Eclipse as it is needs to go into the trash
5 Likes
They let players vote on Tier set bonuses. Why not better reign in our feedback when it comes to something as crucial as the core design of a spec?
I mean, the spec is boring and brain dead right now. It’s not complex, but some folks think that the tedious triggers for Eclipse on a regular timer make it so. As to why people play the spec, some folks liked the theme and played before they hamfisted the celestial sun wizard stuff in. It should have just stayed plants and nature with some minor moon based spells. It’s Moonkin not Celestial Owlkin. As you mention, every single iteration of Eclipse has been disliked. Stop trying to make Sunkin work Gretchen Weiner.
At the very least, let us opt out of all Sun based stuff with Elune’s Chosen. Bake it into the moon side.
4 Likes
Yes because the spenders are astral and therefore used in both eclipses. Which again, is against your original claim that they have no relation to eclipse. Do you really want a single-target and AoE spender for each side of eclipse? Or we can go back to the days Starfall was arcane damage instead of astral. There’s many things wrong with the spec but astral damage isn’t one of them.
Eclipse still existed in Legion. It was cast 3 wraths or two Lunar Strikes (starfires) to enter and you were forced into the opposite eclipse when exiting just like in SL. It wasn’t until BFA that eclipse was “removed” (reworked) in the failed experiment.
I understand why you might view empowerments as a “replacement” for eclipse if you think Legion didn’t have eclipse, but it did. The only time they’ve been such is BfA, where Blizzard gave people what they wanted and removed eclipse, and it sucked.
Sunfire was added in Cataclysm as a talent, it was moved to a baseline ability in MoP when insect swarm was removed.
Eclipse was added in WotLK, Astral Power was added in legion.
So Eclipse pre-dates AP by WotLK, Cata, MoP, WoD - 4 expansions, and pre-dates baseline Sunfire by WotLK, Cata - 2 expansions.
For the record, I am perfectly happy to abandon Astral power and go back to WoD boomie. I loved WoD boomie and the natural flow it brought to the spec, the simple-yet-critical skill expression of maximizing eclipse boost to spenders, and the feel of rattling off Starsurges when you got a streak of shooting star procs. Unfortunately, it was generally hated for the same exact reasons people complain about today - they can’t whatever spell they want whenever they want, they have to follow Eclipse. This makes slightly more sense today now that Starfire deals AoE damage & eclipses have bona fide AoE vs. ST roles, but was completely nonsensical in WoD when both Starfire and Wrath were single target - however Starfall was dealing Arcane (or nature w/ sunfall glyph) damage at that time.
To be clear - I’m not saying I’m happy with the current state of balance, or suggesting that it doesn’t need some love. I am saying that most of the suggestions being made regarding eclipse and empowerments are not improvements.
3 Likes
Just commenting on this that Eclipse was definitely for sure removed going into Legion. We had Empowerments in Legion and BfA before going back to Eclipse in SL
I just am struggling to see why Balance has to suck in lower keys. The ramp to get damage out is unlike anything else I ever played. I think it’s just hard to scale for Blizzard, as the mob count goes up, and or things live longer then Balance becomes wild, but all the other classes than can burst fast, also hold their own so ???
There’s really no limit to the possible solutions here… Reducing the fillers between Eclipses to 1, making them instant, flipping them around, removing them and reinstating Empowerments instead… But maybe the problem goes deeper. Perhaps DoTs should be MUCH shorter and more powerful, burning their target and facilitating procs or fast casts… maybe they should even have a slight cooldown… Maybe more damage weight should be moved to other spells (DoTs or casts), maybe the Mastery should change… We need more brainstorming, better feedback cycles and more communication, all done FAR earlier before the release of an expansion to ensure the community is heard and the class is designed to be as engaging and accessible as possible… let alone allowing for other builds with increased difficulty and mechanical potential. (Edit: For which the Talent Trees need to be as well thought-out as possible…)
1 Like
Okay looking back it seems like you’ve got this right and I’m wrong. Eclipse was re-added in BfA as a proc that gave empowerments which is probably where my confusion is coming from. Regardless, I don’t think Legion boomie was particularly good either - people remember certain good things like Full Moon, Stellar Drift, and OG FoE and forget how bad the base spec was underneath those. I don’t think it ultimately changes my argument that empowerments are a brutally bad core mechanic for the spec.
Shadow Priest was equally as bad in previous expansions prior to Shadow Crash applying their DoTs. This is one reason why you frequently see people suggesting a shadow-crash style spell for Balance (cough cough Wild Mushroom cough) because it worked for them, so why not us.
That kind of community-collaborative design effort just simply isn’t something Blizzard is interested in, based on past experience. They take feedback where they want to & believe it improves their own design direction. They’re happy to listen to how we’re feeling about the gameplay and what’s fun & not fun to play, but pitching massive overhauls is usually going to fall on deaf ears. For whatever reason the class design team has decided this is how Boomie is going into TWW, and at this point that’s how it’s shipping. Does that mean we probably get a mid-expansion rework like paladins got in DF? Maybe, probably even. Would it be nicer if we got that rework for TWW launch? Absolutely. But hey design team has deadlines and crunch time to deal with (inflicted upon them by corporate suits who don’t care if your class is fun so long as you keep paying your sub) and so some stuff gets pushed back.
I think it’s a mistake to assume Blizzard is ignorant to how the Balance community feels about the spec. They know. More feedback & discussion around the spec is a good thing - so long as it comes in a constructive & productive fashion - but you shouldn’t expect that simply posting more is going to drastically change the amount of attention balance is getting.
3 Likes
The fear of homogenization, I look at destro warlocks and wonder why Cataclysm isn’t baseline or its own talent.
I honestly think its a ego issue with the devs.
When the warlock dev worked with the community in mop he did the best rework of all time imo,
Balance druid needs a fresh paint job but they keep sitting on this trash dragonflight mastery/tree likely too much work to change it
Testing beta our ramp-up time is like almost nothing, most packs are fairly small pulls due to tank damage but even the pulls with 8-10 mobs without ca i can be pumping the same numbers as other dps just double wrath - fury - WoE and just spamming starfires without even really dotting.
I really think as more people start actually testing the damage done by certain spells and honing in on talents for specific things youll find boomy is pretty fun even at low keys, the higher you go the more you use starfall which is slightly less damage then starfire on my +12 keys, +2-3s atm are heavily scaled but even then youll be just using a spec without starfall.
If you have beta right now you can do some follower dungeons as well to get the crisp starfires and rotations down pat, with the change to removing the dps from the follower dungeon group you can also pretty much test w/e you want with 0 queues in the new dungeons.
Sorry meant starfire, not starfall
No it didnt, was removed in legion and replaced with empowerments. It made a comeback in SL. Edit: sorry didnt see you already adressed this.
Thats is my point though, the spenders are the same, which eclipse youre in doesnt matter. The only difference between eclipses is should you be be casting wrath or starfire. Other than that the playstyle and abilities dont change.
First off youre right about WotLK. I forgot about that completely lol. But i agree with you 100% i want my MoP/WoD boomie back. My only beef with WoD was the automatic moving eclipse. All we wanted back then was the ability to choose which eclipse we’re in and now in DF we can do that. A good spec could actually be designed around the current iteration of eclipse.
I dont disagree with you, i just wish theyd pick a direction and roll with it. Because right now the spec feels all over the place
Empowerments didn’t take any power away from our spenders. Star surge still hit like a truck in Legion / BFA.
Also, empowerments aren’t degenerate just because you don’t like them as a system. They were very smooth with clear rotational goals and trying not to waste empowerment procs was more fun than maintaining eclipse ramp in order to do full damage. There is nothing skillful or complex about current eclipse, it is just added ramp and tedious.
3 Likes
They made the same mistake they made with feral. They’ve both had wildly divergent play styles over the various expansions, and now each has different people who started at different points who want different, mutually exclusive things to happen.
Short of hard AI happening and blizzard releasing sub-specs for specs, someone is going to be unhappy about how moonkin plays.
Personally, I wish they’d dump astral power entirely, and go back to tbc/wrath moonkin with some later things bolted on. Was cycling between wrath/Starfire and dropping Starfall now and then “simple”? Sure, but big Starfire crits were way more fun than spamming Starfire/wrath and feeling like it’s just a junky ranged auto attack that demands I press a key to attack.
Not sure what AI means in this context. But blizzard is releasing sub-specs this expansion. They’re called hero talents. Though, for this split in what balance players enjoy to work as hero talents they would first need to drastically redesign the base spec.
For Balance, unfortunatenly, the Hero talents barely feel like levelling up, either. The General/Class Druid talent tree feels like levelling down… But at least the Balance spec tree seems okay…? 
The Eclipse mechanic ruins the whole spec for me. I’ve always hated it. I don’t want to have to warm up by casting the spell I don’t want to be casting. Then add dot ramp up to that. It has never felt fun.
3 Likes
I completely agree, and the lack of any spontaneity in the rotation feels bad too. There is no real heavy proc to shake the rotation up. There are procs, but they don’t feel special.
One thing I’ve always disliked about the Balance rotation is that it’s always so rigid. The rotation is set in stone and its timing makes everything so predictable. Execution failure of any kind, even just a forced movement by a boss mechanic, is always so punishing. You literally have to sync up your rotation with the boss encounter and do anything and everything necessary not to deviate in the slightest or you lose 15-25% of your potential damage in a fight. If a dot isn’t refreshed at the right moment or you need to interrupt the cast of statfire for any reason, it could literally take 2-3 minutes to get back into the proper rotation sometimes.
3 Likes
Adding so much damage to starfire making it go from one of the weakest cleaves spells to the best cleave spell in the game doesn’t feel special to you?
Also having to setup big star fire crits every 15 seconds is kind of a really cool playstyle and the difference between properly using procs vs not is around 40% dps loss.