Balance Druid update

Classes Druid
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"Casting 3 Starfires empowers Wrath for 10 sec. Casting 3 Wraths empowers Starfire for 10 sec. These Eclipses occur in alternation.

Summarizing some of the biggest points coming out of early feedback:
–General negative feeling on the RNG startup of Eclipse. A few people did notice that there was pretty strong bad-luck protection on the proc, but ultimately that didn’t seem to help in this case.
–The idea of the 30s ICD wasn’t worth all the confusion. It was intended to simply alternate Eclipses in long combats, so it’s clearer to straightforwardly do that.

An important detail of the change (the number of casts to start an Eclipse is now fixed at 3) is that the count is visible in the default UI–highlighting this since it won’t be obvious to people who have only seen datamining. This lets you know, among other things, when you’ve been out of combat long enough to “reset” and be able to start with either Eclipse again, so you don’t have to guess about that. It also makes the mechanics clearer, for example, that you can enter either Eclipse immediately after Celestial Alignment ends.

Another problem solved by no longer being random is that you’re not stuck in the middle of a “wrong” cast when Eclipse starts (Eclipse feels a bit longer when you play it in this version, for this reason). You can plan a buffed nuke or Starsurge crisply at the start of Eclipse, as well as allowing more advanced planning around DoT refreshes and movement.

Finally, it’s expected that there are better and worse Eclipse timings in a long encounter based on whether Wrath or Starfire is more valuable at given moments, and there’s some ability to manipulate it as you learn what’s coming. There hasn’t been a lot of opportunities for people to explore this yet, but Starsurge timing, DoT timing, Celestial Alignment, and choice of starting Eclipse are all ways to influence the cycle.

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So it’s clear Blizzard are aware of the problems, but they aren’t helping the spec feel any less boring. I don’t think the Eclipse system works in the modern-day WoW, especially with Astral Power. Eclipses made more sense with the eclipse bar back in MoP and WoD. With astral power, this boring rotation will force us to NOT extend the eclipses in certain situations which means we have to refrain from pressing starsurge/starfall and instead overcapping on AP. This is already a major flaw since starsurge should be our biggest hitting ability, and not wanting to press it is straight up bad.

The whole rotation is counter-intuitive and feels bad to have to cast the opposite spell to what the situation requires. Casting single target spells in an AoE situations, in dungeons and raid trash the pack will be half-dead by the time you get round to whichever eclipse is best for AOE as melee exists.

Also since they’re adding old legendaries back, what happens if we get oneths intuition which felt like a fun legendary. It would force us to use the Starsurge/Starfall proc - meaning it would extend our current eclipse well what if we didn’t want too? I know this legendary might not return, but it’s something to consider. What happens with the starlord talent? (that’s always BIS) it forces us to starsurge at specific points to maintain the haste buff, but again, what if at the time we need to extend, that it messes with our eclipse?

I am failing to see the ability to choose which eclipse like they’re saying. The tooltip says “These Eclipses occur in alternation”-- how does this allow choice? If I finish a solar eclipse (because of the forced alternation) and then I need to do some single target, I won’t be able to because now I’m locked into lunar eclipse.

The rotation as it stands seems to be:
Cast X 3 times
Spam only Y for 16+ seconds
Spam only X for 16+ seconds
Press starsurge/starfall IF you want to extend it
Repeat

Seems more monotonous to me.

I honestly don’t welcome these changes. I don’t want limiting choice and control over my damage. This system is restricting, which is why they removed it in the first place, and a lot of people genuinely didn’t like the eclipse bar. I liked it at the time because I was new and bad, so I didn’t really care but as the years have gone on, I enjoyed Legion balance druid the most.

Legion/BFA Balance may have been simple, but at least it allowed us the choice as we’d rarely ever had before. Also, why are the moon spells still NOT baseline?

I would prefer the spec to be as it is now, with a massive talent overhaul, and for moons to be baseline. Streaking stars baseline would be cool too.

Sorry for the longgggggg post, but i’m really dreading this new eclipse system. I don’t want it to ruin my time in Shadowlands since everything else looks promising. Having fun with the spec is the most important thing to me alongside raiding, so I just want them to make it right.

17 Likes
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Agree on a lot in this post, as it stands now I don’t se an issue with dropping the eclipse system fully. Then you can do aoe when it’s aoe time and st when it’s needed. Currently in bfa the only difference between wrath and LS is the button you press imho.

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I’m also not a big fan of the eclipse system.

“The whole rotation is counter-intuitive and feels bad to have to cast the opposite spell to what the situation requires”

Exactly. But at the same time, if you had to cast 3 wraths to gain solar eclipse, it would also feel bad, cause then you would spam the same filler even longer. So no matter what they do, the eclipse system will be boring or weird.

"These Eclipses occur in alternation” has to be the most stupid thing they’ve done in ages. It’s an illusion of choice. The only thing you can choose is which eclipse you will start with, then you are forced into the next eclipse no matter what. And that’s not good gameplay. I can see a lot of problem with the alternation. For example, at a raid boss where you unlock a new phase at x % where you need a specific eclipse, you will become very dependant on how the dps of the others are. If the dps is either too slow or too fast, the timing of an eclipse could be completely off.

The Legion/BFA version is not perfect, cause the empowerment doesn’t mean that much, but with a couple of tweaks it would be better.

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I totally agree.

I created my druid back in 2010, right at the end of WOTLK, I think. I never got into the class at all, and she languished at around level 20 - 30 for a long time. I came back to her a couple of times, but never played long enough to gain more than a level or two.

During the anniversary raid event, I was maining a DH, and I found I didn’t like melee dps in the raid environment and decided to boost a ranged class. I decided to boost one I’d ‘never’ level otherwise, and looked to my druid. I fell in love with the class and spec, and she became my new main within a few weeks.

I thought it was because the class played so differently at max level, and that may still be a part of it, but now I know what the big change was, and I’m dreading Shadowlands. I don’t want the character I’ve put so much effort into to go back to feeling awkward and dysfunctional again.

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It’s definitely an illusion of choice. And ultimately more boring and spammy.

I honestly wouldn’t mind them scrapping it at this point. All they needed to do was make empowerments more interesting and impactful because currently, you don’t notice the difference between an empowered spell or not.

I would have liked a talent overhaul as well, most of our talents are just passives, which again don’t feel impactful (Natures balance, Twin Moons and Shooting Stars) I’m fine with those talents, but when they’re the only GOOD ones all expansion, it’s kind of lame.

I would have liked the moon spells baseline, for an extra button to press. It felt awesome in legion pressing full moon. Sadly, the talent has been badly optimised numbers wise in BFA.

I do like the new starfall changes, I don’t mind the current one though, but it will make it less awkward when pulling mobs in tight, enclosed spaces.

I’ve been seeing mostly negativity around the new eclipse system on multiple different forums (EU, US, MMO Champion, Wowhead etc) which gives me a bit of hope.

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Legion felt good, just the full moon was a problem (in pvp mostly) for long cast.
In BFA it felt not so good at start, but after some hast stacked it feels even better then legion even w/o weird talants or breaking a hand with crappy rotation.

Posted it in other thread, but again.
You can watch video on tube, like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxoC9OXLSFk

Eclipse (Solar)
Wrath cast time reduced 8% and damage increased 20%
Eclipse (Lunar)
Starfire cast time reduced 8% and area effect damage increased 100% .

Lets say a dung, 4-6 packs in front of you, but eclipse must alterate, so you:

  1. cast 3 Wraths (w/o any eclipse buff) for Eclipse (Lunar), them spam Starfires and Starsurge to prolong eclipse. (Sorry, no starfall for you, coz you need to keep eclipse up)
  2. On 2nd pack you run out of eclipse so you cast 3 more Starfires (w/o eclipse buff), remove buff of Eclipse (Solar) and go to point 1.

“meanwhile the dh has eye-beamed, death sweeped, and popped immolation aura” ©

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I don’t think it was a problem in pvp at all. It hit like a truck, so a big cast time was needed otherwise that’d be a bit broken? I was just happy with something else to press and to generate AP.

I think starfall will hit harder on AOE than an eclipse, because now only starfire does aoe, they removed it from wrath. But again, that’s just a mindless rotation. By time time we may get in a lunar eclipse, the trash is probably dead because of melee. It’s just an awful system.

I’m really dreading how covenants will work as well, and what legendaries they will introduce. It sounds like even more of a giant mess.

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Just throwing it in there but it seems like the new SL version won’t be playable without like adding tracking the timers and internal couldowns. Like if you don’t have an advanced weakauras it will be very hard to play this good just sitting and looking up on the buffs in the right hand corner and stopwatch ticking in your hand.

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I don’t like the eclipse changes. I always mained druid and balance was the one spec I could never get into, until Legion that is. And it’s now my main spec. This all feels like a revert for the sake of it, disregarding wether it feels better or not.

Currently we have a gameplay where we empower two of our spells, which we then need to use equally. Except there are random procs which make it all interesting because then we have to keep balance between our empowerments, and we also have to dump one empowerment over the other situationally, depending on the number of targets.

And they want to remove this and make… 30 seconds phases where we spam one spell, and 30 seconds phases where we spam another spell?

I also don’t buy into the “extend the eclipse you want with starsurge” thing. We’ll always be using it to not overcap, and we’ll always be generating the same amount of astral power.
Which means that besides maybe storing 2 or 3 casts before the eclipse you want, you’ll still be using the same number of starsurges during either eclipses. Which means you’ll extend both eclipses equally, which means there is no choice, not even an illusion of choice.
Am I missing something there?

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I honestly don’t know why they didn’t just improve the current system we have. Small, simple changes would have improved it alone, no need for a complete overhaul to add eclipses on top of astral power.

My biggest issues with the system are what you mentioned. Spamming one spell until the next eclipse. Starsurge will be less desirable if we don’t want to extend the said eclipse. Starsurge will no doubt be the biggest hitter, since they don’t want to give us full moon back baseline…It may not be a numbers issue, but in raid/dungeon scenarios, we will be spamming one spell to build AP to fire off a starsurge/starfall (like we do now) but instead of weaving wrath and lunar strike to use the empowerments, we will be spamming ONE button depending on which eclipse we’re in. Now to me, that’s going backwards on design, not forwards? I’m really struggling to understand the design choice here. There is ultimately less choice than we have now. I don’t know why ‘‘top end players’’ are supporting this system and saying it’s better as there’s more skill involved. I mean, really? spamming one button is skill? Maybe they’re not as good as they think they are then…lol.

But yeah, this system doesn’t sound fun at all. And we haven’t even gotten into the covenants and legendaries on top of that. Jesus.

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Bumping this so it doesn’t get lost. Still no updates on the eclipse system :confused:

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It certainly seems like they’re making Balance a more skill-based spec, which is certainly welcome. It is clear that you are actively going to be making decisions during encounters; Which eclipse do I open with? Do I Starsurge to extend my Eclipse or do I Starfall to extend my DoTs? Is the boss going to spawn adds soon, if so I should stop extending this eclipse so I will be in the next one by then, etc.

It may seem pretty basic, but it’s a big change compared to how braindead the spec is right now.

But I don’t like feeling weak at the opening of every encounter. And I don’t want being “empowered” to mean I just spam one spell. At least in the current spec I am casting both LS and Wrath simultaneously and I can feel hooked into the rotation right at the start of each encounter.

I agree with this. The current spec works, it can just be made more interesting instead of scrapped completely. Would it be possible to take the current spec and just make it more skill based? Give the player some important decisions?

My current stance is that I like the spec being harder to play perfectly, but that this current implementation could feel bad.

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Skill-based specs are welcome, however, I don’t think the eclipse bar is more skill-based. I played with it in MoP and WoD, and it was repetitive.

The only decision I can see is which spell do you open with - but that’s once. After that, the cycle continues. From Solar to Lunar, vice versa. We will probably be always extending the eclipse due to starsurge being our biggest hitting ability, and do we really want to NOT press it for say, 10 seconds? No. That’s bad design. That’s not even skill, it’s just waiting around for your eclipse to change. I actually think there’s more skill involved with the current one despite it’s flaws. I have raided with a lot of balance druids, and there are still people who don’t know how to play the spec properly because they are overcapping and wasting empowerments. I’ve seen this happen on their logs.

I would rather, and I’ve heard many people say it as well, that the current empowerment system should just be improved upon to make it more engaging.

I’m not sure if they can make the eclipses work without it feeling monotonous, spammy and the lack of choice in single target and aoe situations. I certainly do not want restrictive control over my damage. That should be up to ME and my skill, not what the spec is telling me what to do.

I’m hoping they scrap the system entirely, or just make massive improvements.

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All I want is to be able to do some aoe damage again.

Damnit, we went from King’s to farmer’s after one expansion. But I think and hope new Starfall and aoe cap on other classes will bring that back.

Terms of eclipse, I’m fine with it. But we don’t need Astral Power anymore, give us charges and shooting star back please.

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Our AOE is fine. It’s just the tuning they have ignored. In BfA, we have been better at single target, which is kind of weird considering we have an AOE build that just does no damage lol.

And yeah, astral power makes no sense alongside the eclipses. It makes it feel clunky and there’s no need for it. Eclipses will work better with the eclipse bar. I wouldn’t mind an eclipse system like MoP/WoD, but it was more fun back then because we had procs. And they won’t give us procs, and I doubt they’ll give us charges.

The current system is fine IMO. Just improve it. Make it more fun and engaging, make it feel rewarding to have empowerments.

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''Balance: Notably in this build, starting Eclipse requires 2 spells rather than 3. Doesn’t require a big explanation, but should be strongly felt. In particular, the windup at the start of combat is much shorter (especially when you can precast 1 of the 2 spells).

We’re also trying a version of Celestial Alignment that’s not extendable to arbitrary duration; it was simply going to cause nearly certain balance problems later on. It is now a fixed-duration cooldown that still provides a large damage increase.

Celestial Alignment Celestial bodies align, maintaining both Eclipses and granting 15% critical strike chance for 20 sec.
Eclipse: Casting 2 Starfire empowers Wrath for 10 sec. Casting 2 Wrath empowers Starfire for 10 sec. These Eclipses occur in alternation".

Sooooooo these are the new updates from yesterday. THIS STILL DOESN’T FIX THE BORING, MONOTONOUS, RESTRICTIVE ROTATION. All it does is make us begin the eclipse cycle faster at the start of the combat phase. This is worrying. They seem dead set on keeping this dreadful eclipse system.

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yeah this vahnge made it fell 100% better. Still very fond of then curent version tho :))

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Interesting.

I decided to rank up my druid’s cloak an hour ago. After 2 tight runs for 2 books at rank 6 I feel my balance druid suck. Simmed 44 kdps. 2 fights with Alleria: 22-24 kdps. What the h…?
This mage - 3 ilvls higher - does 60-70 kdps. Without corruptions and bloodlust. Sometimes I nuke any of the vision end bosses without proccing my corruption tentacles.
So I’m not sure my druid will do a full clear in a horrific vision… Ever. And balance druid was my main until lich king. :confused: The balance spec is/was fun. But I feel blizzard has evolved the game so there is no room for a balance spec anymore besides herbing.

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If you sim 44 dps and do half it’s not anything wrong with the spec sorry

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I know. :slight_smile: If I stand still I can do around 30-32. But the Alleria fight in SW has a lot of movement and downtime.