Being ClassLeader in my guild i have recently involved myself in a 'conflict' between rogues and DW warriors, about whether there should be priorities on OneHand, MH and OH weapons for rogues or not. The whole discussion was initiated by a rogue, that presented the weapon options he had to improve his non-backstab build (swords/maces), as we are progressing in Naxxramas - We have cleared AQ40 and we are on our first Naxxramas tries/kills. To his view, only Misplaced Servo Arm and The Castigator are viable choices for him before Sapphiron. Thus, he insists that DW warriors pass on those 2items, since they enjoy more flexibility with weapon choices. On the other side, our DW warriors want Misplaced Servo Arm as well, making the situation kinda volatile.

My question is whether there should be any priorities for rogues before DW warriors, and what the policy of your guild(s) implements. If there are, what weapons do they include and why was this policy adopted? In terms of fairness or for getting the ideal dps? And in case such priorities are out of the question, whats the justification behind it?

In my opinion, a dagger should go to a dagger rogue first.

Maces and swords go to whoever has the highest DKP.

(That is, the melee class who has the highest DKP.)

Thankfully we have very little problem with this in my guild, seeing as how the warriors will happily pass for rogues on the first few drops until the rogues specced for them have their items. It doesnt take a genius to work out that a rogue using the weapon for pure dps in every fight, will get more use out of it than a warrior who will be tanking a fair portion of the time. That being said, there are no strict loot priorities on them, people are just expected to use their common sense (like with our recent end of dreams drop, ffa priority, but still went to a druid).

We do have two or three dps warriors, but 9/10 times they are content to pass on the 1h's that rogues would be interested in till the rogues have them anyhow. It works out nicely, as rogues have been passing on dreadnaught pieces for top 3 tanks, so they're just returning the favor.

We currently have an open bidding system, but there are no DW fury warriors...guild leader won't let any of us spec fury, says if he wanted more melee DPS he'll bring more rogues. We have 2 MS warriors and 5 tanks...that's about it for the ones who raid on a regular basis. As for weapons though, I recently won a Dragonfang blade (I'm one of the MTs) over a rogue...but he already had Perdition's and a Brutality blade, and 3 other rogues already have their DFBs.


Bottom line - give it to whoever will get more use out of it for the first one or two that drop. More will come.

(hoping this does not turn into thottbot..)

I can't see any reason for rogues to get priority over warriors on the servo arm. I have one and I love it, but it's just as good for dps warriors as it is for rogues. He sounds pretty greedy to me.

I think it depends on the roles of the Warriors in question. If you guild finds they are usually taking just 5 warriors per raid, and your warriors are tanking during the majority of raids, then perhaps weapon upgrades should go to your rogues first their sole role is dps 99% of the time. Whereas the warriors might only be dps'ing during 50% of fights, or even less.

However, if you take 6-8 warriors per raid, and a few of the warriors spend almost all of their time DPS'ing on trash and during boss fights, i don't see why they can't have equal rights on weapons (excluding daggers).

I think the question is what role that Warrior was filling in general. Is he a rainy-day offtank, or a complete 100% DPS Warrior, and treated as such? If he off-tanks quite a bit I'd imagine that your Rogues would get better use out of it but otherwise it should be fair game for him since he'll get EQUAL use out of it. Also note that weapon type means jack shit to a DW Fury Warrior, I notice you only specified DW, and not Fury or even DPS.

You guys might start getting Axes like crazy, at least tell him to hoard his weapon DKP for a couple weeks to see if a weapon that he can equip over a Rogue drops at least. This Warrior shouldn't be beelining for these weapons if he's got uncompetitive upgrades. Hell, if he's an Orc, he should probably want an Axe anyway (but if he's Human, well...)

If you have too many DPS warriors in your guild you probably don't have enough non-retarded tanks. It's good to have DPS warriors, but when there is loot conflit because of it...warriors need to understand their role. How do you currently handle the Drake Fang Talisman? That should give you some indication on how to handle this situation...

In any high end guild doing high end instances, a rogue should be at the top of your DPS charts. However, opinionated I may be because, I see a lot of guilds damage meters and it seems they have maybe 1 warrior at the top followed by 2-3 rogues.

I still strongly feel that there is no DPS like rogue DPS, and although a warrior "MAY" top them in terms of total damage, rogue DPS is more important. Their are encounters in Naxx where your warriors aren't just 'patchwerking' bosses. They could be tanking or kiting. A Rogue will DPS, every boss, every trash mob, and thats the end of it. When you have geared out rogues, you take down bosses easily.

So, when it comes to deciding 1H loot, a rogue should ALWAYS get the priority. However, the Misplaced Servo Arm is a mace, which gives no PvE bonus from talents to rogues. If a rogue DESPERATLEY wants a Misplaced Servo Arm, he might want to look twice at his build and think of an Ibilis. However, if a rogue is really lacking a MH and the Servo Arm is a great upgrade, then I'd give a rogue the priority



My 2 cents. (and extremely comma spliced)

I don't understand your post. You say it's good to have DPS warriors(george is in your guild, right?), but then you say they should understand their role. Doing damage and occasionally tanking? So, they have to wait until all the primary classes get their gear to get any loot? Daggers, swords, and maces to respective specced rogues, tanking gear to tank classes, leaving the few dps plate drops and axes for dps warriors first.

I think priority should be determined not only by how much the dps warrior tanks, but also by the effort given by the two classes in comparison. If you're a slacker on the DM, I don't care if you decided to spec daggers, that CHT is going to a dps warrior first.

Comparing the MSA to Iblis is imho pretty nonesensical. MSA is the strongest SS weapon availible to most raids in Naxx. The first real upgrade will be the HC from Kel. Mace spec gets better and better each new instance. I strongly feel that the added mitigation from mace spec stuns eases encounters like Anub. After 1.12 one is also able to spec more dps relevant talents in the assasination tree than a comparable sword rogue.
However I agree that the mace is fair game for any melee dps class wanting it, that is dps warriors as well as rogues. When I got mine, I got it because I bid the most dkp on it, my contenders were a rogue as well as a warrior. I earned it that way because I was ready to sacrifice more than anybody else. (as a sidenote, I do consider this as one of the few advantages of bidding dkp systems as opposed to overall better fixed point systems).

In every DKP system you can bury yourself. We have warriors that don't take 2H because they're tanks. We have warriors that don't take armor first because they're DPS warriors (using 2H weapons suprisingly enough). Rogues cannot use 2H weapons and axes. Warriors can...they also (for the most part) get priority on all the 2H DPS weapons. Depending on the success of your guild this could mean a few things. Unless it's MC we're talking about (which for the most part has a few 2H weapons, and a little more contested 1H weapons) then it should be understood what weapons you hold rank on. The CTS has always went to Rogues first in our guild, although I suppose an argument can be made for Fury warriors on the alliance side. George used the TF (before we even know what the bindings would yeild he had the highest DKP) along with the Axe from Nef when he was Fury. Now he uses the DEoI. When you start getting into issues where Warriors are taking all types of weapons (2H, 1H) and burying themselves in DKP it can leave interesting results later when tanks need to get their armor for harder bosses (gear checks in Naxx).

Basically depending on how far you are in the game you need to understand what your role is and stick to it. It's not meant to discount the viability of Fury warriors, but to make sure that people within their guild know where they fit.

Our MT didn't take the DEoI and it went to a warrior that was lower down in DKP. This is because he understands what his role is, and chooses items to benefit the guild as a whole.

Just make sure to educate your guild that when they're taking a contested item they're taking it for the right reasons, not the "X rogue sucks and I can do more damage" reason.

Maybe I should have taken out the first sentence in my original post as it attracks too much of the wrong attention ;)

I understand your point now, decker. In my guild, basically all I do is dps. We had enough warriors as it was before, and then the top guild on our server fell apart, so we got at least 2 more(friends of the guild). For all intents and purposes, I'm a rogue without agro management, which should be considered when assigning items, like you say.

You put a negative spin with "X rogue sucks and I can do more damage". Why shouldn't that be considered when handing out loot? The slackers will eventually get the loot anyway, why not give more weight to those who put in more effort? DKP doesn't exactly take damage meters(or heal meters, or even "farm" meters) into account.

We aren't as progressed as you but warriors are a key part to our DPS at the moment, usually taking 4 of the top 10 dps slots, 2 of those being top 4 (assuming we aren't all tanking - I don't allow 'pure' DPS warriors), and the difference in raid DPS is extremely noticeable when we're all on tanking duty. I say let the DPS meters do the talking. Thankfully questionable decisions are rarely made when bidding on weapons which is a credit to the personnel.

I wouldn't stop a warrior bidding on CTS, sadly it's not even an issue as most of our warriors are way behind rogues in dkp due to a silly fix priced system where all items cost the same based on ilvl and type, which naturally leads to warriors spending a fortune to get both a viable tanking and dpsing set.

I admit i did omit some information on our raid status regarding dps warriors. To make a more objective view of the issue possible, hereby are some clarifications :

1) We are usually raiding with 6 warriors, 3/4 tanks and 2/3 dps, based on what the encounters require. It is quite common that we can include 7 warriors in a raid, so it is pretty much understood that at least one or two of them will be purely assigned on dps duties.

2) The dps warriors commissioned with dpsing are quite competitive in terms of damage dealing, meaning that our Damage Meters usually include 1/2 warriors on top 5, together with 2/3 rogues and maybe a mage. At least the way i see it, dps warriors are a valuable asset to our raid, and their dps a quite reliable source of damage.

3) Damage-specced warriors are passing on the DN quest pieces as well as rogues, and they wont get (off)tanking gear at the expense of Bonescythe for our rogues, at least not in the immediate future. Thats pretty much the point Deathwing made, stating that if DW warriors pass on everything ,including weapons that are equally good for them, then their gear choices become very limited.

4) If this can be enlightening, as Decker indicated, DFT is open for bidding both by rogues and DW warriors.

Weapontypes are far more restrictive for rogues than for warriors.

The reasonable thing to do with desirable DW weapons follows from this realization.

We've always tended to consider the available alternatives when evaluating weapons, combined with the realities of our guild composition. We have two dedicated sword rogues. For them, Iblis is the only upgrade until we kill Kel'Thuzad, so the first Iblis went to our top sword rogue. A couple of tanks certainly wanted it, but they also have access to Faerlina's sword which is made for them and suboptimal for anyone else. We had one rogue who wanted to go maces, so the Servo Arm that dropped was his. We have a million combat daggers rogues, and the Harbingers/Fang go to them and once they have their fill (we're actually not far from that now -- we've had really good luck with daggers lately) others who want them can have them. Noth's axe can only go to warriors, which justifies giving warriors second crack at some other items, since they have this all to themselves. And so forth.

We use zero-sum, but the "biggest upgrade" is not something we follow at all. Sure people pass on weapons to help people who still have junk gear, but usually if people are looking for huge weapon upgrades they've spent their DKP elsewhere and as such should be in the back of the line for new weapons. Most rogues tend to value their weapons over anything else, so that's generally not a problem.

Daggers are go to rogues first obviously for us. Anything else is fair game, We had servo arm drop which I got and ibilis that another fury warrior got.

As long as your guild is cool and acually wants to help each other out , usually it's not an issue ...

Sorry about the Ibilis compare, i meant to say AQR but for obvious reasons I was thinking Naxx.

However, no, mace spec is not good in Naxx. Especially when comparing to Sword, Dagger, and Fist specs. Your mace spec will BARELY proc in the Gothik fight, especially when mobs die that fast. Rendering the mace spec pointless in Naxx. True, the servo arm is the best SS weapon available early on in Naxx. It comes to my attention that a death's sting rogue will always top MSA rouge (assuming gear), because we have both in my guild. Also, any rogue carrying GM swords or equivalent will top the MSA.

I'm not saying that rogues should not even have a MSA. It is a GREAT weapon for them. I just believe that in order to improve everyday that loot must be spread out to all DPS classes. Therefore, because of the PvE talents rogues get from Swords/Daggers/Fists, They SHOULD NOT get PRIORITY, however, I wouldn't mind them rolling against DW warriors.

:(

To me, the large number of extremely nice 1h axes as well as edgemasters means that DW warriors should generally go with axes. Rogues completely cannot use them, they are only minor upgrades to hunters, but they are very nice in terms of stats and dps. Onyxia drops Deathbringer, which while not the best 1h axe in the game is an extremely nice mainhand (2.9 speed, wtb) and Nefarian drops Crul'Shoruk, which is pretty much insane as either a MH or an OH (62 dps 1h weapon beats out anything for DW until C'Thun, or MSA if you're a trash farmer / skipping AQ) so I don't really see why warriors would need to get equal prio on other weapons. In Naxx, Iblis is quite obviously only for a sword rogue, because it does excellent dps and has a wicked speed for an offhand. Tanks can get the sword from Faerlina, and DW warriors can get the Hatchet from Noth.

as for MSA, since its a trash drop it seems a bit more up in the air. Yes, mace spec is kind of lame for damage, but I do find that the random stun procs will come in handy sometimes, if not all the time. However, its certainly not as much of a PvE spec as swords or fists, and thus lacks somewhat. However, given that the only thing that counts in my opinion are boss fights, and the only way for a mace warrior to get +mace skill is for him to use a 52 dps offhand and he'll still be stuck at +4, I don't see why he'd want to take it. Glancing blows is going to kill your dps output when it counts, and that to me is the ultimate limiting factor for warrior dps.

You could, of course, make the argument for human fury warriors that swords would be better for them, and thats true, but then you will see a lot of axes simply going to waste because no one wants to take them. Maybe in this case I could see equal prio on swords, but for any other race there's really no point.

On top of all this, daggers are clearly for rogues, and then when no one wants them they could go as a fury offhand or hunter weapon. Rogues have skills that only work with daggers, and then specifically have damage % increases which counteracts their low damage range, and it seems pretty natural to me that they were designed to work together.

On top of that, I think the argument that a rogue dpses 100% of the time is still valid, because we don't have any warrior in my guild who doesn't have to tank sometimes. Yes, on some bosses you won't need many tanks, but if anything they're adding fights where you need more people tanking, not less. Not so many Golemagg fights anymore, now its all starting to look like Faerlina where you have a whole bunch of adds to take care of.

This being said, in my own guild I'm not the guild leader, and I'm also a rogue so I am biased. For us daggers are rogue prio, 1h weapons are open between the two classes (though still, rogues can't bid on axes) and so on. For the most part though, the warriors are kind enough not to want every 1h weapon that drops and so they don't outbid rogues that often, but it can happen and naturally leads to some tension. Thankfully things seem to work out ok in the end.