Eclipse has to change. Especially with Lunar Calling being a thing, Eclipse just doesn’t make sense, its not fun, its a pain to activate, its a pain to utilize and it just doesn’t work with the Elune’s Chose hero talents. Sunfire should give Solar Eclipse and Moonfire should give Lunar Eclipse and they should not be mutually exclusive, you should be able to keep both up at the same time and refresh them so you can switch between starfire and wrath as the situation dictates, not as the buff dictates. Starfall and Starsurge should be buffed by both, incentivizing the usage of both dots in all scenarios if only to maintain both eclipse. But that doesn’t require all dots on all targets for starfall and starfire to do decent damage.
13 Likes
Here’s an idea: rename Celestial Alignment to Eclipse if Blizzard is attached to the name. Remove the current Eclipse mechanic entirely. Bring back Empowerments from BFA.
12 Likes
I’d be game for that. But something major in balance needs to change. The spec could use a major overhaul honestly
Best idea and easy fix to make that happen. The empowerment playstyle should have never left. This Ellipse system from the past for a nostalgia grab has played out long enough.
6 Likes
balance needed a good rework but it didnt get one just a prune/quick shuffle around its just too late now for that to happen before next xpac.
I think wraith should just be our normal casting ability and moonfire procs eclipse which increases the cast speed of starfire when it procs or something like that. Remove the whole eclipse buff fully. Change our mastery so our sun spells have a chance to empower\proc our moon spells and vice versa.
Starsurge is our spender and maybe make it so after we charge up enough starsurges our next starsurge turns into a mini convoke or something cool.
2 Likes
Maybe get rid of eclipse and starfire entirely and make starsurge arcane instead of astral. Then nature would be a builder and arcane a spender.
1 Like
Why would starfall need to to leave at all? We still need an AoE, I mean Hurrican is out there ? But to just remove it?
The idea of Combining Sunfire/Moonfire into Eclipse Fire that applies both to make application easier for packs of mobs. The combined of both and the AoE applcaion of sunfire= less spam dot ramp time as are mastery is still tied to having those dots up on mobs.
I prefered when starfall was a cooldown and hurricane was the AOE.
1 Like
Remove Eclipse, reinstate Empowerments. Using Starfire makes a (blue - Arcane) Shooting Star fall on all enemies with Moonfire. Using Wrath makes a(n orange - Nature) Shooting Star fall on all enemies with Sunfire. Starsurge should cost 40 AP again, Starfall… Idk if I like the Legion or the current version more tbh. Idk if it should stack. What more could we have for AoE? Wild Mushrooms? Maybe an Insect Swarm that jumps (just reskin Adaptive Swarm?)… Fury of Elune and Full Moon are cool, but the latter should probably be a big spender, long to cast but hit like an actual moon falling upon your enemies. Maybe an Eclipse cooldown or buff can be added, casting either a red Fury of Elune, or a Full Moon, depending on which side you spent more Empowerments for (maybe it can be baked into Incarn mechanic). I also believe something akin to Nature’s Vigil, but maybe in a shield form should be incorporated into the spec, perhaps during the cooldown, or that spending 3 Empowerments grant an instant Regrowth / make Moon and Stars PvP talent passive from spending AP to help us cast in tight situations.
This Balance / Eclipse mechanic might be hard to implement… As I basically see it re-adding the balance meter from MoP. Just throwing ideas out there 
2 Likes
I dont think the problem is eclipse. The problem is we have eclipse, but spenders are astral, so theres no point to it other than its there.
We still have the AP from legion/BFA, but no empowerments, so theres no point to it other than its there.
For some reason in DF they tied mastery to dots, which i dont recall anyone asking for.
So were a builder/spender, with a half baked version of eclipse, whos also a dot class, but the dots arent that good.
I think eclipse can be good, they just have to lose all the other stuff from past boomie iterations and actually design the spec around eclipse, not slap it on top of a striped down version of Legion/BFA builder/spender with increased emphasis on dots
2 Likes
I mean, empowerments were degenerate at the time in Legion compared to everything else. But now every other spec is degenerate, and we now have this hot mess to deal with because Balance was simpler 8 years ago and this was the knee jerk reaction (instead of just waiting for everything else to be as simple as it is now).
Given how out of control they let Ret get (it’s even simpler in TWW - how is that even possible?), they have proven that they do not respect complexity vs damage payout. The simplest specs are constantly at the top of the meters. I don’t know why so many Druids argue for snapshotting and complex skill interactions when they have never been rewarded and never will be.
In terms of game design, time locking AoE / ST with an eclipse cycle is bad. That shouldn’t need to be said. Everyone else can swap instantly. The fix to this has been to make builders barely even matter and to not need to alternate between the two eclipses, which is just as bad. At this point, since they are so hell bent on the theme, just make the eclipse system only matter visually, and not impact gameplay or spenders. Wrath / Starfire, and Sunfire / Moonfire can just swap automatically depending on the Eclipse (with the empowerment effects active - faster Starfires and Wrath damage splash), only the spenders need changing between AE / ST. Put some other reactives and combos in to spice up the gameplay that don’t impact ST vs AE gameplay.
2 Likes
BFA empowerments were the best mechanic I have ever played going back all the way to classic. Every expansion they rework eclipse and it’s really annoying.
Some players want “complexity” but I can’t really think of an eclipse mechanic that has ever really been complex, more so just tedious and disruptive to play around.
Go back to empowerments as they were by far the best way to get the spec to care about using wrath and star fire, and then add complexity to the spec in some other way if needed.
7 Likes
Yes, Eclipse right now isn’t complex. It’s just restrictive. There’s no real additional interaction with it. It’s just a maintenance buff that you some times have to reactivate. There’s no extending it, or cutting it short for a boost, or to quickly swap, or anything. It’s just “oh don’t forget to press [other spell] twice every 15 seconds”
6 Likes
Elunes grace makes timing your eclipses very important. You entire rotation with Elunes hero talent choice has to do with the exit and entering of eclipse and the difference between ignoring it and not ignoring it 20-25% less damage.
What are you talking about Elune’s Grace is an affect on Wild Charge, that has nothing to do with Eclipse.
Sorry Natures Grace is the one im talking about, it increases the damage of your casts outside of eclipse but can be gamed to give 1 stack during an eclipse that also stacks with other increases, also has a use coming out of eclipse and using CA to double stack it.
There is also a few things with convoke and wrath even as a Elune’s Chosen hero spec.
Yeah, the only difference between solar and lunar is which filler you cast. They just slapped a half baked version of eclipse on top of a striped down version of Legion/BFA AP.
At this point dont care which mechanic they decide to go with, i enjoyed both Cata-WoD and Legion/BFA for different reasons. Just pick one and design a cohesive spec around it instead of trying to make them work together, because they dont.
2 Likes
Spenders being Astral means they benefit from both sides of eclipse. That’s a big part of why they’re strong in the kit and doesn’t at all decouple them from the eclipse mechanic.
AP serves to gate how many spenders you can cast. Prior to AP Starsurge/Starfall shared charges on a cooldown-gated system with Shooting Stars granting a free charge.
Empowerments have nothing to do with astral power - they were added in legion to move damage out of Starsurge and into Wrath/Starfire without reducing Starsurge’s importance to the kit. This was back when Starsurge used to actually hit hard.
Because it gives a much-needed reason to actually apply our DoTs beyond their frankly awful damage and shooting stars. Does it create ramp-up problems? Yes. But there’s lots of other ways to solve that.
Eclipse pre-dates Astral power by about 3 expansions. It also pre-dates sunfire as a baseline ability. It’s not a case of the spec not being designed around Eclipse - it’s a case of the rest of the kit not playing into Eclipse in an interesting, engaging, or skill-expressive fashion. And that’s been a problem of this iteration of Eclipse since it’s creation in Legion. Both WoD and MoP eclipse were better in that regard.
Because most of the people still playing Balance are doing so for love of the class, not topping the meters. The meta-chasers and RWFers have already re-rolled. They’re more interested in a fun, engaging spec even if it’s middle-of-the-pack. Right now we’re both bad and boring.
So make the entire class a 3-button spec with psuedo-variation in those three buttons changing visually to follow eclipse? Hard pass. Even more boring that what we have now.
Empowerments are a degenerate, nonsensically-designed band-aid that were bad in Legion and even worse in BfA. Sapping power away from the spender of a build/spend class back into the builders makes the spenders entirely unsatisfying to use, the core gameplay self-contradictory,
Players have complained about every single iteration of Eclipse that has ever existed. It gets to a point why I wonder why you play the class at all. Could it be better? Yes. Is the solution to go back to boring, banal, nonsensical gameplay like empowerments? Absolutely not.
3 Likes
But it does, basically the only functional difference between eclipses is which filler you use.
Yeah i miss that, chaining starsurge procs was pretty sweet
Yeah, at the same time AP was added. It kept us casting both fillers without eclipse. Removing eclipse without putting empowerments back would make having wrath and starfire kinda redundant and pointless.
AP and empowerments replaced eclipse in Legion. And iirc sunfire was baseline in MoP when it replaced insect swarm. And yes the current iteration of boomkin is not designed around eclipse, cata-WoD was. The current itteration is legion/BFA AP with this verion of eclipse instead of empowerments. So youre 100% right, the AP based boomie toolkit and eclipse dont mix well.
If theyre intent on keeping AP bring empowerments back and scrap eclipse. If they want to keep eclipse as a main mechanic get rid of AP and design the spec around it. Idc which one they choose, i just want them to choose one.