My guild is going to use a zero-sum dkp/loot council system for PvE raids. However, I'm interested in encouraging the farming of heroic instances for the Primal Nether to be found there as they are key components in the BoP epic crafted gear which, imo, is second only to gear available from Arenas and Raids.

For those people who think it is a bad idea and are unwilling to be persuaded otherwise, I acknowledge the validity of your argument and put it aside. For those who are willing to be persuaded or are simply interested in why I'm doing it, my explanation got overly long. To avoid overwhelming the actual question, I separated it out and will put it as the second post.

Primal Nether can be used in several BoP crafting recipes. Specifically, it is used in all leather and mail armor crafted by leatherworkers, the second-iteration armor created by armorsmiths and the second-iteration weapons created by weaponsmiths. I'm interested in finding an appropriate DKP value to assign to them.

At first, I thought that we could simply divide the ilvl value of an item for which the Primal Nether will be used for by the number of Primal Nether it requires. However, this would lead to wild disparity of the value of each run. This is due to the large difference in requirements for Primal Nether between the leather and mail armor crafted by leatherworkers (which require 0, 1 or 2 Primal Nether) and the second-iteration blacksmith items (which require 10 or 12 Primal Nether).

Then I got to the more elaborate idea of what I believe is referred to as 'normalizing' the Primal Nether value - (ilvl multiplied by # of primal nether required for item)/(time period) - where 'time period in days' is either number of days in a week or number of days in which the guild raids.

At this point, I realized I was very far from my ideal of having one fixed value for Primal Nether. I also realized this was a question well-beyond my ability to solve. Which is why I'm presenting it here.

The reason why I feel it has to be hard-coded and tied into the larger reward system - on a pragmatic level - is because tailors require no Primal Nether for their BoP crafted epics; their items are limited by the transmuting time of Primal Mooncloth, Spellcloth and Shadoweave. Therefore, there's nothing to draw priests, mages and warlocks into heroic instances from a self-interest PoV. And asking them to do 12 runs for each and every weaponsmithing Rogue or Warrior in the guild out of the kindness of their hearts is a lot to ask for. So tying Primal Nether into the larger system of raid instances is the only scalable way I can think of to persuade the third of the guild to engage in such runs regularly. Also consider that there might be individuals who don't pick up class complementary professions or individuals who might have such a profession, but just aren't interested in obtaining crafted items.

Heroics are on a one day reset, and you can run pretty much infinite of them. My philosophy on DKP is that it's a means of distributing a scarce resource, which Primal Nether isn't in the grand scheme of things. People who don't want Nethers still get badges and a shot at epics in heroic runs. I can't really imagine needing an additional incentive system to encourage people to run them.

BTW, spellthread uses nethers, so yes, tailors want them.

For anyone interested in why I want to do this, it is because I'm interested in upping the gear level - wealth if you will - throughout the guild. You can't throw time at a raid. By this I mean to say, you can do it just once a week. And while you can do additional raids into a place like Karazhan, the ability to do so effectively for the other raid instances (Gruul, Magtheridon, Serpentshire Cavern, Tempest Keep) isn't always feasible and - even when it is - brings other complications. Similarly, you can't throw time at the Arenas. Once you do fight ten matches in your bracket, there's no correlation between the time you put into it and the points you get out of it. If you lose your eleventh game, you'd effectively have been better off stopping at ten since your rating will be lower after the loss in game eleven than it was before that loss.

With heroic instances, however, you can throw time at it. While there's a lockout time of effectively a day on each heroic instance (I think the exact figure is 7 or 11 hours), there are fifteen instances which can be run at heroic difficulty which is more than one could run in a day. Further, it is logistically much easier to field multiple 5-man groups than it is to field multiple raid teams or even multiple Arena teams. This can lead to a large percentage of your guild getting geared up simultaneously. By this I mean to say that instead of just the 20 (?) drops from Karazhan, you can be gearing every person with a profession that complements their class people with the BoP crafted epics. What is more, there is no waste like there is with raid instances; the crafter knows going in what they want the Primal Nether for and - assuming the run is successful - will be brought closer to their goal of achieving it.

I've thought this fully through as a GM of a guild based on doing well in the Arenas. I took Praetorian's observation to heart (post #6) and recruited people with similar interests: PvP. Many members have stated they don't particularly care for doing raid instances. So with no intervention on my part, the only gear they'd get would be the items available out of the Arenas. However, our performance in the Arenas will be determined by two things: our gear and our skill. As GM, I'm not only interested in trying to get the scores of all our Arena teams as high as possible, I'm interested in getting our scores high as soon as possible. Why? The little differences add up:

Assuming that our Arena scores begin at 1500 - I've never seen that confirmed anywhere - small differences in ratings can add up. A 100-point difference in your rating sustained over the season can make the difference of an armor piece for every member of your Arena team. And keep in mind, that while only five people might be fighting in a given match, you can have 10 people in an Arena team at one time. So that 100-point rating difference can be leveraged across ten people. And then consider that if you have multiple Arena teams, an effort to increase the rating all of those Arena teams - such as the one I'm proposing here - has the potential to affect a large number of people. Amplifying this benefit is the fact that having a higher score will lead you to getting additional Arena gear faster which will then allow you to perform better in the Arenas to the extent that your gear has an effect on your performance. While it can be argued endlessly about how much difference gear makes, it cannot be argued that it does not make a difference in PvP; if you believe that, take a hand-picked preformed raid on vent in an AB naked and see how well you do.

I'm not a PvEer so I'm not well-positioned to advocate BoP epics to raiders. However, to the extent raid instances have "gear checks", I imagine having a supplementary source of gear would facilitate moving past those.

How many people in your guild have done heroic instances in the last week? How many heroic instances have they done successfully? How many heroic instances have you done this week? Primal Nether is infinite in theory but what does your real-life experience show to be the truth.

And even if spellthread uses primal nethers, how do you propose tracking fairness in distribution? Do you advocate /random? I'm looking for a more deterministic system as I figure that people will be more motivated to do something when they know what will be in it for them if/when they succeed.

I think the biggest thing you have to realize is that if someone doesn't feel like spending DKP on Primal Nethers... and they most likely won't unless you set the price very low... they will find 4 skilled friends and burn their daily timers on personal runs, rather than guild runs, thereby stepping over any DKP that you might put in place. If you want a suggestion, I'd say put it low, or not at all. Low cost will make people say "Hey, I'd rather go to the guild run and pick up a nether with my DKP guarenteed" High cost will make people say, "I'd rather run these on my own time, rather than drain my DKP for a nether."

edit: strange diction o_O

Spellthread is an amazing waste of a nether at this point in the game, when compared to the gear it could be used to craft.

There are enough BOE epics crafted from Primal Nether, at this point, that they have the potential to be worth a huge amount of gold to the crafter that happens to obtain them.

Being a jealous little shit with mining/engineering as my prime professions, I have 0 use for primal nether, and thus feel that the potential 200 gold to a crafter going outside the guild with a Dirge, Felsteel Longsword, Khorium Champion, Enchant Boots- Surefooted, etc. outweighs the fact that they are so common.

Take Khorium Champion: 5000g according to allakhazam, but only one sale tracked. Let's say 4k for a reasonable price.
Primal Might: 145G at Allakhazam and, apparently, sinking x 6.
Khorium Bar: 14G according to allakhazam x 20
Hardened Adamantium Bar: 24g according to allakhazam x 2

That adds up to 1200 gold. 2800G left over. Let's say 250G combine. 2550G left over. 2x primal nether needed, so each is worth 1275 gold.

That's enough that, in my estimation, it's worth at least some DKP to track, as I will never have access to it.

Seriously though, this is 5 man content. If you are even trying, you can get 5+ Primal Nether in a single day. We've ran so many heroics with my group that our priest has 40 banked, and nothing to make with them anymore, yet he still gets 2-5 per day. Have people try the content, it's really not the big deal it's cut out to be.

Should mining nodes and herb nodes in instances be tracked with DKP too, then? How about locked chests for rogues? What about skinning when one person get all the leather from skinnable mobs? I can't ever get any of those on my own either; isn't that unfair?

Primal Nether is how crafters will make money. It's no different than the Rich Thorium Veins at the end of DM East. By being a crafter, you forego the ability to have a gathering profession in that slot, which could inevitably bring in hundreds of gold with only slight effort.

Primal Nether is Blizzard's (wise, IMO) solution to the problem of there being little incentive to really deal with crafters or be one yourself. Why be a blacksmith when you can just mine up arcane crystals yourself, give the mats to someone else, and tip them a dozen gold to click Combine and make your Stronghold Gauntlets or Arcanite Reaper or whatever you needed? There was none. Now, anything truly worth crafting at 70 takes Nethers. And you can't just go mine up your felsteel and khorium and then have a guild smith mindlessly click to combine for free, because Nethers are a limited commodity. A miner or herbalist spends time farming metals or herbs for his own use, or for resale for profit. A crafter spends time "farming" Primal Nethers. The two are analogous, and I'd treat them the same way.

This to me is the main issue. If I get a group of 5 guild mates, and simply decide that we want to operate outside the system, there is very little a guild could do to regulate this.

Another issue would be the massive headache to tracking something like this... I'm already dreading the tracking of multiple Karazhan runs with multiple waiting lists.

I also disagree with the self-intrest agrument you make for the priests/locks/etc. Anyone with a crafting proffession (except Engineering/Alchemy (Thanks Cladnin)) can make something with Primal Nethers. If anything there is a cash incentive to obtaining these.

If I can make a few Blacksmithing items and have Primal Nether banked, I can essentially charge a combine fee for the Nethers required. I sit in IF and advertise I can make a Hand of Eternity if given the mats, assuming you are willing to pay the Primal Nether (combine) fee.

Alchemy.

How does one kill 10-12 end bosses in a Heroic in "a few hours"? The easiest Nether takes 30 minutes to get, all the rest take 1hour+ to get. But your other points are 100% correct. Anyone wanting to charge DKP for Primal Nether is out of their mind.

Wait, what?

4k gold doesn't sound very reasonable to me. It's been my experience (though it could simply be my server) that lvl 70 blues/epics are not going for as much as people thought they would given the dramatic increase in gold available. My observations are that people are very spendy on low price stuff i.e. enchanting mats/primals/etc. but VERY stingy on big ticket items simply because of the insane lvl 70 or elite group quests that provide rewards that are just slightly worse.

Had 1 nether per boss stuck in my mind for some reason...

I already have a Bloodlust Brooch, and a bunch more badges saved up for my next item. I have 8 Primal Nethers in my bank, and I've already used a number of them crafting items/enchants for people, and I certainly haven't gotten every nether from every heroic I've done. I've done all of this outside of a raid schedule that includes Karazhan and Gruul's Lair. My PVP team's warrior fully intends to farm 11 Primal Nethers for his Deep Thunder this weekend, and I'm certain it's going to happen.

It's an argument of scale. Mining a Khorium node is worth 60g or less. Solid Adamantite chest, which I would share with those on the run anyway, has about a 20% chance to drop a blue or blue gem from 50 to 300g. So, let's use the upper end, chest is worth 60g. Maybe 2 of those in an instance.

Omelet has it right: You can't regulate it, so I guess DKP would be a bit of a poor solution, unless you were to say "No doing timered instances outside of guild without super-special permission from 3 officers signed in triplicate" which has its own problems as far as content progression is concerned.

Still, I would expect at least the right to /random for it to go to the in-group crafter of my choosing, to be used for sure-footing to boots, leg armorkit, weapon, whatever, at least in a guild run.

Things are selling a lot lower than what you would think, but a craftable epic like http://www.wowhead.com/?item=23540 (Felsteel Longblade) is on par with Karazhan drops. The material cost alone (8 Primal Might @ 100G a piece) is in the 1200G neighboorhood. If I had the pattern and made one, I doubt I'd part with it for less than 2000G. Not sure it would actually go for 4K, but it does have significant value.

Oh, I certainly agree that it does have significant value. But I find it highly unlikely anyone is going to pay 4000 gold for one.

Seems silly to DKP primal nether, you have to run heroics dozens of times (every single person who wants to raid) since you will need the badge FR gear to kill mag, which is needed to for attunement to TK (and Hyjal). So in a few weeks everyone will be swimming in primals, unless your guild doesn't plan to go beyond Karazhan and Gruuls Lair.

Given its going to be a while before Blizzard deploys new arena gear, a reasonably competent arena team should easily be able to farm up the entire arena set in a season, so even for guilds that don't want to bother raiding past the starting raids there's no real reason to farm heroics nonstop.

Anyone who has run heroics a few times wouldn't really think about this too much - most of the drops are underwhelming - the heroics are more for fun, teamplay, and challenge than loot.

Frankly any guild that needs to micromanage 5 mans so much needs to step back and figure out why it can't trust its members to take care of themselves wrt to gear and enchants.

I will make note I can get a nether in ~5 minutes duoing a certain boss with another druid. Only issue we are both alchemists so we get to vendor Primal Nethers, but hey a free Badge of Justice every day with a gem/epic item.

I think with a stealth group of 3 druids and 2 rogues could prolly kill several of the primal nether bosses out there. Haven't fully checked though.