Warlocks rejoice! Player made meeting stones for everybody!
As we have mentioned, we are discussing some exciting changes to how soul shards might work. This is not an announcement of an overhaul to that system, but it will make shard use slightly less painful.
When a warlock casts Ritual of Summoning, instead of creating a portal, they will summon a new creation similar to a dungeon meeting stone. It will cost one shard to create this item. Then, anyone in the warlock’s party or raid can use the “meeting stone” to summon other members of the group. For example, once the warlock summons the stone, then party members B and C could summon D without the warlock’s direct involvement, and most importantly without requiring additional shards. You will be able to bring the rest of a 25-person raid quickly (since you can summon folks simultaneously), for the cost of a single shard, and with less clicking on the part of the lock.
The “meeting stone” will last 5 minutes with a 5 minute cooldown. It will not be usable in areas where summoning is currently restricted, such as battlegrounds or in combat. Creating the stone still requires 2 people in addition to the warlock. Summoning actual party members only requires 2 people.
This change will be in for the next patch, which will occur before the 3.1 Ulduar content patch. (src)
Since blizard seems to not ever want to make our precious shards stack, this is an excellent change, ESPECIALLY for organizing world pvp raids. I’m sick of joining pug IF raids and showing being one of three that show up, and somehow expected to carry around 37 shards that I can waste on lazy scrubs
So…I don’t play a warlock much, though I have one at level 70. The other day I was thinking, why do I carry around 24 shards all the time? She’s demonology specc’d so it doesn’t make much sense, I figured at most I’d need like 4-6. Soulstone, Healthstone Well, Summon Demon, emergency Summon Demon…and two extras? I can always snag another really quick if I need. So my question is, is it really worth having a 24 slot soul bag instead of the extra bag space I could carry anything in?? Can someone let me in on the secret of why I’d need so many shards?
destruction warlocks with soulfire and shadowburn seems to be the only reason I can think of. and at level 80 with the demonic cricle summon thingy I think.
otherwise uhm, no I don’t see the reason behind having tons of shards on you.
If your in a group that wipes a lot, especially raids, and are using a demon that requires a shard, they can go pretty fast if you don’t have trash to farm fresh ones off of
then I’d venture to say in a raid you’ll need a lot of shards and other supplies for the raid itself. at the same time you’re in a raid so your bags shouldn’t be full by any means unless you like to carry a lot of junk with you.
leveling though, esepcailyl if you have a good groove going, then I don’t see where anybody would run around with more than 5-10 shards
Ahhh, duh. Just goes to show how how much I raided with that warlock. None.
Im the main raiding lock in my guild mainly cos no1 plays locks any more. i carry 40+ shards in raid and walk about with less then 10 every time we raid.. esp during 25man raids.. i cant compete with other dps classes even tho my gear is on par… but i can summon and give them green cookies real quick.. been playing a lock 3years now.. pve/pvp we need help..
maybe a Clock of Evasion jk
I really don’t know what warlocks need to make them catch up to the amount of AOE and burst damage all other classes are putting out. I really just can’t think of a solution so easily.
Destruction warlocks could probably keep up if they burned through their entire mana pool in 45 seconds but with all the AOE damage going on for most raid pulls and bosses that’s not wise since lifetapping so much will rock you.
Demonology warlocks confuse me. They’ve become a free HK for me as a paladin since I just fear their pet and then fear them if they decide to go into demon form. Also grants me an extra stun that can crit for 2k.
Affliction is pretty much the one spec played properly that kicks my ass. They have about 5 dots that can all be applied within 6 seconds or so and multiple HP regen/drain spells. For PVP an affliction lock that knows how to use demonic circle (teleport) is very hard for me to kill. In PVE on the other hand, they fall way short due to the nature of fights. I imagine on much longer fights where their dots can be most effective the story might change. But weaving shadowbolts through all that GCD must be fucking horrible.