Moonkin patchnotes

[Stommped]

Just have to hope that other casters will be equally punished during any high movement scenarios. Hunters will just be gods at everything.

[artem123]

So im wondering
Does the eclipse CONSTANTLY just keep going? Because:

Astral Communion now increases the rate that Balance Energy cycles by 300% while channeled.

Which brings me to the point, how exactly will we end up choosing what eclipse, unless im just misreading and assuming wrong.

[Miraclous]

Just have to hope that other casters will be equally punished during any high movement scenarios. Hunters will just be gods at everything.

Idk when, but at some panel or interview a dev noted that they didn't mind hunters being superior during movement at a cost for less static dps.

[Juvencus]

So im wondering
Does the eclipse CONSTANTLY just keep going? Because:


Which brings me to the point, how exactly will we end up choosing what eclipse, unless im just misreading and assuming wrong.

Keeps going. Astral Communion will increase the movement x3 times to make it easier to prepare pre-pull and infight for specific phases.

Starts toward Lunar when you enter combat. 30sec after you leave combat, the next time it reaches 0, it stops there.

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...27238977081344

[artem123]

Keeps going. Astral Communion will increase the movement x3 times to make it easier to prepare pre-pull and infight for specific phases.

interesting. So delayed CD fights will require some like spot on timing for max potential

[Cyberowl]

Keeps going. Astral Communion will increase the movement x3 times to make it easier to prepare pre-pull and infight for specific phases.

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...27238977081344

No prepull eclipse movements it seems

[huth]

Not really a fan of 3 second Starfires when nature's grace is gone as well. It will be impossible to cast on mechanics like thok's interrupts and World in Flames (Ragnaros), and ofcourse suffer a lot to other mechanics that require (not even quick 3 seconds is a lot) movement. - EDIT: ofcouse we are now able to use wrath in those circumstances, but it's probably going to be way inferior.
Also i feel like Astral communion is going to be really important to get in the right phases of solar for AoE.

We'd constantly get instants on a fight like Thok. Empowered Hulk Smash... erm, Owlkin Frenzy.

[Juvencus]

Astral Showers are passive

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...42200319475712

Also changed my previous AC post to correct it. Still not sure if AC will be able to move Eclipse outside of combat. Not reason not to but all the responses so far have been rigid in terms of interpretation.

[Cyberowl]

We'd constantly get instants on a fight like Thok. Empowered Hulk Smash... erm, Owlkin Frenzy.

What does the new Empowered Owlkin Frenzy do? I couldn't find it...

[artem123]

https://twitter.com/Celestalon/statu...27238977081344

No prepull eclipse movements it seems

Well thats a semi shame, sorta..

[Racso]

Really liking these changes and, ironically, by making the eclipsing occur passively they are making the rotation much more active. Eclipse will advance without you and its up to you to time your spells accordingly.

It will take 30 seconds to go from lunar to solar and then back to lunar. This can be cut in half (15 seconds) with the Balance of Power Talent. With Astral Communion, you can cycle three times faster (10 seconds or 5 seconds with Balance of Power). Meaning you will go from the middle of one eclipse to the middle of another in at least 15 seconds and could do it in as fast as 2.5 seconds (with 50% reduction from Balance of Power and 300% speed from Astral Communion). Since Solar will clearly continue to be the preferred choice for AoE, we will want to be using AC to time our solar eclipses around aoe. In other words, Astral Communion will be likely be our tool to ensure Solar eclipses for AoE phases, meaning there is only a few seconds-at most-of preparation needed for AoE. Then we can stay in Solar for 15 seconds, which is generally as long as is needed to AoE down adds. And thankfully, at the end of our AoE phase, we just pop back into our normal rotation like every other class. No more Nature's Grace-induced deadzone at the end of an AoE phase. (And looks like they have scrapped wild mushroom as a dps move, yay!). Net result is AoE requires minimal set-up, can be maintained for 15 seconds, and no longer has a lingering single-target penalty. That's an all around successful change in my opinion.

Moonfire has a 32 second cast time so moonfire you will want to cast once per lunar phase and you should get 100% uptime with minimal effort (and without snapshotting, it won't matter where you cast it in the eclipse). It seems to me like the value of the new Equinox is somewhat diminished by this. There would be no reason to extend moonfire's duration when a 100% uptime is easy to maintain. Equinox's value would only be in extending sunfire. Without Equinox, uptime on Sunfire should be around 50% unless you regularly use astral communion to push solar eclipses. We still keep our two dots but only really need to care about one so moonfire will require very minimal thought. Since using moonfire and sunfire always felt a bit redundant, this is another good change.

Real challenge will be in the new use of starsurge. We will want the buffed starfire and wrath to hit in the middle of each eclipse (when the eclipse bonus is highest) so we will probably want to cast starsurge 5 to 10 seconds into each eclipse. Depending on how lucky you get with shooting stars procs, you may or may not have a charge for every eclipse (although there should be a charge for most of them since you are guaranteed a charge every 30 seconds). Really interesting mechanic is that starsurge and starfall (now buffed to hit everything) share charges. You'll have to actively choose whether to funnel those charges into more single target dps (starsurge) or aoe (starfall). Timing those charges and choosing which spell to use those charges on should be the "hard to master" mechanic to distinguish top moonkin. This change feels, at least in spirit, somewhat similar to the strategies of delaying eclipses for maximum benefit. This new system carries the same rewards for using ideal timing.

The redesigned eclipse bar also makes mastery more interesting because you will always get some benefit unless you are not casting the correct spells. No more dead zone between eclipses where you are just ridiculously weak. The swing in damage has gotten somewhat crazy in recent tiers and was only offset by the fact that we spend so little time outside of an eclipse. Smoothing out our damage, while still keeping the big bonuses at the far ends of the eclipse bar, is a very good change.

[huth]

What does the new Empowered Owlkin Frenzy do? I couldn't find it...

Owlkin Smash makes the next spell instant in addition to its other effects.

Er, Frenzy.

[Deleted]

One thing that worries me tremendously is movement and dot refreshing. Unless you get extremely lucky with movement (or boss encounters just have very little of it) it's likely you will never actually cast the dot during an eclipse peak, but simply just cast whenever you are moving. Because, well, what else will we do on the move? Only instants is one dot (MF/SnF) and starfall(only used for aoe) and Enhanced Owlkin Frenzy procs (which you'd have to be god damn lucky to have proc during movement). That means stationary dps is only hardcasts and movement will only be instants (with maybe the exception of a SnF refresh upon entering solar every now and then).

TL;DR Looks like dot refreshing isn't something to think about, just something we use as movement filler. Stationary dps: hardcasts only, movement dps MF/SnF spam only.

[huth]

And every other caster is looking to get hit the same way. Blizz has been saying that they don't like caster mobility for a while now.

[Cyberowl]

Owlkin Smash makes the next spell instant in addition to its other effects.

Er, Frenzy.

Okay, I hope they'll fix the issue with Owlkin Frenzy procs, some mechanics proc it, somes don't, really had an impact on our performance at certain fights. I just tweeted Celaston about the prepull Eclipse movement, he may answer in like 30 minutes if we are lucky!

[Miraclous]

If they haven't changed it, astral communion still might be usable on the move, giving us some option to get to a preferred eclipse state to refrsh dots at least.

[huth]

Okay, I hope they'll fix the issue with Owlkin Frenzy procs, some mechanics proc it, somes don't, really had an impact on our performance at certain fights. I just tweeted Celaston about the prepull Eclipse movement, he may answer in like 30 minutes if we are lucky!

He already answered that one, it starts from zero towards Lunar once you enter combat, and stops after combat once it has reached 0 again.

[Deleted]

And every other caster is looking to get hit the same way. Blizz has been saying that they don't like caster mobility for a while now.

I know, and that is fine. What is not fine is that if you only cast dots while moving, eclipse might aswell just make you do 30% more arcane dmg in lunar and 30% more nature in solar. Because you can't actually play around with the increasing/decresing dmg increase.

[Lynarii]

Moonfire has a 32 second cast time so moonfire you will want to cast once per lunar phase and you should get 100% uptime with minimal effort (and without snapshotting, it won't matter where you cast it in the eclipse).

Actually, at least before these changes, we were told that Moonfire/Sunfire would be snapshotting our eclipse state as one of the very few snapshots still maintained. We should probably ask about whether this new system has our DOTs snapshot eclipse, or be shifting each tick, since that will DRASTICALLY change how the rotation plays out.

[huth]

I know, and that is fine. What is not fine is that if you only cast dots while moving, eclipse might aswell just make you do 30% more arcane dmg in lunar and 30% more nature in solar. Because you can't actually play around with the increasing/decresing dmg increase.

Er... yes, you can? Moving just interrupts that, and DoTs are only part of what is affected by it.