Starshards Questions

[Gurnsey]

My 'main' such as it is, is a 26 Night-Elf priest. The NE priest racial spell (we'll just ignore Elune's Grace :P ), Starshards, has several odd things about it.

1) PW: Shield does not prevent lost cast time for this spell. This is pretty major since casting time for this channelled spell gets longer for each rank and there is no way that you will get the whole thing off before something reaches you. Bug or just a drawback of this particular spell?

2) If, on a spellcaster, this is the very first thing I cast, it seems to interrupt spellcasting - I can get the whole 6 second (at my level) cast off before their spell fires. Any subsequent casts don't do this. Bug or unintented bonus of this spell?

Anyway, major weirdness with this one. On non-spellcasters I tend to do a Mind Blast, SW:P, Melt Face, Mind Blast, Renew, wand... but with spellcasters I like to start with Starshards.

Also a good group PvP spell, though it locks you down in one place :P Fun to come out of Shadowmeld afte rsomeone passes and blast em with shards.

[Epi]

My 'main' such as it is, is a 26 Night-Elf priest.  The NE priest racial spell (we'll just ignore Elune's Grace :P ), Starshards, has several odd things about it.

Probably Elune's Grace effect is small indeed, but at least it does something! Starshards may make some sense for Holy-oriented build, but as most priests who intend to do damage are shadow-oriented, this skill seems to be of very little practical use (which is just a polite way to say "this skill sucks big time" ;)). Two Mind Flays do approximately the same damage, but cost much less mana, and also slow the enemies.

As for spellcasters... My standard sequence is PW:Shield, Mind Blast, PW:Pain, Mind Flay, Mind Blast, wand to death - and, with Ellune's Grace (and Shadow Protection, if appropriate), any caster is dead before the shield wears off. If not (only happens when fighting multiple enemies), I have Improved PW:S, so no need to worry about interruption.

Anyway, I know that my comments don't answer your questions at all, I just don't understand why everybody rant about Ellune's Grace so much, when the other Elf's racial is much worse... and, if your observations are correct, has more "features" (i.e. bugs). :unsure:

-Miiko, lvl 44 N-Elf Priest

[Gurnsey]

Anyway, I know that my comments don't answer your questions at all, I just don't understand why everybody rant about Ellune's Grace so much, when the other Elf's racial is much worse... and, if your observations are correct, has more "features" (i.e. bugs).  :unsure:
[right][snapback]95461[/snapback][/right]

Elune's Grace reduces magic damage? When it says 'ranged' I think arrows and javelins.

Also, depending on your level, 2x Mind Flay won't do more damage than Starshards, and has lower range. It's got its uses - not as good as say, Fear Ward, but better than the lame Troll ones.

[savaughn]

1) PW: Shield does not prevent lost cast time for this spell.  This is pretty major since casting time for this channelled spell gets longer for each rank and there is no way that you will get the whole thing off before something reaches you.  Bug or just a drawback of this particular spell?
[right][snapback]95429[/snapback][/right]

PW:Shield absolutely prevents lost cast time for starshards. Just logged on with my 45 Nelf priest and tested it against a dozen mobs to double check. PW:Shield only stops normal damage from cutting into your spells, though. Spell interruption effects like "kick" will still shut down your spells - maybe you were seeing this?

2) If, on a spellcaster, this is the very first thing I cast, it seems to interrupt spellcasting - I can get the whole 6 second (at my level) cast off before their spell fires.  Any subsequent casts don't do this.  Bug or unintented bonus of this spell?
[right][snapback]95429[/snapback][/right]

Starshards has an interruption effect that can trigger on each tick. This happens on everybody - caster or otherwise. For melee mobs, it can reset their swing. For casters, it can interrupt casting.

[Gurnsey]

PW:Shield absolutely prevents lost cast time for starshards.  Just logged on with my 45 Nelf priest and tested it against a dozen mobs to double check.  PW:Shield only stops normal damage from cutting into your spells, though.  Spell interruption effects like "kick" will still shut down your spells - maybe you were seeing this?
[right][snapback]95485[/snapback][/right]

Well, it absolutely doesn't work for rank 1 Starshards - was only getting 2 ticks out of 4 when casting it on something that was meleeing me (no kicks or silences). I haven't tried it since - I'll have to try rank 3. This makes it much more useful! Hooray for bugs.

[Ruvanal]

Well, it absolutely doesn't work for rank 1 Starshards - was only getting 2 ticks out of 4 when casting it on something that was meleeing me (no kicks or silences).  I haven't tried it since - I'll have to try rank 3.  This makes it much more useful!  Hooray for bugs.
[right][snapback]95492[/snapback][/right]

My experience with Starshards has been like savaughn's. No problems even at the lower levels if I used a PW:S for protection to allow all 4 of the ticks on the Rank 1 version. But if you do not have the shield up, you will suffer the same problem that mages without Improved Arcane Missiles suffer from while in melee; spell stuttering. For a fixed casting time spell the spell stuttering is very apparent as it does a partial rest of the casting timer. But for a channeled spell the stuttering is not as stright in your face as each stutter takes time off the end of the channel time. This can make a short channeled effect like Starshards look like it ended early with only one or two ticks of the spell going off. And the spell stuttering does not take special types of attacks to do like kicks and silences.

[Gurnsey]

My experience with Starshards has been like savaughn's.  No problems even at the lower levels if I used a PW:S for protection to allow all 4 of the ticks on the Rank 1 version.  But if you do not have the shield up, you will suffer the same problem that mages without Improved Arcane Missiles suffer from while in melee; spell stuttering.  ...[right][snapback]95547[/snapback][/right]

Context, my man, context!

Sav: "PW:Shield absolutely prevents lost cast time for starshards."

Me: "Well, it absolutely doesn't work for rank 1 Starshards"

I know what spell stuttering is ;)

In other news, you know those times where something just won't work, and you call someone over to fix it, and when they have you show them it doesn't work, it works?

Yea, I tried out all ranks of Starshards and PW:S and it works fine. Probably just server stupidness that it wasn't working correctly before. Kil'Jaeden - now with lag so bad, you die! (Our guild MOTD)

[Ruvanal]

Context, my man, context!

Sav: "PW:Shield absolutely prevents lost cast time for starshards."

Me: "Well, it absolutely doesn't work for rank 1 Starshards"

I know what spell stuttering is ;)

In other news, you know those times where something just won't work, and you call someone over to fix it, and when they have you show them it doesn't work, it works?

Yea, I tried out all ranks of Starshards and PW:S and it works fine.  Probably just server stupidness that it wasn't working correctly before.  Kil'Jaeden - now with lag so bad, you die! (Our guild MOTD)
[right][snapback]95560[/snapback][/right]

Yes and for me the PW:S has always allowed the full course of the Starshards to work. The short cycle you described always matched a non-shielded situation where the stuttering was cutting short the channeling. Your last paragraph though shows where the real problem appears to have been in the first place: LAG. I have seen many times when we have had some bad lag periods on Stormrage that there were many times when someone thought that they had a protection up (such as PW:S) but to all others it was not really there since the server never got the message from their client to get the earlier spell off to start with. To the player though, their client still showed as if they should have had the protection when in fact they did not.

[mr.white]

Starshards is nice for pvp shadow priests. specifically, if you get counterspelled in shadowform it is the only damage spell you can cast. probably the only spell with a decent effect at all(been a while since I was shadow so I can't actually say it is the only spell period.)