With WoW: Dragonflight, Blizzard is changing how loot works in raids

Loot in World of Warcraft Dragonflight will be different – at least in raids. We’ll tell you what’s changing.

Since the introduction of different levels of raid difficulty in World of Warcraft, the loot has been comparatively static in strength. Exceptions are usually only the last bosses of a raid – the final boss often has a slightly higher item level because it is usually particularly hard.

In the next expansion, Dragonflight, that changes and the loot gets progressively better. If you progress further in raids, you can also dust off better loot.

What changes with Dragonflight? In the first raid of World of Warcraft Dragonflight, the item level of the loot is increased every few bosses. This means that the item level of the loot is still quite low for the first boss and then increases more and more. Bosses 2-4 already have an item level increased by 3, bosses 5 and 6 add another 4 item levels and the last two bosses again +3.

The further you progress in the raid, the better the loot will be.

What’s the benefit of this? Of course, the most obvious benefit is that the bosses feel more rewarding the further you progress in the raid. Since the bosses usually become increasingly difficult, the rewards are therefore adapted to the additional difficulty. In other words, if you defeat the tougher bosses, there are also better rewards.

The second advantage is that the jumps between the individual difficulties are smaller. For example, if you defeat the final boss in the raid on “normal”, then the jump to the 1st boss of the raid on “heroic” is only a small 3 item level. This results in a much smoother curve in the increase in item level between the individual bosses and the big jumps of 8 or even 12 item levels are eliminated.

This table provides information about how the item level behaves:

raid boss number	LFR	normal	Heroic	Mythical
1	385	398	411	424
2-4	388	401	414	427
5-6	392	405	418	431
7-8	395	408	421	434

This results in a whole shallow curve.

This is what the community says about it: She sees these different item levels with mixed opinions. While many advocate that later bosses drop better loot, there is some criticism. Many are concerned that their best weapon will drop early in the raid, while other classes will get their weapon from the final boss – which would already lead to a large item level difference. Here are some comments:

• “That’s cool. The further you get, the better the reward.”
• “This looks awful considering loot isn’t created equally and some classes only get their weapons from the final bosses. […] Imagine a class gets their weapon in the first bosses, the item level difference between them and those who get their weapon in the last boss is 10 item levels.”
• “If this goes live like this, a lot of people will stop…”

How do you like that? Is it good if the item level keeps increasing during the raid? Or does that devalue the different difficulties for you?

Others do weird things with their loot – and gift it to their demons!