So, the 100x power Runic Mace bug was luckily fixed last patch, but the other extremely noteworthy overpowered equipment still wasn’t despite it being stronger. While a lot of them still need rebalance, Bone Ring is one of those extreme outliers that is even more overpowered than Runic Mace pre-nerf.
Bone Ring at rare currently gives 5 mana per skull on starting board. There are 2 rings slots, so this is 10 mana per skull on starting board. This at rare combined with other mana starts can easily hit over 100 starting mana at the start of battle.
There are a couple issues with this, but one of the most noteworthy ones is it is literally impossible to make 1st place in PvP unless the player owns 1-2 Bone Rings. This is due to Bone Ring allowing a 0 turn win due to all spells starting at full mana allowing for the full 2500. This is an intended mechanic, but pretty sure it isn’t intended for something as low as rare to be able to do it, especially since most other mana start equipment in the game does around 90% less mana start than Bone Ring (For example, Dragonguard Helm gives 6 starting mana, which is less than Bone Ring at only 2 skulls). The current PvP meta is have 2 Bone Rings in every single color and then auto win first in every category completely uncontested.
The other issue this presents is it is possible to win any battle, even outside of PvP, on turn 0. The player doesn’t even need to touch the board to already have every spell operational and ready to go. While this would likely be possible later in the game even after rebalance, this can currently be done with enough luck with as little as 1 rare Bone Ring.
Currently Bone Ring is balanced at 5 mana per skull at rare and likely scales 5/10/15/20 based on rarity.
Bone Ring should likely be rebalanced to 2/3/4/5 or 1/2/3/4 mana per skull on starting board.
I hate empowered in GOW, and now i have to face it here?
No thanks lol.
My suggestion: Make all passives on the ring UNIQUE. You can’t get double effect by duel-wielding the same ring.
AND, give bone ring a limit to prevent it from giving too much mana.
Personally feel like same type rings should stack. There already multiple different equipment pieces that give mana too that stack, they just aren’t as broken as Bone Ring.
If doing something like this it could probably maintain the 5/10/15/20 growth rates, but make the condition that it only does that once if there are 5+ skulls on starting board. This would put it more in line with something like rare Dragonguard Helm that gives 6 mana at start to any spells of the same color as the gear. Even at this condition the Bone Ring is still stronger since it gives 5 mana to everything regardless of color, but at least it would be more in line with the rest of the balance of the game.
And where do I get this Bone ring of which you speak?
I assume its just a random drop?
But as a new player are there areas of the game to target to increase my chances of finding one?
Also, the main reason Bone Ring is a particularly high problem all of a sudden is the increase in the number of people with it. The current level 50 PvP restriction this week is to have a green Bone Sickle that is obtained from the same chapter 14 dungeon that also happens to have the Bone Ring. Pretty much every level 50+ that is farming the dungeon for it is going to pick up a Bone Ring or multiple this week as a byproduct, making it so the whole top 1-2% of players are going to be 0 turn winning everything.
Grind rate with 2 Bone Rings is about 3x-5x quicker than no Bone Rings since it completely skips the starting board RNG.
Looking at the game data, I can confirm this. An epic will give an absurd 10 mana per skull on the starting board, scaling up to 15 at legendary and 20 at mythic.
Alternative take:
PvP scoring is not well-calibrated to player performance.
For various game design reasons, the starting board/initial mana is disproportionately important in PvE.
The bone ring being OP is at least partially a symptom of these, and shouldn’t be looked at in isolation.