Are instance drops really random?

There are so many angles you can spin this blog entry from Coralie from that it took me half an hour (and three quarters of a can of Four Cheese Pringles) to choose one. I think I've made the choice that is least likely to involve her purchasing a server transfer to Zangarmarsh and hunting me down.

Coralie is a rogue on the Sentinels realm who, like most rogues, is trying to keep her head above water in a series of instances that are not known to be overly rogue-friendly. As a fellow rogue, and a subtlety rogue no less (who in my opinion have it much worse) I feel her pain. Instance slots are sometimes hard to come by for those of us who practice the art of subterfuge, and let's not even talk about raids.

Coralie's problem doesn't appear to be getting groups though. Apparently the Stormwraiths are good to her. Coralie's issue is with the boss loot tables. She doesn't go as far as to imply that anything is rigged against her, but her post is pretty compelling. Apparently the paladins in her guild have taken to bringing her along on instance runs because they find her to be a good luck charm for plate drops and other paladin items. If I'm reading this right, she's even taken to distributing "personally blessed" Lucky Charms to paladins who need to make runs when she isn't available to go herself. (As a side note, if she has enough of them to have multiple stacks, she certainly doesn't lack perseverance.)

Those of us who frequent database sites such as Thottbot or Wowhead know the numbers game that's involved. Each piece that a boss drops has a percentage drop rate attached to it. But is it really purely a numbers game? We've all been on runs with either a paladin or shaman healer and no cloth wearers when nothing drops except cloth and wands. Do you have a guildmate with ridiculously bad luck like Coralie? Or do you think perhaps there might be more to drop rates than pure math? As ridiculous as it sounds, Coralie sure makes a compelling (albeit exceptionally amusing) argument.

In all seriousness, I would never accuse Blizzard of any wrongdoing. Posts like Coralie's definitely make you think though.

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