There seems to be a resoundingly negative response toward the Eclipse system, and I think the main cause of this is that balance druid’s main damage source (AP finishers) requires being in Eclipse to be able to do their “full” damage, and this just feels bad.
I think most of the issue could be alleviated with a simple change:
Make Starsurge & Starfall damage not affected by being in Eclipse (so they do their “full” damage regularly)
Instead, being in Eclipse increases the damage of Wrath/Starfire (as it does now), and increases the amount of AP they generate
With the system working like this, being in Eclipse will still give you windows of increased hard-casted damage, while also letting you still be able to use your instant AP spenders to maintain some mobile damage. More importantly druids also won’t feel forced into constantly be worrying about ramping up into an Eclipse window even for shorter encounters (etc) because they will still be able to deal somewhat competitive damage with Starsurge/Starfall.
I’ve seen other ideas floated around as well, but I feel like these changes would be realistically reasonable implement in the short amount of time there is left before SL releases, and would make the spec feel much better overall.
its not eclipse itself that adds to their damage…it’s mastery which increases nature and arcane damage during eclipse. so what you’d be asking for is a redesign of our mastery
“Eclipse” is a dirty word, probably because the folks who really dislike it remember the WOD version…which was actually awful.
The Cata/MOP model of Eclipse, however, is beloved. Part of the issue is the Blizzard removed snapshotting, which kinda killed Eclipse gameplay. It went from one of the more complex classes to one of the easiest. (Same issue with Feral, basically).
If you don’t like Eclipse, go play Elemental Shaman. It’s been the non-Eclipse Moonkin for a decade.
Nope, didn’t really play much in wod. Eclipse is just a name to me. Currently it means that my empowerments have a 20% chance to trigger the other, in about a month, it will mean that I’ll be spamming Starsurge, possibly keeping up my maintenance Starfall buff, then the associated filler repeatedly for the remainder of the 15 second window.
Currently, the system they’re using for balance druids looks like trash; both in terms of gameplay and viability.
