Random Frustrations

There is, statistically, a 20% chance to receive each type of green quality gem when prospecting Saronite. So why does it always seem like this game doesn't want me to have Sun or Shadow Crustals? I have two miners, my current 80 main and a 75. I collect absurd amounts of ore just questing and doing dailies. While selling off Cobalt in stacks has proved profitable, I typically prospect all of my Saronite. And despite getting loads of all the other four colors, yellow and purple constantly elude me.

What's worse is that Shadow Crystals are one of the three gems required to make an Icy Prism every day, which, for the non-JC's out there, takes a Frozen Orb, a Shadow Gem, a Chalcedony, and a Dark Jade, and combines it into a container that always contains blue quality gems, but has the chance to include Dragon's Eyes and Epic gems. I have stacks of those first three, and despite obsessive amounts of prospecting. Blizzard just doesn't want me to have Shadow Crystals.

Waiting on AFK's = Time to write rambling posts.

There are so many things in this game that are so completely up to chance. Like the gems, there are other completely mundane bad-luck failures that I experience often. Like the aforementioned frozen orbs. There is a 20% chance in every random dungeon to win one (provided no one passes). There have been entire weeks were I didn't even come close to winning. Making my Icy Prisms even more annoying.

Then there are the more frustrating examples. Horror stories of 250 failed runs keep me form even trying to get Baron Rivondare's mount. Then there are things like profession patterns that only drop in raid instances. Some you see every week... others, like in the case of the +30 Spellpower to Weapon from MC, dropped twice in the entire absurdly long period I was raiding in there. Luckily, of the entire 40 man... I was one of two enchanters.

The bad-luck randomness hits us all, unfortunately. And then of course.. right after I write this, I mine three nodes in a row that give me my much needed gems. Weird. That's just how it goes.