My guild has been getting double token drops (i.e., two "Defender" or two "Champion" tokens dropping at once) at an unlikely rate recently. At least the last 6 or 7 in a row, with another long streak before that. I'm willing to believe it's just chance (1/3 ^ 7) if it's just happening to our guild, but I'm wondering if anybody else has seen this.

Also, just out of curiosity, does anybody know or have theories about how (pseudo) random number generators are structured in WoW? I'm wondering how local or global each RNG is, and if combat rolls share the same RNG with loot table rolls. Stuff like that. I can't think of how it would be tested so the only way we'd know for sure is if Blizzard has commented on it in the past.

It used to happen a whole lot with eight different pieces of loot that could drop double. It's a whole lot more probable with three pieces of loot.

We've had a pretty large number of double tokens lately, although I'm certainly willing to chalk that up to the RNG. No different than getting double stormrage every week off Nef. /shrug

cool... An "Is loot random thread?". This is one of those questions that there is no answer and everyone has their own opinion and you will never change it. I wish I knew because we get nothing but 2 handers all the time.

The chance of a double token drop is 1/3. If you get 7 consecutive double token drops then it does look suspicious, but if you consider the thousands of guilds worldwide, then indeed you would expect some guild to get 7 consecutive double token drops.

Edit: Its a very interesting probability question to ask what is the longest streak that one would expect in say 100 trials.

There was a change in a recent patch that stated that 2 tokens would always be dropped.

Well, the chances of getting double tokens 10 times in a row is 1 in ~20k, so it's probably happened to someone. This thread is silly.

Some of my brain cells died reading this.

This thread is very entertaining for a variety of reasons.


Loot is random, you can't make assertions to the contrary because you notice an odd streak in an insignificant sampling size.

Generally if something looks random, it probably isn't. The same goes for the opposite. The human mind does funny things to convince you what random occurrences should look like.

Try a different raid leader and signing in by pujtting your password first then your username

To whatever mods see this, I'm sorry - I had to.

Onyxia deep breaths more.

You don't need to change raid leaders, just have your current leader wear different pants.

I used to see double nemesis helms off of Onyxia more times than I care to remember, and that was with 8 possible drops. Now you only have 3, so you can draw your own conclusions from that. I think pretty much everyone that reads this thread understands and has experienced what you are, but it's been discussed since the dawn of raiding and 'random' loot.

What exactly do you hope to gain from this information?...

I'm sure everyones noticed a streak when the streaky item(s) involved are taking up the loot slot of an item they want.

Is "curiosity" a sufficient answer? I'm here looking for correlative data because for the last two weeks I've been saying "don't worry, it's random" but it's getting harder and harder to defend that position.

And, no, it's not just me being annoyed that I didn't get my drops. (I don't even want any.) It's become a running guild joke that we always get doubles.

Edit: By the way, my question has been answered. If this were a widespread problem more people would have said "Yes, we're seeing the same thing" instead of making glib, sarcastic responses.

Why wear pants at all?

To add a mite of actual value: did Blizzard explain at Blizzcon why they simply didn't just make it one token for everyone?

Oh good, WoW has a "the shuffler is broken" contingent too. I really miss that about magic online.

I hear Onyxia is deep-breathing more since 2.1.. On 2.2, she even drops two bags.

No.