3.0.3 today

[Azaroth]

The lesson is to pick the weakest class, because eventually everything else will be nerfed into the ground.

The lesson is to pick a pure tank or pure healer class. Even when you're nerfed, people will invite you to the best parties.

Or a simple corollary, stop picking the retarded FOTM DPS class because it's cool atm. The Sword of Damocles hovers over such classes.

Unless they're named Warlock.

Or Rogue.

Or Warrior.

[ClydeJr]

They need to make soulshards a currency so they go in that currency tab with an unlimited quantity. Just farming on my lock i could easily pick up hundreds of shards and never have to worry about bank space. Wouldnt this solve a large part of the problem?

excellent point.....   or at least be able to stack the friggin things......

Unfortunately if you make them currency or make them stack, you will hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth of all the hunters who are the only class that needs to dedicate an entire bag to their combat style. Although I wouldn't have an issue with hunters getting a special bag slot only for quivers/ammo pouches if locks got a special shard bag slot as well.

[Montague]

The Ret nerfs aren't that bad. In fact most of them were already hotfixed in before the patch.

The problem was Ret was scaling too high and generating very good burst with mediocre to bad gear. While that was good for players with alt pallies, well geared paladins were destroying everyone. Ret needs to be gear dependent to be in line with the other melee DPS classes. My concern is in PVE 10 mans if they will have enough mana to execute a proper DPS rotation.

[Merusk]

Lulzworth note on ret nerfs:

Avenging Wrath (wings) now causes forbearnce when used. This is, of course, to avoid wings-bubble-i'm invulnerable BITCH-pwnage.

However, Forbearance is a 3m  debuff and the CD on AW is 2min.   

[DraconianOne]

Unfortunately if you make them currency or make them stack, you will hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth of all the hunters who are the only class that needs to dedicate an entire bag to their combat style. Although I wouldn't have an issue with hunters getting a special bag slot only for quivers/ammo pouches if locks got a special shard bag slot as well.

What hunters have that locks don't get is a combat bonus on their quiver/ammo pouch.  They can choose not to use the quiver - just like locks don't have to use a soul bag but they get penalized for doing so whereas, obviously, locks don't. 

Anyway, there's only so much dumbing down a class can take. Soul shard management is part of the trade-off for being the coolest class in the game. You're* a warlock - deal with it.

*I mean warlock players in general. Not you -  you're not that special. Because you don't play a warlock.

[Fabricated]

I think blizzard has said something about wanting to make changes to the ammo system for hunters to where you pick 'types' of ammo instead of just stuffing your bag with the most expensive shit you can buy or craft.

[Merusk]

They said they wanted to improve hunter's mobility and survivability for arena viability too.. and so gave them Disengage.

Yeah.. .

[Dren]

Lulzworth note on ret nerfs:

Avenging Wrath (wings) now causes forbearnce when used.

Just FYI, it always caused forbearance.  Or at least as far back as I can remember.

[Merusk]

They took it out back when all the awesome ret pally changes went in.  I know because I was able to Wings->Righteous Defense for genrating uber aggro while taking almost no damage when tanking.  They hotfixed it back in last Thursday when the hotfix-nerfed JoTW.

[Ingmar]

I'm sorry, I must have missed where the hunter nerfs were.

No windfury is your nerf!

[Sjofn]

     • Thrill of the Hunt: The mana gained from using this talent with Explosive Shot is now 1/3 of the normal amount per critical strike (but gets 3 opportunities per cast.) • T.N.T.: Explosive Shot can now only trigger this talent when it is initially fired.

Awwww. :(

SJOFN OMG LETS TALK ABOUT HUNTERS

like like like like I want ummm

I want to tame like

seven Silithid

but I have to be marksman

WHAT SPEC ARE YOU

OMG NON

I'm survival. I usually am, 'cause I'm crazy like that (when I'm not survival, I'm marks).

The exotic pets thing is BM makes me fussy, because you're right, I wanna tame BIG ANNOYING BEASTIES. Whinge!

[Nonentity]

I was usually marksman because I liked the way it played for PVP more (my favorite part of the game). I specced beast when I needed to for raids, so I could be a one button wonder, but now that Marksman is doing just as good if not better DPS than beast mastery, I have no reason to go that spec.

So then what do they do? They turn around and make BUGS tameable! Silithid are like the most amazing things EVAR, and now I'm mad that I can't tame them.

Ah, well.

I'm probably getting a wolf, but have you seen the new wolf models? THEY ARE AMAZING.

[Sjofn]

Why yes, I did see that new model! I <3 them.

I definitely prefered marks for PvP, but I liked to dabble in survival from time to time just to see if it was really SO fucking terrible (it was not, and it was fun for my usual playstyle). Now I loves it even more, especially since now I can be a mana battery for my group, but man. I want a NEAT pet. I guess my owl (I love my owl) is still special, since it feels like 90% of all hunters are running around with corehound pets now. :P

[Fordel]

Get a Chimera, I have yet to see one of those.

[Hutch]

Chimaeras like to flap their huge wings over you while you're trying to loot corpses or mine nodes. Half the time, I end up with my pet highlighted and no loot.

I do like the special ability though. A frosty bolt of lightning that slows the target.

And as an added bonus, no screen-shaking stomping effects. I'm starting to hate all the nelves and dwarves running around shatt with their special snowflake core hounds.

I think he's just going to be a special treat that I'll whip out for BGs. I'll stick to my old standbys, the raptor and croc, for PvE leveling and instances.

[kildorn]

Silithid on summoning beat the fucking owl for ANNOYING NOISES OF DOOM.

[Ingmar]

Chimaeras like to flap their huge wings over you while you're trying to loot corpses or mine nodes. Half the time, I end up with my pet highlighted and no loot.

I do like the special ability though. A frosty bolt of lightning that slows the target.

And as an added bonus, no screen-shaking stomping effects. I'm starting to hate all the nelves and dwarves running around shatt with their special snowflake core hounds.

I think he's just going to be a special treat that I'll whip out for BGs. I'll stick to my old standbys, the raptor and croc, for PvE leveling and instances.

You can put up with the crocolisk noises but none of that other stuff?

GRR HUFF
GRR HUFF
GRR HUFF
GRR HUFF

[Hutch]

Yeah, it's weird. I actually like the croc. I think their growling sounds menacing and cool. But I hate the core hounds, both the stomping and the puking-on-you roaring noise they make.

I hate the buzzing sound that the zangarmarsh wasps make when they're idling. But I can totally deal with the flapping noise of the chimaera, although as noted, the flapping gets in the way and is annoying.

I hate that yawn-and-slobber noise that only the winterspring tiger makes. But every look-at-me-i'm-special hunter in the game had to have one of those, up until core hounds came along.

Diffrent strokes I guess :)

[Phred]

I think he's just going to be a special treat that I'll whip out for BGs. I'll stick to my old standbys, the raptor and croc, for PvE leveling and instances.

If you don't plan to use the exotic pet much you might consider the 50/21/0 build. Readiness mean's 2 bestial wrath's and rapid fires available per fight for a heck of a dps boost.

[Jayce]

Making them stack or turning them into currency demeans what they symbolize.

I figure a warlock would not have a problem demeaning people or other critters with souls.  "You're just currency to me"

The mechanic problem with soulshards is that they use ridiculous amounts of pack space versus other classes.  Every other material component stacks.  I'd rather see them stack than just removed.  It makes the classes more vanilla to remove flavor like this, but it also shouldn't introduce a ridiculous usability penalty.

[Hutch]

I think he's just going to be a special treat that I'll whip out for BGs. I'll stick to my old standbys, the raptor and croc, for PvE leveling and instances.

If you don't plan to use the exotic pet much you might consider the 50/21/0 build. Readiness mean's 2 bestial wrath's and rapid fires available per fight for a heck of a dps boost.

Hmm Readiness does look like something that could come in handy in both BGs and Raiding. I'll have to give that some thought and experimentation :)

[Nonentity]

I think he's just going to be a special treat that I'll whip out for BGs. I'll stick to my old standbys, the raptor and croc, for PvE leveling and instances.

If you don't plan to use the exotic pet much you might consider the 50/21/0 build. Readiness mean's 2 bestial wrath's and rapid fires available per fight for a heck of a dps boost.

Sadly, readiness does NOT refresh the cooldown on Bestial Wrath. This has been confirmed.

So, no 50/21 builds.

Sjofn -

Owls are super neat for PVP! Having a disarm is slick, especially since it doesn't share a DR with the Scorpid Sting disarm.

[Gobbeldygook]

Sadly, readiness does NOT refresh the cooldown on Bestial Wrath. This has been confirmed.

It still reset the cooldown on BW as of three days ago.  Did I miss a blue post?

[Job601]

Soul shards exist to cause warlock to jump through an additional hoop to keep their dps up to that of mages.  They need some kind of limited resource, and lifetap gives them essentially infinite mana.  The design problem is that some players will do anything to stay competitive, and, in a min-max environment, treat soulshards as though there's an unlimited supply.  They're one of those mechanics that work well for casual players but become irritating to powergamers. 

[Fordel]

Soul shards exist to cause warlock to jump through an additional hoop to keep their dps up to that of mages.  They need some kind of limited resource, and lifetap gives them essentially infinite mana.  The design problem is that some players will do anything to stay competitive, and, in a min-max environment, treat soulshards as though there's an unlimited supply.  They're one of those mechanics that work well for casual players but become irritating to powergamers. 

No?

Soul Shards exist entirely for flavor. The Same reason group buffs require reagents and why shamans still need totem items. Nothing about soul shards is used as a DPS increase or a 'resource' to burn through while fighting.

Summon pet, Summon HealthStone, Summon SoulStone. ShadowBurn and SoulFire aren't rocking any kind of DPS rotation.

That's why they are irritating and annoying. They don't actually serve any purpose other then take up a bag slot, it's just like hunter ammo.

[Nonentity]

Sadly, readiness does NOT refresh the cooldown on Bestial Wrath. This has been confirmed.

It still reset the cooldown on BW as of three days ago.  Did I miss a blue post?

Hm - maybe they changed it. I had a hunter I made on the beta server that didn't get a reset on Readiness.

Same as it always was, then - more line of sighting the hunter and pet until BW wears off.

[justdave]

Soul shards exist to cause warlock to jump through an additional hoop to keep their dps up to that of mages.  They need some kind of limited resource, and lifetap gives them essentially infinite mana.  The design problem is that some players will do anything to stay competitive, and, in a min-max environment, treat soulshards as though there's an unlimited supply.  They're one of those mechanics that work well for casual players but become irritating to powergamers. 

No?

Soul Shards exist entirely for flavor. The Same reason group buffs require reagents and why shamans still need totem items. Nothing about soul shards is used as a DPS increase or a 'resource' to burn through while fighting.

Summon pet, Summon HealthStone, Summon SoulStone. ShadowBurn and SoulFire aren't rocking any kind of DPS rotation.

That's why they are irritating and annoying. They don't actually serve any purpose other then take up a bag slot, it's just like hunter ammo.

Soul Shards are life to a Destruction specced lock. They're good for summons for a Demo lock, and we next to useless for an Aff lock, tho they may be used for felguard summons now. And they're the source for group gifts. They are not 'flavor'. The spec that burns shards are not part of a DPS 'rotation', they use them in PvP. Not everything has but one purpose. You could get rid of them, but why not just have mages?

[Hawkbit]

Soul Shards are not the only thing separating mages and warlocks.  There's oceans of tears cried by mages separating the two. 

I always thought the idea of shards was interesting, but in effect it's retarded to have a player logging on 30 minutes before raid time simply to farm items they'll burn through in a few hours.  Blizzard originally designed shards as something to manage the inventory around, as that was an inconvenience at the time.  Now with 22 slotters and soul bags, it's only function is tedium. 

I think they should modify them so that instead of farming for shards all night, a warlock would have the ability to have a certain number of shards that automatically return after a mob is dead.  So you use one to cast spell A, then use another to cast spell B.  Now that your two shards are out, you're stuck without them until the mob dies and/or you pull that debuff off the mob.  It retains the 'shard management' concept of the class without making it tedious for the player.  Think about the new DK rune system, it's not too far off the mark from this.

[Dewdrop]

I would think that a decent solution for shards, if we arent going the 'currency' route, would be to make drain soul a non damaging debuff (think: old Detect Magic). You throw it on the mob with  your dot(s) and when the mob dies it grants you 2-4 shards (or so). I know those mobs only have one 'soul', but who says it cant be fragmented! The worst case scenario is it takes you 1/2 as much time to farm the shards you need, and likely alot less. Make the debuff last 1min or so, you could dot and run like this on 5-10 mobs and potentially be full. Takes the tedium out, but keeps the inventory management aspect. Also would make it easier to pick up shards in BG's.

[Gobbeldygook]

I figure a warlock would not have a problem demeaning people or other critters with souls.  "You're just currency to me"

The mechanic problem with soulshards is that they use ridiculous amounts of pack space versus other classes.  Every other material component stacks.  I'd rather see them stack than just removed.  It makes the classes more vanilla to remove flavor like this, but it also shouldn't introduce a ridiculous usability penalty.

Every single class and spec has some sort of inventory clogger.  For hybrids, it's the off-set specs you're expected to carry when your main spec isn't useful (ie If you only need one tank for a fight but brought 3 to the instance, two guys throw on their DPS set).  That bit will be particularly relevant once dual specs are implemented in 3.1.  For hunters, it's their arrows.  For warlocks, it's the shards that they can farm up just by not going to sleep on trash.  The only people that don't lose a bag slot to their class at this point are rogues and mages.

It's all a part of the inventory minigame (tm).

[DraconianOne]

in effect it's retarded to have a player logging on 30 minutes before raid time simply to farm items they'll burn through in a few hours. 

Okay - I think I've already admitted that I've never raided so someone might need to explain to me how come people use so many shards over the course of a raid.  Summoning is the only way I can feasibly think of but as summoning stones neither require shards nor an extra person, does summoning get used that much?  Otherwise, what else are shards used for?

Ritual of Souls - where thiis discussion all started from. In a dungeon situation, this will get used once, maybe twice?  That's 2 stones max unless you've got really bad healers. Yeah, I suppose in a riad you might want a lot more than that if you keep wiping on a boss but it's nowhere near as bad as having to create healthstones on a one by one basis for everyone as was the case pre-TBC.
Soulstone - has a 30 minute cooldown.  In three hours you'll only ever be able to use 6 of these.
Soulshatter - you should never be pulling so much aggro you need to lose it so ideally this will never be used.
Demon summoning - if you're continually losing (or saccing) your demon then yeah, this will take a lot of shards. But you can only sac if you're demon specced (and Blizz are trying to rework it so that demons are more useful without being sacced all the time) Alternatively, lots of people use an imp in a group because of the stamina buff - no stone required
Enslaving Demons - depends on whether the dungeon/raid you're in actually has any that would be beneficial to enslave.
Firestone/Spellstone - don't know if these are tradeable as havent' tried but since the 3.0.2 changes, you get five charges on one of these and they still take up one bag slot. You probably won't carry one of each as spellstones are for Afflocks and Firestones are for Destrolocks. Each charge lasts an hour and persists through death so not going to use more than 3 of these over 3 hours.

There are only 2 DPS spells that need shards: Shadowbane which is a destro talent and, if used wisely, will return a shard anyway (but is generally not considered a useful raid spell) and Soul Fire which is a 6 sec cast - time it takes to cast 2 shadow bolts and while it's more mana efficient, it does nowhere near as much damage.

Finally, consider the recent changes to Drain Soul which now does 4 times normal damage on mobs under 25% health and that's before the damage increase granted by Haunt (if you're aff) as well as a 214% spellpower bonus (if they haven't changed the previous co-efficient) means that Drain Soul is the weapon of choice for a mobs dying moments as it out DPSs Shadow Bolt (if you're not a destrolock anyway). So shards can always be got from trash mobs. (The Drain Soul glyph also is meant to give chance of returning 2 shards rather than 1 but apparently the proc rate on this is appalling)

How much bag space do you realistically need during a raid and how come Hunters can manage with 4 bags and some of that taken up with pet food?

[Dren]

  The only people that don't lose a bag slot to their class at this point are rogues and mages.

It's all a part of the inventory minigame (tm).

I agree with what you said except for this.  I still keep different sets even on these characters.  One set for high spike damage for solo'ing when I don't care about agro.  One set for more consistent but high DPS for group PvE.  Another set based on the spike damage but with Res for PvP.

The problem with Warlock is I have this same issue PLUS an entire bag consumed for shards.  That is 18-20 slots lost.  Typically a set change takes up about half that much or less.

Even with multiple changes of gear on all of my characters (Read 8 lvl 70's...just missing Hunter yet.)  My Warlock is the only one that I constantly have bag space issues with.  Of course, add to this that he's my enchanter and it doubles my problem.

As far as time to get shards, I really don't have the issue.  I just fly just east of Shat and kill spiders and wolves.  I can get a full 28 bag full within 10-15 mins.  The silk I collect helps with my tailoring too.  I'm more concerned with bag space.

I'm Demon specced, so I really don't use shards for DPS at all.  I do go through it for summons, HS, SS, etc.  I did do Desto spec for awhile and that was completely annoying due to shard use.  It was a big reason I specced out of it.

[Hawkbit]

in effect it's retarded to have a player logging on 30 minutes before raid time simply to farm items they'll burn through in a few hours. 

Okay - I think I've already admitted that I've never raided so someone might need to explain to me how come people use so many shards over the course of a raid.  Summoning is the only way I can feasibly think of but as summoning stones neither require shards nor an extra person, does summoning get used that much?  Otherwise, what else are shards used for?

.....

How much bag space do you realistically need during a raid and how come Hunters can manage with 4 bags and some of that taken up with pet food?

Our guild is not a top world raiding guild, but we chew glass right along with those guys.  Even more so, because we limit raids to three nights a week but still get decent progress.  When we're learning a new encounter with little outside help wel chew through consumables (including soul shards) like mad.  I don't play a warlock, but I know ours bitch about the farming involved. 

As a Hunter, though, I raid with nearly empty bags.  I fill my 22slot ammo pouch, throw a few more stacks in the bag, take a couple stacks of pet food and I'm off.  Hell, with recent pet changes I don't need food at all because pets are regening happiness through attacks. 

[Dren]

My hunter is only level 32 so far, but I can predict the loss of a bag to be a pain ongoing too.  I'll still want a set of gear for pvp, solo, and pve.  One advantage to the arrows/bullets is that they scale as you lvl.  They have SOME interest to them.  Also, you just buy them.  No farming needed.  Even the ammo bags give some nice benefits.

The shards you get at lvl 1 are the same as the shards you mess with at lvl 70 and beyond.  The bag you put into them?  Only benefit is that they hold 28 (higher end.)  It would be nice if they had some kind of added chance to produce a soul shard when one is used or actually directly benefit combat like ammo bags do.  Shards from higher lvl kills having added benefits of some kind would be cool too.  At least that whole system would be somewhat interesting at that point rather than tedious.

[Dewdrop]

Okay - I think I've already admitted that I've never raided so someone might need to explain to me how come people use so many shards...

I raid as a Warrior (tank). I go through healthstones ALOT. As do all the other tanks, as well as dps. A well gets put up every time the cooldown is up and individual stones are handed out to tanks as needed. Additionally, previous to 3.x all our warlocks (all 2 of them) were demon sac-destro locks. I agree that you only summon a couple times, pop soulstone every time the CD is up and spellstones and such have 5 charges, it's the healstone issue that really drains the shards.