Soul shards. Those lovely little purple gems that Warlocks carry with them everywhere. We drain our enemies souls in order to create them. We then use these captured souls to call forth hellish demons, store our own soul (or that of a friend) to recover quickly from death, create candy (err, healthstones) that keep us alive, and summon our friends.
Oh, right, they are used for some spells too.
I love the mere thought of draining and capturing an enemy's soul (and I love the animation for it too!), but I'm not thrilled with the current state of soul shards. Yeah, sure, we no longer have to use one per individual being summoned now… but I still have to drag around a bag of them. I know other Warlocks have called for stackable shards in the past, and I think that would be a great idea. I mean, clams are stackable now… So, why do we still have to use so much bag space? I know hunters lose an entire bag slot for their ammo like we do, but they don't have one bullet or arrow per space.
I've been trying to rack my brain to think of a more fun and creative way to make use of our soul shards… something that could/would be worthy of suggesting to Blizzard. And this here, my warlock brothers and sisters, is where I'm failing. I can't think of anything. I'm just stuck on how clunky they are overall.
I suppose they could be used for more spells, somehow, but the current ones that require a soul shard I just don't seem to use very often. Maybe a manastone would be helpful?
…
Sorry, I zoned out trying to think of more ideas. Unfortunately, my ideas are about as fail as what we've got, if not worse… or duplicates too much from other classes.. like a shard shield or a self banish. Ooh, it'd be nifty if we could have Burning Nova, which is used by Keli-dan the Breaker in Blood Furnace. You have to admit that would be fuuuun in PvP. (Well, the tooltip for Burning Nova doesn't show the AOE blast portion that he does at the end of the banish… that's the part I think would be fun!)
It’s tricky to come up with ideas to make Soul Shards unique and useful that doesn’t just give us something that another class has at the cost of a reagent (Soul Fire to Pyroblast).
I had been thinking about this for a bit now and here is what I’ve come up with.
Step 1 is to allow Soul Shards to stack in 20’s.
Step 2 is to break down Soul Shards in to 3 ranks.
The lower rank, the Soul Shard, would come from non-elite mobs or players that give XP or honor and would continue to be used to utility spells like Soul Stones, Healthstones, Ritual of Summoning, etc.
The middle rank (Fel Shard, or something) would come from elite mobs that give XP, stack in 20’s and become unique at that point to avoid having more than 20 at any given time. These would work like a push-to-use item such as a Mage’s Mana Gem or a Fire Seed used to, with a cooldown, and give a bonus to spellpower for X amount of seconds and would also be consumed for spells like Soul Fire and Shadowburn.
The final rank would come from boss-type mobs (Fel Crystals or something else), stacking in 5’s and becoming unique at that point. They would also act as a push to use item that gave the Warlock a boost to either Haunt, Metamorhphosis or Chaos Bolt in some way for X amount of time. This would cause more interest in the 51 point talents and pull people away from the hybrid specs and since they’re only stackable in 5’s it’s not something that you could just blow every cooldown.
The other ideas I had come up with were to have a talent that increases your damage output by 1% for every 10 Soul Shards in your soul shard bag (not normal bags) which would bring back an interest in the “best” shard bags.
Idea #3 was a rip off of the Hunter quivers, having our shard bags increase our damage output by 2%.
Warlock DPS is pretty low at this point so this would give them a base boost in their damage output without having to bloat their talent pools with generic +X% damage output talents.
Sorry for the wall of text. I had intended to put this in a post but I think your blog is more entertaining and you had already made the post first lol.
Hopefully you get some good feedback!
Blizz says they have plans… that’s all I know. I can’t fathom what. I’m fresh out of ideas myself. They did fix the whole useless stone issue though, so I’m hoping they come up with something equally good.
@Fear.Win
Those are some good ideas *nodnod* especially considering we don’t acquire shards from gray mobs, why not have a variety based on mob difficult.
I also like the idea of a spell damage or even a haste buff to “better” soul shard bags. I wouldn’t really say it’s a ripoff of the hunter quiver perse… I mean, it -is- the ‘lock ammo bag, so to speak.
And idea that spawned while Sideshow and I were out for dinner (we are such geeks talking about WoW and blogs in public /embarrassed)… which this wouldn’t be Warlock specific but…
Tailoring needs some pizazz added to it… what about being able to craft bags with random enchantments. How cool would it be for people to choose to buy/craft and equip bags that actually did something for you.
I know.. not likely to happen, but one of those random thoughts. Xomg, this comment is a mini-post. xD
and then I forgot my other reply /sigh
@Fulguralis
I know they are looking at it and have potentially cool plans, but thought if we could help them come up with something cool, fun, and useful, that would be awesome.
Unfortunately, I failed! 😛
WTB +Spellpower bags! PST
WTB +Spellpower bags! PST
Indeed! 😀
My favorite thing about my lock, I actually STOPPED draining soul at the end of fights and I was throwing them out because I had too many damn shards and nothing to use them on . . .plus with haunt, I don’t really normally need the mana refill.
Stacks of healthstones would be a good use for them.
Heres a unrelated but pertinent question:
What as Keli’dan the Breaker breaking in Blood Furnance?
@Wise Fox
Keli’dan is breaking hearts. 😉
Awesome post mate 🙂 pretty entertaining-
The thing with stackable shards is that its too much of a help, but leaving them as they are isn’t right.
-I’m finding it hard to find a solution without nurfing our uniqueness or buffing our bag space.
Its tricky; thankfully blizzard havent made any harsh decisions, just told us that there considering things.
The buff to Drain Soul is going to be a great help!
We can now get souls from monster yeilding experienced without killing them or helping them die, they can proc from the damage- yey!
Friend* , not mate; sorry.
-Just saying, some girls hate it when i refer to them as ‘mate’ :).
Force of’ habit.
🙂 Great post!
@Kromus – Glad you liked the piece and it’s alright that you said mate. 😉 I’ve always took it as a general, gender neutral term and thus, no offense.
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