Item drops not totally random? Or just coincidence?

[skysbob]

Taken from the Weekend Blue Posts news item on the incg.diablo front page:

To be clear: On your first kill of a boss in normal difficulty, you are guaranteed a random rare and a class rare, as well as some blues and other stuff. All other kills on all difficulties result in standard drop probabilities. You have a decent chance of getting a rare or two every time you kill a boss.

[HardRock]

That makes it official: Leoric isn't considered a boss by the devs.

[Diab]

That makes it official: Leoric isn't considered a boss by the devs.

Actually, I don't think this is quite clear yet.

Notice how the player's question asked about SK specifically, and the blue response referred to him as a "boss":

The SK only drops yellow on your first kill of him per character.

That is incorrect.
The possibility of a boss (or anything, really) dropping magic gear or rare gear when you kill him remains intact on kills subsequent to your first. The probability may change, but it does not change to a probibility of zero.

To be clear, I am not arguing for or against SK being the Act 1 end boss. I'm in kind of a neutral stance on this at the moment.

It is also possible that the blue is referring to SK as a boss but not an end-boss. There may be such things as mid-act bosses or some such.

[Superstate]

@Diabolico x64: I think HardRock was a bit sarcastic, Leoric definitely isn't guaranteed not even one rare (even on the first kill), which by skysbob's statement makes Leoric not a boss.

[HardRock]

I wasn't really trying to be sarcastic this time. My previous post was a deduction based on the post by Kaivax and my experience with Leoric. Like you said, Leoric doesn't always drop a Rare item even when you first kill him and you definitely aren't guaranteed to get a class-specific Rare either. I can think of three possible causes for this:

1) Leoric is not a boss.

2) His drops are bugged.

3) His drops were nerfed for the beta.

Leoric not being a boss is the most likely explanation I think. The reason is that previously we were told that even the Siegebreaker wasn't boss. If that guy isn't considered a boss, then Leoric definitely isn't either.

[skysbob]

So maybe they only mean the four bosses at the end of each Act by that?

[HardRock]

That would be my guess.

[CthulhuFtagn]

Diabolico x64 I find it strange that your pic shows 2 rare sickles, as my first SK run I got two rare sickles on my barbarian as well... not so random.

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[Diab]

I've been doing a lot more testing with this since those two rare sickles dropped. This current patch, I played nothing but barbs. I have a level 12 "main" barb with whom I play occasionally, and start and play a new barb just to SK once every couple of days or so. Once that barb kills SK, I stick all his gear (and any sickles I find) into the stash, delete him, make a new one, and repeat. So far I'm up to about my 5th barb or so.

I have not gotten two rare sickles drop for me at one time anymore. One of the kills dropped one rare and one magic sickle. But I usually have at least some kind of sickle drop, rare or magic. I have no MF% on the character at all; most of the gear I get is focused on rushing past all the content to SK asap, so mostly strength and vitality/health globe stats.

Among some of the sickles I got so far, from memory alone, were:
17.1 dps rare sickle
16.x dps magic sickle
15.x dps magic sickle x2
14.7 dps rare sickle

Even if I ran SK 10 times, it would not be completely conclusive evidence. But seeing as how he consistently dropped at least one sickle for me for every first kill, I have to say that I believe he does so intentionally.

[HardRock]

It does seem intentional. Bashiok said, that bosses should drop class-specific Rares on the first kill. Assuming for a moment that Leoric is a boss, then what Bashiok said was a mistake. Leoric definitely drops class-specific Magics on the first kill 99% of times and when he doesn't he usually drops 2 or 3 items less than otherwise, which makes me suspect that his drops are sometimes bugged. Once I actually got only 1 Magic from him on my first run, while usually I get 3-4 Magic and 1-2 Rare.