WoW demon Cortyn complains about the new Onyx Ring. It is, after all, a constant “up and down” – and shows considerable chaos.
Patch 10.0.7 has been live in World of Warcraft for a week now and most of the new features are well received. The Forbidden Isle is entertaining, the Vaults of Zskera are interesting, and one or two secrets keep puzzle lovers busy. But the core feature, which should be interesting for all players, has sparked many discussions, doubts, and disillusionment.
Or simply put: I find it absolutely incomprehensible how the Onyx Ring could launch in such a disastrous state.
To bring everyone up to speed: The Onyx Ring is a “quasi-legendary” because it can be imbued with different effects. From more than 20 different effects, you can combine 3 of your choice to squeeze more performance out of the character – at least in theory.
I really understand that you can’t fully test everything on a PTR. Really. But that the Onyx Ring was released in a state where some specializations could clearly say “The Onyx Ring at level 424 is worse than a ring at level 372,” is just silly. It’s not even “close but missed the target,” it’s miles away.
All of this could have been avoided. Yes, I sound a bit like Cpt. Hindsight, who always knows better in retrospect – but I really don’t understand how the Onyx Ring could go live last Wednesday.
The ring is highly customizable but has a major drawback: it lacks secondary stats like mastery, haste, or critical strike rating. Anyone who equips the ring loses about 6% – 8% spread across 2 secondary stats. This is particularly devastating for specializations that scale heavily with these secondary stats. It just feels wrong to equip the “new super ring” and then realize that your character is now casting much slower or that the crits are significantly weaker.
What Blizzard messed up was the initial excitement at the launch of a new patch. Because the anticipation of the “cool overpowered ring” was greatly dampened when many classes found out that it wasn’t as cool and overpowered for them, and only a handful of specializations really benefited from it.
Yet the rules and goals of the ring were so clearly defined:
- All characters should look forward to the ring.
- It should be extremely strong for the rest of the current season.
- Shortly after the start of season 2, most players should replace it.
If you had this goal clearly in mind, you could have just gone “Yolo” and given the ring strong secondary stats along with the primordial stones. Maybe weaker than in the current variant, but in combination with secondary stats, there would have been no discussion about its usefulness at all.
Just to emphasize that again: The “lifespan” of this ring is limited to probably 8 to 10 weeks. Blizzard wants the ring to play virtually no role in season 2. Therefore, it would have been easy to make the ring strong and attractive enough that everyone immediately feels a clear improvement.
On the positive side, it can be noted that Blizzard reacted very quickly and made multiple adjustments to almost all sockets within 3 days. In some cases, the values were raised by a relaxed 72% (via wowhead).
But the fact that the “launch momentum” of the ring was messed up led to the initial excitement about the ring often being stifled in its infancy, leaving frustration behind. Because the numerous buffs caused certain powers to become very strong, which one would have completely avoided before. This is particularly annoying when you have dismantled corresponding stones, only to hear later: “By the way, this is now your best-in-slot – have fun farming again!”
At the same time, the Onyx Ring has brought complexity that is detrimental to the overall gaming experience. Because the ring is so varied in its power that you often find yourself in situations where it’s said: “So in a fight against 2 mobs, the ring is really good. In a fight against 3 enemies, you better take another. And in a fight against 4 or more enemies, then another completely different one.”
Instead of simply looking forward to the ring, for many it now feels like they just got another set of “talent points” that are primarily one thing: annoying. That’s why many players now have 3 or 4 Onyx Rings in their inventory to switch them out for every boss.
Blizzard has proven that they can actually do better with Dragonflight. The quick reactions are certainly good – but healthier for the game would have been if there hadn’t been anything to respond to in the first place.
