A new WoW event boosts ultra-rare item drop rates tenfold, which admittedly isn't a huge difference when the starting number is 0.5%

An orc in World of Warcraft grins greedily into a bag overflowing with gold. — (Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

World of Warcraft is a game where you fight dragons, elementals, demons, that sort of stuff. But the rival I have contended with the most in 18 years of play—the majority of my life, mind you—is the loot table. Player mounts and legendary weapons from old raids, hyper-rare drops that offer no benefit aside from looking dope, are my most coveted prizes.

I'm not alone. An in-game event just kicked off that supercharges these items' drop rates, and players are rushing to run decades-old raids, potentially for the hundredth or thousandth time, to get mounts that only a handful of players have ever added to their collection. But players are also finding that when the odds are less than 1%, you can increase them by 10 times or even 25 times and handily get the same result.

While plenty of players are celebrating the deluge of rare items, others are cheekily pointing out the event doesn't technically guarantee you anything. As MayorDasMoose put it on Reddit, "I can't wait to be 10x more disappointed when mounts don't drop!" Redditor brakndawnt broke the math down, saying that around 53 tries would yield a comfortably high chance of getting an ultra-rare drop. I don't know enough about cumulative probability to check their math at a glance, but I do know I don't have enough characters or time to do every old raid 53 times this month. Here's hoping I'll get lucky!

You can find a list of the mounts and weapons with an increased drop rate on Wowhead. The Collector's Bounty event kicked off today and will last until July 29.

TOPICS

Justin first became enamored with PC gaming when World of Warcraft and Neverwinter Nights 2 rewired his brain as a wide-eyed kid. As time has passed, he's amassed a hefty backlog of retro shooters, CRPGs, and janky '90s esoterica. Whether he's extolling the virtues of Shenmue or troubleshooting some fiddly old MMO, it's hard to get his mind off games with more ambition than scruples. When he's not at his keyboard, he's probably birdwatching or daydreaming about a glorious comeback for real-time with pause combat. Any day now...

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.