Oh cruel fate why do you mock me?

I don't believe in fate or destiny (merely in coincidence) but sometimes life can be very ironic, to say the least. Diablo 3 has been toying with my feelings for a while now. Over the past couple of days I decided to start farming that damn Staff of Herding so I can get into the secret pony level. What, did you think it would be easy? Perish the thought.

I leveled 3 characters to 60, another to 50+ and another to 30+. I killed Izual (who drops the plans for the Staff) many many times. The plans didn't drop. Then, over the last 2 days I decided to farm him specifically for the plans with my Monk. So I ran him over and over again, on Normal difficulty. Did the plans drop? Nah.

I bought a copy of Diablo 3 for my best friend over in Europe. We get together about once a week for 1-2 hours and play together, chatting over Skype. It's an awesome way to enjoy the game even though we're thousands of miles apart. He plays a Barbarian and I play my Wizard. Because we don't get to play a lot, advancement is slow. Yesterday we both reached level 32, after finishing Normal difficulty.

So guess what drops for my friend on his very first Izual kill? You guessed it. The plans for The F*#$% Staff of Herding. He was like "Oh, I got a legendary drop". I was like "Sigh", already knowing what dropped.

On the whole, this episode makes me me lol uncontrollably. I plan to continue farming for the staff, even though I'm not sure about the benefits of farming Whimsyshire. Does it give better drops? More of them? Or is it just a novelty thing?

How about you? Have you found the plans yet? What about the other components? How long did it take you to find them?

UPDATE: I got the plans tonight, just after posting this article and after killing Izual about 5 more times. OK fate, I forgive you.