You speak on this class like its some Egyptian hieroglyphs that only you have the knowledge of. Its not that complicated to see the notes and videos and visualize how the spec is gonna be if it goes live like this. BFA balance is the most popular the spec as ever been and thats because its way more fun than any eclipse iteration before it. That should give you a sign. Bringing this spec back to an old and proven unpopular version is just ridiculous and the fact that you promote it makes me question whether or not you have even played the spec at all in BFA. For every 1 person you can quote that says eclipse is good i can find you 4 more saying its bad.
4 Likes
You’re right, Balance is easy to visualize.
Consistently, Balance has been one of the simplest specs since WOD. There’s room to master the spec, but it’s also easy to deal relatively good damage. Druid is one of the most popular classes, and has been for a decade. That also happens to be as long as I’ve been putting focus into “gameplay feedback” for Balance Druid.
When there’s a major change to Balance, such as WOD’s Starsurge/Starfall charges, that was me solving a problem of “Devs don’t want Starfall to be used on Single-Target.” That led directly to the Astral Power system in Legion and BFA.
During BFA’s Beta, Balance Druid was looking poor and needed iteration. I was approached by Class Devs to help identify sore points and provide feedback such as “what would you change?” I gave them feedback and they made A LOT of changes that aligned with said feedback.
BFA Moonkin has major flaws, though. Shadowlands Moonkin has major flaws too. We have ideas on how to these flaws.
Druid is one of the most popular classes, and has been for a decade.
Guardian isn’t great (few players like to play tank).
Feral isn’t great, and Balance matches performance of Feral with far less effort.
Balance and Resto are the most popular specs on Druid by a mile and a half.
The Empowerment mechanic has no meaning in BFA. Empowerment is always active. Empowerment is limiting BFA Moonkin specifically because Empowerment no longer provides a meaningful choice. The difference between an Empowered filler and non-Empowered filler is negligible.
And guess what Eclipse does? Practically the same thing as Empowerment, minus the meaningless choice. In single-target, it effectively buffs your filler…like Empowerment. Once you shift to AOE, Eclipse a little different and it’s currently one of the sore points in Shadowlands we’re hoping to patch up.
Whether or not you agree with feedback I’ve posted, no single person represents “the average player.”
Every new expansion, I put forward a lot of effort to make Balance Druid as enjoyable as possible for as many players as possible. I’m glad you enjoyed BFA Moonkin. I hope you’ll enjoy Shadowlands Moonkin too.
3 Likes
I did forget to mention this. This is another sore point. We’re working on a solution for this. For Wrath, it kinda doesn’t matter. (Finishing your cast is almost always better.) The issue is with Starfire in particular.
Currently, the leading idea is a buff: “Your next Wrath will activate Solar Eclipse.” and “Your next Starfire will activate Lunar Eclipse.”
It’s not complicated to add, but it’s hard to make it fit into the existing gameplay along with the Devs’ idea. Devs want to keep the RNG in place, so working out how that could work is…tough. (This ties in with your #2 point as well.)
In Shadowlands, pooling has more to do with pooling Astral Power for the preferred Eclipse state (Solar). Movement mechanics still apply, but it’s getting the most out of your Single-Target or AOE.
For the average player, so long as you dump your AStral Power in Ecipse ,it’ll be good enough. For min/max’ing, there’s an extra layer for the more mechanically-skilled players. The goal is for Balance’s core rotation to be “hey, this is good enough for most” yet when you want to master the spec, there’s a “slightly better way” to handle the basics.
Example:
- Basic: “Pool Astral Power for Eclipse”
- Advanced: “Pool Astral Power for Solar Eclipse.”
Of course, it’s not going to be tricky or anything overly-difficult. It’s just a more optimal gameplay decision. If we stack up enough of these optimal choices, we can see a significant difference between your average player and a great player. This is the sort of depth we aim for. A bunch of little improvements, basically.
Eclipse doesn’t care about resource flooding. That’s the best part. At some point, it might be possible to get feelings of MOP Moonkin. I kinda hope the spec progresses towards that playstyle a little more as we get more gear. (Basically, it means more Starsurges and Starfalls.)
2 Likes
Okay, please just nudge them towards not dealing crap damage in pvp. working around eclipses sounds so rough.
2 Likes
I haven’t gotten into the alpha yet, so can’t speak to how everything currently feels, but I have to wonder if they could Soothe some of the sore points & RNG with talent choices.
Say, Row 1. AP generators with some burst/utility depending on content/scenario. Nature’s balance as a passive may not fit in it’s current state, but what if the on-use abilities interacted with Eclipse proccing (especially with WoE being tied to Starfire). Are the CDs for WoE/FoN too long to give meaningful choices to the player in the heat of battle (when to use)?
In BFA testing I thought activating WoE should also make the SFs empowered (no number crunching involved), what if it increased chance of proccing Eclipse?
I don’t know, without eyes on it’s just hot air, but putting some locus of control in the players hands would be nice, especially with some of the PvP concerns.
This sounds very much like what I suggested:
Thats what I suggested in the topic I made a few days ago about the problem with eclipse triggering mid-cast. I like it better the way you said it’s being considered AS LONG AS the eclipse that is triggered happens on spell cast AND affects the wrath or starfire you are using to trigger the eclipse also. I’m not understanding how it affects rng too much, since the buff is an rng proc.
Just hope our fillers do damage so its always the correct thing to finish your cast when eclipse procs.
i’m a fan of (obviously since i suggested it in the first place) giving a buff that causes your next spell cast to trigger the eclipse. As long as it affects that spellcast also!! I’m not a programmer but I’m sure it’s probably easy enough to code it so that the modifier is applied before the spell affect
You would run into a handful of problems with something like that, as cyous said the buff has to proc on the next spell that you cast not the spell that would of put you in eclipse because of certain abilities like owlkin frenzy making certain abilities instant.
Im all for a work around like that but honestly if our fillers just did any damage at all like they have from vanilla -> Wod it would honestly mean nothing damage wise and would kind of just be a mechanic you can forget about.
i don’t think there’s anyway to forget about it. with wrath like he said, its a shorter cast time and with it being a projectile with travel time by the time it hits and procs its negligible since it probably takes just as long to stop casting and switch. with starfire its a longer cast time and it hits quicker so you’ll be in the beginning of a longer cast.
The only way to do what you say is to nerf the eclipse buff. Not sure that’s an option to be excited about.
That in itself would just about fix every issue I take with alpha eclipse. I wish development were more susceptible to the idea but I understand that not every aspect of a spec’s rotation should be entirely player-controlled. RNG that a player reacts to can add variety in a positive way.
Maybe a 1.5 second ‘rising sun’ or ‘rising moon’ buff to give a player a small heads up before an eclipse begins would be enough. Activation would still be entirely random but a player could safely complete their starfire cast without compromising DPS.
Druid as a class may have been popular for the last decade because of resto and guardian, but balance as a spec has only been popular since the dumping of the eclipse system… the difference of empowerments and eclipses is that i control the rotation with empowerments, with eclipses the rotation controls me…I can just sit on my empowerments until the right time to use either because the buff lasts a long time. If i try to do that with eclipses i just miss the buff altogether and have to end up casting the wrong spell in the current situation to proc the right buff for the current situation… Eclipses controlling my rotation simply for the sake of “a meaningful choice” isnt fun at all. This is gonna be one of those situations where there will be a mass exodus from this spec come it going live. Which will be quite unfortunate considering the popularity of it currently.
2 Likes
I greatly appreciate your work into the spec, I enjoy the playstyle and have faith it will be fun to play in shadowlands thanks in part to your hard work.
Currently, the leading idea is a buff: “Your next Wrath will activate Solar Eclipse.” and “Your next Starfire will activate Lunar Eclipse.”
I really like this idea but ask this question: Is it ok with the devs if something like this leads to a pre gaming vs a target dummy where people get the buff, and therefor start the boss pull with a guranteed eclipse proc?
1 Like
doesnt seem worth the trouble. besides doubt the buff would last long enough.
2 cents here:
-
WRT sunfire vs. insect swarm, should this just be a glyph??
-
WRT eclipse and pvp/cc, talent ideas:
a) extend eclipse time when cc’d while eclipse is active
b) gain X seconds of eclipse after gaining control of your character. this proc doesn’t affect ICD of eclipse, and would have an ICD of it’s own
c) you are unccable when eclipsed… kidding!
not a bad idea. something like your eclipse timer is paused when stunned or incapacitated.
i like C a lot though…lol
As a boomkin main I really hope they don’t bring back the eclipse system I was so much happier once it got changed. I rather enjoy the newer one in bfa but i did prefer starfall having charges like back in wod.
my idea boomkin would be
Bfa Boomer play style with wod star fall and moon ability from legion artifact weapon stream lined instead of a talent because it was always fun dropping moons but now its very lack luster.
sadly i see my self changing mains if the eclipse system gets brought back in and aking my druid my alt 
2 Likes
I’m not looking forward to this boomy iteration. Eclipse is a pain in pvp and I think the current system fixes the issues of it.
Empowerment and eclipse does the same thing for rotation: press the lit up button, I’m fine with that. Whether it’s press wrath in solar eclipse or for solar empowerment you still press the appropriate spell.
Revert but keep Starfall change.
Edit: was brain storming today; what if mastery only increased astral damage, then eclipse changed nature or arcane damage to astral damage during the window? That way we don’t need to fish for eclipse to cast spenders.
3 Likes
Astral damage is Nature, Arcane. So, it would be a flat buff at all times.
I only played balance during WoD. Man is my take on the spec super skewed. WTF was that bar lol.
1 Like