Soul Shards

Soul Shards
	Soul Shards; Level 3 warlock ability; Passive; Soul Shards are generated by your Agony's damage over time/your Shadow Bolt/many of your spells.; ; Soul Shards are consumed to cast your most powerful spells and summon demons to serve you.; ; While out of combat you regenerate up to 3 Soul Shards.;
Properties
Class	Warlock
Other information
Level learned	3

It does not reflect the face of the viewer, but rather the face of the soul trapped within.^[1]

Soul Shards system interface as of Dragonflight

Soul Shards are a unique secondary resource available to warlocks, displayed in the user interface beneath the player's health and mana bars. Warlocks can have a maximum of five Soul Shards, which slowly regenerate out of combat and regenerate in combat through certain spells. Soul Shards have been around in some form since early WoW and have a long history as a secondary resource for warlocks in general.

Notes

Current generators include many spells not listed in the tooltip, such as Demonology's [Demonbolt], Destruction's [Conflagrate] and [Immolate], cooldowns like [Summon Infernal], or killing monsters with certain spells like Affliction's [Drain Soul] or [Unstable Affliction].

Current combat spenders include Demonology's [Call Dreadstalkers], [Hand of Gul'dan]; Destruction's [Chaos Bolt], [Rain of Fire]; and Affliction's [Malefic Rapture], and [Seed of Corruption]. Some cooldowns also cost a Soul Shard such as [Nether Portal]. Summoning any demon also costs a soul shard, but when not in PvP this is generally done outside of combat.

History

Soul Shards have been a warlock resource since early WoW, and their use has been revamped many times to make them more streamlined with the warlock playstyle and improve quality of life.

Classic

Soul Shards were originally items held in the player's inventory and were required to cast many important spells, including summoning any demon besides an imp, summoning other players, and creating Healthstones. They were generated by using [Drain Soul] on an appropriately-leveled mob.

Raiding warlocks tended to carry large quantities of them to prepare for nights of progression as resummoning their minions and creating Healthstones would deplete their stores rapidly. Blizzard introduced soul bags, larger than average bags (similar to ammo bags), to help warlocks with the increased load. However, the inconvenience of having to carry dozens of Shards and the difficulty of replenishing them when already fighting a boss had the warlock community clamoring for changes to their design though they would remain largely unchanged for many expansions.

Cataclysm

The Soul Shard resource mechanic as it appeared in Cataclysm

Soul Shards were removed as items and changed into a secondary resource for all warlocks, up to a maximum of three. Their usage was similar to the current [Soulburn] system, empowering the following spells:

[Drain Life] - Reduces cast time by 50%.
Summon Demon - Instantly summons minion.
[Demonic Circle: Teleport] - Increases movement speed by 50% for 8 seconds.
[Soul Fire] - Instant cast.
[Healthstone] - Increases total health by 20% for 8 seconds.
[Searing Pain] - Increases the crit chance of Searing Pain by 100%, and subsequent Searing Pain spells by 50% for 6 seconds.
[Seed of Corruption] (Affliction only) - Applies [Corruption] to all enemy targets upon detonation. The Soul Shard is refunded if the detonation is successful.

Regeneration of Soul Shards was very limited. Out of combat, the warlock could use the spell [Soul Harvest], which restored 1 Soul Shard per 3 seconds for 9 seconds on a 45-second cooldown. In combat, the only way to replenish shards was through [Drain Soul] and [Shadowburn], a Destruction-only talent that restored three Soul Shards if the target died within 5 seconds. Both spells required appropriately-leveled mobs.

Since shard replenishment depended on the existence of adds, it meant that for single-target fights, a warlock would have only three shards to spend, no matter how long the encounter. Using Soulburn in conjunction with any spell that was not Soul Fire meant a decrease in DPS, punishing its use as utility especially after the release of Tier 13 granted 10% spell power upon using the two spells together.

Mists of Pandaria

Mists of Pandaria gave each warlock specialization its own secondary resource system, with Soul Shards made into an Affliction-only mechanic. Soul Shards were changed to regenerate automatically outside of combat, although abilities such as [Drain Soul] were still useful for replenishing stores mid-fight. Mid-expansion patches saw an increase in the maximum number of shards from three to four.

Legion

Soul Shards would be reintroduced back to the other specs (Demonology and Destruction, replacing Destruction's [Burning Embers]) as a Warlock class-wide combat resource mechanic. This had an effect towards strengthening the class identity. Soul Shards went up to 5. Later in the expansion Destruction's Soul Shard spender [Chaos Bolt] was proving too strong and so they were changed to generate partial fragments of soul shards (ie not whole numbers) to scale it back.

Lore

Gul'dan needed soul shards containing draenei souls to properly command the smaller demons he summoned^[2] and to summon lesser demons Gul'dan's lesser warlocks must use a soul shard.^[3] The Lich King trapped Alexandros Mograine's soul in a soul shard,^[4] tormenting him in an attempt to break his will.^[5]

Fel energy consumes souls,^[6] hence, warlocks use soul shards. The foul crystal creates a link to the Twisting Nether.^[7]

Gallery

New UI from BlizzCon 2009.
UI as of Legion

Patch changes

Patch 10.1.0 (2023-05-02): Updated special resource art and animations for warlocks.
Patch 9.0.1 (2020-10-13): Now learned at level 3 (was 10).
Patch 8.0.1 (2018-07-17): Now learned at level 10 (was 1).
Hotfix (2017-06-13): Soul Shards should now be set to 3 during [Arena Preparation].
Patch 7.2.5 (2017-06-13):
- Soul Shards are now divided into 10 Soul Shard Fragments for Destruction Warlocks, in order to provide more reliable, granular Soul Shard generation, prevent random overcapping of resources, rein in Soul Shard generation slightly, and reduce the number of Chaos Bolts being cast.
- A passive ability has been added describing the functionality of Soul Shards.
Hotfix (2016-09-13): Soul Shards now regenerate to 3, while out of combat (up from 1).

Developers' Notes: As discussed in last week's Developer Q&A, warlocks (and Demonology especially) needed to go through several spellcasts in order to generate the Soul Shards required to cast the spells needed for them to operate at peak efficiency. In outdoor gameplay and against packs of enemies in dungeons, this often meant that combat was ending just as the warlock was getting warmed up. Allowing warlocks to begin combat with 3 Soul Shards instead of 1 should let them bring more of their arsenal to bear in shorter encounters.

Patch 7.0.3 (2016-07-19): Soul Shards are now used by all specializations. UI visual updated.
Patch 5.2.0 (2013-03-05): Baseline maximum number of Souls Shards encreased to 4, up from 3.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Revamped. Changed to Affliction-specific secondary resource.
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): Soul Shards have been removed from the game as items. Instead, they now exist as a resource system necessary for using or altering the mechanics of certain spells.