New item tabs for Ammo/Shards

New item tabs for Ammo/Shards  

I’ve got an idea. How about working it into inscription? “50% Chance on shot to consume no ammunition.” That would be a welcome addition.

The problem with that is it’d probably be a major glyph, and it’d also naturally be “required” since ammo is such a stringent problem for the class. I don’t see Glyphs becoming as semi-permanent as, say, talents, and consequently having a glyph that works as a “fix” for a basic class problem isn’t really productive, nor interesting. The whole idea with Inscription is further customization, beyond what talents are even capable of doing; it provides the player with interesting choices. Making a glyph that “solves” the ammo issue isn’t an interesting choice, it’s a requirement and every single Hunter would then have to choose between bag slots or a major glyph slot and there’s nothing “fun” or “interesting” about that at all; both options are generally unappealing.

 

If Blizzard is dead-set on ensuring that Hunters must sacrifice a bag slot for a quiver/ammo pouch that is never, ever large enough (and it’s not, especially for raiding situations with large amounts of haste like what we’ll see in Wrath), the least they could do is to increase the stack size of ammunition. Carrying 9000+ rounds of ammo to a raid (read: 45 stacks) is not fun, not interesting, and is just generally annoying and tedious, and you have to do it as the price of admission; if you don’t have ammo to shoot, you can’t play your class. If you’re in a Wrath raid I don’t think 10000+ (50 stacks) rounds of ammo is out of the question for BM for a 25 man raid, and that’s just over double what the current max-size quiver (24 slots) can carry.

 

In other words, at this point the quiver exists solely for the haste buff. It’s no longer large enough to carry a Hunter through a raid zone with a enough ammunition to proof him against any unforeseen consequences (wipes, etc.). So you sacrifice a bag slot for a 15% haste buff, and then end up “wasting” further slots in your normal bags just because that quiver is never large enough.

 

Three things can happen here:

 

1.) Ammo stack size is doubled, at the least. (400 rounds per stack, not 200.)

2.) If 1 does not happen, current max quiver size (24 slots) should be increased to over double the current size (50 slots at least, for 10000 rounds).

3.) The entire ammo/quiver mechanic is redone, to reduce the tedium and, honestly, the stupidity of the current ammo situation while also keeping the money sink that is buying ammunition, be it in the form of actually purchasing ammo, or repairing a relic, or whatever. (The money sink is necessary even if I don’t necessarily believe it has to be quite so expensive…)

 

My justification for this is that I have Thori’dal. It’s a great weapon, it’s relatively rare, it’s very very powerful for level 70 gear. The DPS increase is fantastic, etc. etc., but the thing that excited me the most about getting it wasn’t DPS or showing off or whatever: It was the fact that I didn’t have to waste a bag slot for quiver, nor blow about 20+ normal bag slots just to cover my ammo needs for a night of raiding in Sunwell. The bag space alone got me excited about the weapon before anything else did, because it alleviates a large problem this class has.

 

While that’s all well and good, the idea that your first thought when upgrading to a legendary drop isn’t “Oh man, I am become death, the destroyer of blah blah blah”, nor “This is so awesome”, but “OH THANK GOD I NO LONGER HAVE TO WEAR A QUIVER!” is just… off.

 

Quivers are an outdated mechanic, as are Soul Shard bags (Warlocks are the only ones that know our paiiiin man… we listen to Linkin Park together and then cut ourselves), and this needs to be addressed. It’s useless tedium at this point: the only applicable part of it is the money sink and DPS increases, and those could be worked into different, less annoying forms.

 

Please, Blizzard, throw us (and Warlocks) a bone here.