Valid points Thundrcrackr, and I have not played as many other classes as much as I have a warlock, but are those other Cool Down decisions limited to just 3 per fight?

I think much of the problem here is the limit of three shards combined with what you get for spending them. If you are going to only get three chances to blow a special CD in a long boss fight or other situation where you cannot recharge your shards, then spending those shards should gain you something special indeed. above a standard CD.

If however, you make the gain from spending a shard too special, then they potentially become overpowered in shorter time frame situations where you can rest and recover shards immediately after they are gone.


Just getting a bag slot back after years was a big enough gift from Blizzard for me. But I do believe the shards that remain could still use some refining.

At least someone said it... every class has to choose what to do. Warlocks should be no different. And yes, most big CD's (last stand, divine shield, his examples etc.) are used at most three times per fight. Last stand has a 3 min CD if I remember correctly, so in a 9 min fight it could be used three times IF used at the very beginning and very end of the encounter. I am not saying the shard system is perfect... but try balancing it, not overpowering it.

But holy power and combo points are built up again to full in a matter of seconds. Soul Shards do not recover in-combat, ever. See the difference? It would be more like if you could use sprint or cold blood in a fight but not both.

I agree, if it is such a minimal damage increase why even consider it when you can instead use it to great effect to save your life.

This is like a Paladin Divine Shielding to DPS the boss while standing in fire. Maybe you get a bit more damage, but now you can't use that shield when(if) you need to. Sure we have that option, but it doesn't make any sense.

Very rarely I find wipes are caused by lack of DPS. Most cases it's because of premature deaths. Be it either because of healer mana or conservation issues, or simply because of a player not reacting quickly enough to a mechanic, it's rarely due to low DPS.

You'll get one of those 1% wipes once in a while where everyone says "damn if only I used XXX instead of YYY" but don't let that hinder you. Save your soulburns for something that will have a real impact on the fight.

I was going to make a comparison to DPS Warriors and Enraged Regeneration, where you can keep a +DPS buff up or consume it with a defensive cooldown, but getting Enraged back up afterwards isn't exactly difficult, limited to a number of uses, or on it's own cooldown.

DPS-wise, are three Soulburns totaled even close to equivalent to a lot of single DPS cooldowns? I'd say it *was* equivalent to Fury Warriors' Recklessness (three guaranteed crits) but they just changed that ability to be more beneficial/meaningful in 4.0.6. Recklessness really wasn't all that great beforehand...and given it's close functionality to three Soulburns, the issue sort of speaks for itself.

I think the main difference between the Warlock class and other classes in regard to defensive cooldowns is simple:

A warlock saves soulburn to use a Health Stone to help save themselves. Minimal DPS loss. (At most a global cooldown if macroed)
An Enhancement shaman might have to use a Maelstrom 5 stack proc to cast a Greater Healing Wave. Large DPS loss.
Or a rogue might have to use Combo Points to use Recuperate - again, a large DPS loss.

I don't see why Warlocks are complaining that they have an additional mechanic, that maybe isn't very interesting, but it's there. It's a different slant on things - it isn't going to do much for your DPS, and it isn't going to do much for your defences - but at least it's there.

Warlocks should be happy soul shards are still in the game in some form - not condemning something that is an 'optional extra' (Optional as in, it only increases DPS by a few hundred points), whereas other classes might suffer much greater DPS losses in order to save themselves.

I think this talk of "this class can do this, 3 to 4 times a fight, but i can't" is kind of off

Pally's build holy power, if they self heal, it's a massive dps loss
Rogues build combo points, and if they spend them on anything but their best rotation, it's a massive dps loss
Hunters can blow focus, but at a dps loss in many cases.
Mages can do various things...all resulting in dps loss, and then they have the token oh sh*t key for ice block...
Priests get a pain suppression or wings, but they don't get it once a min or anything
Shams are different for sure, those totems get put up constantly...but are they really necessary (much like your lock shard question...do they even matter)

Other classes have similar questions of what to use. 1 Cold blood is a decent dps hit, but an overall dps increase for the fight...nothing too huge, it's a crit and maybe a couple more muts, but that's all.

I think as it currently stands, they are aren't powerful enough to warrant them regening 1 per minute, but the balance between how many you can get while in a fight, and how much they increase an ability needs to be very carefully considered.

@Anderson.horn

As has been explained before, it's not a matter of having to simply choose between an offensive and a defensive ability at one specific point in time; of course every class does that. But with Warlocks, the three-times limit is a huge difference from other classes. I don't even play a Warlock and I can see how unfair it is. Sure, maybe, for example since I play a Rogue, an assassination Rogue might chose to throw his combo points into a Recuperate instead of an Envenom because he's getting worried about his health, but nothing prevents him from getting combo points again within the next few seconds to use that Envenom. But a Warlock might be on his last Soul Shard and want to use the soulburned health stone, and then he wouldn't have access to any of the other abilities soulburn gives for the rest of the fight. It's a lot different than choosing how to spend one GCD or some resource that you can get back fairly quickly.

All this grief could be solved if Soul Shards regenerate at.... dunno, like 1 per 2 minutes.

Or, remove the damn shards and just make Soulburn into a pure CD ability.

Compensation? Dunno... Double the CD on Soulburn?

I'm just throwing quick ideas around. It seems so simple to solve this problem.

@Rylka, @Hollow Leviathan:
Ice block can only be used once in a fight, unless you are frost and you decide if you use cold snap to reset all the frost cooldowns, or you hold it. The cooldown (6 minutes i think when talented) limits it's use to once or twice per fight in practice.