, to someone on another server who was eligible to loot the item, it may be worthwhile to ask another player who is in the right armor class to roll Need for you and then transfer the item to you.)”
WRONG !!! :)
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@matt, can you be a little more specific? I haven’t been able to log in yet; is it not the case that you can transfer a BOP item to someone on another server, even if you’re within the 2-hour limit?
If that’s true – that you can’t – that’s either a bug or a pretty serious design flaw.
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