last fall, we had a crew of 6 or 7 players plus all of their relevant-level alts, who killed DIrebrew literally two dozen times a day in order for players to collect the holiday mounts they wished to acquire. Some toons (healers and tanks especially, my healer among them) remained in the fight for ten, fifteen of those summons. I now have *one opportuntiy each day (rather than ten to fifteen) to see that ram.

Nope, I don't really see how that's an improvement in odds. :)

The possible downside is - with each player only able to loot holiday items once a day - the items will be more rare. Fortunately, it's countered by the fact that (if your bag holds the loot) you win it. There's no ninja-ing, no rolling, no risk of an accident making you miss your item... So the only case that's affected is where you run with a group that already has the item so you're the only one rolling. Otherwise, your odds are the same as they were before.

Explanation:
Previously, with a 1% drop, you had 5 chances a day, meaning roughly a 5% chance per day of seeing the drop.
Then you rolled against 5 other people, making your chance of winning 1/5th of that, or 1%. (This is the original drop rate, thus your chances of getting the item were equal to the drop rate.)
Now, the drop rate is still 1%, but you're not rolling against anyone.
So even though you only get one loot a day, your odds of winning the item are the same as before.

I like the security it offers, and I wish they'd use the loot bag with more of these high-risk items.

The one real downside I see is that the holiday is even more of a farm-fest, as one of the old advantages was the immersive nature of heading out to a holiday-themed area and tracking down this boss. I certainly won't miss zone-camp gankfests though.

Edited, Feb 23rd 2010 1:19pm by homeschoolzam