Destiny is infamous for its RNG loot system – you could play the same game with two other people, get twice the amount of kills, and end up with nothing while they unlock their second Gjallarhorn. It’s interesting, then, to learn the specifics of how often certain loot drops in the Crucible, Destiny‘s PvP arena. While it’s no surprise to learn that the answer is ‘not much’, the surprise is in just how little you really get while playing Crucible.
Reddit user ‘beeray784’ and their roommate, also known for their exploration of Destiny‘s Strike loot drops, played 500 games of Crucible and 200 of Iron Banner to bring you the data below. The loot drop data is based on 1,000 drops for Crucible and 400 for Iron Banner (the original number multiplied by two, because they’re examining both of their data).
What’s interesting are the percentage of games in which they had absolutely nothing drop: 56.6% in Crucible, and 28% in Iron Banner.
Here’s what they found:
Crucible
Rare Armour Engrams: 328 (1 every ~3 games)
Rare Weapon Engrams: 258 (1 every ~4 games)
Legendary Armour Engram: 9 (1 every ~111 games)
Legendary Weapon Engram: 5 (1 every ~200 games)
Exotic Weapons: 2 (1 every 500 games) (Red Death, 4th horseman)
Mote of light: 32 (1 every ~31 games)
Strange Coin: 38 (1 every ~26 games)
# of times we had nothing drop: 566 (56.6% of the time)
Iron Banner
Rare Armour Engrams: 116 (1 every ~3.5 games)
Rare Weapon Engrams: 100 (1 every ~4 games)
Legendary Armour Engram: 0 (Either really unlucky or not apart of drop table)
Legendary Weapon Engram: (considered iron banner weapon drops as this stat): 10 (1 every ~40 games)
Exotic Weapons: 1 (1 every 400 games) (Plan C)
Legendary Ship: 6 (1 every 67 games)
Mote of light: 9 (1 every ~44 games)
Strange Coin: 8 (1 every ~50 games)
# of times we had nothing drop: 56 ( 28% of the time)
In comparison to their coverage of 200 (400 counting the roommate) Strike loot drops, Destiny‘s Strike loot is just generally better than that found in the Crucible. For my favourite reference points, they found 8 Exotic weapons in Strikes (versus 3), and their percentage of nothing dropping was 28%.
Their conclusion, and mine: Crucible is for those who enjoy PvP. If you want good loot, you’re better off playing Strikes non-stop.