Changes to Primordial Stones

[Lumy]

Changes to Primordial Stones

Several hotfixes were made to Primordial Stones today. The intent here is to bring other Primordial Stones up to the competitive level where the Humming Arcane Stone is currently performing. Although, a portion of this level of performance can be attributed to a bug, even when fixed the Humming Arcane Stone was still the top performer. With these changes we’re hoping to make other combinations more viable in comparison, but not necessarily overtake it over from being the best option. In addition, area of effect stones have gotten a considerable increase to their output. These changes are listed below. Thank you for your feedback!

• Cold Frost Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Deluging Water Stone effect increased by 22%.
• Desirous Blood Stone effect increased by 18.5%. Decreased trigger rate.
• Echoing Thunder Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Exuding Steam Stone effect increased by 25%.
• Flame Licked Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Freezing Ice Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Gleaming Iron Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Humming Arcane Stone - Fixed an issue that caused it to trigger more than intended.
• Indomitable Earth Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Pestilent Plague Stone effect increased by 72%.
• Raging Magma Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Searing Smokey Stone effect increased by 34%.
• Shining Obsidian Stone effect increased by 12%.
• Storm Infused Stone effect increased by 34%.
• Wild Spirit Stone effect increased by 50%.

[GUZ]

and they nerf the best one lol

[Relapses]

Hopefully they'll get the tuning on these things right by the time 10.1's out and they're already irrelevant.

Either that or put some fucking secondary stats on them so they're not an implicit downgrade for certain specs.

[Uniteria]

/clap Blizzard for nerfing stuff right after we got it and upgraded. I want refund now of my 6 Unstable Elementium.

[Ealyssa]

So the new system for half a patch is already a shitshow of balancing problems ?

Who would have thought ? Why even put one of those garbage system in an expansion that clearly proves we don’t need any ?

[Alcsaar]

Still completely useless for shadow priest lul

[Chris401w]

Like 95% of tuning complaints would go away if they would just add secondary stats… always shooting themselves in the foot.

[Elbob]

im not super pleased that they did this mid week vs during weekly reset but its not much of a deal. Its like maybe a 1% loss that you get most that power back next tuesday or sooner when you can upgrade the other buffed gems.

[huth]

Like 95% of tuning complaints would go away if they would just add secondary stats… always shooting themselves in the foot.

Sure, but that would affect the 95% that are completely baseless and not fix any of the ones that are actual problems. While adding yet another factor that needs to be tuned.

So no, they're avoiding shooting their foot. They just aren't pandering to idiots.

im not super pleased that they did this mid week vs during weekly reset but its not much of a deal. Its like maybe a 1% loss that you get most that power back next tuesday or sooner when you can upgrade the other buffed gems.

Eh, i have enough stuff that it could probably get an entire second ring set up. It's not a huge issue.

[Glorious Leader]

Why even put one of those garbage system in an expansion that clearly proves we don’t need any ?

because maybe it wasn't so clearly proven...

[lordjust]

Sure, but that would affect the 95% that are completely baseless and not fix any of the ones that are actual problems. While adding yet another factor that needs to be tuned.

So no, they're avoiding shooting their foot. They just aren't pandering to idiots.

Eh, i have enough stuff that it could probably get an entire second ring set up. It's not a huge issue.

It would fix the fundamental problem of the ring. Ion said in a community interview that the design intention for the ring is to start out as a catch up mechanic (you get the ring and first gems very fast) and become bis for every spec in the game, but will be replaced by 10.1 rings. It's supposed to give you the small edge needed to time the keys or kill the boss you're struggleing with.

For the majority of specs that isn't the case. Even after the buffs and the maybe bugged interaction of two gems, at 424 the ring is only as good as a 395 ilvl with a socket or a 405/411 ring with good stats. Any 415 ring with no socket or any crafted ring at 405 beats it. Most specs are very dependant on secondary stats and now they created a balancing problem for themselvs. Make gems with effects that are on par with a 424 ring with secondary stats but at the same time get beaten by any higher ilvl ring from 10.1.

And people reported those problems on the PTR. Ran sims, tested on the PTR and was why the question was asked to Ion what the ring is supposed to be and they had to buff the gems 3 times already just so it would see use as a catch up for twinks.

Adding gems with secondary stats would fix the problem. Make gems with 300 stats each and you're done. At 424 you'd have 900 stat instead of the 1200 any other 424 ring has, so once 10.1 hits you replace it with any 424 ring. With stat gems you probably would only go for 2 stat gems (so 600 stat combined) and a proc so you'd still have some variety and want to get certain gems like the fire one to proc the eranog/broodkeeper ring.

[Relapses]

Sure, but that would affect the 95% that are completely baseless and not fix any of the ones that are actual problems. While adding yet another factor that needs to be tuned.

So no, they're avoiding shooting their foot. They just aren't pandering to idiots.

The problem is that the stated intention is for it to be BiS (or nor BiS) for this patch cycle (ie, the two someodd months between 10.0.7 and 10.1). And while that intention can be achieved by some classes, it isn't able to be achieved for all classes. And that's kinda problematic for players when they see a bunch of people playing with a new toy and they're kicking rocks on the sidelines. It's not a good feeling and Blizzard generally tries to rectify these problems when they come up. The other thing is that there is nothing stopping Blizzard from allowing the item to be good for only this patch, nerfing it back to oblivion after. I'd imagine they feel this would be a situation not dissimilar from what happened with Domination Shards in SL so they're avoiding it; but a lot of player feedback I've seen is actually in support of something like this. Instead of an item that improperly favors some class/specs, we'd now have an item that everybody can use, implicitly.

It's a bit arrogant to assume that anybody arguing against the current iteration of this feature is "an idiot."

[Caerrona]

The problem is that the stated intention is for it to be BiS (or nor BiS) for this patch cycle (ie, the two someodd months between 10.0.7 and 10.1). And while that intention can be achieved by some classes, it isn't able to be achieved for all classes. And that's kinda problematic for players when they see a bunch of people playing with a new toy and they're kicking rocks on the sidelines. It's not a good feeling and Blizzard generally tries to rectify these problems when they come up. The other thing is that there is nothing stopping Blizzard from allowing the item to be good for only this patch, nerfing it back to oblivion after. I'd imagine they feel this would be a situation not dissimilar from what happened with Domination Shards in SL so they're avoiding it; but a lot of player feedback I've seen is actually in support of something like this. Instead of an item that improperly favors some class/specs, we'd now have an item that everybody can use, implicitly.

It's a bit arrogant to assume that anybody arguing against the current iteration of this feature is "an idiot."

I don't get the "need" I guess to want to equip the ring?

You have two options
A) your class scales better with secondary stats so you don't wear it.
B) your class scales like shit so you wear it.

I could see the arguement if it gave us a button or something like tier bonuses that can be interacted with or played around. I don't understand why people are mad about not being able to use the ring? Alot of specs didn't use the punch card and I don't remember seeing huge uproar about "wanting to use the punch card for... reasons."

For most specs it's close enough (not all specs mind you) to a stat ring that omg you lose like 500 dps to get to... watch a small animation happen every once in a while I guess? Just slap it on if you want to try it. Most specs I've run keys with end up around like 7-12% dps with the stones which is a completely insignificant completely unnoticeable difference between a stat ring vs stones.

[Colleen Cox]

Great news, I guess

[Aurora]

Do the developers even play their game? How does something get released in such a useless state that it requires such immediate nerfs/buffs?

[Geckoo]

So the new system for half a patch is already a shitshow of balancing problems ?

Who would have thought ? Why even put one of those garbage system in an expansion that clearly proves we don’t need any ?

It's actually a very good system. Precisely because we are late on the patch cycle, this kind of system is not going to disrupt any kind of competitive progress due to this kind of balance issues. This is essentially a flat nerf to all content with some gameplay attached to it that all players from all levels can benefit from. It works both as a catch-up mechanic as well as a last push for those groups that are close to the end.

Sure, the balance issues are a pain to deal with when there are limited resources attached to obtaining and upgrading the gems on the first week, but at the same time everything is finite, so is not a big deal either. There is a limited and reasonable number of gems, you can swap them at will with no other cost than being at the right place, you can have more than one ring and neither obtaining or upgrading the gems is specially hard or expensive.

When i swapped my 424 humming arcane gem for a different gem i didn't loose a gem, it just means that now i have 4 gems at max ilvl, i'm currently using three and i'll probably end up with more and two rings for different types of content. The system has a finish line and is not even a long race or a race that needs to be finished at all.

[klaps_05]

Hopefully will be balanced by the time Mythic progress comes, but then again by then you can have all of them at 424 already.

[czarek]

Still completely useless for shadow priest lul

Its mess tbh. And i accidently destroyed blood stone as SP yeasterday night... this system is bullshit. Reminds me Shards of Domination >< I think im just gonna skip it. Already done all content anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

Do the developers even play their game? How does something get released in such a useless state that it requires such immediate nerfs/buffs?

Because they are monkeys. It was on PTR for some time. I dont get it they didnt tune it before live servers realese ><

[Ange]

Do the developers even play their game? How does something get released in such a useless state that it requires such immediate nerfs/buffs?

The OP raid trinkets were also all just stupidly overtuned burst trinkets. The ring and gems fit to this clueless itemisation.

Its extremly odd, since most DPS specs have decent stat scaling for a first tier of the expansion. I dont get why they dont just include stat sticks with a fun little mini-game to them.

The teams clearly dont speak with each other.

[ashblond]

If you want to give an upgrade to every spec for few weeks, just put a generic ring, without wasting all the time for constant buffing/nerfing, and put time on making real contents.

And do dev really play their creation/game?

With all those endless trash and items (different ranks of mats, crafts, multiple unknown items for quartermasters, etc.), do you think it is fun to put all these non stackable stones in people’s bags?

Wasting time for such useless yet annoying stuff for just few weeks. Nice design philosophy.