Assign

Items (other than gold coins and quest items) that drop from foes in PvE are randomly assigned to a specific party member, including henchmen and heroes.

The chance of being assigned any one drop is equal for each party member; for example, if you venture out with three henchmen, an average 25% of dropped items will be assigned to you. Items randomly assigned to a henchman or hero are functionally nonexistent as they do not actually appear in the game world.

Assigned items can only be collected by the owning player, and unassigned items can be collected by any player. Item assignments made to player characters last either for ten minutes, until the owning character leaves the instance, or until the item is picked up, whichever comes first. When the assignment expires, the item is up for grabs.

When you hover over an item with the mouse, the item's detail box will specify the item's owner, if it has one. If an item is assigned to another player, its name does not automatically display on the nearby ground and the text is gray instead of white.

Items that drop from a locked chest and some unlocked chests are assigned to the player who opened it. Assignable items that come out of other unlocked chests are assigned to a random party member.