Purpose?

Provides a fair way to distribute loot based on specific and transparent criteria. Some features of the EPGP system:

• Share loot based on participation.
• Eliminate incentives to hoard or compete with other members.
• Reward boss kills, even if loot is disenchanted.
• Encourage attempts through all the wipes for new bosses.
• Reward good etiquette in raids and in the guild.

What is EPGP?

It is a way to distribute items in 25-man instances based on a "Priority" system. When items drop, each item is given to the bidding player of proper class and spec with the highest Priority. There are no rolls and there is no DKP to "spend", although your Priority functions similarly to the way DKP does in a fixed-price system (person with the most gets the item).

EPGP means Effort Points (EP) / Gear Points (GP). EP is awarded for your actions and increases your Priority. GP is the value of the loot you've won and reduces your Priority. Your Priority is your EP divided by your GP, so when your EP goes up, your Priority goes up and when your GP goes up, your Priority goes down.

Unlike the DKP systems in which you "bank" points and spend them on gear, you instead have two running totals -- EP and GP -- that both go up. Because Priority is a ratio of the two numbers instead of subtracting one from the other, EP is not tied to gear values and can be awarded for anything you do that the guild values, as you'll see further below.

GP is the simplest part of the system. Every item's GP is calculated from its item level and slot. The EPGP Wiki explains the formula to calculate GP. The EPGP addon will show you the GP value of any item in-game so you can see the GP of your own gear, gear in AH, other player's gear, and gear that drops off bosses.

EP is awarded as "Earned EP" during raids and as "Bonus EP" for other actions you take. The types of EP awarded and their relative values can been seen further below.

For a detailed explanation of the system, see EPGP Wiki. For more description and to download the in-game addon, go to curse.com. We are using version 5.4.8.

Start up EP.

Everyone starts at 0 EP and works up to the minimum for item awards, 18,000 EP. That is currently 8 hours of raiding or 2 full raids.

How to earn EP or even loose some?

• Every boss kill while in the raid. +1000 EP

That means you can earn up to 9000 EP in a single raid with a duration of 4 hours.

Members that have been left out of the raid due to no spots will also be awarded but they will have to stay online and be on standby. Standby means you are ready to be summoned into the raid at a moments notice. EP awarded while in standby will be 1/2 of the EP for the boss kill.

In addition to earning EP, you can also be penalized EP.

Whenever you do something that makes the raid leader wants to slap you, you get a penalty.
< insert penalty's here >

Penalties can be giving to things such as the following:

• Leaving early, leave a raid early while actively raiding, without prior arrangement with RL. (Can be waived for good reason.)
• AFK, AFK for an extended period over 15 mins or without prior notice to the RL. (Can be waived for good reason.)

How to win gear.

When a piece of gear drops in an instance, all players of the correct class and spec can /roll on it if they have at least 18,000 EP. The player with the highest priority wins. That player's GP will be updated and Priority will be recalculated.

You cannot /roll on an item if you don't have at least 18,000 EP, although you can win an item if no one above 18,000 EP bids on it. If your EP drops below 18,000 EP due to Decay or by being penalized, you must work your EP back up. This requires raiders to participate frequently if they want gear rather than cherry-picking their raids. It also prevents one-time raiders from getting gear.

When the master looter asks for rolls to show interest on an item, type /roll in raid chat

If you aren't sure whether you need it, please /roll at your own discretion.

Decay

As you earn more gear, your GP could grow quite large. Even though your EP grows quickly, your Priority drops faster because your EP is divided by your large GP. So after a few pieces of gear, you might not be able to get another piece for a few weeks.

This is resolved by a "Decay" factor. Once a week, Tuesday nights, your EP and GP will both be reduced by the "Decay Factor", which is currently 8%, in other words diminished by 8%. Your Priority won't change because both EP and GP are reduced by the same proportion. The Decay Factor allows your new EP awards to increase your Priority faster than it would have otherwise. The Decay also provides incentive to bid on gear rather than trying to keep it high by "hoarding EP" because it will go down over time.

Because of the Decay factor, it is usually better to win a piece of gear than to wait for something better.

Exceptions and Special rules

• Melee DPS classes have always higher priority over Hunters on melee (close range) DPS weapons.
• Weapons including Bows and Guns, Shield for tanks, always the highest GP value.
• Wands, Throwing, Shield for healers, always the lowest GP value.
• Raiding EP awards are lowered by 50% for old raiding content when Ulduar becomes available.

Some clarification about the highest and lowest GP value:
Main hand items are always full price, including casters.
The difference is that a hunters "Main hand" weapon is their bow or gun, therefore that is what gets the full GP value.
Off-hand items that are actively used (DW and Tanks) are thusly full GP value, where the others only use it as a stats increase.
This is also to counter confusion if you say that off-hand is always lower price, every rogue will claim that their one-handed item is for the off-hand.

Armor type exception.
We also have a rule about which class has priority over which type of armors.
It is quite simple. For example a Holy Priest who can only use Cloth will always have priority over a Resto druid who can wear Leather.