Resource generation is always slow at beginning of expansion.
It’s taken a few hours on the PRR to get used to it, but I do enjoy the new flow of it. Sure it’s a build and dump style, but that’s ok.
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It’s boring.
I never liked it, but then again I don’t think Blizzard knows how to make Balance fun. Now that they’re going back to a system they had already scrapped once before, it would seem they’re out of ideas. Some neat lore and visual stuff is all that saves the spec.
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I abandoned my boomkin (oldest alt) for the most part while Blizz fumbled around with their whole Eclipse concept. I was sincerely hoping it was dead. Boomkin had become fun again instead of a constant calculation platform. So my alt will drop back down my class ladder again, sadly.
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I actually like the starsurge interaction with eclipse right now. I enjoy the idea of ramping up the dps potential of our wrath during eclipse.
Sadly even when empowered our spells hit like noodles… no matter how cool it is to ramp up over and over it can’t make up for the fact that starsurge is the only reason we do any dps at all. Wrath and starfire both might as well not exist outside of AP generation… even if all they did was generate AP it probably wouldn’t feel too much different than the pitiful damage they deal currently.
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I love it in pve where I can stand there and plan out my next move.
In pvp this is unplayable.
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I agree that in a pvp setting it will be a weakness. While it doesn’t have as much ramp as void form did for sp…it will definitely be something difficult to overcome.
My concern is that they are trying to bring some of our damage out of our cool down. I’m fine with not being a wet noodle for 2.5 minutes, but they nerfed both ci and incarn. They still are on 3 min cds but are significantly weaker. I feel as our damage outside of cd will be average, and our cd won’t improve it enough to be worth a 3 min cd.
Balance has always been a really weird spec, and it’s taken Blizzard a while to figure it out. I agree this incarnation (see what i did there) of balance isn’t great but do you remember where we came from?
Beta/early-vanilla: “ok so were going to give them a talent to increase melee weapon damage, no not form damage, just straight up hitting with a stick damage. We’ll call it WEAPON BALANCE!!! Get it? because balance? ahh, they’ll get it.”
Mid - Vanilla: “Cast starfire. Over and over. Yep, just that. Low mana? Cast DOWNRANKED starfire. Choosing to use a level 40 spell over your level 60 spell is a great gameplay decision were sure you’ll enjoy. Just like your Tier sets.”
Late - Vanilla: “Ok you have mana issues, and we understand that, but what if we solved that by adding a form that increases your armor and critical chance but prevents you from healing? Oh, also all of your tier sets will be about healing, you know, the thing your new form can’t do.”
BC: “ok… so you have mana problems. Maybe armor and crit didn’t solve that. But… now you restore mana by MELEE ATTACKING! Yes get in there and hit Gruul with your stick!”
Later: “I don’t know man… like… maybe a balance beam? Like… a teeter totter with a moon on one end and, i dunno, what’s the opposite of a moon on the other end?”
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I dont see relevance in citing vanilla or BC mechanics. Just comparing what we have now to shadowlands eclipse… I’ll keep what we have now thanks. Legion moonkin was fun. Hell, mists and wod moonkin was super fun and way better than this shadowlands version.
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I’m listing them because I’m trying to illustrate a point using the old standby of edutainment. Apologies if it veered off topic.
Blizzard seems to use Balance as a “but lets try X” spec. Where X is whatever they think might be fun to try at the time with very little in the way of reason or consistency.
Casting single target spells to proc the AOE mode, and AOE spells to proc the single target mode fits right in there. “So… what if we made them BALANCE single target and AOE by casting spells they don’t want to use?”
It makes no sense, and that’s largely what turning into a magical were-chicken and throwing the actual moon at people is about.
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If they changed it so the eclipses didn’t alternate, that would make it a lot better for me. If I’m going into a giant trash pack, but I’m coming up on a solar eclipse… that’s just stupid.
The current system is fun to me because going back and forth between wrath, starfire, and starsurge trying not to waste empowerment stacks while not capping astral power keeps me engaged in my rotation. Its definitely not the most complex rotation but its fluid and I have complete control over my outcome.
The new eclipse is awkward. Saving up astral power to dump into an eclipse window feels bad to me because it forces you to focus on one thing at a time and if your rotation gets broken you suffer dearly for it.
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New eclipse is broken cause: wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath wrath
So engaging!
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I agree with this 100%. In a single target fight you dont want to do AOE and vice-versa. Forcing you to do something suboptimal you don’t want to do is not engaging gameplay.
Exactly this. Especially when you want to cast Starfire Starfire Starfire Starfire Starfire…
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Bad.
But I feel bad with druid overall in SL.
Worse than in BFA - which I did not think was possible…
I guess it’s time to reroll to have some fun without feeling like a punchingbag.
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Hate it. I prefer an empowerment system over an eclipse system any day. I don’t think this is the solution for making Balance different or interesting to play.
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The recent buff to dots helped but they still feel really bad to press because they dont interact with the rest of the balance spellbook at all and their damage is still so low. Our dots being so weak really devalues items like circle of life and death and skills like adaptive swarm.
A few things I think would make our dots feel better:
- boost damage by at least 30%
- un-nerf the diminishing returns on shooting stars so our astral power gen scales with more targets.
- have critical strikes from dots do something. Boost our other spells, shave time off our cooldowns. anything. The spec has zero interaction with critical strikes.
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Unfortunately eclipse does not work with the current iteration of balance. Inside of either eclipse state there is little to no interaction with our entire crit. During solar it feels wasteful to cast other spells besides wrath and starsurge, and the same goes for lunar. You seem to be wasting your damage potential.
While starsurge does not get increased damage during either state, it does buff each state making it feel as you need to save it for your eclipse states…again wasting potential if casted outside.
Adding the moon spell from talents feels very awkward. Like when do I cast this? Is it worth casting during either eclipse state? What about stellar flare? fury of elune?
The thing about SP old VF was that all spells seemed to have some interaction with their state. It seems like only a 1/4 of ours do.
In aoe situations solar eclipse is just going to be a wasted state. What is the point of it? We will have these 15s windows where our aoe complements starfall, and then 15s where starfall is the only thing happening. Maybe this is their intended purpose.
Overall I think the current state of balance will do well on patchwerk style fights, and a couple minor movement fights. Outside of those I do not see balance being a worthwhile spec.
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Empowerments and Eclipse are both bad systems. Empowerments are totally meaningless. You almost never need to worry about not having them, and they are essentially permanent buffs to your nukes. But even with the buffs Balance nukes are weak outside of Starsurge.
Eclipse is bad. It adds ramp-up which sucks for everyone but especially for PvP. It hurts AoE potential a lot, and means we’re going to spend a lot of time in PvE spamming a single nuke repeatedly.
There are so many better ways to do the sun and moon theme. Here’s a random one:
- Starsurge now has a cast time between Wrath and Starfire and doesn’t do very much damage
- Every time you cast Wrath, you gain a stack of Solar Energy
- Every time you cast Starfire, you gain a stack of Lunar Energy
- When you have X stacks of each, you enter an Eclipse state, which dramatically increases the damage of Starsurge and gives you the Warrior of Elune buff (3 instant, hard-hitting Starfires)
- A PvP talent reduces the number of stacks needed to enter the Eclipse state by a little bit.
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I completely agree that Eclipse with a “builder/spender” model is not good, but what you described is essentially the same thing lol
You “ramp” to get stacks of x, and after x happens, you deal a LOT of damage. This is basically Starsurge and one of the reasons why damage outside our 3 min cooldown is awful.
Take a look at how Lunar Strike has evolved since Legion -
The ability goes from generating 12 Astral Power at 350% of Spell Power to generating only 8 Astral Power at 77% Spell Power because of mechanics like Eclipse.
This is why Shadowlands Moonkin does not feel mechanically good. It’s really not fun.
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I get that there’s ramp but my idea was supposed to imply that Wrath and Starfire do substantially more damage than they do today and that you could decide which to cast and when. You wouldn’t be on the eclipse roller coaster.