Upon announcing WoW Patch 10.2, Blizzard initially delighted Death Knights, Paladins, and Warriors by promising them legendary two-handed weapons. Additionally, Blizzard claimed to have learned from the mistakes of the legendary Caller’s weapon, vowing to bring more transparency to drop chances. Special items were introduced to tangibly boost these chances.
Reading this now, several months later, one can hardly contain laughter. Players perhaps detest the Fyr’alath-based system, ranking it worse than Patch 10.1, despite the proclaimed “improvements.” They failed to deliver the promised transparency; it’s nowhere to be found. Instead, Blizzard remains silent, insisting that everything is going according to plan.
An Item That Only Frustrates
Legendary items with random drops are inherently unpopular. Developers learned this lesson back in Legion and experienced it again in Dragonflight. Sure, there’s Bad Luck Protection, designed to prevent long waits for legendaries if players are diligent. Sounds good, right? However, Blizzard has never disclosed how effective this “protection” really is. Does it significantly increase drop chances, or is it merely a minute improvement? Transparency is conspicuously absent.
Alright, Blizzard has acknowledged this flaw and claims to make things better with Patch 10.2. Now, we receive Great and Lesser Embers of Fyr’alath. These items are essentially consolation prizes, allegedly increasing our chances of obtaining the legendary from Fyrakk. But do they really?
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Useless Embers of Fyr’alath
Voices are growing that believe these embers have no impact on drop chances. It’s challenging to argue against this. Dataminers discovered early on that the magic of using the embers does not interact with any data. There’s no counter going up, and there’s no documentation anywhere when you use an Ember of Fyr’alath.
Moreover, the entire system seems senseless. Picture this conversation among developers:
- Developer A: Okay, how do we mitigate the randomness in obtaining legendaries?
- Developer B: Let’s introduce Bad Luck Protection based on items that can randomly drop!
- Developer A: So, you mean we should remove randomness by adding more randomness? Brilliant! Let’s do it!
By the way, even if the items were to function, we still don’t know their actual impact. How much does my chance increase per item? Is it noticeable, or is it only measurable with scientific microscopes?
In the face of consistent criticism, developers remain fairly indifferent, asserting that the system works as intended. They just don’t tell us exactly what that intention is. Meanwhile, embers are farmed week after week, frustrating Mythic Raiders. Various alts, who “only visited LFR once,” flaunt legendary weapons.
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Useless Items and Praise for WoW Cataclysm
I also believe that the ember items are entirely useless, serving as nothing more than a carrot dangled in front of players’ noses. While every kill may increase the chance in subsequent kills, the items have nothing to do with it. Why would Blizzard, a company that even recycles tier sets, bother replacing a functional system (more kills = higher chance, as in Season 2) with a significantly more complicated one (more kills = more chances for embers = a slim chance at a higher chance…)?
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Simultaneously, I hope Blizzard has heard the wake-up call and finally moves away from such legendary systems. Across the board, developers make efforts to counteract randomness – from catalysts to crafting high-quality armor to the Grand Treasury. Yet, with legendaries, Blizzard sticks to the principle of “luck or no luck.”
On a few subjects, one can’t help but look back with envy to Cataclysm or WotLK. Back when players earned legendary items over weeks and months, randomness played almost no role. Why not return to that system? This would keep legendaries out of the World First Race and, thanks to LFR, make such legendaries accessible to everyone today. With such systems, the joy of many Paladins, Death Knights, and Warriors in recent weeks and months probably wouldn’t have gradually turned into frustration.
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