Soul Shards: Issues and Possible Fixes

Posted by admin on 12 24th, 2008

Categories: Featured Articles | no responses

Read this post first for a better overview of the issues with the Soul Shards, then come back here. According to Ghostcrawler Blizzard is actually working on several solutions related to Soul Shard mechanic, so it’s not (just) a whine post but rather a few suggestions I found and came up with. There’s actually a few dozen suggestions scattered on the official forums but most of them are either too complex and would require a complete overhaul of the system, or just plain dumb. Since Blizzard is obviously trying to convince us changing the Soul Shard mechanic is rocket science, we’re going to prove them wrong. There is one suggestion below which I think is near (if not) perfect. Others only fix one of the two biggest issues, which are space and annoyance. Facts: Shards take huge amounts of our inventory space. Yes, hunters have arrows and other classes have more sets of gear, but we’re talking 50 shards per raid here. It’s annoying to kill mobs just to be able to kill mobs. Rogues have had their entire poison skill removed because it took too much of their bag space . Yes, Blues actually said that, and no I won’t stop mentioning it every chance I get. making Soulshards less of a pain in the ass would NOT do anything about game balance in any way no, we can’t just farm a hundred shards while doing dailies because we usually don’t have that much free bag slots, especially when doing dailies! Get real. Possible solutions : Make Soul Shards Stackable Probably the easiest fix, however hardly the best one. It would fix the number one issue, which is bag space. Possible alternative: make them stack only in Soul Shard bags. Doesn’t fix the part where we still have to farm the damn things. Make Soul Shards Conjured Giving us a new spell which we could use whenever out of combat to conjure SSs. Yes, conjure them just like we conjure Healthstones or mages conjure Mana Gems. We wouldn’t have to undertake boring and unnecessary rituals of killing worthless mobs over and over again after a raid or a dozen arena matches. Possible alternative: after conjuring (or even draining it from a mob) the Soul Shard would NOT be consumed when we use a spell that requires it, but rather stay in our inventory until logged out for 15 minutes. It would sort of work like shaman totems (not the spell , the item !), just that those are permanent. Personally, I think this would be a PERFECT fix: simple, efficient, and everyone would be happy. Different mobs create more Shards Suggested by Kasha on Smatter’s post , higher level mobs could yield more shards per kill. For example, killing a level 80 elite mob would give for example 5 shards, while a normal level 80 mob would give three or whatever. Sounds cool and there’s even some logic behind it, but there’s still the issue of — you guessed, bag space. Shadowburn & Soul Fire I can’t think of one remotely good reason why Shadowburn would require a reagent cost, especially since we have to invest 11 points in the Destruction tree to get it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing spell but the reagent cost is simply not justified. Fire Blast is a trainable spell, more powerful and without the reagent cost. Soul Fire is yet another spell that uses a SS. It is more potent than Pyroblast but come on! Reagents are usually required for buffs or other spells like Rebirth or similar: never for damaging spells, especially not the ones which are as commonly used in PvP as Shadowburn. Soulshatter Soulshatter is an important spell without a doubt, but arguably the worst aggro dump in game. It’s often resisted and has a five minute cooldown, but other than that it’s such a powerful ability which we obviously must not use very often because it deals billions of damage and causes players to tremble in fear when we use it, especially in PvP. Rumors say it can even cause Ozzy Osbourne wet his pants and Chuck Norris pop a painkiller. The reagent cost is obviously there for a reason, right? Stones We love the Stones but I’m talking about something else here, okay. I don’t mind Healthstones , Firestones , Spellstones and Soulstones requiring shards to conjure, but they should have charges and we should be able to put them into our soul bags — can you tell me one reason why not? Suggested by Beboshi, thanks! Doesn’t actually help with either of the main issues, but makes sense and having a few more free inventory slots isn’t exactly overpowered. – I don’t know where he got his insider info, but I sure hope WLambros is right : if GC or any other blue is actually reading our rants and whines here, at least he has plenty of ideas. Post from: Yet Another Warlock Nerf . Soul Shards: Issues and Possible Fixes Similar Posts: Shine On You Crazy Pink Diamonds Upcoming Changes & Ozzy Osbourne Commercial Patch 3.1 – Updated Soul Shard Changes Surviving 3.0: Destruction PvP (Nearly) Useless Warlock Spells

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