[Update]: Blizzard is now making it significantly easier to acquire Corrupted Gear.

In an effort to respond to players complaining about the random power boosts from titanforged gear, Blizzard implemented a brand new system with the Visions of N'Zoth update - corrupted gear. In theory, corrupted gear was supposed to be incredibly powerful, yet also risky to wear as the strongest pieces would give you debilitating effects until you leveled up your legendary cloak. A pretty neat idea, all things considered.

When it comes to reality, however, corrupted gear ended up being an even worse version of titanforging. Not only is corrupted gear acquired completely at random, but certain corruption effects are so ridiculously strong that they can account for 20-30% of a player's damage. So if you got lucky and landed on the right pieces, you could absolutely demolish your competition in both PvE and PvP. And if you didn't, well, sucks to be you!

Thankfully, this madness will soon be over. According to Blizzard's latest blog post, the most problematic corruption effect (Echoing Void) will be getting a significant nerf, while the weaker ones like Void Ritual and Deadly Momentum will be getting some small buffs in order to help keep things balanced. Blizzard is also looking into reducing the damage of Twilight Devastation and increasing the effectiveness of other corruption effects, though so far it seems this will be left for another patch.

As for when exactly this update will arrive, nobody knows for certain. It will be here within the next 24 hours, however, so chances are that corrupted gear will be a lot more balanced by the time most people start raiding again. I certainly hope so anyway!

You can read a little bit more about these changes, as well as follow any future developer updates, over at the official forums.