Island Expeditions - I don't think Rares mean anything

Community General Discussion
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I capped my weekly IE today on my main, done Heroic queues until I was done with my weekly quest with my guild and all three of us done nothing but buy a Rabbits Foot and mined Azerite, or opened chests.

Total we killed maybe 6 rares total (only those who had locked chests, and not even the named chests) and just in the 5 queues we went into I alone got more items than I have seen in the past month, add in the stuff my guild got between the three of us and for sure more stuff dropped than I have seen since the start of BfA.

I have now capped one HoA level per week since I was able to queue for IE, aside from some WQ’s, dungeons and whatnot my fallback until I hit a new HoA level was IE so I have done my fair share.

Now I know the Secret Finding Discord says rares don’t really matter and maybe just killing certain types of enemies will still give drops as the information they are gathering shows this.

I know Reddit has a lot of information that killing Rares is the way to go and their information shows this. But either Blizzard has changed something, the three of us got very lucky with our limited rare kills, or it means jack as to what we do to get items, it all comes down to a random drop based on something we do not yet know and Blizzard has not yet told us.

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The more i think about it… what if the items have a chance to be in chests. So if you kill rares guarding chests… and loot the chests. you are doubling your chances.

Just a theory though.

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I thought that and always tried to find those invasions or portals where there was a nice big rare and some fancy small event, like the ice chest or the volcano and the dragon/mogu chests, but today honestly, we killed only the rares that were in the way of stuff like the azerite sacks and wooden chests, not even the named ones.

Everything else we done (easily 95%+) was mining the azerite nodes, we had no events take place and I am almost 100% on this that you need to kill the rares for the invasions and events to take place.

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I agree the loot seems very random. According to wowhead I have looted many items that I shouldn’t have based on the mobs that were on the islands at the time.

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The problem with Wowhead, unless you are using the Wowhead client no data uploads to the site, and if you are the odd one that does not follow the crows your data will show 0.1%, whereas all the other data will heavily outweigh yours.

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No way in %#@^ I am running a wowhead client. I prefer to stay virus free. :slight_smile:

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Ironic that you use the site for help but will not contribute to the data.

I run it and have done so for many years, never had an issue here.

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I have add blockers and script blockers to be able to view the site safely. Because, I am forced to do this to avoid getting viruses I cannot contribute to them.

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So between Thottbot and Wowhead we are looking at almost 14 years of activity, maybe less? No viruses in the entire time and all I use is Windows Defender.

Maybe it is something you are doing that is giving you viruses?

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I dunno. I think rares do play a part but not the only way. They may increase the odds in your favor slightly, that’s my guess anyway.

Like, I know I got the baby deer pet from an Island that was full of stags but no rare versions. Being easy to kill we rounded a lot up and went to AoE town.

From my understanding(of course this is based off the limited research I’ve done). Just killing mobs of a type is enough to get the chance at an item, whether rare mob or normal.

That said assuming every rare type does have something associated, I’m curious what the Hill Ettin/Giant thing has since there are no normal mobs of that type and I don’t know anyone who has received anything associated with him.

Likewise, some mobs I have yet to see a rare version of, like the Cragjumpers(yeti mount thingy). Though I could just be unlucky in that regard.

I do always try to loot the big invasion/portal chests when able though. But I tend to ignore the rest.

Also, Thottbot, man that brings back memories, lol.

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Blizzard watched a frost mage aoe farm while rebuilding classic and thought to themselves. " what if we make that a game mode but nerf the drops…" Then the isles were born.

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From my experience just from today I found nothing from the previous data made sense since I got more from less killing.

The issue is Group A are killing rares and getting loot, Group B are killing normal mobs and getting loot, Group C are farming Azerite and getting loot.

Why? They are purposely farming their respective mobs and the one with more data wins out, so more players follow and more data is gathered. Until Blizzard actually tell us what the deal is it will be all trial and error.

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I haven’t gotten a drop from Islands in weeks and am about to give up.

(puts on tinfoil hat)

I think they want us to buy tokens so we can purchase the little pets instead of farm them. Actually that theory would only work if the mounts were able to be put on the auction house.

:cookie:

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Unless you are with the other two people in your group 100% of the time it’s possible they killed a random rare related to the loot you got. I frequently kill rares by myself; it doesn’t matter if the people in my group take part in the kill - they are still eligible for whatever is on that mob’s loot table.

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We planned from the start, kill nothing, and discussed what was going on to make sure we were all on the same page.

The benefits of a good guild, you can actually communicate and trust each other, plus you can see in the combat log what was going on, where the Azerite was coming from and also notice the teams health drop if they were in combat.

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Yes, I’m late to the party, but in my defense, I’m old and medicated :). I am just now getting to island expeditions and I found the secret to unlocking chest/bags of loot guarded by a sorceress/necromancer. The chests/bags are only lootable if the guardian is alive. Killing them won’t unlock it. Crowd control is the answer. I hope this helps. Be safe!