Loot council

In the computer role playing games of old, one player managed a whole party with several members. When a new item became available, the player decided which party member would profit most, and give the item to them. In its purest form, a loot council works exactly the same, one person decides which raid members get which items. The opposite extreme is to make all items available to all raid members, and let the individual members decide which items they want.

Usually some kind of compromise is chosen, most raids use some kind of loot council, but usually with less absolute powers than the pure form, and also normally with several members. Items are most frequently restricted by class and/or talent build. A loot council is always used to give a higher emphasis on the success of the raid as a whole over the selfish interests of individual raid members. Commonly used categories to limit loot to certain classes/builds are:

• Tank (prot warrior or paladin, bear druid)
• Melee DPS (arms or fury warrior, rogue, enhancement shaman, cat druid, ret paladin)
• Spell DPS (mage, warlock, shadow priest, elemental shaman, moonkin druid)
• Healer (holy priest or paladin, resto shaman, tree druid)

For some spell DPS items it is a good idea to restrict them further by damage type (nature, fire, frost, shadow), but this happens normally automatically because +nature damage is of no particular use to a warlock.

Despite not being a hydrid, in principle a hunter can also find some use for anything he's able to equip. Depending on playstyle and preference, and keeping usefulness towards the raids goals in mind, hybrids and hunters should be watched very closely, to avoid loot whoring. Usually this means that all players should give their build to their class leaders, so they can judge into which category the player belongs.

Usually the main tank(s) are a class of their own. Since the raid's main tank is extremely important, they are frequently given precedence on any tanking gear they need.