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.
When the raid begins and the opposing faction is outside you no longer have to waste a pile of shards summoning everyone - Previously I was expected to 'be prepared for whatever. (Thsi also is true for any situation where you're summoning lots)
3 clicks for the stone and 2 clicks to summon is a minor inconvenience when summoning one person, but more than worth while in the 'shards saved and warlock effort required departments"
The 5 minute cooldown... This could be good and bad, but hopefully it will encourage people to be proimpt. If they don't accept summons, they might not get another chance for 5 mins. I'll feel less like a summon vending machine; same concept as Ritual of Souls versus making individual healthstones.
The fact that it is an inconvenience should discourage individuals from asking for a single summon, rather, several people should go at once. Also, hopefully it will discourage stupid unneccessary summons in 5-mans.
This is not the pverhaul, the overhaul is yet to come. Summons were part of the problem, this alleviates some of the tedium of summoning, and some of the soulshard issues.
Frankly, the inconvenieces fall to the people that need the summons whereas the benefits are felt by the lock who doesn't need 50 shards. People will have to be more reliable regarding accepting summons and coming prepared.
In the spirit of small tweaks... How about making Healthstones, Soulstones, Firestones, and Spellstones able to be placed in soul bags?
Stretch wish... 5 Charges on Healthstones.... Even if you can only use them once per battle, that still reduces the number of shards we need to bring to a raid.
What's the purpose behind the 5m cooldown? Wouldn't it be enough to just allow 1 stone to be active at once?
Just thinking about something that happened last night - someone had to hearth to town to get something right before Gothik, we killed him in one shot and ran off to the 4HM, then one of our Paladins had to hearth and get his tanking gear. It would have been kinda annoying to have to run all the way back to the Summoning Stone we put before Gothik in order to summon him.
