How TBC Boss Loot works
Pick a raid and see every boss’s drops on one page — or pick one boss to condense to it. Each row is a gear drop the simulator’s database records, with the specs whose best-in-slot lists pick it and in which phases.
A third picker filters by class: with one picked, only drops that are best-in-slot for a spec of that class — in any phase — stay on the list, and the boss picker’s counts become how many of that boss’s drops qualify.
What the list is
The rows come from the pinned simulator’s own item database — the same wowsims database every number on this site is computed with — which records, for each item, the boss and zone it drops from. That is a loot-driven record, not a best-in-slot one: it lists what the boss drops whether or not any list wants it. The page says so on every boss, with the count: “every gear drop the simulator’s database records for Gruul the Dragonkiller — 13 items.”
It is deliberately not called “the loot table”. The database is the simulator’s, scraped from Blizzard’s item data, and it is complete to the extent that database is. Where this site’s own best-in-slot corpus was checked against it (54 raid bosses), the two agreed item for item except the Opera Hall, whose shared table the corpus had split — those 12 rows are here.
What is not on it
- Tokens, patterns, recipes and quest items. They are not gear, the simulator does not model them, and they are not in its database as equippable items. A tier token that turns into a helm is not listed; the helm it becomes is, under whichever boss the database records — usually none, since tokens are the drop.
- Anything the database does not attribute to a boss. Drops recorded against the zone alone are grouped as the raid’s trash; Karazhan’s Chess Event and the Zul’Aman chests keep their names because the site already knew them.
“Best-in-slot for”
The one thing this page knows that a loot database does not. Each row names the specs whose published best-in-slot list picks that item, and the phases it is the pick for. A drop nobody’s list picks says so — it is still a drop, and it may still be an upgrade for someone; the lists are wowtbc.gg’s, not a verdict.
Where the pictures come from
The boss portraits are Blizzard’s own, from their journal API, downloaded once at build time and served from here — a visitor never contacts Blizzard to see one. A boss the journal cannot place renders without a portrait rather than with a stand-in.
Ads, and what they pay for
There are two ad slots: one in the side rail on wide screens, one below the results. They are never put between a raider and their data, they hold their space so nothing jumps under your cursor, and the side one disappears on narrow screens rather than squashing the table. All of that describes what happens once an ad unit is approved. None is, so today neither slot is filled and neither one takes up any space at all.
They pay the bills. Simulating a full raid is a couple of minutes of computing time per report, and that costs real money. There is no paywall and no account, and nothing about the audit changes depending on whether an ad loads — block them and the tool works exactly the same.
Credit where it is due
The audits, the checks, and every choice about how a number is read, labelled and shown are this site's own. The raw material underneath has earned its credit: every dps number here is produced by wowsims' simulator — their simulator, their rotations, their talent builds — and the item database comes from them too. It is open source under the MIT licence, which is what makes a tool like this possible at all.
The best-in-slot lists and item scores are wowtbc.gg's. Where their score and their own pick disagree, this tool goes with the pick — they chose that item knowing what it does.
Game data and item art come from Blizzard Entertainment's official API. World of Warcraft and Burning Crusade Classic are trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment. This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard, wowsims or wowtbc.gg.
Privacy
No account and no user database; the server keeps one line per request for 14 days, plus a cache of the public Warcraft Logs responses it fetches. The privacy page spells out exactly what is recorded and what is not.