Highlights

  • Holiday boss drop rates in WoW have been increased, but players can only get one loot drop per account per day.
  • This change eliminates the need for farming holiday bosses across multiple characters, making it less stressful for players.
  • While some fans are concerned about loss of agency in acquiring rare items, early reports suggest the new system is easier.

World of Warcraft is increasing the drop rates for rare items from holiday event bosses while simultaneously eliminating the reason to farm them across multiple alts. While this new method removes agency from World of Warcraft players who want to farm on several characters, it seems like getting these boss drops will be easier and less stressful than before.

Holiday events in World of Warcraft have always been a big deal. Each of these celebrations has a slew of in-game activities players can participate in, currencies to earn, and charming items to collect. Many holiday events also feature boss encounters with highly-coveted and extremely rare item drops, such as the X-45 Heartbreaker from Love is In The Air, or The Horseman’s Reins from Hallow’s End.

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Now, World of Warcraft is making some changes to these holiday bosses to make their drops less frustrating to acquire. According to World of Warcraft's recent blog on the Midsummer Fire Festival, holiday bosses will have a higher chance to drop their rare items on the first kill of the day, and subsequent days will see this chance increase even further each time players clear the encounter without getting an item. However, bosses will now only drop these items once per day per account; slaying the enemy on other characters won’t give them extra chances to get anything.

New World of Warcraft Holiday Boss Drop System

By the old method, players had a flat, incredibly low chance of getting these rare items the first time they killed the boss on each character every day. This incentivized fans to farm the boss dozens of times a day across an army of alts, a tedious loop some have been in for over a decade with no results. World of Warcraft changed this in recent events so the first kill of the day had a higher drop rate, but players would still grind out other kills for that slim chance of getting the item. Now that alt farming is no longer a viable strategy, these fans are finally free.

That said, other players aren’t happy about this new system. They fear they no longer have agency in acquiring these items, dooming them to the whims of RNG. Even so, WoW asserts the changes are made to make the items easier to obtain, and early reports from the Midsummer Fire Festival have corroborated this claim, so hopefully, fans will find their rare World of Warcraft event mounts and cosmetics much easier from now on.