WoW players rejoice after Blizzard scraps unpopular Shards of Domination system

Bill Cooney

Blizzard is officially getting rid of the Shards of Domination mechanic, and WoW players are happy to see it being scrapped.

The World of Warcraft community got a bit of good news on January 7, when Blizzard announced that Shards of Domination would be disabled in the next major update.

Shards will be getting scrapped in patch 9.2, and it seems most players couldn’t be happier to bid the system farewell.

“Good riddance”

Replying to a player’s question about what would happen to Shards in patch 9.2, Blizzard replied that they would officially be getting rid of the mechanic come 9.2.

“Our plan, is to disable Shards of Domination in Zereth Mortis, the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, and all PvP and dungeons,” community manager Kaivax replied. “Shards would still work as before in previous Shadowlands zones, the Maw, the Sanctum of Domination Raid, and Torghast.”

Based on the replies to this news, it doesn’t seem like anyone will be very upset to see the system removed.

Terrible system with no catch up mechanics. Good riddance,” one player replied.

“And may they never f***ing return in any shape or form ever again,” another added.

Shadowlands Shards of Domination were criticized for taking too long to grind, with no real way to catch up if you fell behind.

While it’s definitely good news for most players, there’s also worry Blizzard will end up doing something similar in 9.2, based on how the most recent WoW updates seem to have gone.

“This is a core design problem,” user moonrulznumberone insisted on Reddit. “Instead of building up a product with new features that last and complement other features, they throw away the baby with the bath water each iteration of the game.”

Shadowlands patch 9.2 is currently on WoW’s PTR, and should be going fully live sometime in January 2022. This makes the scrapping of Shards a bit of a last-minute surprise, but a welcome one for players who are sick of grinding to collect them.