[Slith]

[Guide] Soul shards (aka soul fragments)
repost from www.assassinshideout.com
http://aochideout.blogspot.com/2009/...ul-shards.html
Please comment and give feedback on how to improve the guide.
Found a mistake? Let me know.

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Soul shards (aka Soul fragments) are staple of Corruption specced assassin: they are needed basicly for everything in your tree. I will be calling them SS for the sake of this guide.
Check the window on the left of your health bar: as you go into melee you will notice that white little shards will start to build up - those are SS.

How to get SS?

a/ Stance
SS will be caputured when you are in unholy stance.

Exception: the single exception is using "Soul prison" in poison stance, with that feat active you will have a fair chance of getting SS even without unholy stance on. This has virtualy no applications, its just a "fun" fact.

b/ Melee
You get soulshards from melee attacks.Your every combo and even white hits has a chance of caputing the SS. Usually every combo willl grant you atleast one. Grim Corruption combo is know to be a best way to get more than one SS from single combo. You are not guaranteed to get SS from your attacks,

Exception: "Relish in death" feat will grant you SS if a member of your team performs fatality. You don't have to do anything, you just have to be a member of a group that did fatality.

Exception: Death Whirlwind combo will not only NOT caputure any SS, but it will also consume your SS for damage

Exception: From the Darkness, when succesfuly used, will always award you one SS

c/ Stealth attack
Attacking from stealth will grant you one soulshard.

Spending your SS

a/ SS as requirment for feat usage
Feats that need SS won't work without them. Corrupting strikes, life leeach, Avatar of death etc., when used without any SS avalible, will not work and a there will be a message on the top of your screen informing you that you need to get a SS.

Exception: Death Whirlwind combo will still do damage without SS

b/ Feat/skill usage cost
Almost all feats/skills will use up ONE SS

Exception: Death Whirlwind combo will use up all shards that you have collected

Exception: Consume Souls will will use up all shards that you have collected

Shard managment

a/ SS decay
You SS will disapear after short period of time (couple of seconds). It's best to move for another kill while you have advantage of having few SS already.

b/ Non combat SS usage
The only skill that is non combat and still benefitial is "Consume Souls". When activated it will transform your shards into instant stamina gain. Consume souls is usable in both in and out of combat

c/ Boosting your SS gaining rate
You will notice a HUGE diffrence in SS gaining rate when you have specced in "Spirit of nightfall" feat that is 3/3. This feat is MANDATORY for any corruption or hybird build and there is no valid reason to not get it.
Soul prison feat (2/2) will grant you boost every 2 minutes - it is a solid feat, but often not used in builds other than corruption/general. It's best to get soul prison later on (at least lvl 50) because until then there aren't many things to spend shards on. Do not get Soul prison too early, its a waste of points.

[Nwardezir]

Originally Posted by Slith Exception: the single exception is using "Soul prison" in poison stance, with that feat active you will have a fair chance of getting SS even without unholy stance on. This has virtualy no applications, its just a "fun" fact.

Mh ... Soul Prison not specially needed to get SS in Poison Stance, you just need Spirit of Nightfall.
It has application when you play hybrid on PvE raids, using Poison Stance, getting SS, using them with CS for example.

Yes I know, you don't give a flyin'fcuk about PvE/Raids but come on ... there are few sin still raiding out there

[Slith]

Originally Posted by Nwardezir Mh ... Soul Prison not specially needed to get SS in Poison Stance, you just need Spirit of Nightfall. It has application when you play hybrid on PvE raids, using Poison Stance, getting SS, using them with CS for example. Yes I know, you don't give a flyin'fcuk about PvE/Raids but come on ... there are few sin still raiding out there

its a bug, its getting fixed (read spirit of nigthfall description - "while in unholy stance...)

[Martohtar]

Unless they fix the description and let the feat work as it currently is.

It gives a lot more freedom with builds the way it works now.

[twit]

I would certainly not call Soul Prison a 'solid feat' unless it has been ninja buffed. Last I checked it was a 10s duration for a 10% increase in shard generation (unless my memory fails me, it might've been even less) which places it in the 'utter trash feat' category.

Also the guide should reflect Spirit of Nightfall as it's currently working, not how it might be changed at some point in the future.

[Slith]

I don't raid so I got nothing to say about Spirit of Nightfall in peeveee
I don't want to write about things I don't understand: if anyone wants to post about that I can add it to the guide and credit the autor.

I find soul prison useful, I do feat it in when specced corruption and I recomend its usage.

[Nwardezir]

Originally Posted by Slith its a bug, its getting fixed (read spirit of nigthfall description - "while in unholy stance...)

Maybe, maybe not, still works on TL (or btw, worked 10days ago).

Btw, sorry for joining the chit-chat, I'll avoid now, me damn PvE player, I'm not really an assassin nor an AoC player I guess.

[Badboi]

It could be worse you could be one of those theatrical souls on a RP-Server

[skeff2090]

Originally Posted by Nwardezir Maybe, maybe not, still works on TL (or btw, worked 10days ago). Btw, sorry for joining the chit-chat, I'll avoid now, me damn PvE player, I'm not really an assassin nor an AoC player I guess.

it worked fine in poison stance after yesterdays patch.

but then again Tooltips can't possobly be wrong =)

[Slith]

Then that must mean that FC is not aware of this

I have reported it as an exploit in TL (I consider bugs that are benefitial as exploits)

If its working as intended then Spirit of Nightfall tooltip is missleading.

Anyhow, its a win-win situation for assassins, we will get one thing fixed for sure