Kabam percentage

Mokkie

Hi Kabam,
I’ve experience some weird calculations or should I say chances when it comes to kabam percentage to “happen” events.

For example, in the abyss, it states 1% to evade for the defenders but having fought with the defenders, I feel that percentage is a lot higher. Evading every 5th combo or so on average.

Then taking for example, nova synergy with darkhawk when a heavy would refresh nova surge buff at a 50% chance and I’ve tried with like 10 heavy in a row and got 0 refresh on nova surge buff.
I’m looking forward to your reply.

Thank you.

PantherusNZ

This is typical mental bias that we humans, especially when it comes to probability.

First of all - there's the general understanding that 50% probability doesn't mean that something is going to happen 50% of the time (or every second iteration) - flipping a coin 10 times can very much result in 8-10 Heads.

Secondly you've got various mental phenomenons that take place in our brains when it comes to this sort of thing:
- You have confirmation bias such that you notice more every time something happens to confirm your thought (that xx % chance is actually higher/lower than it says) and don't notice so much when something refutes it (example: You can attack Black Widow for multiple combos without triggering her 5% chance to evade and think nothing of it, but as soon as she evades 2-3 times in rapid succession, suddenly that 5% chance MUST be higher in actuality)
- You also have what's called the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon" (yes, I just looked it up) which is where you suddenly become more aware of something because you've been informed about it - a common example given is that you buy a new model of car that you previously weren't overly aware of, and suddenly see it all around; not because it's suddenly become more prevalent, but you're just more AWARE of it. Applying it here is somewhat similar to the confirmation bias, because you have been made aware that Black Widow seems to evade much more than her listed 5%, you start to notice it much more.
- Finally you have the simple fact that when something works AGAINST you, it's more noticeable than if something works in your favour, in general. Again - unloading multiple combinations against Black Widow without her evading goes largely unnoticed (unless you're using Corvus and want her to frigging evade for that charge...) but as soon as she dodges 2-3 times in quick succession it's suddenly at the forefront of your mind.

All of these phenomenons amount to much the same thing, but for slightly different reasons, and they tend to stack

Look at the "Pep Method" being bandied around YouTube videos - so many people swear it works because [refers to videos where it's used and a good pull is received] while others, like myself, insist it's bollocks because [refers to videos where it's used and a poor pull is received].

TL;DR - Nah, while there might be some variation in the back-end code, and you never know where there's a bug, the likely explanation is that you just THINK the percentages are different because you notice when it doesn't seem to work - plus probability is complicated.