Did they nerf battle stone drop rates from quest bags in 5.2

[Silverz]

As the title says or have I been getting bad RNG?

[Basti]

That makes two of us getting bad RNG.

[Brooktrout]

That's been the theory with some of my pet battling guildies and me.

[Tahsfenz]

I was having great luck... Until I finished my pandas. Since then, I've had horrid luck getting stones, even doing the beasts of fable.

[Tigerrose]

I'm thinking just bad RNG. About a month or so prior to 5.2 I was getting HORRIBLE stone/pet drop rates. I think I went 3 weeks without seeing one stone from 11 bags/daily and only 3 spirit pets. Since 5.2 I have been averaging 1 stone/day, with a whopping 5 stones the day before last. Hopefully your luck will turn around

[Dakaf]

If not for the Fabled Beast quests, I would not have a single stone from a bag since the patch. I feel your pain!

I have been doing the FB quest daily, and only one day have I not gotten a pet/stone. I just wish I'd get something other than humanoid stones!

[Oceanaia]

If not for the Fabled Beast quests, I would not have a single stone from a bag since the patch. I feel your pain!

I have been doing the FB quest daily, and only one day have I not gotten a pet/stone. I just wish I'd get something other than humanoid stones!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the type of stone you receive has to do with the FIRST FB pet you battle. I have a certain path I take daily (starting with the Fishy in Kun-Lai) and I have gotten nothing but Aquatic stones (10 so far). My recommendation would be for you to start with a different FB and see if you get a different stone

Hope this helps!!

[Tahsfenz]

Has nothing to do with which pet you start with. My stones from the BoF bag has been varied. Dragonkin, undead, humanoid, which are none of the types that you fight. I take the same path every day.

[Zythehealer]

The stones have hated me since before the patch so I dunno. Plus I probably used up all my luck getting the carps but yeah, I've seen a real dearth of stones from both bags and battles since the patch.

[Gilneas]

I hear they also made Onyxia deep breath more in 5.2.

[Basti]

If not for the Fabled Beast quests, I would not have a single stone from a bag since the patch. I feel your pain!

I have been doing the FB quest daily, and only one day have I not gotten a pet/stone. I just wish I'd get something other than humanoid stones!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe the type of stone you receive has to do with the FIRST FB pet you battle. I have a certain path I take daily (starting with the Fishy in Kun-Lai) and I have gotten nothing but Aquatic stones (10 so far). My recommendation would be for you to start with a different FB and see if you get a different stone

Hope this helps!!

I got a Humanoid battle-stone and I actually start my battles on Lucky Yi which is a critter. I hope they lower they drop rates on humanoid and aquatic stones. I got a bazillion of these already and they are still what I keep getting.

[Oceanaia]

I got a Humanoid battle-stone and I actually start my battles on Lucky Yi which is a critter. I hope they lower they drop rates on humanoid and aquatic stones. I got a bazillion of these already and they are still what I keep getting.

It must be a very nice coincidence then. I don't mind getting all these Aquatics, I'm just about done upgrading them now

[Ryazan]

I hear they also made Onyxia deep breath more in 5.2. 8-)

^ this. :p

But on more serious note, after 5.2 my stone gain has drastically reduced. Not sure is this really bad RNG or just general nerf to stone drop rates. Prior to 5.2 I was getting 1-3 stones every day and there wasn't many weeks when I didn't get any stones. However, now I've started to get dry seasons of which longest was 5 days without stones. Since that I've started to write down what stones I've gotten, when and from who to see the big picture better. I'm trying not to be superstitious here but with these rates it's getting harder and harder... And to back my paranoia a bit more, I haven't seen a single stone drop from wild pets since 5.2 either.


Some math stuff inc, so beware!

Has there been any testing of the stone drop rate from supply bags btw (Fable bag excluded)?
This is purely hypothetical but with 10% of drop chance, the chance of getting at least one stone per day would be ~71,8 % (1 - 0,9^12) and with 5 % drop the chance would be 46 %. My experience will probably turn towards the 5 % drop chance but lets analyze it a bit with Wowhead's data:

Sack of Pet Supplies has been opened 124 804 times and a flawless family specific stone has been looted 7 613 times which leads to drop chance of 6%. But stones were added in 5.1 whereas supply bags existed already from MoP launch so Wowhead's data isn't 100% accurate. Because of that lets assume that 20k of those opened bags happened before 5.1 while we also assume that majority of the bags has been opened after 5.1 because of the chance of the getting stones. This will lead to sample size of 104 804 which in turn will give us the drop chance of 7,26 %.

From this data, with 95 % confidence level we can calculate the 95% confidence interval (CI) which basically means we can say with 95% probability the drop chance is between the lower and upper point of the interval. Using the normal distribution we can get that

95 % CI is 7,26 ± 0,157 so the drop chance is between 7,1 % and 7,4 % with 95 % probability.

Furthermore, the 99 % CI would be 7,26 ± 0,207 which tells the drop chance is roughly between 7 % and 7,5 % with 99 % probability.

So what is the drop chance then? Well, since we can't tell the amount of opened bags after 5.1, we can't say for sure, but based on my numbers above, we can be fairly sure the drop chance will settle between 5 % and 10 %. But to be a bit more exact, I calculated the 99% CIs for the respective drop chances of the sample sizes of ~115k, 105k (the above example), 95k and 85k. After that I calculated an average for the lower and upper endpoints for 99 % CI to give us some hint of the drop %. But before the result, one might ask why those sample sizes? Well, as I said above, I assumed the majority of the bags opened happened after 5.1 so I doubt over 40k bags were opened before 5.1 (125k-40k = 85k) and vice versa, I doubt less than 10k bags were opened before 5.1 (125k-10k=115k). This way I tried to estimate that the amount of opened bags after 5.1 is somewhere between 85k and 115k. Well, anyways the result was:

7,5 % < drop chance < 7,94 % with 99 % probability

After this I'd say it's safe to assume the stone drop chance is somewhere between 7 % and 8 %. And if we come back where we started from, the chance of getting at least one stone per day would be roughly 60 %.

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Personally I do still think 60% is somewhat high with my experience but how could I argue with my own deductions? :) Easily actually as my statistics are so rusty it hurts. So maybe Poofah or some other math wiz could doublecheck my calculations before anyone starts touting that some Random Joe said the drop chance is this and that. :P

[Mantrhax]

Theres no RNG on wow anymore, it consumes too much server power, now they use wheels .O_o

im done with farming stones...i just canceled one of my accounts, they are making the game less fun everyday. and when u got no more fun playing.. its time to stop.

[Syrrie]

Keep in mind that the data from wowhead is only from people that use the addon and upload data, as well.

But no, I'm pretty sure they didn't nerf the battle stone drop rates since I've personally experienced the same or better drop rates since 5.2 and they would have said something if they thought the drop rate on stones was too high.

[Dtylertx]

i have only been doing the dailies since 5.2 and I've gotten 2 from my first four dailies.

from around 1750 pet battles (mostly wild) I've only had 2 stones drop and both since 5.2

[Kaycie]

My drop rate on stones has been really bad too so your not the only one that's noticing a difference.

[Basti]

Theres no RNG on wow anymore, it consumes too much server power, now they use wheels .O_o

im done with farming stones...i just canceled one of my accounts, they are making the game less fun everyday. and when u got no more fun playing.. its time to stop.

I had 3 accounts and canceled 2 of them. Sadly, this expansion is not very alt friendly. There are too much things to do even for one toon so there is no point in keeping more than 1 account. I also stopped from doing pet battle dailies, they are no longer fun. I just do wild battles to level my pets and at the same time to farm Lesser Charm of Good Fortune because I rarely do regular daily quests. I have had enough of these new quest hubs and reputation grinds. Blizzard needs to be more creative and introduce something fresh.

The last time I did pet battle dailies that gave bags I got 2 stones... both are Humanoid stones. I have 10 of them already, and they are just sitting in my bank.