It has been said that there is no rule for what you can need on, that is very true.

I would be surprised if anyone argues the following point:

In a p.u.g. it is common courtesy to pass a main spec item to the person who is running that role in the group at that time. (healer passes tank item to tank if he needs it)

If people follow this rule, which the vast majority do, you can run the instance as a tank and get priority on the item. That might suck but that’s the way it goes.

Let me put it this way. Warrior tank rolls on trinket. Druid healer rolls on same trinket and wins. Healer rolls on healing cloak. Warrior cant roll on healer cloak, even if he does its worthless. That is not fair.

I’m not saying “the DK did it, so I’m gonna do it too”, taking example from “little kids” and using it as my green light to do whatever I want. No. I’m saying that (like Hana from the original post) I thought it was fine because it seemed like standard practice, from most of the groups that I had been in over the weeks/months prior.

Some people believe that there are black and white rules. There are simply not. You might think it is a “dickhead move”, for other servers it is standard practice to Need if you need, regardless of spec. There are other practices on other servers that I think are stupid – like when I used to be on a server where everyone would always pass on every item (including greens) and then /roll 1-100 for them manually. But you can’t dictate the rules for another server.

And when the servers are mixed together through LFD, there are bound to be problems because people’s preconceived ideas of “normal loot rules” simply do not transfer cleanly across to the other servers.

I think you need to face it, its a dickhead move to take an item that someone is needing when its main spec for them and off spec for you.

[...] now I’m pretty sure they’d be peeved, looking at the responses to Hana’s and Keeva’s posts on rolling off-spec in instances using the “LFG” [...]

Your macro is a good thing, IMO, Keeva. I’m with you in that I normally would wait to see if someone else in the group needed an item that was for a spec I wasn’t performing in the instance – but those mental slip-ups do happen, and with the Disenchant option in the game, it’s much better to err on the side of Need then trade. If the rogue hadn’t immediately thrown a hissy fit, it could have been resolved.

Thankfully, right now all my level 80s who have dual specs that require different gear are beyond heroic gear levels (with the exception of a very few items in the heroic ICC instances, for my non-healy specs).

On those few items that I may actually need for any spec in any instance, I really don’t care enough to flip out about losing them on a genuine lost roll to someone who could use them. I may or may not see them again. Chances are, I’ll get something better before too long. If I’m queuing for a particular instance for one particular item and that’s all I want, I’ll announce it. If I lose the roll, so be it.

I absolutely abhor the disenchant option. That’s going to be another full fledged rant for my blog, I think. I’m catching up on your recent posts, Keeva, and it’s giving me blog fodder XD

If tree is your ‘off’ spec does that mean you only roll ‘greed’ on gear with +spellpower?

Skip to the end of the instance, and the Black Heart drops. I giddily click Need, as it is basically a BiS bear trinket for a very long time (I am not in ICC yet and do not do 25s). Cue everyone insulting my family and heritage, and questioning my sexual preference.

While I was trying to explain that, as I said, I am main spec bear, the tank kept popping open a trade window with me (I guess to get me to trade it to him) and I had to keep stopping to close it. In retrospect, I should have just left the group instead of continuing to deal with their abuse but I guess I thought I could make them see reason.

In the end, I ended up /afk-ing with the Black heart in trade to the tank. A jerk move? Yes, but I feel it pales in comparison to the abuse they laid on me for rolling on a trinket my main spec needs.

This “your main spec is what role you are playing” is hogwash, plain and simple. I realize it prevents hybrids from just saying “my main spec is XYZ!” and rolling on whatever they like, but it also prevents folks with a legitimate need from rolling on upgrades simply because they were nice enough… yes, NICE ENOUGH, not selfish enough, to heal or tank for you instead of glutting the DPS queue with yet another DPS.

I am not sure if you are still having this problem, but fyi, I folded my announcement macro into my buff spell. So now, whenever I GOTW the group it announces to them my intent to roll on tanking upgrades that drop (though there are few) even if I am healing or, gasp of gasp, get randomly picked to dps (it’s happened). I can’t ever forget to click it since people like to remind me as soon as I zone “PAW? PAW? PAW?”

Yes, maw, I’m getting to the buffs, keep yer britches on

The point is (following on from Hana’s post, that I was responding to), that we both saw offspec Need rolls and thought that was the norm. Then when we did the same, we were frowned at (or in my case, spat on).

The entire point of the post is that it’s difficult to know what you’re meant to do in groups when you coast along seeing offspec Need rolls all day, then when you do it yourself (even in the same instance!), you get in trouble for it.

Don’t you think it’s a bit hypocritical to label us ninjas when we were simply following what other people had been doing all along?