I am having trouble finding an answer to this, so any explanation would be great.
Let’s say in the situation of a 30 HC raid to Castle Nathria, but one of those players is already loot locked to the bosses we are going to kill. Does that affect the potential # of items we could see drop from each boss?
In theory, I would expect a set number of items to drop for various raid sizes. And, even if a player in the raid is loot locked - they are still counted in that raid size total. So if 5 items drop for 30 people, but one person is saved - they can still technically be ‘assigned’ one of those 5 items but not be able to loot it. Effectively reducing the potential that item could of gone to someone not locked.
So therefore, it is better for a raid to not include people that are already loot locked, as it could effectively reduce the actual total of items dropped for the team. So in the situation of 30 man raid, with 1 person loot locked - you would be better to just raid as 29 people.
I’m also interested in getting a conclusive answer to this.
As some members of my guild seem to prefer pugging raids before the weekly guild run and chances of getting gear already on the small side this expansion, I’d rather not risk bringing someone who will possibly get assigned loot they then can’t receive, over a non-locked person. Gear isn’t everything, but at the start of the expansion every little bit counts and would hate to see potential upgrades just disappear due to how the system works and people being inconsiderate.
The loot drop is the same no matter how many people are locked or not.
It makes sense because if loot locked people were not counted it would mean you could pad a raid full of non eligible people and effectively increase the chance of loot for people that have not looted.