On the eve of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight’s reveal, the game’s developers haven’t been shy about being head-on with interviews. This has given players of the MMORPG more information and depth about what’s to come next.
As always, basic questions are asked, such as what will the new class be like? Will there be a stat squish? And so forth. However, one more in-depth question that's recently been elaborated on is one players have had since Battle for Azeroth's release: Will Master Loot return?
Here's what we know about master loot in WoW Dragonflight so far and its evolution throughout the series.
What is Master Loot in World of Warcraft?
Master Loot is a system in WoW that allows for a “Master Looter” to allocate loot to a specific player in a raid. This gives guilds the opportunity to give some of the best players gear in order to get the best bang for their buck, and otherwise gives power to the players to control loot distribution.
Master loot has never been the default form of loot in WoW as it's always been a choice, that instead is group loot. Along with the game's progression, however, Master Loot became a very popular system for regular guilds.
Before Master Loot's integration, the main way to give out loot came in the form of group loot which allowed players to roll on the gear they wanted with each drop. If they needed an item they’d press “Need,” if they were indifferent about the item, or perhaps wanted it in an offspec, they’d press “Greed,” alternatively if they didn’t care about it they’d press “Pass.” It was fairly straightforward, but chaotic in that players can choose any option with no proper reason required.
Both Master Loot and Group Loot were removed however in the Battle for Azeroth expansion. But we may soon see the return of Master Loot to retail in WoW Dragonflight!
READ MORE: WoW Dragonflight Beta: Release Date, How to Sign Up, Gameplay Details
Personal Loot replaces Master Loot, takes over retail WoW
In master and group loot’s stead came a new system dubbed “personal loot,” the system that WoW players use now. It takes essentially all forms of loot across all types of content in the game and assigns it on a per-player basis. The loot is soulbound to a player upon looting it and if the player doesn’t loot it, they’ll receive it in the mail.
Additionally, if a player loots an item that they don’t need and it’s lower or equal in item level to the current item they are wearing in the same armor slot, the player is allowed to trade it to anyone else in their party or raid.
According to Game Director, Ion Hazzikostas, it was created to make loot more “personal” as well as it was the product of Blizzard tearing down and laying a new foundation, as what they had prior to BFA was just a “mess” that they would later iterate on in the future.
“Over the last few years, we’ve been iterating on it, refining it, and adding rules and exceptions but there’s a lot of problems with it,” said Hazzikostas. “[The] clarity around what’s tradable is pretty bad. The feeling of ‘hey an item just dropped, it’s technically an item level upgrade but I’m not gonna use it and I can’t give it to my friends’ that feels pretty bad [as well].”
READ MORE: WoW Dragonflight: Dev Q&A confirms no mission table, return of the great vault & more
Will WoW Dragonflight bring back Master Loot?
That brings us to the final question: will WoW Dragonflight bring back Master Loot?
After previously hinting that Master Loot would come back via Hazzikostas stating “What if I told you I kind of want to bring back Master Loot?" we now have more confirmation on the loot system.
According to a Wowhead interview with Hazzikostas and Alpha gameplay shown off, instead of Master Loot, players can expect Group Loot to be a loot option that can be enabled.
"Moving away from personal to [a] shared pool of loot, where you kill a raid boss, you work together with 15 or 20 or 30 people to do it," said Hazzikostas. "There’s 5 items on the corpse [and] you can roll for those items, you can pass on them, you can trade them to your friends; that’s a world we think we want to be in again."