Frequently asked questions

Can Rarity track cross-account attempts if I farm on multiple characters?

Yes. Rarity can track attempts across all characters on a single World of Warcraft license. It cannot track attempts across multiple licenses within a single Battle.net account, because World of Warcraft does not permit this.

If you just installed Rarity for the first time, it should automatically track attempts across a single license. You don't need to do anything. (Note: some players find that this is not the case.)

If you find that this is not true, follow these directions:

Open your Interface Options and find Rarity in the list. Click on Rarity, then click the + sign that appears. This reveals a new entry called Profile. Click it. Finally, in the Existing Profiles drop-down, select "Default". Warning: This will reset your options and you will lose all existing attempt counts. Some attempts may be repopulated based on the current character's Statistics, but most things will be reset to 0.

Alternatively, you can just pick one character to be the "master". Set all the other characters to use that character's profile. Note that when you do this, every other character's attempts will be reset to that of the "master".

Can Rarity track attempts across multiple licenses on the same Battle.net account?

No. Blizzard does not allow add-ons to share data between separate licenses. Your mounts, pets, and toys will work across these licenses, but Rarity is not allowed to track the attempts together.

Is there a way to "untrack all" items inside a category? It's a pain to untrack all individually.

Just click the group header inside the tooltip, and it will collapse. There is no "untrack all" feature, and I will not be adding one.

How do I choose what item is displayed in the progress bar?

You can click any item in the tooltip to display it in the progress bar. Rarity will automatically change the progress bar to whichever item (or pair of items) is detected most recently.

How do I add more than one item to the progress bar at once?

You can't do this yourself. When Rarity detects two or more attempts simultaneously, it automatically adds two of those items to the progress bar.

Can Rarity show more than two items at once in the progress bar?

Not at this time. There are now a few places where 3 or more items can be farmed at once, so I might add it at some point.

Are there timers indicating when I last made an attempt (such as killed a boss), and when the item will be available for another attempt?

Rarity includes "defeat detection" for as many items as it is possible to support. When you make an attempt on these items, Rarity shows "Defeated" in the tooltip. By default, these items are also REMOVED from your tooltip, to clean it up. You can turn this option off.

Rarity doesn't include respawn or instance lock timers because of the high variance in time zones and rule sets from server to server. Just look for "Defeated" to change to "Undefeated", and you'll know it's back up.

Why doesn't Rarity have defeat detection for Ashes of Al'ar, Swift White Hawkstrider, or Smoldering Egg of Millagazor?

Rarity's defeat detection doesn't support having a boss in two places at once simultaneously. Kael'thas Sunstrider and Ragnaros exist in two instances at once. This is a known issue.

How do I edit my attempt counts?

Type /rarity, or press Esc and select Interface, click the AddOns tab, and scroll down to find the Rarity category. Within the Rarity options, choose the tab that applies (Mounts, Companions, Items, or Custom). Find the item you want to adjust in the list that appears on the left, and click it. Edit the "Attempts" number.

Why is Rarity still tracking BOE pets that I already have?

Most BOE pets are marked as "repeatable", because some people farm them repeatedly to sell. If you don't want to track the pet, open Rarity's options, find the pet, and uncheck Repeatable.

How are the percentages calculated?

Take a look at this extensive article written by the creator of Bunny Hunter. Rarity uses the same calculations.

How does Rarity determine if I'm "lucky" or "unlucky"?

Rarity calculates the median number of attempts to obtain an item. If you're at or below this value, you're considered lucky. Otherwise, you're not. See the article linked in the question above for a more thorough discussion.

Where does Rarity get its drop chance from?

As you know, Blizzard does not publish the drop chance for anything. Luckily, WowHead tracks the actual drop rate for most things. I've done extensive research on WowHead to determine a best guess at the drop rate for any item. Don't agree with me? You can change the drop rate from the Options screen—you aren't stuck with what I decided on.

Archaeology projects are particularly difficult to estimate. For those, I've had to read through hundreds of individual comments on WowHead and determine a best guess. In reality, archaeology projects vary wildly from one extreme to the other, so there isn't really any practical way to know the average number of projects it takes to obtain an item.

Rarity isn't counting all my fishing pool attempts. Why?

The game doesn't give us an easy way to tell what you're fishing in. To make sure Rarity counts all your fishing pool attempts, do this: right after you cast your line, make sure to mouseover the pool of fish. Then when you loot the bobber, Rarity should count the attempt.

Rarity isn't counting my loots. Why?

Rarity has known conflicts with certain auto-loot add-ons, particularly Magnet Continued and AutoLootPlus. Unfortunately, these add-ons severely modify the game's normal loot system and are not compatible with Rarity. They must be disabled.

You say Rarity automatically uses statistics to determine attempt counts, but it's not working for some of my items. Why?

Rarity can only use statistics which exist in the Statistics tab in your Achievements window. If the statistic isn't there, Rarity can't use it. This means that the majority of items Rarity tracks do not have statistics, and cannot be retroactively tracked. You'll need to ask Blizzard if you want a statistic that is missing.

How do I import my data from Bunny Hunter?

Make sure both Bunny Hunter and Rarity are running at the same time, and log in. Rarity should prompt you to import. Click Yes.

Known issues and limitations

The following issues are already known. In most cases, the issue is due to limitations in the World of Warcraft API, and can't be fixed.

Tiny Carp isn't supported

The WoW add-on API makes it too difficult to detect salt water versus fresh water. Therefore, at this time the Tiny Carp companions cannot be supported by Rarity.

Darkmoon Rabbit isn't supported

Due to limitations in the Blizzard API for add-ons, this item cannot be supported.

Fishing detection doesn't always work

The game doesn't give us an easy way to tell what you're fishing in. To make sure Rarity counts all your fishing pool attempts, do this: right after you cast your line, make sure to mouseover the pool of fish. Then when you loot the bobber, Rarity should count the attempt.

Archaeology pets are not included in Rarity

The only archaeology pet that is considered actually rare is the Crawling Claw. However, this item has a problem because it shows up in your archaeology journal as Mummified Monkey Paw. At this time, Rarity does not support archaeology detection for items whose journal name differs from the actual item name, so Crawling Claw is not available for detection.

Completing the quest Fun For The Little Ones results in Rarity counting an Archaeology attempt

This is a limitation in the way Rarity detects Archaeology project solutions, which is fairly awkward to do given the current API.

LFR kills in Dragon Soul count as attempts when they shouldn't

Killing a boss in Dragon Soul on LFR difficulty causes Rarity to detect an attempt on Normal mode. This is because Blizzard tracks LFR kills in Dragon Soul under your Statistics as a "normal" kill. This can't be fixed. However, raids in Mists of Pandaria and up implement separate statistics for LFR, so this issue does not exist in tiers above Dragon Soul.