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Q u o t e:


shards are a way of controling your dps, if you didnt have to worry about soul shards your dps would be even more nuts due to spamming your most powerful destro spells and freely changing pets. it would be like my hunter being able to have 3 different pets. one for when i fight casters, one fore rogues and "high dps" melee classes then one fore pve raids. you think im broken now? let me change pets on my whim like locks can.
my point is that my hunter dosent have the powerful options that you have, hs,ss, crazy dps destro spells like you do. thats the price you pay, having to sac bag slots and watch your "ammo".

hunters dont have 1/5 the utility you do so we dont need to count our ammo the way you do.

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Let me preface this by saying that I'm a mage and therefore immune to both bag consuming mechanics. I only need like 3 slots for Powder, Tele runes, and portal runes, and we don't have any need to carry extra food/water, so the deficit is very small.

With all that said, a warlock's DPS is not significantly hindered by soulshards (save PERHAPS for Destruction Warlocks), they are merely inconvenienced by the fact that they need them.

Soul fire isn't particularly powerful, and shadowburn isn't either. A ten second cast time really hinders the switching of pets, FAR more than the requirement to gather soul shards.

Also, you CAN have 3 different pets. They just have to be stabled. Yes, you need to see a stable master to switch between them, but you still have them.

Finally, a hunter can bring just as much to the table as a warlock. Their DPS is comperable (with HUNTERS edging out the top spot currently) and the replenishment buff that Surv hunters can bring, along with the damage boosts that BM and MM hunters bring (Ferocious inspiration and Trueshot aura) are just as powerful as healthstones, soulstones, and summons.

You're probably a troll, but I don't care, this needed to be said :P


EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention that I agree that both mechanics are pointless. Quivers and ammo be equippable items in their own slot, or let ammo have a duability and just be equipped on it's own, or let hunters all use Thori'Dal, I don't care.
Soulshards, too, need to stack to 500 and be generated by shadowbolt kills as well as soul drains.

^While I agree with most of your post, I'd like to point out the minor fact that Survival is a steaming pile of felhunter dung right now and no hunter in their right mind would spec into it for anything greater than a 5-man.

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Q u o t e:
Hunters have to level our pets (though it has improved); Warlocks do not. Hunters need to level their melee, as well as ranged, weapon skills. Warlocks do not. Granted, those aren't reagents, but our class does have its own specific niche of bonus grinding.

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Exactly. Each class has its own time sinks that, while similar, need to be addressed separately.

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Q u o t e:
I can understand where you're coming from, to a degree. However, every single time a Hunter deals damage, it requires ammunition. Warlocks can do respectable DPS without using a single shard. I am cautious about saying this, because I know Warlocks are extremely dependent on the use of shards, as Hunters are on ammo, but the difference here is that Hunters have a 100% dependency on ammo to function as a ranged DPS class, while Warlocks are certainly not that high.

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And the degree to which ammo stacks alleviates this problem. In terms of managing inventory, a raiding Warlock and raiding Hunter can generally get by on one night of raiding with one full Quiver/Shard Bag. The difference is time invested in getting those reagents, especially considering there may be days when a player has little time to prepare for whatever activity they wish to undertake. In this regard, all classes have a degree of freedom in being able to purchase reagents. Including Hunters.

Say you're on a new boss and, after repeated wipes, you run out of arrows/bullets. You are able to hearth/port back to a city and quickly resupply and then get summoned back into the instance. You aren't holding anyone else up except yourself, unless you're needed for a Misdirect. A Warlock put in that same situation not only impacts their own ability to deal damage, but provide other services to the raid. To the extent that a Shardless Warlock is far more likely to cause a raid to grind to a screeching halt than any other damage dealing class. You could draw a parallel with Arenas/BGs.

This is not to say that Hunters shouldn't get any alleviation for inventory woes. If its a major inconvenience to lose an entire bag slot (and coming from a class that faces this also, I can say it is), then simple fixes can address the problem. Allow the quiver to go in the ammo slot, etc. What I am saying is that the Shard issue has a component not faced by other classes.

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Q u o t e:



Just farm shards while doing dailies, two birds one stone. On the hunters side, we have to do dailies while wasting money on killing the mobs. Really I don't care, but it is annoying to restock on arrows all the time, coming back into Shatt to only break even on the money I gained from raiding when buying back arrows.

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I have 23k gold, why would I waste my time doing dailies except for some reward they might offer? Unlike the other 9 classes that can use gold to buy everything they need to raid with almost no time cost, warlocks don't have that option.

It's not bad on farmed content, but it sucks royally on progression content, especially since every death costs a shard to get my pet back, even if the pet didn't die.

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Q u o t e:
We are looking at ammo too. We think there might be ways to turn it into an interesting decision about ammo type and not something that requires you to procure 500 stacks before a raid.

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Like having arrows do a % of their damage as an elemental type? Or have possible proc effects, like a short snare?

Simple solution would be to make all the arrows of a given level the same price. I think the fact you already need rep to buy them in the first place is good enough.

My hunters arrows costs were way higher then my consumables ever went.

How about making ammo a relic like item that gives little tweaks to the hunter's abilities instead of just being more dps, you can just baseline the dps into the weapons, its not like anyone else uses them consistently.

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Q u o t e:


I have 23k gold, why would I waste my time doing dailies except for some reward they might offer? Unlike the other 9 classes that can use gold to buy everything they need to raid with almost no time cost, warlocks don't have that option.

It's not bad on farmed content, but it sucks royally on progression content, especially since every death costs a shard to get my pet back, even if the pet didn't die.

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'

This^

FFS, please do not make me farm Shards. Or give me the option to, and give locks the option to buy them.

Sheesh, how are we going to call hunters huntards if mid-raid they don't have to heart to pickup more arrows because they "forgot". I guess we still have the people who turn up in half damaged gear and demand a repair bot after one death to make fun of.

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Q u o t e:
We are looking at ammo too. We think there might be ways to turn it into an interesting decision about ammo type and not something that requires you to procure 500 stacks before a raid.

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Hrmmm, the only issue I would worry about is the type of weapon used by hunters is usually determined by what is considered to be the best weapon for the class at the time.

Up to MC, it was guns (Remember dwarven hand cannon and core rifle?).
In BC it was Crossbows (the best weapon for honor points is a crossbow).

So if a hunter has to choose permanently (or an important decision) what type of ammo to use, and then the wrong type of weapon becomes paramount. Hunters will be annoyed.

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Q u o t e:
We are looking at ammo too. We think there might be ways to turn it into an interesting decision about ammo type and not something that requires you to procure 500 stacks before a raid.

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Yeah, I don't think anyone ever talks about Wow and says "WoW do I love buying ammo all the time".

Personally I think ammo should be just a gear slot. You buy ammo and that's what your gun is shooting til you get different ammo. Sure, it's less flavorful, but buying new bullets is a meaningless mechanic.

EDIT: Oh and on my warrior I sometimes have a stack of arrows and bullets sitting around just to accommodate gear for different specs. Since I only use it for pulling it especially stings.

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Q u o t e:


Hrmmm, the only issue I would worry about is the type of weapon used by hunters is usually determined by what is considered to be the best weapon for the class at the time.

Up to MC, it was guns (Remember dwarven hand cannon and core rifle?).
In BC it was Crossbows (the best weapon for honor points is a crossbow).

So if a hunter has to choose permanently (or an important decision) what type of ammo to use, and then the wrong type of weapon becomes paramount. Hunters will be annoyed.

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I don't think this is what he meant. Bullets and Arrows will be equivalent, but there will be different 'styles' of bullet or arrow that will each be useful in different situations. So we won't have stacks and stacks of ammo in the bag anymore, only 5-6 different types each with unlimited use (kind of like relics for the ammo slot).

I'm not sure how i like the idea of needing MORE keybinds for pvp though to switch between these ammos. You could just change our shots based on what aspect we are using to achieve similar effect.

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Q u o t e:


Hrmmm, the only issue I would worry about is the type of weapon used by hunters is usually determined by what is considered to be the best weapon for the class at the time.

Up to MC, it was guns (Remember dwarven hand cannon and core rifle?).
In BC it was Crossbows (the best weapon for honor points is a crossbow).

So if a hunter has to choose permanently (or an important decision) what type of ammo to use, and then the wrong type of weapon becomes paramount. Hunters will be annoyed.

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What indication is there that purchasing between shot and arrows will be an 'important decision'? It's as though you're suggesting that buying one will restrict you from getting the other.

I'm happy with the current implementation of ammo pouch / quiver for holding ammunition, I have never found myself wanting extra slots. There will be larger bags and quivers available in the expansion as well. The cost isn't a huge deal to me either, personally, I profit enough from the auction house. However I do like (what I think is) GC's suggestion that there will be more things differentiating ammo than just DPS added.

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Q u o t e:
We are looking at ammo too. We think there might be ways to turn it into an interesting decision about ammo type and not something that requires you to procure 500 stacks before a raid.

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It would be great if they acted somewhat for hunters as weapon enchants act for melee classes. I've always been saddened by no windfury totem to my ranged wep or other such effects, and you took that away again.

Where's the ranged wep "cool".

Maybe turn ammo into a form of buff, spose DK's get this somewhat too.

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Q u o t e:
I don't think this is what he meant. Bullets and Arrows will be equivalent, but there will be different 'styles' of bullet or arrow that will each be useful in different situations. So we won't have stacks and stacks of ammo in the bag anymore, only 5-6 different types each with unlimited use (kind of like relics for the ammo slot).

I'm not sure how i like the idea of needing MORE keybinds for pvp though to switch between these ammos. You could just change our shots based on what aspect we are using to achieve similar effect.

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Ahhh I see where you are going, maybe I misread.

If they tied say the stings (example) to different types of ammo that could be interesting.

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Q u o t e:


What indication is there that purchasing between shot and arrows will be an 'important decision'? It's as though you're suggesting that buying one will restrict you from getting the other.

I'm happy with the current implementation of ammo pouch / quiver for holding ammunition, I have never found myself wanting extra slots. There will be larger bags and quivers available in the expansion as well. The cost isn't a huge deal to me either, personally, I profit enough from the auction house. However I do like (what I think is) GC's suggestion that there will be more things differentiating ammo than just DPS added.

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i think i misread what he said.

My hunter has always wished he had more bag space and ammo space, Warlock has the same issue.

My druid is the worse (he only has his backpack and 1 bag available, rest is gear and supplies), but that is more a choice of not having to go to the bank all the time (and of the moment flexability) then a burden of the class.