Starshards build?

Post Reply
Theremmy
Posts: 5

Starshards build?

Post by Theremmy » Sat Oct 26, 2024 3:45 am

While the new racial spell for NE Priests caused a lot of questions, I feel like these changes might be a great opportunity to adapt a spell that was always seems close enough to be valid, but just far enough to matter. With possibly the best looking animation of the whole of Classic, and a lore that dates back to the introduction of Night Elves in Warcraft 3!

The good news in the new changes is a lot of the new Discipline tree talents should work with Starshards, adding various buffs that potentially could trigger on ticks of channeled spell. But others might not since for some odd reason, Starshards uses Arcane damage. One of the changes to it that might not be too major would be to change that to Holy, which would still make some sense Lore wise, but definitely so mechanics wise. This could potentially give NE Priest a lovely rotation of Holy Fire, channel Starshards until Smite proc, Smite, and repeat.

I feel like the changes are so close to making this a viable really fun spec, something that should've been, imo. But again might be just one change away from being a thing. What does everyone think? I think I remember Holy Fire going through a similar change as well, with it originally being Fire damage and becoming Holy. To think that a Starshards Priest might have to use Shadow for SW:P, Fire for Holy Fire, Holy for Smite and Arcane for Starshards is a bit ridiculous.

But that still leaves me scratching my head as to how the second racial comes into play.

Theremmy
Posts: 5

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Theremmy » Sat Oct 26, 2024 4:12 am

Also sudden thought. Making ticks able to crit might be interesting as well!

User avatar
Steakhouse
Posts: 148
Has liked: 41 times
Likes: 28 times

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Steakhouse » Sat Oct 26, 2024 4:49 am

Anything related to the moon and stars deals arcane damage in Warcraft: see Starfire and Moonfire, the druid spells, so changing Starshards to Holy damage would break that consistency. Furthermore, Starshards is very useful in PvP as a kick bait: if a rogue kicks your starshards you're free to cast shadow and holy spells without worrying about Kick anymore for 10 seconds ; this, too, would change if Starshards is changed to a holy spell.

User avatar
Daoc2001
Posts: 6

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Daoc2001 » Sat Oct 26, 2024 5:08 am

I would be happy if Starshards could simply crit per tick just like Arcane Missiles for mages. Even at the baseline spell crit rates that would be nice. It's already bad enough that Mind Flay can't crit for Shadow spec Priests in Vanilla WoW. Alternatively, making Starshards an insta-cast "fire & forget" DOT type spell instead would also rock IMO, even if the duration/damage & such had to be tweaked a bit. Just my 2 cents.

Ulukay
Posts: 116
Has liked: 2 times
Likes: 8 times

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Ulukay » Sat Oct 26, 2024 7:56 am

dead_turtle_head
Last edited by Ulukay on Sun Oct 27, 2024 7:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Harkus
Posts: 191
Has liked: 12 times
Likes: 6 times

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Harkus » Sat Oct 26, 2024 11:15 am

Steakhouse wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 4:49 am Anything related to the moon and stars deals arcane damage in Warcraft: see Starfire and Moonfire, the druid spells, so changing Starshards to Holy damage would break that consistency. Furthermore, Starshards is very useful in PvP as a kick bait: if a rogue kicks your starshards you're free to cast shadow and holy spells without worrying about Kick anymore for 10 seconds ; this, too, would change if Starshards is changed to a holy spell.
I get that this is useful for PvP, but otherwise why does the consistency matter? If undead priests can get a useful Shadow damage spell then why can't nelf priests get a useful Discipline damage spell? Reworking one of the nelf priest racials to be useful in the new Disc dps rotation seems perfectly fair to me smiling_turtle_head

User avatar
Steakhouse
Posts: 148
Has liked: 41 times
Likes: 28 times

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Steakhouse » Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:32 pm

Consistency matters because lore matters. Starshards deals arcane damage for the same reason undead can't be druids: mechanics are a reflection of lore, first and foremost

User avatar
Harkus
Posts: 191
Has liked: 12 times
Likes: 6 times

Re: Starshards build?

Post by Harkus » Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:56 pm

Steakhouse wrote: Sat Oct 26, 2024 2:32 pm Consistency matters because lore matters. Starshards deals arcane damage for the same reason undead can't be druids: mechanics are a reflection of lore, first and foremost
Yes but lore isn't game mechanics? Night elves abhor the usage of Arcane magic, if anything changing the spell affinity of Starshards makes more lore sense...

Post Reply