Balance druid has an AoE kit-synergy issue where it relies on dots (including Starfall) to do most of it’s AoE damage, yet Starfall does not stack, Moonfire does too little damage to be worth casting on short-lived targets, and Sunfire is worth casting, but is also quite weak regardless.
-Starfire is the remaining AoE spell, but is kind of boring. It does AoE damage as an afterthought and generates a static amount of AP that does not scale with targets, yet still produces an excess of AP that needs to be spent on something besides Starfall. This excess is used to cast Starsurge, which has no AoE component and does not synergize with the AoE rotation except for providing a miniscule boost to Starfire while in Lunar Eclipse - so it buffs a spell with a weak AoE component only half the time.
-Then there is shooting stars, which provides extra AP and damage from dots, but has diminishing returns on extra targets, making it practically useless as an AP generating tool, even though it still provides extra AP in AoE situations that has no real use.
A few solutions that do not require completely overhauling Balance druid’s kit:
-Give extra AP a purpose in AoE scenarios, and lean into extra AP generation for gameplay purposes. You can do this by:
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Remove Shooting Stars’ diminishing returns. This would make multidotting with Moonfire more worthwhile and give an added purpose to Sunfire besides just doing damage. Both spells would generate more overall AP that could be dumped to do more AoE damage.
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Give Starsurge an AoE component. If Starfall keeps it’s cooldown, it can never be able to be utilized as an AoE dump (but it doesn’t necessarily need to be anyway). This leaves Starsurge as the remaining available AP spender, and with more AP to work with from Shooting Stars there are many possibilities for Starsurge to interact with the AoE kit in an interesting manner besides just buffing Starfire half the time.
-It could be given legion’s dot buffing aura, or hasten dot ticks. The synergy does not have to be limited to dots - Starsurge could interact with Starfall instead, so it would only used while Starfall is active. This could be accomplished by making extra stars fall from from Starfall. It could perhaps do something like proc a shooting star on all targets Starfall is hitting, each cast proccing more stars, doing more AoE damage, and generating more AP that could let you shoot out Starsurges rapidly. The AP value of shooting stars could be adjusted so you do not overcap, and Lunar Eclipse’s function as an AoE oriented buff could be retained by changing Shooting Stars damage school to Arcane - which would also help to offset their increased frequency, and still require you to manage your AP for when Starfall comes off cooldown.
There are so many possibilities for improving the Balance Druid AoE rotation. This is just one idea, but please at least consider adding AP/target scaling and a fun use for that extra AP that synergizes with the existing kit.