What if: Gear Dropped From Anywhere

Right now we know where we get our gear.  From vendor or from bosses and the occasional crafted or BoE/BoP drop.  It is a simple format that we all have grown accustom to and accept at least on some level.  You might not like that your best in slot trinket drops from the last boss, but you accept that is how it is.  You might not like that no weapons can be purchased with valor but you deal with it because what choice do you have.

But what if any mob of the appropriate level any where in the game could drop any piece of gear, using the smart loot system.  So while out and about grinding mobs if you get lucky to get that 1% drop it will be something that is for your loot specialization.  Might as well add that part being it was added to the game right?

I could effectively go out and grind mobs by the hundreds or thousands  hoping for my bow being none of the bow bosses like me all that much.  It still leaves it up to my most hated thing in the game, something I would pay to see removed, the random number generator, but it does increase my chances as every mob could drop it.

And lets even pump it up some.  There is a 1% chance to drop something for your loot specialization and a 10% change that thing you do find when you find it could be heroic.

Lets not leave the PvP players out of this either.  They too will have a chance to get gear for their specialization as well.  Whenever an enemy player dies that you helped contribute to killing, either by healing someone that did damage to them or doing damage to them yourself you have a 5% chance it will be a piece of gear honor level awarded to you and a 10% change on top of that that it will be a piece at conquest level.

How about using this gear grind for PvP to inspire more world PvP by saying the chances are increased to 7% and 14% when not in instanced content.  I can see that being abused however so maybe that would not work as well in action as it does on paper.

All the talk about getting people out in the world however and the game seems to be failing at finding anything that actually motivates people to get out there.  While I might not be the type that is completely driven by gear you can see that gear is a huge motivator in the game for the vast majority of the player base.

People love to judge people by their gear, think they are better than others because of gear, so much so that the game itself uses gear to judge if people are capable of doing content when anyone with a brain knows that gear is only the tool.  It is the person using the tools that make the tools effective.

People raid for gear, they rage when they lose a roll, they complain when they need stuff for their raid and a holy paladin piece drops and has to be disenchanted because they have no holy paladin, they grind valor for gear, valor for upgrades to their gear.  They gem their gear, they enchant their gear, they reforge their gear and if they are so inclined to do so they even transmog their gear.  I am sure there are some parents in the game that pay more attention to their gear than they do their own children.  Yes sad, but I am sure it is true.

Gear is huge.  The idea that even a casual player that never raids can get heroic level gear just from killing mobs, even if the chances are minimal, is the ultimate motivator to get them to playing more and get them out in the world.  What can be more casual friendly, or any type of player friendly at that, than killing things you know you can kill at a pace you can kill them whenever you want to kill them and getting the chance to get a piece of gear that you would never in a million years get otherwise.

From the player vs player standpoint this works wonders too.  Even someone like myself that is not into PvP can really get into world PvP from time to time.  I actually love it and would love to see more of it.  If there were an active world PvP player base I could honestly see myself quitting raiding and just fighting all the time.  I really do like it that much.  Perhaps that is why I would like to see something done to bring it back, to bring things back into the world and out of the instance.

But having gear drop from world PvP would not only be a motivator for people to world PvP but it would also allow people like myself to gear up slowly with a small chance to get gear from doing it.  You never know, with a little luck with drops and maybe even getting some conquest level stuff and I might actually want to join in on organized content as well.  It would also, in time, increase my level of skill by doing it often.

Having gear drop from every player and mob in this what if world would be a way to get people back out in the world.  It would give them a reason to be doing things instead of standing around waiting to do things.  You could grind gear while waiting to get into your LFR in hopes of getting gear there as well.

What other advantages or disadvantages could this bring?

What if gear dropped from anywhere?