This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Why Soul Shards?
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
266296
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
cooldud
because a soul is a non-stackable thing.
Post by
asakawa
The basis of the soul shard mechanic is resource/inventory management. Limitations to which/how many spells can be cast is determined by how many shards you can carry. As it stands now, the sacrificed bag space is at a quantity desired for reasonable function for a warlock. I will pick a number out of the air for illustration. Let us say the average, reasonable quantity for a functioning warlock is 20 shards (there are some warlocks who use less and those who use more).
With an average of 20 shards, we shall use an average bag size of 16. This works out to 1.25 bags filled. Bag space is sacrificed, but within reason.
By allowing stacking of shards by the smallest increment (2) we have reduced bag space to less than a 16-slot bag (10 slots occupied). By increasing stacking to 5, we almost totally trivialize shard management (4 slots occupied). The developers wish to have shard management as a component of playing the warlock class. Therefore, to stack shards, it becomes easy to trivialize this element.
This is not comparable to other casters reagents, as a reagent is usable for, usually, one spell only. The warlock can use shards for a multitude of spells.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
266296
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
cooldud
Thats all well and good, (and ty for the offical stance) but other classes don't use an entire bag full of said reagents. Although they are free (as Gorefiend said) I still must give up a bag.
ahem... hunters. and theirs are NOT free.
Post by
Blightman
Thats all well and good, (and ty for the offical stance) but other classes don't use an entire bag full of said reagents. Although they are free (as Gorefiend said) I still must give up a bag.
ahem... hunters. and theirs are NOT free.
Well what you pay in Silver, you are refunded in lack of skill required to play your class. QQ.
Let's not class bash.
Post by
266296
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
214558
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Vilehand
Thats all well and good, (and ty for the offical stance) but other classes don't use an entire bag full of said reagents. Although they are free (as Gorefiend said) I still must give up a bag.
So, in short, we have shards "because blizzard says so", and they don't have any real reason. Shard managment could be done in many other ways:
Drain Soul gives you a buff which allows you to cast a Soulshard spell, buff stacks 20times and lasts 30min, making shard managment all the more interesting.
A "Soul" bar, so warlocks have another bar, like a DK with HP, Runic Power and Runes, Warlocks get HP, Mana, Souls. Souls can be held up to 20, with maybe a few talents to up it (and ditch some useless demo talents aka Imp Enslave)
Shards stack in a seperate bag (like key ring) allowing our shard managment with Soul Bags, but not taking a direct bag space.
This is actually a very intriguing idea. I liked the idea of drain soul giving a stacking buff, or of warlocks having some sort of 'soul bar', but I can't get fully behind them, because soul shards, flavor-wise, are meant to to be physical objects. You are literally draining the targets soul and turning it into a a tangible reagent that can be used (perhaps as a sacrifice?) to power a warlocks spells.
Having a something like a keyring for soulshards? That I like.
Post by
260787
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
it seems to me that blizzard used to think that inventory management was an interesting part of the game (look at inventory management in diablo2 ^^). they may have stepped back from this a little but, like the recent changes to mana use, they don't want everybody to be able to do everything they want without some sort of thought or consequences.
in the case of mana they didn't want mana regen to be an after-thought or something that didn't need to be thought about, they wanted people to have to recognise that they
could
spam an expensive spell but they won't be able to do it for long.
in the case of soul shards it's flavour for the class and means that there's consequences to spamming soul fire (other than /point and /laugh from your peers ^^) or even for using shadowburn at 80% health etc.
i don't have major problems with shard management but it's nice to see blizz addressing issues like summoning which can sometimes eat through a lot of shards in one go (though not so much since meeting stones were implemented - i used to summon 20+ lazy raiders to AQ40 back in the day). generally, though, i don't see a big problem. it's something that's unique to locks and i wouldn't want anything unique to locks to be pulled from the game.
Post by
Keyokyo
The sould bags have always erked myself since starting a my warlock back up in the day and also with hunters the quiver. Why cant blizzard just add an extra slot in the belt for quivers and soul bags. Or even better add an extra slot for tradeskill bags. Annoys me no end i lose out on 20 slots for items and constantly having to run back and forth from the bank to move items around. Blizzard please save me a headache :)
Post by
asakawa
/sigh
fun (or at least interest) comes from restrictions not from freedoms. how long would you have played/enjoyed quake back in the 90s if it came out of the box with god mode turned on?
part of this game is inventory management and decision making. you could decide to use only normal bags and only carry 5 shards at a time. it's up to you. it's part of the game. it's a restriction but from restrictions come invention.
Post by
284386
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
nuke based specs can cast DS as their final nuke is in flight. people have been doing this for years, it doesn't impact your dps. that's just silly and blatant QQ
as for no shards from grey mobs, if you can go to elwynn and get 20 shards by casting 20 spells then the whole shard system is trivialised. the whole system would become truly pointless in that case.
now, i don't think that the system is perfect but this thread is a bit over the top. it's not a big problem. learn to embrace this stuff as uniquely warlocky!
Post by
284386
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
i don't know what parade you think you're raining on. i don't care what hunters do with their arrows so i don't see the relevance. if people would stop looking at other classes with the 'grass is always greener' attitude and just enjoy this class for what it is it would be good for us all.
It would not be trivalised spending any less time collecting them and infact it would make a huge benefit. The spell has a specific title and description, it is only the creators who have trivialised this by making it like this
this doesn't make any sense to me at all. please be more clear.
shadowburn isn't a rotation spell. it's a "last hurrah" not DPS. when you need shards drop shadowburn and add DS. this won't impact your dps (and who cares about trash dps anyway) but you'll get shards quickly.
there was an interesting discussion going on with zharkriesh's ideas but, honestly zhoulish, you've dragged this thread (and others) into the kind of QQ mire that i'd only expect on the official fora.
Post by
284386
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.