Mass Effect 3: Regular vs. Premium Spectre Pack – Which is Better for Ultra Rares?
From personal experience, I believe a Regular Spectre Pack wins, hands down!
The only time you should even think about buying a Premium Spectre Pack (PSP) is if you’ve just started playing and you don’t have all the common, uncommon, and rare weapons/characters maxed out yet and you want a good weapon to start farming credits with.
Otherwise, the PSP is just full of fail.
Let’s compare the stats, though:
SPECTRE PACK (SP): The best equipment for the galaxy’s best operatives. Includes 5 random items or characters, with at least 1 Rare or better. Cost – 60k.
PREMIUM SPECTRE PACK (PSP): Even more of the best equipment for the galaxy’s best operatives. Includes 5 random items or characters, with at least 2 Rares or better and a higher chance for Ultra-Rares. Cost – 99k.
Supposedly, the percentage chance breakdown can be found here (source), but I don’t know how accurate these numbers are or where they came from – the source says they are “estimated” numbers. So, I’m going to analyze this with common sense, but feel free to reference the source if you want hard numbers.
Assuming you’ve already unlocked and maxed out all your Common, Uncommon, and Rare weapons/characters/gear, all you care about now is getting your Ultra Rares.
Disregard the first four slots in both Packs – for all effective purposes, they will always be Rare or lower. Yes, there is supposedly a chance for an Ultra Rare in a PSP in the fourth slot but I’ve never seen it happen and I’ve bought hundreds of them.
For the last slot, you will definitely get at least a Rare in both a PSP and SP. There is also a chance for an Ultra Rare in both packs.
So the real difference for the packs is the chance at Ultra Rares in slots four and five, slot four being negligible. A PSP costs 165% the amount of credits a SP costs. Whatever the actual percentage chance at an Ultra Rare in a PSP vs. a SP, do you think it exceeds a 165% differential?
That depends – if there is a 2% chance of getting an Ultra Rare in a SP and a 3% chance in a PSP, then the SP is the better option. However, if there is only a 1% chance of getting an Ultra Rare in a SP and a 2% chance in a PSP, then the PSP is the better option. Since Bioware doesn’t release these numbers, we can only make our decisions based on our observations. From my personal experience, I think the chances are closer to 4% of Ultra Rare in a SP and 5% in a PSP, making the SP the better choice.
So to test this, I am going to answer the question: if you have 1.5M credits and you buy 15 PSP’s, will you get the same or more Ultra Rares than in 25 SP’s?
That’s a good question – I doubt it, but I will experiment and let you know the results over the coming weeks. I will save up 3M credits and spend them on 15 PSP’s and 25 SP’s and post the results!
UPDATE: THE SPECTRE PACK IS THE BETTER CHOICE – SEE MY DATA AND RESULTS HERE!
What is your opinion on the age old Specre Pack debate? Post in comments!
I have had Premium Spectre Packs Which contained Ultra rare weapons in both the 4th and 5th slots, so it does happen but not very often.
As far as Premium versus Regular, I have been trying for 5 months to unlock either the Harrier or Particle Rifle by first only buying approx 4 million credits worth of Spectre Packs and then Just buying Premiums with no success so far. To me I seemed to get the Ultra rares more frequently in the premium spectres but I know friends that say the reverse, so It seems completely random to me but one must also take into account extenuating circumstances, such as how many packs they buy in a row, if the packs were purchased before or after new dlc content was released, if they alternated between both spectre and premium packs, which i heard can improve your chances or if they have all rares at lvl 10.
It does seem ridiculous to me though that one can spend 1 million credits on premium spectres and receive nothing but silver and gold level character cards and lvl 3 to 4 consumables, I used to think that Too Human had a very bad item drop rate but this is unbelievable.
See the following link for an example of a Premium spectre pack with 2 Ultra Rares, not mine though.
http://social.bioware.com/forum/Mass-Effect-3/Mass-Effect-3-Multiplayer-Discussion-/I-am-going-to-save-up-1-million-credits-EDIT—TROLLTASTIC-STORE-sees-through-my-clever-ruse-14090026-1.html
I know it’s possible to get two UR’s but it’s also “possible” for the earth to get destroyed by a giant asteroid tomorrow :) I definitely buy packs based on the premise that I’m not going to get anything good because it happens so rarely! I’ve been keeping track of the last 16 million credits I spent, and the UR drop rate for PSP for me so far has been 2.3% while the SP has been 1.7%. However, I go by ‘credits spent per UR’ rather than the drop rate, in which case, the SP is slightly a better deal.
Lol point taken, ok thanks for the reply, I will try the spectre packs again then, any idea if there is a way to remove the lvl IV equipment upgrades to improve chances for UR? I seemed to get them more frequently before the introduction of the lvl IV equipment.
It’s sort of off topic but a few days ago i bought a Character pack, 99000 credits and a higher chance for characters, and got two ultra rare weapons from it. I know it’s not a SP or PSP, but I did get two ultra rares from it(although neither were characters).
Same thing happened to me, 2 ultra-rare weapons in 1 character pack. Overall, I have landed more ultra-rare weapons from Character packs than I have from Arsenal packs. I have no idea why either, especially since the only characters I haven’t maxed are the ultra-rare characters, so logic would dictate that I would have received ultra-rare characters in the character pack.
Regular Spectre packs have not been good for me, with ultra rares few and far between. I have yet to see a second rare in one of these.
But most premium packs have had at least two rares, occasionally in addition to an ultra rare. I have received double ultra rares a few times now.
Now I get jumbo and veteran packs for supplies and PSPs in my quest for a Cerberus Harrier.
I still don’t have one, but I do have both ultra rare Volus characters–fully upgraded. This kind of distribution so reminds me of Magic: The Gathering.
I am really confused about this. I have 5M credits saved up, hoping to unlock the harrier, Acolyte, Widows and the Juggernaut. I spent 2M solely on Vet Packs in my last binge ( This page is where I got the idea to save and buy), hoping to max out my uncommon mods and gear, but realized that I was only getting a mod or gear once every 4-6 packs, which translates roughly to an SP/PSP. So I thought I would save up and buy tons of SP’s to get these unlocks. My original plan was :-
50 x S.P. = 3M
20 X P.S.P = 2M
and maybe gather another 2M for 1M each on AP/RP.
But now, reading this my analysis was I should prefer SPs over PSPs only after maxing out my rare items, but what to do for my unlocks. Should I go all 7M on PSPs ?
or 5M on PSPs and then decide on AP/RP or SP according to the cash I have saved up ?
With the SPs, so far I have had unlocks like Mods and Gear ,and only the Striker I AR through SPs. The good things from my SPs so far have been the Raider III, the Reegar, the Suppressor, and maybe the Piranha (which I’m not comfortable with yet). Surprisingly, my Volus Engineer tumbled out of an SP, and so did a Scorpion I.
With the PSP’s I brought last time ( 10 in a row), I got a Revenant I(which I despise as an AR, it is more likely a very heavy SMG), with tons of training for my Awakened Collector, and lots of character training for the class I didn’t have equipped. I also have a Valkyrie and Lancer both at level I. Rest were Gears and Mods.
Anyhow, from all my analysis of purchases, I figured that you do not get the class of weapon you have equipped on the character you have deployed at the time of transacting in the store(as all characters need at least one weapon on them), but you are likely to get more character unlocks from the same class (50% same vs 10% chance for the rest) .
So help me out here folks, and of course, GPG. Thanks for this platform…
I am really confused about this. I have 5M credits saved up, hoping to unlock the harrier, Acolyte, Widows and the Juggernaut. I spent 2M solely on Vet Packs in my last binge ( This page is where I got the idea to save and buy), hoping to max out my uncommon mods and gear, but realized that I was only getting a mod or gear once every 4-6 packs, which translates roughly to an SP/PSP. So I thought I would save up and buy tons of SP’s to get these unlocks. My original plan was :-
50 x S.P. = 3M
20 X P.S.P = 2M
and maybe gather another 2M for 1M each on AP/RP.
But now, reading this my analysis was I should prefer SPs over PSPs only after maxing out my rare items, but what to do for my unlocks. Should I go all 7M on PSPs ?
or 5M on PSPs and then decide on AP/RP or SP according to the cash I have saved up ?
With the SPs, so far I have had unlocks like Mods and Gear ,and only the Striker I AR through SPs. The good things from my SPs so far have been the Raider III, the Reegar, the Suppressor, and maybe the Piranha (which I’m not comfortable with yet). Surprisingly, my Volus Engineer tumbled out of an SP, and so did a Scorpion I.
With the PSP’s I brought last time ( 10 in a row), I got a Revenant I(which I despise as an AR, it is more likely a very heavy SMG), with tons of training for my Awakened Collector, and lots of character training for the class I didn’t have equipped. I also have a Valkyrie and Lancer both at level I. Rest were Gears and Mods.
Anyhow, from all my analysis of purchases, I figured that you do not get the class of weapon you have equipped on the character you have deployed at the time of transacting in the store(as all characters need at least one weapon on them), but you are likely to get more character unlocks from the same class (50% same vs 10% chance for the rest) .
So help me out here guys, and of course , GPG. Thanks for this platform…
Sorry bout the repeat post… Posted by mistake…
I did get my Cerberus Harrier–twice in a row!
Then I started putting my SP and PSP “purchases” on a spreadsheet and went the next 39 PSPs in a row without an ultra-rare! An approximate average of 2.2 rares per pack, but the ultra-rares got ultra scarce. Small sample size but I got three ultra-rares in my last 15 SPs and approximately .9 rares per pack. I’ll take that any time.
I’ve maxed common and uncommon weapons and characters, as well as Medi-Gel, Thermal Clips, Ops Survival Packs and Missile Launchers. (I get Veteran Packs to replace what I’ve used-and promote all my level 20s-before getting SPs and PSPs.) But about two thirds of the items I’ve been getting in SPs and PSPs have been the other one-shot consumables. And there is still uncommon gear and weapon mods I haven’t maxed.
Aditya: I have a Revenant X and used it with my Geth Juggernaut my last three times on Gold. It’s a punishment machine, and with 600 rounds plus it’ll keep firing long after you’ve emptied a Harrier.