We have been advised that we are moving over to a loot council, and it sounds fair –
Basically it looks like it will be the class leaders and GM/RL, , and in a round about way they will decide who gets the loot if its clear cut, or they will decide who gets to roll. Loot prioritys will be to the main Tanks. For the most things we have let our trials roll on items that Members want, this will probably stop – unless none of the members need them. A Trial is only 2 weeks so its not an unreasonable time to wait.
Because of this we have been asked to provide a list of bosses/items we need, to make it easier for the council, the reasoning for this change, is we had our 1st attempt at Supremous last night boss #2 in BT and we failed.. We got the phases right.. we just keep running into volcanos that would start spewing before they even fully formed.. and at 5k damage each.. OUCH! so we are seeing some progression and the loot is getting better.. and I’m fully supportive of giving it to the people who deserve it,
What I’m finding though is that the Quaility of most of the Cloth Gear for Shadow priests are not that much of an upgrade from the Crafted sets.
Yes there is more stam and intellect or Haste or hit/ Crit , but each of the crafted items have more +spell damage then what seems to be most of the drops, or are better off replaced with the new sunwell Isle Badge Loot.
and thus comes the age old question.. ( well maybe not.. ) Should a player who has not used the tools available eg Profession crafted items, Badge Loots get (eg tailoring/leatherworking/Blacksmith ) to get the Best easily available gear that can be learnt from a trainer.. get priority over someone who has?
theoretically at this point I am better off grinding for Badges to improve my gear then spending hours in raids because most of the upgrades to replace my shadowweave just cannot compare to the +damage – and realistically If I had the spellstrike hood and pants ( also crafted ) I would be even better off! My Belt is the Belt of Blasting.. and that would give me 6 crafted items that don’t have a suitably comparable upgrade via loot.
If I had to narrow down my list of Really Really Need. I think I would have three items. 2 new trinkets, and a ring, out of everything left in the game prior to Sunwell
The Items I want would let me do other things.. Eg Lose my Spell hit Talent points and put them into Crit. Improve my Haste ( I have 2% at the moment with a PVP haste ring and an Badge offhand ect ect… ) But this is where the loot council would come in. Do I NEED an item because of those reasons – probably not.
Lets see how we go…
On a happier note I get to meet a few of my guild this weekend for a semi large gathering in Sydney…. It will be interesting – I hope we have more then wow to talk about.
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Pugnacious Priest's Warcraft Blog 
I am curious to know how Loot Council works out. It sounds like a nightmare to keep track of unless your guild is relatively small. We have about 75-80 raiders in our guild and the guild leaders have their handsfull all the time.
I’ve been helping my son’s friend gear up his Warlock. He has the 3 Shadow weave pieces, spellstrike hood and pants, and the Belt of Blasting. Basically, he has all epics except rings and trinkets. He hasn’t even been in Kara yet and his gear is rating for Gruuls and Mags. Clothies have it easy. 😉
Send your GL/CL/RL/Council to the following sites for an idea of how to gear priests for endgame progression.
http://www.shadowpriest.com and have them look at the ‘best raiding gear available’ list to get a general idea of what to do with Spriest loot priority. Even though you can get higher spell damage from other gear, 4pc T6 blows everything else away with respect to damage output, stats and longevity.
dwarfpriest.com has a fairly good listing of Hpriest gear (heavily favoring spirit), but Hpriests can get away with wearing just about anything that adds up to ~2k healing and ~10k health and mana raid buffed, if they know how to juggle the 5 second rule and manage their restorative cooldowns.
My guild made this same change about 2 months ago and it is going well. Their system values attendance maily, but also considers just how long you’ve been loyal to the guild which makes sence. The issue of giving loot to people who did not have all the upgrades they could have out of game did come up (the Akama offhand went to a mage that was using mag’s offhand even tho an amazing upgrade was available to him for ~35 badges) Some people were angry, I did not agree with it either, but he is a consistent raider and it was clearly the biggest upgrade for him over others. I guess he can now spend those badges on a different upgrade…. Without class leaders tho (none in my guild) it is hard to enforce any of this, short of our 4 officers doing gear checks every week.. which might not be a bad idea but it isn’t happening.
I think there are enough upgrades in there to warrent raiding, the belt off supremus is best until T6 belt in sunwell (assuming 1400 dmg Flasked/raid buffed) .. The pants from Kaz in Hyjal are our best pants forever.. Of course those rings of ancient knowledge which drop from BT Trash are best until Sunwell.. The back from hyjal Trash is a best in slot.. and of course T6 everything but pants. Wow my mind is drifting to the game… back to work lol.