10-12-2007, 11:09 PM
Quote:Also, did anyone else catch the change to Starshards yet? If it stands how it is, Night Elves are a HOT choice (pun intended) for raiding shadow priests. A zero-mana extra DoT that does significant damage because it should get the full coefficient of +dmg...
Yes I noted it. There may even be another reason that some are not aware of for the change. But first I would like to point out that the testing and theory crafting for Starshards currently has it getting ~171% of +damage effects.
The other reason for the change is something that I had observed with my NElf priestest Myrrian about a month or so ago. While I could not consistently repeat the effect, there were several times that I had managed to chain cast Starshards so that the later casting continued the damage increase effect where the earlier cast had stopped at. If some other players had learned how to do this consistenly, then it would have far outstripped pretty much any other DPS casting options for priests or even other casters.
This is an example damage sequence I had recorded with her at the time. Rank 7 Starshards, +dmg=293 (iirc) 2 chained casts that 'stacked'.
201
202
259
316 <- this would have been the last tick of a normal cast.
316
347
347
435
If this type of scaling could be continued (i.e. exploited), then the damage amounts could get very unbalanced.