One community member decided to test Borderlands 4 loot math the hard way. Reddit user ForeignLettuce977 tracked dedicated drop data across 3,000 boss kills, a process that took roughly 150 hours. Playing Vex on the game’s highest difficulty, they concluded that the dedicated drop chance for a specific item from a particular boss is around 5% in most cases.
Their dataset is not uniform across every encounter. Some bosses skew the average upward – the Inceptus fight appears to be behaving abnormally and pushed its dedicated drops toward about 30%. Rippa Roadbirds also seem to drop at higher-than-expected rates. ForeignLettuce977 suggests players exploit those anomalies while they last.
BL4 Drop Rate Data (3000+ Kills)
byu/ForeignLettuce977 inBorderlands4
“Take advantage of that while you can because I expect it to be fixed.”
Why the player wants higher rates
Because Gearbox does not publish official dedicated drop rates, the Reddit study prompted a call to raise those chances. The researcher argues that doubling the rate to 10% would not just increase average drops but would dramatically reduce the frequency of extreme dry spells that drive players away. In an IGN interview, they note a concrete example: it took them 96 attempts to get a single grenade drop from Fractis, an outcome they say is far more likely under a 5% rule and would be far less likely if the dedicated rate were higher. Their position is that reducing those worst-case outliers would help retain more players.
What this means for players
- Test size – 3,000 boss kills over 150 hours, playing on highest difficulty as Vex.
- Estimated baseline – roughly 5% dedicated drop rate for most individual items.
- Notable exceptions – Inceptus and Rippa Roadbirds showed much higher dedicated rates in this dataset.
- Suggested change – the player recommends raising dedicated drop rates to 10% to cut down extreme unlucky runs and match older Borderlands expectations.
The broader takeaway is social – while some players will grind hundreds or thousands of hours chasing specific weapons, many will not tolerate extreme RNG stretches. ForeignLettuce977 says they are “pretty much done with the game for now” from a solo farming perspective unless a significant update lands.
Tell us what you think on X, follow the conversation on Bluesky, and subscribe for more on YouTube. We’d like to hear if you’ve seen similarly long farms or bosses that feel more generous than others.
