My problem with Balance druids in DF and how I would fix them

[Zandaz-outland]

Balance druid has always been my main spec for multiple reasons. But most importantly, I found it really fun and skill expressive. However, after each expansion I struggle to enjoy it more and more. This is mainly due to the way that they have completely changed the spec and how it works. As many others have stated, the spec feels like a mix between a lot of different expansion iterations of the spec, and just leaves it in a weird and unsatisfying place in Dragonflight. This is especially because of the way mastery and eclipses work.

It is necessary to mention that there have been two major systems for the eclipse/empowerment systems.

In WotLK, eclipse was a mechanic that buffed the damage of either Wrath or Starfire, by critting with the other spell.

From Cata → MoP → WoD, we had different iterations of an eclipse and empowerment system. We had an eclipse mechanic and an eclipse bar, which would empower respectively solar and lunar spells. Casting one type of spell would make the bar move to the other direction until an empowerment was reached. (This is probably poorly explained, sorry for that). In these iterations of the spec, mastery would generally just increase the damage buff for the specific empowerment.

Then, in legion this mechanic was completely scrapped and the spec was totally reworked. It was no longer based on cds and procs, which it had been since at least Cata. It would now be focused on a, “builder spender” type of gameplay. Which focused on building astral power and spending it on Starfall(aoe) or Starsurge(st).

The legion revamp has “generally” stuck since legion up till Dragonflight. With some bigger and smaller changes to eclipse and empowerments to wrath and Starfire.

Now we hopefully have an understanding of the two different systems. it is time to talk about the problems. The WotLK system was, as mentioned, changed in Cata. This was to remove the RNG effect from crits, and put direct control into the players hand with the new system. This generally worked, as players would more consistently switch between casting solar and lunar spells for max power. It is important to mention, that Starsurge was a casted spell with 3 charges. Procs from DoTs, would make it instant cast and free (if I remember correctly). This created a heavy cd and proc based playstyle, which would require you to focus a lot on your UI.
The Cata version of the eclipse system, would move the bars only when you cast Starfire or Wrath. This made it a bit awkward to play as you didn’t always want to be in the current eclipse state.
In MoP, the eclipse system would be iterated to make it move and switch eclipse automatically, unless you casted or were in an empowerment. A new spell would also be introduced. “Commune” (or something like that), which allowed the player to channel for a few seconds and increase the rate at which the natural eclipse cycle would move by 300% or something like that. This made it a lot easier for the player to chose what eclipse to be in, but would still incentivize playing with the natural eclipse cycle, as channeling the spell stopped you from casting spells. This made the class pretty hard to play effectively, adding skill expression. (A plus in my book).
Some changes were made in WoD, but I don’t remember them to be that different (could be wrong though).

The spec was changed completely in legion, as mentioned. This was to remove the reliance on looking at the UI, and waiting for procs to deal damage. This was then replaced with the builder/spender type of gameplay we still see today in Dragonflight. This was to make it easier and more consistent to play the spec, as you could chose to when to get Starsurges or Starfalls off. Eclipse would not be a part of the spec in this iteration.
Eclipses were again introduced in BFA, as an RNG mechanic to reduce the monotony of chain-casting one generator for the other to be useful. Both Wrath and Starfire would deal AOE dmg in this iteration.
This was again changed in Shadowlands and was made similar to the WotLK version. Starfire was for AOE though, and wrath would be for ST. Empowerments would reduce cast time of both spells, crit for Starfire and damage of Wrath. The Eclipse mastery was just flat % damage increase for both schools of magic.
At last, we’re here! Dragonflight. What a journey! Some good and a lot of bad (IMO).
Dragonflight changed the way eclipse works, as you’re free to stay in the same eclipse empowerment forever if you chose so. You just have to cast 2 Wrath for lunar eclipse and 2 Starfire for solar eclipse. In this iteration you would cast Wrath for ST and Starfire for AOE. But Wrath is just useless, so you’re probably permanently in lunar eclipse.

This is obviously quite a long post, and I have neglected a lot of important changes to spells like Huricane (AOE spell), Starfall (AOE spell) and Starsurge(ST) and some other things. But I don’t know how to put everything into this post, so I hope that’s okay.
As can be seen, a lot of changes has been made to the spec, which has left it in quite a weird spot in my opinion.

In my personal opinion, I liked the eclipse/empowerment system from MoP the most, with the proc and cd based playstyle of hard hitting Starfires and Starsurges. I feel like Wrath, Starfire and Starsurges have mostly been a joke since legion. For ST damage, Starfire was a joke. Same goes for Wrath, as a lot of the ST damage was put into DoTs and Starsurge, and the occasional Full Moon. So the only consistent damage in ST came from DoTs and Starsurges, which just felt really bad to spam 3-4 times in a row. And after having used all astral power on Starsurges, you had to spam a lot of meaningless filler spells (Starfire/Wrath) until you could Starsurge again. It was just boring and meaningless gameplay which felt bad. (Again, in my opinion).
I don’t remember much about the AOE damage, as I mainly played PvP, so I honestly don’t remember. However I do recall a lot of drama surrounding Starfall for a couple of expansions, up to DF. In Dragonflight, it feels like most of our damage comes from DoTs and Wild Mushroom (Nice to get that one back), due to the talent, “Waning Twilight”, which increase damage by up to 8% on targets with 3 DoTs on it. And of course, Starsurge. In terms of AOE, I think it’s mostly just Starfire spam in lunar eclipse (Could be wrong though).

How would I fix this problem?
I would revert back to the MoP version and make some changes.
Balance druid should never have been a builder spender in my opinion, as it felt more forced that actually fitting of the spec.

The proc and CD based playstyle and iteration of the spec felt a lot better, even though it relied a lot more on RNG. Starfire was a hard hitting single target spell with a long cast time. Wrath was a fast cast time less hard hitting spell. Both spells felt relevant to cast, at least with eclipse empowerments on. Starsurge was a medium cast time hard hitting spell with 3 charges, with instant cast, procs like lava burst from elemental shamans.
Starfall was a powerful 1 min CD AOE spell. And then we had a designated AOE spell, hurricane. Which also benefited from eclipses. It was a channel like Blizzard. Maybe a bit old school or boring to channel for AOE, but hey, we still have Blizzard as a spell. And personally, I liked the spell. It worked fine and could be used flexibly like getting rouges out of stealth in PvP. Then we had the eclipse cycling system with empowerments. Maybe not flawless, but definitely a lot more interesting, skill expressive and fun than what we have now. Especially with the commune spell. I would then introduce Wild Mushroom from DF and Full Moon. Maybe Convoke, though the spec would probably be overloaded already. I would have Sunfire and Moonfire as two seperate spells.
I recognize that the changes will probably be impossible to balance, still have some problems and probably be overloaded. But tbh. I’m fine with broken classes, as long as they’re fun to play. And if everything is broken, nothing is :).

This is my first attempt to write a thread ever, so I don’t know if it is good or made sense. But I really wanted to share my opinion. I’ve read a few threads on balance druids, and it does not seem like a lot of people share this perspective. I would love to know why, so please don’t hesitate to give me feedback. I would love discussing this topic as I’m quite passionate about balance druids.

Sorry if I missed something important (which I probably did). Took me quite a bit of time to write this :).
(Hope I’m on the right thread lawl).

[Seorsafea-shattered-hand]

I’ve been playing this druid since Vanilla when I first played as a balance/resto hybrid (to great annoyance of my raid leader). Then they changed some talents and added moonkin form, I was sold and went full Balance. When they added the treants, I was overjoyed, reminded me of warcraft 3. In TBC I played a ton of balance, mostly pvp but also heroics and the earlier raids like karazhan and gruul. I loved it. Then in WotLK they changed the spec, can no longer remember what (even after reading your post), but I didn’t like it like before. So I benched my druid that xpac in favor of a demo-lock (loved me that metamorphosis cooldown… Dang demon hunters ruining things). When cataclysm came I tried my druid again, but I think it was then they added the shifting eclipse bar, hated it… Being forced to cast a certain school in pvp was a no-no for me.

To be fair every xpac after I played a month or two and got bored, so hard to comment. Untill I got back in BFA and tried my druid again near the end of the expansion. Can’t remember how it worked too well, but I didn’t hate it. Then in Shadowlands I played mainly my druid as balance in m+ (14-15 keys so nothing too fancy) in season 1. In a way I liked the system and the mastery etc, I only didn’t like you were still forced to cycle the eclipses. Felt “bad” to be forced into single target on trash and vice versa.

So when I saw they changed that in DF I was over the moon. But then they once again changed a whole bunch of other things and now I don’t know. First expansion playing guardian and actually enjoying that, but I’ll admit that I often try to build balance builds in the talentcalculator, collecting the gear and saying “I will give it an other try soon”, it just keeps calling. I only wish they had just kept it like in SL except for the no-forced-cycling of DF added. And hadn’t put so much focus on dots. But we’ll see, perhaps I’ll end up liking it again later in the expansion.

Though even more secretly, I wish they reverted back to TBC with longass, but big numbers starfire casts . To be fair, without mana being an issue, you’d just cast wrath as it as the higher dps in exchange for more mana.

[Zandaz-outland]

I can understand the “no-no” of being forced into casting a certain school, especially from a PvP perspective. And to be honest, I don’t know how to fix that. My best idea would to, as I mentioned in my post, add the commune spell. That way you had some way of controlling what eclipse you were playing with, yet still incentivized to switch between the eclipses. However, I of course still don’t fix the problem entirely, since you can be kicked on commune as well, which can be a problem.

I played for like 2 or 3 months of Shadowlands, and played minimal PvE content, maybe a few mythics. But that’s more or less it. So I can’t personally tell just how bad it was. But being forced to cast ST spells to deal AOE, is just a design problem. And while it may be boring to some players, the Hurricane spell would kind of fix this. Because now we would have a designated low cd AOE spell. Maybe you could add some sort of eclipse mechanic, like in MoP, to the spell. This could maybe make it more interesting to play with. Now, you would have at least a few ways of dealing AOE damage, with DoTs, Hurricane, Full Moon and Wild Mushrooms. Whilst still having ST damage with my version of Starfire, Starsurge and Wrath (from my post). Personally, I think this would fix a lot of core issues with the spec in its current form, while also making it more fun to play, more skill expressive and more versatile.

The way they changed the spec to be DoT-focused in DF, was a disaster for me. Especially since they force you to spec into, Waning Twilight, (8% damage buff on targets with 3 DoTs on it) for damage, and force Stellar Flare. Oh god… Stellar Flare.
I think the spell could have been really fun to play with, and I like the idea of it. But the damage is just non-existent, and it is a casted DoT. Moonfire deals more damage than a casted DoT which can lock you out of both schools, if kicked on. This is just fundamentally bad, since you’re only casting SF for the waning Twilight Buff and maybe some astral power generation, but punished heavily if kicked on. And it just feels terrible to use since it hits less than a wet noodle.
The DF version of the spec almost feels more like an affliction warlock than a recognizable boomy. If I wanted to only focus on my DoTs, I would just play affli. But I want hard hitting Starsurges and Starfires back with meaningfull eclipses and wrath casts :(. Guess I will just have to wait for the next expansion again, for some hope. Or the next again… That is to assume they will ever return back to the old eclipse cycling system.

Of course, I don’t hate everything about the spec in its current form. I generally like the new talent trees, they should just be heavily reworked in the case of balance druid. I like that we have Heart of the Wild and Natures Vigil back. Really missed those.

Anyways. I would like to keep the discussion going for Blizzard, or other people, to get some ideas on what to change about the spec. After all, we’re multiple people who lock our chickens and want the best for the spec. So the more ideas the merrier.

[Tanzbaer-eredar]

@Zandaz-outland

In MoP, the eclipse system would be iterated to make it move and switch eclipse automatically, unless you casted or were in an empowerment.

The automatic moving was introduced in wod. Mop was pretty much the same as cata. And by far the best version of balance druid from a raiding perspective.

That being said, I totally understand that ppl (pvper and m+ mostly) hate eclipse bars or empowerments.
Luckily, there is a very obvious solution: talent trees.
Just make it a talent joice. Eclipse bar, empowerments, builder spender. Everybody could enjoy the version he likes. Sure, one has to be ‘the best’. And for raiding, it would have to be eclipse bar otherwise no one would bother with its complexity.

Aside from that I always liked hurricane more than starfall. So wouldnt mind if it makes a return

[Zandaz-outland]

Okay, guess I did get something wrong then Thanks for correcting it though.

I can understand why people would not like the eclipse bars or empowerments. But as a pvp’r myself, I did like the system, and I think a lot of it comes down to getting used to the system. Personally I think it worked wonders in MoP, as it was both satisfying to play and felt strong.

I did not really play PvE that much, so I can speak to the power of the spec in say, raiding content. But I would assume it would be similar.

As much as I would like a version similar to the MoP version of the spec to return. I must be honest and say I’m not hopeful, seing the route they have taken with the spec.

But let’s hope

[Seorsafea-shattered-hand]

@Zandaz-outland

And while it may be boring to some players, the Hurricane spell would kind of fix this. Because now we would have a designated low cd AOE spell. Maybe you could add some sort of eclipse mechanic, like in MoP, to the spell. This could maybe make it more interesting to play with. Now, you would have at least a few ways of dealing AOE damage, with DoTs, Hurricane, Full Moon and Wild Mushrooms. Whilst still having ST damage with my version of Starfire, Starsurge and Wrath (from my post). Personally, I think this would fix a lot of core issues with the spec in its current form, while also making it more fun to play, more skill expressive and more versatile.

You know what? With the new mastery I would love these changes. Atleast Hurricane was nature dmg, so on quick to die packs you’d just put down sunfire and channel some hurricane. And if just like the past it would reduce the auto-attack speed of the mobs, it would be awesome. Stop caring about dps numbers and doubledown on beings kings of utility. Could even make it a capstone talent.

And Starfire bringing back the single target Boom would be nice.

Though I’m quite positive these will remain dreams.