The shards of domination are being revised. There are thick buffs for the controversial sockets from World of Warcraft.
Patch 9.1 of World of Warcraft introduced a new system that many players do not like: the shards of domination. These special “sockets,” which can only be used in very specific slots, grant massive set bonuses when the correct sockets are combined with the appropriate shards. Two of the three set bonuses are now being massively buffed to keep pace with the other shards.
What was the problem? On one hand, the shards of domination are not very well received among many players. The fact that for a new feature you have to farm not just one item but three different ones is met with confusion. After all, you need the shards for:
- The basic, correct shard
- Equipment that can hold shards of domination (especially from the raid Sanctum of Domination)
- Stygian Ember to further upgrade the shards
The second problem was that the shards offer three different “set bonuses,” but one was much stronger than the other two. The “Unholy” set outshone the Blood and Frost sets and was generally always the correct choice.
At the same time, the system received a lot of criticism because it is not properly explained in the game – all relevant information about the shards of domination had to be sourced externally. The streamer Preach was even completely driven away from WoW by the shards.
What has Blizzard done now? Blizzard is buffing the set bonuses of the weaker sets significantly:
- Blood Link – The damage and healing has been increased by 20% at all ranks.
- Winds of Winter – The amount of damage and healing accumulated by the winds has been increased by about 45% at all ranks.
The developers hope that these changes will make all the bonuses interesting and compete a little better with each other. Previously, the Unholy set was so strong that hardly any player considered the above bonuses.
When do the changes go live? With the next realm restart during the weekly maintenance. This always happens on Wednesdays in the early morning hours, which is August 4, 2021 for us. You should then notice the improvements to the shards on your gear.
Player reactions are mixed: The players’ reaction to this announcement is mixed. While some players praise Blizzard for finally taking the route of buffing weak abilities instead of nerfing strong ones, others wonder why the shards were allowed to go live with such a performance disparity.
At the same time, some players are quite frustrated that they have already spent their Stygian Ember to upgrade their Unholy shards. Had they known that the other shards were going to be buffed so massively, they might have made a different decision.
What do you think of this adjustment? Is it good that Blizzard is buffing the underpowered shards and set bonuses? Or is the whole system rather underdeveloped?
