Wednesday, June 25, 2008

A closer look at Fel Lotus

Ah, the ever so beautiful Fel Lotus... let's take a closer look at this queen of all herbs, shall we? In exactly the past two weeks, I have picked 20 Fel Lotuses. I decided to track the zone and herb from which they were picked, to see if there was any method to this madness. Here's the last 20 I've picked (in the exact order).

* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Netherstorm: Felweed
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Mana Thistle
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Hellfire Peninsula: Felweed
* Netherstorm: Dreaming Glory
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Netherstorm: Netherbloom
* Zangarmarsh: Ragveil
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Dreaming Glory
* Nagrand: Felweed
* Terokkar (Barrier Hills): Mana Thistle
* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Nagrand: Felweed
* Netherstorm: Netherbloom
* Terokkar: Dreaming Glory
* Netherstorm: Dreaming Glory

So what does this tell us? Well I know that this is a small sample size and probably not statistically significant. However, it seems that for me my Fel Lotuses like to hide in the Barrier Hills, within Ragveil in Zangarmarsh, and within Dreaming Glory.

Disclaimer: I do little herbing in Hellfire Peninsula and Blade's Edge, and none in Shadowmoon Valley.

3 comments:

  1. Actually your sample size is probably quite large. You just didn't give all the data. What you would need to record is for EVERY herb you pick, whether or not that herb yielded a fel lotus, and other possibly relevant variables such as the kind of herb and its location. We could then try to determine if apparent variations in the rate of harvesting fel lotuses varies significantly over other variables like herb type and location. Unfortunately the very low drop rate of fel lotuses will play havoc with the usual asymptotic approximations of the relevant sampling distributions, but it would be worth a try.

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  2. Huminah huminah? My brain hurts.

    Would the statistics be multiplicative? That is the most important question.

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  3. I think - and this is no joke on Jessikas argument to include more data! - you should as well include the time of day.
    I switched some professions and now have a somewhat spare character just for herbalism. Most of the time this character is in Shadowmoon Valley and is logged in two or three times an hour to pick up those precious Nightmare Vines. Sometimes there is like no one else picking up herbs there (I count the Nightmare Vines picked up per round and use this as an index, although this doesn't take the varying number of picked up herbs per spot into account) and then I get like 2 Fel Lotus in 10 minutes. So I think that the chance of picking up a Lotus in a specific herb at least grows with the time the herb hasn't been picked up (Some men tend to relate this to women and the time one hasn't been picked up but.... eh.... I don't do so).

    As for the type of herb I think that all BC-herbs (so this doesn't include Dreamfoil and other stuff that is also found in the old world) have the same chance of yielding a Fel Lotus.

    I'd suggest to listen to Jessika and increase the amount of data tracked. If one has too much free time one could also track the trees in Skettis. These may very probably have the same chance (but you should count the number of times you got Fel Lotus, not the number of Lotus itself) but will be a pain to farm as their respawn limits you to 40-45 trees an hour even when noone else is farming them.

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