From WoWWiki

See Also: Category: Instance loot

In World of Warcraft, loot can mean a couple of things:

1. Stuff (treasure: items or money) you get from mobs or containers (barrels, boxes, chests, etc.).
2. The act (to loot; looting) of getting the stuff mentioned above.

Contents 1 Looting While Solo 2 Looting While In A Party 3 Loot Options - Need, Greed & Pass 4 Group Policies and Other Loot Options 5 Miscellaneous Looting Info

Looting While Solo

When soloing, looting is easy - a 'lootable' corpse emits a 'glistening' effect, and the cursor will change to the 'trade' cursor when you mouse over the corpse. Simply right-click (or Command-click on a Mac with 1-button mouse) on the corpse of the mob you just killed, and a window will pop up containing any loot the mob was carrying. (Sometimes this window is empty, which means the mob had no loot.) Using Shift-right/Command-click 'autoloots' the corpse, which picks up all items except 'bind on pickup' items.

Looting While In A Party

In group situations, looting can be much more complicated. The leader of the group can set the group looting parameters, as well as the threshold where items of particular quality are automatically rolled for. There are five group looting parameters:

• Free-for-all: (FFA) First-come, first-served. You snooze, you lose.

• Master Loot: One person in the group, designated by the leader, loots all corpses and distributes loot.

• Round-robin: Party members take turns looting corpses.

• Group Loot: Like Round-robin, except that there is a threshold set by the leader for which items must be rolled off (see details in following discussion).

• Need before Greed 'Pass' is automatically selected for party members who can't use an item.

In all loot settings, money on the corpse is distributed as evenly as possible among all party members.

Grey or white items on the corpse can be picked up by whomever is looting it.

Quest Loot: Quest loot is on a separate loot distribution and there are two common modes for this to occur. 1) In quests where the party is to collect one of a specific item from a specific mob (Collect the head of (mob name here)) then regardless of loot setting, the mob will indicate lootable by every party member with the quest (and without the object). Each member may loot the quest item off the corpse. The other loot on the corpse is subject the the party loot setting. 2) In other quests which require collecting several items of a type (harpy feathers for example), the quest items will drop on some mobs and be looted in the normal way, except that if the current looter can't collect the items (not on quest, already has full set) then the quest loot is FFA for those members who can still pick up the quest items. Other items on the corpse are governed by the party loot setting. On some quests the quest loot is always free-for-all and this may be the above mechanic gone haywire. Some quests where the party is collecting one item will use the named mob mechanism (1) (the Shaman Voodoo Charm from The Sleeping Druid quest, for example, where all party members can get the charm off the same shaman.)

Loot Options - Need, Greed & Pass

Items of good (green) quality or higher might not be immediately lootable, depending on the loot rolling threshold established by the party leader. When an item is available that falls within that rolling threshold, the looter is prohibited from taking the item and a 'roll window' pops up for all party members with an image of the item and three buttons - a pair-of-dice button, a coin button, and a red circle with diagonal line button.

	Need: Mouse over the picture of the item to see its characteristics, and if you want to take it to use, click the pair-of-dice button to randomly generate a number from 1 to 100. This is a 'need' roll and the item should, at least, be equipable by your character. Warning: If you 'need' every drop, you will be branded a ninja and have trouble finding groups.
	Greed: If you want it to sell, send to an alt, etc., click the coin button for a "greed" roll. This will only result in a roll if no one chooses need.
	Pass: If you don't want the item, click the cancel button and you will 'pass' on the item. The high-roller among those who roll is awarded the item, and it goes in that character's backpack. If everyone passes on a rollable item, the item becomes freely lootable to anyone in the party. The roll window has a timer shown as a shrinking bar; if the timer expires before you choose "need" or "greed", you will "pass" on the item.

Group Policies and Other Loot Options

• Some groups have a policy that, when a bind on pickup item is found as loot, all characters are expected to 'pass' on the item so that a more deliberate selection can be made. It's good to know if your group follows this policy before you find such an item. While this system does nothing to stop a ninja from taking an item, some groups still insist on using it. Going against the grain while in a group usually just creates unrest and fights over loot.
• If you are the group leader, or the group leader seems levelheaded, it would be wise to use (or ask to use) the normal, built-in looting systems. While a ninja can still roll need on items they do not actually need, other people who do need the item will still have a shot at it, rather than the ninja just picking it up after everyone passes, or rolling after everyone else has passed.
• Often, Instances will be run with one character of much higher level leading the charge. This is frequently done in clans where senior members want to help others in aquiring good loot. In these cases, it is common that the senior party member will serve as party leader and set loot settings to Master Loot, so as to best distribute all loot.
• Another common protocol for distributing chest loot is 'high to low', where the highest level member of the group gets first crack at the chest, takes anything he likes, then anything left is available for the next highest level group member, etc., until the chest is empty or no one wishes to take anything else. Money in chests is distributed evenly among the party members who are nearby just like money from corpses.

Note that loot from containers -- chests, food crates, and the like -- as opposed to corpses, also uses the party loot threshold (if one is in effect), although the container will always be lootable by any party member. If the container holds a high-quality item, that item will be rolled on (or not), the same as if it were looted from a corpse. Since this is a recent change (Patch 2.1.0), many groups may still require rolling on content, or at least to link the common items such as foods and potions to give to those who need it.

Miscellaneous Looting Info

In battlegrounds, players can loot enemy corpses. This will remove their insignia so that they must revive at the graveyard, and give the looter a small sum of money. Note that if the player's ghost is running toward the corpse when its insignia is removed, he'll have to run all the way back to the graveyard to resurrect, so it may be wise to wait a moment before looting. Looting the player's corpse will also force its spirit to release, if they have not already done so, thus preventing their ghost from spying on the area around their corpse.