I’ve been one of the last folks in my raid group in WoW without a legendary item. We’ve been joking that of course I’ll get one of the worst possible ones for my spec if and when I ever get one, and the prophecy has been fulfilled. Last night, right before raid, I opened an emissary chest and got the worst possible legendary in the game. Not only is the effect mostly useless in raids, but it is a ring, which means no primary stat boost, and it doesn’t even have my best secondary stat on it either. I had been mentally preparing myself for this, because such is my luck, especially in a world where my pal Belghast steals all the good luck for himself. However I wasn’t prepared to have my shame broadcast to the whole guild at peak time when everyone was getting ready for raid. I tried to be good-natured about it, merely vowing eternal vengeance against and angrily shaking my fists at everyone who made fun of me for my bad luck.
I’m aware there are community members who think that everything is sunshine and roses, and that people who get a legendary item and then have the nerve to complain about it are entitled jerks. My honest opinion here is that those people can go eff right off. This particular item has multiple attributes that work against it, making it unattractive to almost everyone.
- It’s a ring. However you feel about most legendaries, anything that gives you a huge ilvl bonus to your primary stat is likely to be more exciting than a ring with secondary stats only.
- It drops for every class and spec. I’ve seen this item drop a lot, because it can drop for anyone. Even if it were more useful, this blandness makes it seem less fun than an item specially crafted to boost your chosen class.
- Its special ability procs from applying a loss-of-control effect, which is something that most raid mobs and dungeon bosses are immune to. So most fights you won’t even get any special benefit from it.
Even Blizz acknowledged that there’s a few legendaries that aren’t as exciting as intended, and as far as I know there may be some changes to those items in the works. I prefer a system where I can work towards big ticket, game changing items like the legendaries represent. Or at least have some protection from horrible RNG, like with Kanai’s Cube in Diablo 3. There, if you just can’t get the item you need to drop you can keep trying to craft it in the cube. It is still RNG based, but there’s some protection there for people with terrible luck. It would also be different if there was anyone outside of a PvP setting that really prized this particular legendary turd. Instead, I’ve seen it drop over and over again, and never has the lucky recipient been excited. Always it is met by complaint and murmurs of apology from the rest of the guild. That’s bad design.
Item drops in dungeons can be good or bad, but there’s always another chance to run things again tomorrow and get something better. Bad legendaries feel extra painful because you’ve been waiting for months to get one, and know you’ll have a long wait for another chance. Meanwhile your friends get shiny new toys that change their playstyle or give them cool buffs. I feel a bit similarly about some of the incredibly hard-to-get hidden artifact appearances, but at least there it is all cosmetic. Nobody feels like they are letting their raid team down because they can’t get their artifact skin to drop, but I feel like I’m not healing as well as I could because I am missing a vital piece of gear.
I honestly attempted to vendor the stupid thing in protest when I got it, but sadly the game won’t let me. It is hard to even justify using it as a “stat stick” since the stats on it are pretty poor for me. All I can do is complain and joke about it and try to defuse some of the frustration of the whole thing. And pray to RNGesus that maybe next time I’ll get something useful.
