Is this how drop rate for Fyr'alath (Legendary Axe) is calculated?

Community General Discussion
1

So I have been thinking about this a lot.

Starting from what Blizzard said - If you kill Fyrakk on higher difficulties, it includes the drop chance of lower difficulties, meaning you don’t need to do them, aka lower difficulties will not drop the axe anymore.

Here is what I think:

Let’s assume the base drop rate is 1%

LFR gives you ONE chance at the axe, at 1% rate.

Normal gives you TWO chances at the axe, at 1% rate each, meaning you roll a 1% rate twice, independently. Effective drop rate calculated as → 1 - 99%^2 = 1.99%

Heroic gives you THREE chances at the axe, at 1% rate each, meaning you roll a 1% rate three times, independently. Effective drop rate calculated as → 1 - 99%^3 = 2.87%

Mythic gives you SIX chances at the axe, at 1% rate each, meaning you roll a 1% rate six times, independently. Effective drop rate calculated as → 1 - 99%^6 = 5.85%

To me this is the only way it makes sense. You can think of this as doing scratch-off lotteries. Each lottery ticket is 1% wining chance, you get 1 ticket from LFR, 2 tickets from Normal, 3 from Heroic and 6 from Mythic. And of course if you do lower difficulties first, the higher ones will only give you the difference.

However all of the above are just calculations and theories. In practice I think doing Fyrakk from lower difficulties and all the way to the highest gives you more chance at the axe, compared to just doing the highest you can from the start. This is because of the bad luck protection:

You do LFR first, axe does not drop, but you get the item that increase your chance at the axe, let’s assume it increases the base rate by 0.1%, which makes your base rate 1.1% now.

Then you go do Normal. Because you already did LFR, you only get ONE chance at the axe instead of TWO, but this one chance is at 1.1% instead of 1%. Overall this is a higher chance of you getting the axe in that reset compared to you just doing Normal.

Chances of you getting the axe by doing just Normal: 1-99%^2 = 1.99%
Chances of you getting the axe by doing LFR first then Normal: 1-99%*98.9% = 2.09%

Unless the bad luck protection only goes into effect at reset, doing all difficulties from low to high would be your best chances at the axe.

But anyway that’s too much work I think I’ll just stick to the highest difficulties LMAO.

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2

No matter how you think it works

Just remember, it doesn’t work that way

Blizzard hate explaining how the loot treadmill works

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3

Probability is fun and all but it never interacts well with reality.

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4

They explicity said with the evoker legendary there was no difference in doing the harder difficulty first as it was equal to getting all your shots in thus saving you from having to waste your time going from low to high.

The only way for that to work is for the game to do your rolls in ascending order while also giving you BLP credit on each of those invisible subsequent rolls. So you clear heroic, you get the LFR roll 1st, then normal buffed by whatever the LFR increase was (if any), and then the heroic + whatever the buffed BLP odds was for normal in the prior roll

Given we now have physical BLP token drops, it probably does make more sense to clear low to high because you won’t have those tokens applied otherwise. Just eeking out more gametime for those wanting it.

5

And also how awesome would it be if the axe drops for you in LFR? That’d be something to brag about lol.

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6

There are so many weird things about this.

First of which, why not let the roll for Heroic just be 3%? I totally understand the math you are using to get 2.87% … but why do it that way? Simply because it screws the player over more? It’s Blizzard, that’s a fine enough reason, for sure…

The lottery ticket is a great analogy. But, again, we would need some clarification.

Do we get 1 ticket for attending LFR; 1 ticket for Normal; 1 ticker for Heroic; 3 tickets for Mythic?

Or would you get 3 tickets for Heroic (you get all the tickets for the previous tiers, plus the one you’re on).

The “Greater Ember of Fyr’alath” says to “use it.” ok… then what? My percentage goes up for the week? Or until I kill him? Or until I GET THE ITEM???

There are just too many variables here to make this FUN. Hey Blizzard, remember this is supposed to be FUN??? And all of this to get a weapon that isn’t just a huge stat-stick to play with, you have to interact with it to make it work. Click these, than channel this, then STAND STILL, then jump on one foot … wtf… this isn’t FUN. lol

Nothing saying the accountants are in control more than what it takes just to GET this thing, and the controverted nonsense required to maximize its potential.

7

The drop rate is based around how much gold you have across your account. The less gold, the more likely you are to purchase a WoW token to buy all of the required mats, thereby increasing your likelihood of receiving the legendary.

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8

Using the Lottery Tickets analogy, it SEEMS like:

Killing on Heroic is 3 tickets. BUT

You can clear LFR and get a half a ticket.
Clear Normal and get another half a ticket.
Clear Heroic and get another half a ticket.

So your Heroic kill + LFR + Normal clears = not 3, but 4.5. You’re getting another “ticket and a half” (1.5% chance) … but is it worth it??

LFR is a 1-shot. So assuming you can get in a group that will let you just kill Normal Fyrak … then MAYBE??

ughhhh just… NOT … FUN.

9

We’ll probably never know. Just keep killing it.

1 Like
10

First of which, why not let the roll for Heroic just be 3%? I totally understand the math you are using to get 2.87% … but why do it that way? Simply because it screws the player over more? It’s Blizzard, that’s a fine enough reason, for sure…

I assume you mean something like this?

LFR 1%
Normal 2% (If LFR first, then its 1%)
Heroic 3% (If LFR first, then its 2%, if LFR & Normal are done, then its 1%)

If this is the case, doing the highest difficulty does NOT give you the same chance at the axe as doing all difficulties low to high.

Doing just Heroic: 3%
Doing low to high: 1 - 99% * 99% * 99% = 2.97%
And apparently I made a typo in the post, it should be 2.97% not 2.87%

It’s the difference between additive and multiplicative calculations.

11

You’re all overthinking probability from a coding perspective. The actual implementation is like something like this:

If the character class is a Warrior/Pal/DK, for every weekly reset, roll a random float between 0 and 1. Let’s use 0.04 as an example value and call this variable fyrakk_roll.

Then the logic becomes something like this:

Upon killing Fyrakk:

leg_drop_chance = {
    "LFR": 0.01,
    "Normal": 0.05,
    "Heroic": 0.15,
}

if fyrakk_roll < leg_drop_chance[difficulty]:
   drop_fyralath()

In this case, the 0.04 value would cause drop would fail on LFR but would drop on Normal and Heroic.

This at a technical level fulfills the no-benefit-from-doing-lower-difficulty constraints that we know about,

12

This at a technical level fulfills the no-benefit-from-doing-lower-difficulty constraints that we know about,

How does the bad luck protection come into play then? I would assume it decrease the variable fyrakk_roll ?

If that is the case, it would still be better to do lower difficulties first.

Assuming highest you can do this week is normal:
If you roll fyrakk_roll = 0.05 (Just doing Normal would not drop axe)
And after LFR, the BLP gives you -0.01 making fyrakk_roll = 0.04
Now you do Normal you will get the drop.

Please correct me if I’m wrong. Maybe there is another way of implementing the BLP without making it this way?

I guess ultimately it all comes down to how BLP works, and Blizzard would probably never tell us.

13

It depends on how bad luck protection actually works (e.g. additive or multiplicative) but let’s say each week you get a flat +1% to the probability regardless of difficulty tier.

Then the logic at the end would be:

if fyrakk_roll < (leg_drop_chance[difficulty] + 0.01 * num_weeks_killed):
   drop_fyralath()

So if you killed Fyrakk for 2 weeks, the example probabilities for LFR/Normal/Heroic would be 3%/7%/17%. (it’s functionally the same as what you suggested, but much cleaner)

14

This may or may not work for the evoker legendary because, as far as I know, they didn’t get an actual consumable item giving them bad luck protection…that is not the case now what with fyrakk giving a token on normal (possibly LFR) and heroic, supposedly, having a small chance to drop a BLP token on ANY boss requiring the player to actively use/consume them.

Which very much means, to maximize your odds, you absolutely want to do LFR (maybe) and normal Fyrakk first and foremost before clearing heroic fully…possibly even mythic up to your progression point before heroic fyrakk to even eek out even more odds if mythic bosses all have a chance to also drop BLP tokens.

15

It looks like you do not play Warr/DK/Paladin, because the BLP is an actual item that drops from Fyrakk, called Greater Ember of Fyr’alath, and you actually have to USE it. You can also get lesser ones from other HC and Mythic bosses.

I would think it increase your chance instantly rather than at next reset, otherwise why would they make it an item to use?

16

The Greater Ember of Fyr’alath is functionally the same as a num_weeks_killed parameter, except more transparent that something is happening, compared to the ambiguity of BLP for the Evoker Legendary. So, fine, replace num_weeks_killed with num_ember_points where a Greater Ember is 1 point and a Lesser Ember is 0.5 since it does seem like there is a benefit for doing both Normal and Heroic. The overall logic is still the same which was the point I was making.

We don’t know the exact mechanics of BLP so it’s pointless to nitpick the demo implementation, but you do have a point that it would have to take effect on the value-at-reset instead of checking on kill though to avoid degenerate gameplay. (but it’s certainly not the first time Blizzard has left in a drop rate bug edge case that can’t easily be detected during testing)

17

By the time I get it it will be useless so cringe of a system

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18

I truly believe this is probably the most likely scenario. Which means I’ll never get it since Daddy Blizz will never get real money from me again. :speak_no_evil::see_no_evil::hear_no_evil:

19

You’re ignoring though the fact (and it is a fact) that the BLP is a consumable item one must actually loot and use before it, presumably, has any effect unlike the Evoker one which was just counting kills.

So unless this fancy calculation is taking into account unconsumed tokens and giving credit to people doing harder modes first bt granting and automatically giving you unearned “lesser” tokens before doing the final calculation, you’re absolutely lessening your odds no matter how you slice it no doing lowest to highest tiers of content and assuming the litertal majority of us is capping out on heroic fyrakk with maybe some bonus token chances on easier mythic bosses that may or may not be pug-worthy in the near future.

Edit - So unless it somehow proves otherwise, the optimal method to maximizing your odds is to do all heroic and mythic bosses MINUS Fyrakk and then clear LFR, Normal, Heroic, and then Mythic Fyrakk consuming all shards obtained before the next attempt.

20

I still don’t know that this has been addressed:

Is the “on-use” feature “consumed when you use it, and then kill Fyrak?”

What I’m suggesting is: could you HOARD those tokens until you have, say, 20 of them … burn them all at once, and then have a higher chance?

Does killing Fyrak reset the “counter” of these on-use tokens?

Understand what I’m asking?