Legendary Weapon Guide
In Patch 10.1, the Evoker Legendary Weapon Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy was unlocked for all players after Mythic Sarkareth was killed for the first time by Liquid (NA) / Echo (EU).
This weapon has an item level of 457, but with the special effect Insight of Nasz’uro, this works out to be around 482-486 item level according to our Evoker guide writers. At this item level, it will last into Season 3 of Dragonflight with estimated Mythic Season 3 weapons being at 473 – 480 item level.
This makes Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy a very powerful weapon for any players who plans on maining Evoker next tier, and the best part is Evokers can get it right now, a full season in advance.
Acquisition
The community generally found Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy acquisition as awesome to start, but that has moved to controversial due to the drop rate. Originally, the Cracked Titan Gem dropped with a 100% chance on Mythic difficulty and players assumed that the Legendary was Mythic only. Then, Blizzard announced the Evoker weapon would be available on every difficulty, with higher difficulties having a higher drop chance. This lead people to believe that Mythic was 100%, and the chances decreased from there. However, after Method killed Mythic Sarkareth, it was clear that Mythic was not 100% and as time has continued to progress, it’s clear that the drop chance, even on Mythic difficulty, is not very high.
Blizzard recently clarified that players only need to defeat your highest difficulty every week in order to get the Legendary. Without being able to track the exact chance of the Legendary, the community anecdotally puts the drop chance of the Legendary in the < 5% range.
With only one chance every week (per difficulty) to get the Legendary, Evokers get their once chance a week, then can’t do anything to try to get the Legendary until the Weekly Reset.
Frustrations
When you combine the power of Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy and the acquisition method of time-gated RNG chances, you get frustrated Evoker players. Blizzard has not made any mention of any bad-luck protection for this Legendary, meaning that any Evoker who wants to play their character next Patch gets sad when they don’t get it this week. More importantly for Evokers, there is no guarantee that these players will EVER see this Legendary with the current acquisition rate.
Not only does this Legendary have power behind it, but important lore moments for the Dracthyr storyline which are also locked behind this RNG.
This Legendary is powerful and chase items are good, but this doesn’t seem like a chase item. Most players know at least 1 player who has their freshly leveled Evoker get the Legendary on their first kill, and also know at least 1 player who has played Evoker since the start of the patch and doesn’t have the Legendary. There’s nothing to chase here, there’s nothing that players can meaningfully work towards, each week they get to roll a couple dice at the Legendary and that’s it. There’s no commitment through time at all.
Perceptions
I think a big part of the frustrations are due to the perceptions around loot in WoW in general due to the lack of goal in sight, especially with this Legendary.
Particularly with Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy, there is no end goal in sight. You want this Legendary, you want this thing to not let your raid down and pull your weight, but you have no real way to work or grind towards it and you have no guarantee that you will ever get it. Thus, when you do get it, you don’t feel that excited, as the excitement is diminished and what many players have described when they get this Legendary is relief, not joy. This obviously isn’t true of everyone but I’ve heard players who do feel this way and that seems like not the best feeling when you get a Legendary weapon.
And for those who are still sad about not getting the Legendary this week, it doesn’t help that the game reminds you that other people are getting the Legendary every single time it happens, but not you.
A triumphant roar echoes from atop the Seat of the Aspects as Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy is formed.
It was cool for a while, but now what was supposed to be a celebration of you getting the Legendary, has now ultimately turned into memes and resentment due to reminding people that they don’t have the Legendary.
Hidden Drop Rate
In my opinion, a big part of the issue with the Legendary Weapon is the hidden drop rate. Blizzard has been historically vague and cryptic when it comes to providing statistics on anything for some reason in WoW. As an example, they don’t provide drop chances on items like Tier in the Great Vault. However, for the first time in a long time Blizzard has provided statistics on Inspiration from crafting — a welcome change to know exactly what percentage people had to hit Rank 5 on a proc.
With this Legendary, Blizzard has been very cagey about giving exact drop chances, so much so that their clarification had to have a clarification because of how vague it was when trying to hide how the Legendary drops. Without percentages, players have no idea what to expect due to an unknown expected value and thus can’t set appropriate goals. When goals are misaligned, this leads to more frustration — should I expect to get this before the next tier in Season 3? Should I ever expect to get this?
In my mind, drop chances are important because it sets the framework for expectations and expectations are important so that players know the exact circumstances, and then can make their own decisions. How many people are upset because they’ve been wasting time with lower difficulty Sarkareths because they don’t know the exact way the item drops? And due to the region-wide emote every time someone completes the weapon, the drop chance actually feels quite high because you see the chat message so often, so it feels even worse when it doesn’t drop for you.
I do think Blizzard should have laid the groundwork for this Legendary with exact drop chances. Provide players with the information and let players make their own decisions.
“Buckets” (aka Multiple Evokers)
Players have found exactly one way to increase the odds of getting the Legendary and it can be summarized by this sad statement.
It’s easier to create and level more Evokers than it is to bank on getting a Legendary on your main before the next tier.
I think this summarizes the main issue with the acquisition of this Legendary in the fact that it’s easier to gear a character with the Legendary, then it is to get the actual Legendary. Not everyone will do this, but due to the power of this weapon, the current drop rate, and no path to ever get this Legendary through bad-luck protection or other means, some players have taken this into their own hands. The only way to increase your odds of getting this Legendary is to… create more Evokers. There’s no commitment or long-time goal for any Evoker (as far as we know), and freshly leveled Evoker #12, has the same drop chances per difficulty as an Evoker who has killed Heroic Sarkareth every week since the launch of Patch 10.1.
Chase Items and Loot Acquisition
Chase Items are a great addition to games as they allow players to set long-term goals for items. Chase Items need to be powerful enough to warrant being a Chase Item and in my opinion, a reasonable way for players to get the item by showing commitment. I believe the Nasz’uro, the Unbound Legacy acquisition frustrations come from a couple of factors combining together:
Diablo 4 currently has some controversy over Chase Items as well, as despite them being infinitely farmable, their drop rates appear to be astronomically low and players had no idea how to chase them correctly.
But back to WoW, the biggest issue in my opinion for this weapon is the lack of bad luck protection. Other games have rare items or % chance to do things, but they provide ways for players to work towards it.
- Destiny 2 has a Exotic (Legendary) Weapon off every end boss. Players can complete achievements to increase the drop chance of these weapons, and in some raids, defeating the raid every week just increases the base drop chance by a % every week.
- Lost Ark on bad luck protection on its Gear Progression. Gear Upgrades are a % chance in Lost Ark, but fail enough times and the game will automatically upgrade your gear on the next attempt.
- Path of Exile has end game chase items (e.g. Headhunter), but provides a player a path to acquire one through Trading. Run “dungeons”, get items, trade those items into currency and then trade that currency into the item you want. You may not have gotten the item to drop yourself, but with enough work you can get it.
If Blizzard wants to try to solve some of the frustration, they may want to look at solving the lack of commitment to a character for the Legendary whether that be through bad luck protection or just allowing Evokers to farm Sarkareth.
More Generally (e.g. Mythic+ Trinkets)
A slight tangent, I do think this lack of Bad Luck Protection exists and frustrates players in WoW throughout loot acquisition in general but particularly when they are looking for a particular item. The legendary makes it worse because it’s 1 chance a week, but even Mythic+ which is spammable has high priority item like Spoils of Neltharus or previously Inscrutable Quantum Device can frustrate players due to a drop chances and lack of bad luck protection. I’ve heard similar stories that when players get an item they’re looking for, they don’t feel joy or excitement, but relief and that is due to what I think as the way that it’s framed.
The current perception is disappointment and sadness until you get your item as you have no end in sight, then relief when you get it as you don’t need to run it anymore. Now let’s say there’s is an end goal in sight, say 30 dungeons and you get an item of your choice, then if the item drops early from the actual run, you actually feel excitement because you just cut a number of dungeons out of the number that you need to do. Framing and perception is important.
Players feel similarly with Very Rare items from raid. When it’s that good like the Neltharion class trinkets for some classes, it can be very frustrating that there’s no way to target it. The drop chance is low and you may never get it despite trying your hardest.
I believe this is why players liked the Dinars system from Season 4 so much. It acted as a bad luck protection meaning that you automatically got the thing you wanted eventually, while still providing excitement if the thing dropped early as you could use the Dinar towards something else, and you got the thing you were looking for early.
The Future
I think that this Legendary is awesome. I think that this Legendary acquisition is better than the previous method, where the guild assigns it to a player, as there were issues with that. However, in its current state, I’m not sure that this Legendary acquisition method is much better. There are definitely steps that they can do to make it better, in addressing the concerns from the community on this Legendary’s acquisition – a once a week chance with pure RNG odds that don’t increase is frustrating.
Looking back at previous Legendaries:
With all the previous Legendaries from Raids and Dungeons, there was one thing all of these had no matter if it was a Random Drop or Group Assigned, commitment. With the original RNG drops, you basically had to commit to a group and when it did drop you gave it to a player. Group assigned is very similar, as the group gets to choose where the legendary goes. It’s been a while since Blizzard has done a pure random drop Legendary but this RNG drop is different, needing no commitment to a character or raid to get it. In a world with paratext and a focus on optimization, and no commitment needed to get this Legendary, this acquisition feels really rough and the only solution for players who really wants it is to roll more dice since there’s no bonus for commitment. And so I think some method of progress can and should be made to the Legendary every week that you don’t get it.
