The Great Vault is a raid dungeon on the World of Warcraft PTR. It was originally designed by Blizzard as an easy way to test out new loot and gear, allowing players to get through some of their first-timers with ease without having much risk involved in getting it. But this time around, I’ve been trying something different: Tiering up 9 times at once while testing stuff out myself! You can watch my progress here!
The “the great vault shadowlands” is a new dungeon that was released on the 9.2 PTR. The purpose of this article is to look at the chances of getting Tier from the Great Vault, and remaining questions about it.
On the 9.2 PTR, Tier Sets have begun to drop from the Great Vault, and we’ve opened 200 Great Vaults to estimate the Drop Chance of tier components appearing in the Great Vault!
Disclaimers and the Method of Data Collection
We used the PTR to estimate what the drop probability of Tier would be in Patch 9.2 since Blizzard did not release the actual drop chance of Tier in their Tier Set FAQ earlier today. Blizzard, on the other hand, is the only one who knows the precise drop probability, and this is only an estimate.
A Brewmaster Monk was used to gather data, and just one box in the Mythic+ row was used. If the drop probability varies depending on the kind of material, or if there are other boxes in the same row, this data will not support it.
Furthermore, since this was tested on the PTR, it is possible that this may alter in the future.
Estimated Tier Sets Drop Chance in Great Vault
We acquired 12 pieces of Tier Gear after opening the Great Vault 200 times on the 9.2 PTR, which comes out to a 6 percent Drop Rate for this slot. Based on the sample size and observed drop chance, the drop rate is most likely between 3% and 10%.
We got the following:
- 188 Pieces of Non-Tier
- Helmets with 2 Tiers (1 with Socket)
- Shoulders with two tiers
- Three-tiered chests (1 with Indestructible)
- Three-tiered gloves
- Pants with two tiers
Hypothesis and Chance Analysis
We’ll continue with a 6 percent drop likelihood from the Great Vault based on this information. Here are some conclusions drawn from the data:
First and foremost, every piece is possible.
According to the aforementioned treasure, the Great Vault may potentially drop Tier Pieces from any monster in Sepulcher of the First Ones, even bosses you haven’t slain yet (was done on a character which did 0 raid testing). This implies that during the start of Mythic Week, the Great Vault may grant you a Tier Chest or Tier Shoulders, things that you won’t be able to access until this week since these bosses aren’t available until then. If you have the other three pieces, this might give you a 4-set right away.
Conclusion 2: Item Level and Tertiaries
The following are the other two items we’ve confirmed:
- Tertiaries and Sockets may roll using Tier components from the Great Vault.
- Tier items from the Great Vault will roll at the item level of the piece you would have received in that slot if you had obtained it otherwise.
The Tier FAQ Blue Post also verified this.
Question 1: Does Tier have an independent chance?
According to our research, a Tier piece has a flat probability of replacing a regular item in the Mythic+ row or being added to the total loot pool.
In the Mythic+ loot table for 9.2, there are 91 potential items for a Brewmaster Monk, putting the estimated drop probability at 5.2 percent, which is close to the observed 6 percent. While it’s conceivable that Tier pieces are simply added to the pool, this would mean that the chances of rolling a piece in the Raid (36 pieces of gear) or PvP (37 pieces of gear) rows would be much greater than in the Mythic+ row owing to the overall amount of drops. If Tier loot is merely added to the pool, Mythic+ rows in the Great Vault will see almost three times as many pieces of Tier as Raid and PvP rows.
The information might alternatively be read as a flat (6%) probability of replacing the item in that box with a Tier component.
More testing with a Raid Vault or a PvP Vault is needed to see whether each slot has an identical probability of dropping Tier across all three rows, or if Tier is just added to the loot pool.
Other Unknown Information
Unknown questions that we’ll need to answer include:
- Is there a risk that each row may decrease tier at the same time?
- Is the drop probability affected by the number of boxes you finish in a week?
- Is it possible for the Great Vault to offer you tier parts that you already have?
- Is it possible for the Great Vault to give you the same tier piece in many boxes?
Chances of Getting Tier in Vaults Estimated
We now see two alternative implementations of tier in the Great Vault based on the data. Here are some graphs to help you understand the data: the % likelihood of receiving at least one tier item based on the data above.
a fixed percentage chance
Assume that a Tier item drops at a fixed rate of 6% from any slot in the Vault. The percentage likelihood of acquiring at least one Tier Piece (of any sort) is as follows:
| Number of Vault Slots | At Least 1 Tier Piece Chance |
| 1 | 6.0% |
| 2 | 11.6% |
| 3 | 17.0% |
| 4 | 21.9% |
| 5 | 26.6% |
| 6 | 31.0% |
| 7 | 35.2% |
| 8 | 39.0% |
| 9 | 42.7% |
Even with a full Vault, you have a 42 percent chance of seeing at least one Tier item in your Great Vault if this implementation holds true.
Chance has been added to the pool.
Let’s assume that Tier is added to each row’s potential drops. Using some frequent examples, here’s the percent probability of acquiring at least 1 Tier Piece (of any sort) from Brewmaster drops (91 Mythic+, 36 Raid, 37 PvP).
| Number of Vault Slots | At Least 1 Tier Piece Chance |
| 1 Raid | 12.2% |
| 2 Raid | 23.2% |
| 3 Raid | 33.0% |
| 1 Mythic+ | 5.2% |
| 2 Mythic+ | 10.2% |
| 3 Mythic+ | 15.0% |
| 1 PvP | 11.9% |
| 2 PvP | 22.6% |
| 3 PvP | 32.3% |
| All | 61.5% |
If this implementation is correct, you have a 60% chance of seeing at least one Tier item in your Great Vault if you have a full Vault.
