Mount Attempts per drop rate

[PuppetShowJustice]

It took me 319 kills total (across several characters) to get the Onyxia drake.

It took less than a dozen kills to get two Flametalon of Alysrazor to drop for myself and my duo partner.

RNG is crazy.

[Deleted]

Kara mount.

6 years on the same char.
4 years on 5 chars.

Finally.

Invincible, every week since Cata out, still no luck.

Onyxia - 4 chars for 6 months.

[Puri]

Yeah I know what you mean, I also looked for comfort in numbers many times.
I thought Blizzard normalized mount drops to be all at 1% (except personal loot mounts)? So cheer up.

So just a few numbers based on 1% dropchance:
If you get your mount before attempt 69 you belong the the lucky people, because until attempt 69 the chance of not getting the mount is higher than getting it.
Starting with attempt 69 the tide changes though, which means the chance of getting the mount at least once in 69+ attempts is higher than not getting it.

An interesting number is attempt 100. Many people assume that with 1% dropchance you should get one mount in 100 attempts, but this is just the normal distribution, and not the probability. In fact the chance of not getting the mount in 100 attempts is 36.6%.

Another noticable mark is attempt 458. The chance of not getting the mount in 458 attempts is 1%, exactly the same as getting the mount on the first. So if you pass this mark, you really can call yourself unlucky.

And the final statistically significant mark ("statistically impossible" = starting probability squared) hits at attempt 917, when the chance of not getting the mount reaches 0.01%. If you should pass this mark, the probability that someone at Blizzard is watching you and prevents the mount from dropping for you is higher than not

[Ihnasir]

Onyxia took probably 100 runs or so

Kara mount, still close to 200 runs and nothing.

[Theiea]

Im approaching 600 runs for Barons mount /wrists

[Deleted]

Ashes of Alar dropped after like 200 runs.

[Batix]

261 attempts at raven lord so far, so I know how you feel :P. just keep at it

This mount took me a solid 2 years of attempts. Not even joking.
Annnd... this was in BC, so I had to get groups together that would not roll on it. Did it every single day. Had a couple drops ninja'd.
Finally got it after 734 total kills.

[ReleaseDay]

Ran KZ every week on at least 5 alts every week for 3 years before i got the mount. RNG is a cunt

[Zyrinx]

180 tries (tracked by DBM) for the Vortex Pinnacle mount. Not gotten even 1 raid mount yet, but got the Raven Lord in < 10 tries and the Swift White Hawkstrider was pretty quick as well.

RNG sucks almost always, thus the "R".

[Deleted]

Well, I'm running Kara on 12 Chars each week. No mount yet.
Finally got Onyxia after about 80 Kills, Stonecore was probably about 110. 255 ZG Runs so far and no panther (got Raptor at 239). Most of them were in Cata, queuing rnd so even less chance to get the mounts. Still farming Ashes, Azure Drake, Invincible, Mimiron's Head, Vortex Pinnacle, Blazing Drake, 12B and gotten into farming the Warbringer Mounts and the Eggs too. (About 40+ Warbringer kills with 1 Drop)

Just keep farming, you will get it one day.

I don't see how protection against bad luck is getting 'everything served to you'. Luck and effort are two entirely different things. Sure, if you happen to get, to use an example, the Onyxia mount after a few runs, or at 100 runs, it doesn't seem bad to you. To someone like myself however, who was soloing it in wotlk before it became a lvl 80 raid, then again in cata, then in 5.0 with account wide started soloing it every week on 10-12 characters and still is...I probably have around 1k onyxia kills and no mount, would you say I haven't put enough effort in?

You know that the mount was introduced as it became a level 80 raid, do you? And I'm sorry, but your numbers seem a tad too high. Not that I really care though.

[Soulless Cynic]

My worst 1% drop mount grinds...
Armored Razzashi Raptor: 218 attempts
Onyxian Drake: 178 attempts and counting
Rivendare's Deathcharger: 136 attempts
Looking at some of the numbers in this thread, suddenly I don't feel so bad.

Ashes of Al'ar I got on my 69th attempt, though I had actually seen it twice before (in back-to-back weeks) when I was still attempting it in a group (which was only for my first half a dozen attempts or so) and lost both rolls. Drake of the North Wind was 21 attempts and Swift Zulian Panther was 25 attempts. I didn't keep track for the Vitreous Stone Drake, though I obtained it in an afternoon so it couldn't have been more than a couple dozen attempts. All of these were fairly recent.

I also have the Raven Lord, Swift White Hawkstrider, Fiery Warhorse, Blue Proto-Drake, and Azure Drake. Raven Lord, Swift White Hawkstrider and Blue Proto-Drake took only a few weeks on a single character. The Fiery Warhorse didn't seem to take too long in real time, though I was running it weekly on ten characters so in reality it could've been approaching 100 attempts before I got it. Azure Drake took 62 attempts.

Of all these 1% drop mounts the one I most wanted is the Onyxian Drake, which I still do not have. Currently the only dungeon mount I am working on besides the Onyxian Drake is the Flametalon of Alysrazor which I solo on my main. Only up to 5 attempts on that one (excluding attempts when it was current).

[Lord Pebbleton]

The time you lost making this thread, you could've killed it at least two more times. Gogo!

[Buu]

The amount of times you do the fight doesn't increase the % of getting it. It just means that everytime you kill the boss you have roughly 1% chance it'll drop. This does not add up

Trying to explain statistics knowing NOTHING about it isn't cute.

[saett]

The best advice i could give someone hunting elusive mounts like Raven Lord is simply alt sit the instance. If you have multiple tons capable of soloing the instance park them in front of it and run the same instance on your toon each day. though the drop rates never change your increasing your odds the more characters you put into the equation.

[Soulless Cynic]

That's preposterous. After X numbers of attempts at least a minimum of times the desirable numbers should appear, or else you will have to correct the calculations to dim the supposed chance.
If a coin flips 59 times of a 100 at the same side you can say it's only chance, but if it flips 87 of a 100 at the same side, you have to analyze it again, because the deviation is too far for the standard.

Trying to explain statistics knowing NOTHING about it isn't cute.

You responded to the same post twice. And that post was factually correct. Not sure why so many posters are calling Colmadero out. He's talking about the drop chance on individual attempts, not the probability over multiple attempts. Thinking any individual outcome is affected by previous outcomes is the Gambler's Fallacy. A 1% drop mount always has a 1% chance to drop on any given attempt, regardless of the number or outcome of attempts that have been made previously.

I don't see how protection against bad luck is getting 'everything served to you'. Luck and effort are two entirely different things. Sure, if you happen to get, to use an example, the Onyxia mount after a few runs, or at 100 runs, it doesn't seem bad to you. To someone like myself however, who was soloing it in wotlk before it became a lvl 80 raid, then again in cata, then in 5.0 with account wide started soloing it every week on 10-12 characters and still is...I probably have around 1k onyxia kills and no mount, would you say I haven't put enough effort in?

1. At 458 attempts the chances of having gotten the mount are 99%. At 917 attempts that number becomes 99.99%. To have reached 1000 kills without obtaining the mount you would be quite the statistical outlier. Not impossible, but highly improbable.
2. Mists has been out for 48 weeks. At 12 runs/week you would have yielded a total of 576 kills. In order to have 1000 kills you would have needed to have killed Onyxia 424 times prior to Mists, which is more weeks than Onyxia had actually been available prior to Mists. Not to mention Onyxia could not be solo'd at 60 and 70, and did not even drop the mount until her level 80 revamp.

In short, based on the information you have given, it's impossible for you to have killed Onyxia 1000 times period, let alone 1000 times when the mount was available. So I would say you've lied about how much effort you've put in.

As far as bad luck protection goes, it would dramatically devalue the mounts. They would be easier to obtain, and as a result more players would attempt to obtain them, making the mounts quite common. A large part of what makes many of these mounts so attractive is their rarity. Bad luck protection would destroy that.

[Deleted]

1. At 458 attempts the chances of having gotten the mount are 99%. At 917 attempts that number becomes 99.99%. To have reached 1000 kills without obtaining the mount you would be quite the statistical outlier. Not impossible, but highly improbable.
2. Mists has been out for 48 weeks. At 12 runs/week you would have yielded a total of 576 kills. In order to have 1000 kills you would have needed to have killed Onyxia 424 times prior to Mists, which is more weeks than Onyxia had actually been available prior to Mists. Not to mention Onyxia could not be solo'd at 60 and 70, and did not even drop the mount until her level 80 revamp.

In short, based on the information you have given, it's impossible for you to have killed Onyxia 1000 times period, let alone 1000 times when the mount was available. So I would say you've lied about how much effort you've put in.

As far as bad luck protection goes, it would dramatically devalue the mounts. They would be easier to obtain, and as a result more players would attempt to obtain them, making the mounts quite common. A large part of what makes many of these mounts so attractive is their rarity. Bad luck protection would destroy that.

1. Which is the point I'm trying to make here. Statistical outliers do exist, I often seem to be one and it's really not a pleasant thing to be!

2. Account wide mounts has been out for 55 weeks. 12 runs per week = 660 kills. I did start doing multiple alt runs before account wide was actually released, when the feature was announced, however that started with only 10 characters soloing/duoing (I had to level my squishies in MOP to solo it) it and i'm not sure of the date I actually read about it on forums, do believe it was at least 2-3 months before it went live, call it 10 weeks that's 760 kills. Onyxia could be solo'd quite easily prior to becoming a lvl 80 raid, I didn't know the mount existed at the time or even when it became lvl 80 however, didn't start collecting and achievement whoring until mid-TOC, I just liked soloing stuff for fun(the slippery slope started with seeing my friend on Iron-Bound Proto Drake and deciding I wanted it. That escalated quickly!). Prior to account wide being announced (or heard of by me anyway, given the amount of pet collectors/achievement whores I know, I'm sure I found out very quickly) we had something like 70 weeks of cata, that's 830 kills. Add in actual Onyxia raids I did in wotlk over various chars (not specifically for the mount, but never saw it drop) and I'm probably close to 900.

I may have been slightly off in my initial estimates, I didn't bother looking up dates of expansions ect, but it's not that much less, a 10% exaggeration is better accuracy than most fishing stories!


Just an example and question here, do the figures on chances of NOT getting a drop scale? By which I mean a 0.1% drop, rather than 917 being a 99.99% chance, 9170 would be? If so, my 15,478 tol barad fox kills to get that pet in Cata are another outlier, I tracked that with BunnyHunter and my figure is still in a comments section on warcraftpets!

From the figures given, I don't believe bad luck protection would have, if set to the figures posted here, an adverse effect on how hard to get the mounts are. If at 458 attempts 99/100 players would have gotten the mount, having an extra 1 player get it on his 459th that's going to be a very small relative increase in the amount of mounts.
Personally, the rarity of the mount has no relevance to me. If it's 100% drop rate, I'll get it. If it's 0.1% drop rate, I'll try to get it. Doesn't mean I'll ever actually ride it, I choose that based on which mount matches which characters transmog!

[speakpkhq]

everyone quoting statistics numbers and formulae here is doing so on the basis of the math that takes into account populations. in this case it is one person so the population is "reset" every single time the scenario is played out. if a woman is pregnant, what is the chance that she will give birth to a male? 50%. what is the chance she will give birth to a female? 50%. you cannot add these to say that if a woman gives birth to a male, the next one will be female.
what is the chance the mount will drop? 1% what is the chance the mount will not drop? 99%. you cannot add these to say that if a woman gives birth to 99 females, the next one will be male.
you can, however, calculate the statistics that will tell you that it is nearly impossible that a woman would give birth to 99 female children before giving birth to a male, but that does not "mean" anything in real life. the woman would be dead long before giving birth to 99 female babies!
the same thing holds true in wow. every kill of a mob is a % chance of it dropping a desired item. if the item is 1/100 chance of dropping, it is the same 1/100 dropping even after the 900billionth time you've killed it. yes, over the course of 900billion kills you will have probably seen the item drop a few times, but it is statistically possible that you would have never seen it happen, because it is only 1/100 every_single_time you kill it.
you can't justify that to say that you will see the drop at any time during those 900billion kills with 100% certainty. 99.999999999999% certainty? maybe

[Puri]

Just an example and question here, do the figures on chances of NOT getting a drop scale? By which I mean a 0.1% drop, rather than 917 being a 99.99% chance, 9170 would be? If so, my 15,478 tol barad fox kills to get that pet in Cata are another outlier, I tracked that with BunnyHunter and my figure is still in a comments section on warcraftpets!

Well, the fox kit had a confirmed drop rate of 0.1%. So the chances of not getting it in 15478 kills are 0,0000188203%, or in other words this happens to one in 5313409 players. While of course this is possible and you are some kind of "anti-lottery-winner", considering general social behaviour in internet forums it's a pretty safe bet to say that you are lying - deliberately or unknowingly because of a bug in your addon.

Also your Onyxia story is still unbelievable without proof. But luckily Onyxia kills are counted in the in-game statistics module, so if you care about what some stranger on the internet thinks about your truthfullness you can easily proof it by linking your characters.

[yeto]

I had same problem with the one form vortex pinnicals more then 200 runs and no drake, so i finaly just picked it up at the bmah

Now im simply farming all mounts i need on meny toons and it feels like it pays off

within 1 month i got galion on bonus roll, alyzrazor, and alakir mount.

farming Elegon, Sha with 6 toons 6 bonus rolls every week
Nalak / oondasta 6 toons 5 bonus rolls per week
Lk 1 toon
Yogg 1 toon
Ultraxion 1 toon
Ragnaros 1 toon

having raid lockouts saved on another alt is relly good, so all my farming is done in 2-3 hours every week + the time it taks to get bonus roll tokens

[Deleted]

While I do care somewhat, not quite enough so to disclose all my characters on a public forum ;p So I'll just leave this with one more anecdote from my vast repertoire of poor RNG. Sea Turtle...I'm currently over 19k fish and other things caught, 12k fish caught, I know for certain I've caught only 18 fish since I got the turtle (fishing for the Brawlers Guild item) but not sure how many I caught doing the various other fishing achievements, certainly there were a few thousand in dal sewers for the rat, but most were after the turtle. Blizzard likes to mock me, just before Mop, I'd decided to stock up on water walking pots in case they came in useful levelling, so fished below Dal for the glassfin minnows. Told my GM and a guildie what I was doing, they decided to join in. Both of them got their 25 fish caught achievements and the Sea Turtle, one just before 25 fish, other just after. Then I alted to my ally spriest and ganked them both.