Hi everyone. I just tested the weapon Neretzek, The Blood Drinker, from AQ40.
Unlike ALL other items sharing the SAME tooltip (“Chance on hit: Steals X to Y life from target enemy”) — e.g. Shadowstrike, Hakkari Manslayer, the Skullflame Shield, Demon Forged Breastplate and Wraith Schyte — this one DOES NOT scale 1:1 with spell power.
In fact, it doesn’t scale AT ALL.
There’s more: you can find evidence from an original Vanilla video, showing that it DID scale even then, as it should if we care about consistency.
Makes me fear that the same will happen to the Corrupted Ashbringer… which sucks! Another way to screw Ret Paladins up in a way that even Vanilla didn’t.
Also comments on WoWHead show that it used to scale with Spell Damage/Healing.
Yes, I was looking forward to this phase to finally unlock some decent hybrid holy/retribution playstyle with this Axe, but apparently it’s a no and I doubt we will receive any clarification here or in the US.
Ps: Justicesoul, che piacere, siamo compagni di server!
I do believe that this is part of the things that got “hotfixed” in a pretbc/tbc patch which modified those mechanics in order not to have too strong items from vanilla carries on.
This means that we won’t get them fixed for vanilla classic because Devs are actively not fixing stuff nor want GMs to help players.
I am afraid that is correct and that’s the sad part.
Anyway, I’m commenting to let you know that it seems very likely that Corrupted Ashbringer will NOT scale either.
I have found a source that already claimed (months ago!) that nor Neretzek nor Ashbringer will scale, although they also stated it seemed weird considering that the only difference, compared to other weapons, was the weapon speed and thus they hinted at a fix.
I didn’t understand how they made the tests, but the list seems 100% accurate. Apparently I can’t post non Blizzard links here though, and I guess I shouldn’t circumvent the restriction through clever spaces.
Feel free to circumvent it with these kinds of effects classic.wowhead.com which is a blocked link, for example. It’s just forum level restrictions, but they don’t go out of their way to punish people for providing relevant links to the thread as long as it doesn’t break any rules.
So yes, it seems Corrupted Ashbringer won’t scale either, despite the fact that a lot of reports from Vanilla clearly claimed that both weapons scaled.
The scaling was possibly nerfed in proximity with the TBC release, but we’re in phase 5 now so, even embracing the most radical nochanges stance, Neretzek should definitely scale
they didnt even nerf them before tbc, they nerfed them at some patch during tbc but its obvious that blizz doesnt care at all, multiple other things that got nerfed in tbc or later made it into the client and will not get fixed (like gcd procs, like shadow oil, etc)
Don’t forget that we are speaking only about Paladins because Orcs, Taurens and Trolls can’t read nor write, but in fact Shamans share the same fate!
Just think how amazing such axe would be for a Orc Shaman with the right talents and gear.
Which also makes me think, if TBC were the issue, shouldn’t Hakkari Manslayer be nerfed to the ground too, as a Shaman wielding two of those sounds insane?
I wouldn’t want too. Yet it’s been pretty clear who is allowed to keep vanilla like advantages and who not.
Reckoning got “fixed” even if in Vanilla it worked like that while Elemental Mastery is still giving 2x assured crits instead of one, AV exploits were fixed only after months of Horde complete domination, making Alliance the best side for bitters and leechers.