Diablo 4 players are claiming that a set of extremely rare Unique items are nearly impossible to acquire, and are questioning Blizzard's intent as a result. There are six Unique items in Diablo 4 that Blizzard has acknowledged drop in a different way than other Unique loot in the game. While Blizzard has detailed the conditions necessary for the loot to drop, Diablo 4 players have had to figure out the actual drop rate on their own. Their findings have left many confused and frustrated.
A Diablo 4 developer explained that there are six Unique items treated as the "rarest" in the game. These Uniques, Doombringer, The Grandfather, Ring of Starless Skies, Andariel's Visage, Harlequin Crest, and Melted Heart of Selig, only drop from enemies rated level 85 and above. Further, they're "realllly rare," as in they have a much lower drop rate than other Uniques. Exactly how rare has not been officially confirmed.
Where Blizzard has kept details unclear, the playerbase has tried to figure things out on its own. The issue is that loot drop rate information is stored server-side, so there's no way for players to datamine it. Instead, some players loosely tracked how many item drops have been mentioned online compared to total Diablo 4 player hours, which Blizzard did confirm recently. If 400 million hours of Diablo 4 have been played, and less than a handful of these items have been confirmed to have dropped, the math is relatively simple.
Getting a specific drop rate is unfortunately going to be impossible at this time. Exactly how much of those 400 million hours of gameplay involved level 85+ Diablo 4 content is unclear. It's also unclear how many of the six rare Uniques have dropped. Only a few have been confirmed online, but some players may have gotten the drop and never announced it. Still, if even 1/1000th or 1/10,000th of those hours were above level 85, that's still maybe one Unique drop every 100,000 or 10,000 hours, respectively.
One popular post on Reddit asks Diablo 4 players to stop talking about the items, because, "You're vastly more likely to die falling out of bed than to get a Shako." They say that the likelihood of getting one of these six Unique items is effectively 0%, that it's worse odds than winning the lottery. They're referring in part to many guides or online tips to farming one of these Unique drops. When the truth is, there is no real farm for these items. It's simply not worth trying to get them.
Many Diablo 4 players are rightfully questioning why Blizzard would make it so impossible to get these Unique items. One answer is that they're simply so powerful that Blizzard can't justify having them drop more commonly. Another answer is Blizzard simply thinks it's cool to have items that feel truly legendary. Either way, in a game where players want to feel like all of the best Diablo 4 loot is attainable, the situation could create some bad feelings toward Blizzard.
Diablo 4 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
