Yup, absolutely... any guild that runs Onyxia, MC, or BWL should always go FFA because of lame looting bugs.

For example, here's how the guild I run with made the decision... On the guild-first fight on Shazzrah in MC, we really weren't sure exactly how to handle things and the fight dragged on and on. He's not really a tough boss honestly, but it's slow because the only melee being used is typically the MT because of the massive and constant Arcane Explosion AoEs. The puller died at the beginning of the fight, and I used her as my timer for the fight, with CTRA showing me the death time. At the end of the fight, she had been dead for over 15 min and of course released due to time. Of four druids in the raid (including me), two had been dead long enough that they released. One druid never died, so he was fine. I had died, but very late in the fight, maybe 2 minutes before Shazzrah died, and I got a prompt res. We had Master Looter enabled to make sure that no one could even accidentally ninja a drop. Anyhow, the Cenarion Gloves dropped. The druid that stayed alive had already received an epic, so he was out on the roll for the gloves. Because the guild was very new (experienced players, but newly formed guild),we had no DKP system set up just yet (hense the reason for the rolls). Of three eligible druids, I rolled lowest. So the ML went ahead and tried to give the gloves to the winner, but it refused to give it to her. After 5 minutes or so of trying to give it to her, thinking it might have been insanely hideous lag, they tried the next druid in line. Notta. The only other druids left were me and the druid that didn't die at all. So just out of humor they attempted to give to me, not realizing that by way of ML bug, it would allow me to have it.

The way the ML bug goes (unless 1.7 has fixed it) is that if you die and are released at the time of the boss kill, the item is not allowed to be given to you. Effectively, you are not present for the boss's death according to the game, even if you are in the raid that kills him and your body is in the instance by the boss.

Granted, the Shazz fight should never last 15 min to an experienced guild, but it's still VERY likely it'll last longer than the 6 min release timer.

Also, even if the bug has been fixed and confirmed, now that we all trust one another and it's obvious that no one will ninja a drop, there's no reason to ever go away from FFA is there?

Edited, Fri Sep 16 16:45:27 2005