Wednesday, January 18, 2017

One big problem

In the new Nighthold raid in WOW I am looking forward to one particular item.  It is called Convergence of Fates, which does this:

Convergence of Fates
Item Level 875+

Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Trinket
+1,634 [Agility or Strength]
Equip: Your attacks have a chance to reduce the remaining cooldown on one of your powerful abilities by 5 sec.

This is a good trinket for many people, I presume, but it is completely ridiculous for me as a ret paladin.  My current trinkets are worth roughly 5-7% of my damage depending on luck and conditions, including both their passive stats and their unique bonuses.  Convergence of Fates is worth 14%.  That is absurd, and completely beyond the scope of what Blizzard intends for trinket power.

To give context, they recently nerfed a ret paladin Legendary item that increased my damage during Crusade, which is the powerful ability that Convergence of Fates modifies.  That belt's legendary power was worth about 10% additional damage, and they nerfed it to half of its original strength so that it is now worth 5% additional damage.

If they don't want a legendary item, of which I can only wear two, to do 10% additional damage, they absolutely cannot want a random trinket to raise my damage by 8% over comparable options!

The link here is Crusade.  Both items modify Crusade, and Crusade is so over the top powerful that anything that benefits it becomes outrageously strong.  My rough napkin math suggests that the Crusade talent is worth about 20% additional damage, and the other options you could choose instead aren't remotely close to that value.  This is of course before you factor in Convergence of Fates, which makes the Crusade talent even more dominant.

Crusade is a problem.  No talent point should be as automatic a choice as Crusade is, and the fact that Blizzard consistently underestimates how critical it is to a ret paladin's performance is an issue.  They are going to nerf Convergence of Fates for ret paladins when they realize how powerful it is, but they shouldn't... they should nerf Crusade itself.

Not that they should just nerf Crusade and walk away!  Ret paladins are so dependent on it that Blizzard should probably give a flat 10% damage bonus in exchange and then nerf Crusade to be something comparable to Holy Purpose, which is the other reasonable alternative, and rewrite the third choice completely so it isn't terrible and a problem at the same time.  Right now there isn't any choice but Crusade, and it is so good that it warps all kinds of things.  The only relics I want are Crusade relics.  The only trinkets I want are trinkets that work with Crusade.  It dominates everything, and that isn't good.

I want options.  Right now I don't have them, and Blizzard so underestimates the power of Crusade that I am on a whoopsoverpowered -> nerf train that isn't fun.

The belt isn't the problem.  The trinket isn't the problem.  Crusade is the problem.  It needs fixing.

Edit:  Blizzard has already noticed the problem that Convergence of Fates was presenting, and nerfed it by 70%!!!!!!!   It has been out for 1 whole day.  This means Convergence is now still a fine trinket, but not completely bonktastic.  Good, I guess?

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