Blizzard nerfs how much corruption you can use at once, and this time we know exactly who’s to blame

We have seen a lot of hotfixes that specifically target aspects of the Corrupted gear system. Right out of the gate they had to lower the damage that Infinite Stars did because it was head and shoulders above the other Corruption effects in damage dealt. After that first change, there have been a variety of number tweaks to rein in some of the power. Like when they nerfed Twilight Devastation almost directly after I got a piece of gear with it. Most of those changes are something that probably affected large swathes of the community. However, the most recent change has to be laid at the feet of one very clever Paladin.

This is a great change, because it clearly fixes an outlier while also not changing anything that the average player would ever run into. In fact, you may be reading that and thinking to yourself — 200 Corruption, who would be that bold and stupid to run with that much Corruption? The highest amount I’ve ever run in Ny’alotha was around 90, and even then that was with a full suite of healers willing to look after me. Normally you’d be right to think that too.

Running anything more than 80 Corruption starts stacking up the debuff Inevitable Doom which both increases the damage that is done to you and lowers the healing you receive. At 175 Corruption that debuff has stacked high enough that you can’t be healed at all. So how was anyone using more than that and still managing to accomplish anything? Enter Rextroy, an absolute genius when it comes to finding new and interesting ways to break the game.

This time he stacked the maximum amount of Infinite Stars possible. Putting rank three corruptions on every piece of gear that is eligible for Corruption effects, he wound up having 27 ranks of Infinite Stars, which is just an absolutely absurd number of stars. Since each new rank of Infinite Stars adds its damage together for the effect, each time Infinite Stars went off, it was doing enough damage to almost guarantee a one-shot on anyone it hit. Stacking your corruption that high is something that wouldn’t work at all in Raids or Dungeons. Bosses have just too much health for you to survive all of the different Corruption effects coming your way. The circle from your Eye of Corruption would probably be bigger than the actual arena you were fighting in. So Rextroy set off to the Arena, where combat could be ended with one well-placed star.

Having that much Corruption meant that he had to do it all as a Protection Paladin to ensure that he lived long enough in order for Infinite Stars to go off. Since Inevitable Doom doesn’t stop scaling up as you add more Corruption, Rextroy was taking nearly 600% more damage. But as a Protection Paladin, between Divine Shield and Guardian Angel, he was able to survive just long enough for Infinite Stars to obliterate someone.

This isn’t the first time in Battle for Azeroth that Rextroy has managed to cause a hotfix via his creative use of mechanics either. By my count, this has to be at least his third hotfix that we know about — there may be more! You may remember him from such classics as being able to solo the MOTHER and Vectis encounters in Uldir. Or using Diver’s Folly and Mantid Fire Bombs to solo Wrathion in Ny’alotha and one-shot players in world PVP. He even found a way to one-shot people with the axe Sk’shuul Vaz by dropping himself out of the sky and drinking armor potions. That last one didn’t require a hotfix but is still pretty funny.

Rextroy’s mischief has brought many smiles to my face. If I ever had to misfortune to be on the receiving end of one of his tricks I probably would be laughing too hard at the absurdity of it to even be mad. With Shadowlands on the horizon, I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans he gets up to next. Maybe he’ll find a way to kill the Jailer with Saronite Bombs to really bring things full circle.