today i was doing darkmoor and during malistaire, i had to flee once to get back my health. a guy on my team said that fleeing makes the drops from malistaire not as good. is that true? (and no, he was not talking about getting no credit for a battle because you weren’t there.) -alura dragonblood, lvl 113
Fleeing doesn't affect your drop rates however; you actually get two drop chances at Malistaire so that person technically isn't wrong.
It works like this. You get one set of drops from his first form, and then you get another set of drops from his second form. If you flee after he transforms, you're losing all potential drops you'd receive from his first form.
Your chances of getting any specific drop are the same for each set of drops you receive from him, so all that changes is that you have two sets of chances to get what you want. This can seriously add up over time as you do more runs.
However, after extensive testing I can confirm that you can roughly double the chance of tier 1 gear from Malistaire the Undying by standing on your head for the entire battle. It's OK to flee but you must still remain standing on your head for doubled drops.