Shards of Domination Guide for Shadowlands Patch 9.2 (9.2)

Blizzard confirmed that Shards of Domination will be disabled in Patch 9.2 content, meaning they will not work in Zereth Mortis, Sepulcher of the First Ones, PvP, and dungeons. They will still work within Torghast wings including the new Jailer's Gauntlet challenge wing, however.

Domination gear is a new type of gear introduced in Patch 9.1. It primarily drops from raid bosses in the Sanctum of Domination raid, but you can get 1 piece from the Death's Advance quartermaster, and 1 from the The Archivists' Codex quartermaster as well. The Great Vault can also give you Domination gear on a weekly basis.

Domination gear pieces come with special sockets called Domination Sockets, where you can socket gems called Shards of Domination.

Shards of Domination are special unique-equipped gems. They are inserted into empty Domination Socket slots that activate a special effect that works everywhere in the open world. There are 3 types of Shards of Domination — Blood Shards, Frost Shards, and Unholy Shards. In total, there are 9 Shards of Domination (3 per type).

Shards drop randomly from Sanctum of Domination bosses as Personal Loot, and can drop from Morgeth (new world boss) too.

We do know what bonuses each type of Shard give you and you can encourage you to read our separate guides to find out more information.

When you socket 3 Shards of Domination of the same type, a powerful effect will activate that only works in The Maw, Torghast, and Sanctum of Domination, as indicated by the Runic Dominion spell.

• Socket 3 Blood Shards to gain Blood Link — Blood Link drains health from your enemies and redistributes it to you and your allies.
• Socket 3 Frost Shards to gain Winds of Winter — Winds of Winter periodically unleashes to shield you and damage your enemies based on your critical strikes.
• Socket 3 Unholy Shards to gain Chaos Bane — Chaos Bane rips soul fragments from enemies you damage, increasing your primary stat and dealing Shadow damage to them.

Shards of Domination can be upgraded by talking to Bonesmith Heirmir located in Keeper's Respite, Korthia's main hub.

Shards of Domination work like Essences and can be further upgraded up to Rank 5 with a currency called Stygian Ember, which has a chance to drop from Sanctum of Domination bosses. The Shaping Fate weekly quest rewards 10 Stygian Embers. The In Need of Assistance quest that requires you to complete 3 Daily Quests from Mikanikos, Ta'nasi, and Kael'thas also gives you 10. Other sources of the currency are currently unknown.

You will gradually need to gather more Stygian Embers to reach higher ranks, and upgrading an item from Rank 1 to 5 will cost you 100 Stygian Embers.

• Rank 2 upgrade costs 5 Stygian Embers.
• Rank 3 upgrade costs 15 Stygian Embers.
• Rank 4 upgrade costs 30 Stygian Embers.
• Rank 5 upgrade costs 50 Stygian Embers.

Bonesmith Heirmir in Keeper's Respite (Korthia) sells an item that lets you extract an embedded Shard of Domination from one of your socketed items without destroying it. It is called Soulfire Chisel and costs 2,500 Stygia.