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  1. #1

    [Open Question] Eat, Pray, Love :: Eclipse

    Title is stupid. Answer my questions please.
    ______________________________________

    1.) Do you like WOD's Eclipse? Why or why not?

    2.) Which iteration of Eclipse did you like the most? Why did you enjoy it?
    WOTLK -- Buff-based casting.
    Cata -- Casting Bar
    MOP -- Casting Bar (simplified)
    WOD -- Auto-Cycle

    3.) Given you had to stick with WOD Eclipse, what would make the gameplay better for you?

    - - - Updated - - -

    1.) No. Complexity and depth was severely lacking.

    2. WOD. It would be the only viable option for non-snapshotting gameplay. Cata and MOP required snapshotting to be effective, so without it, it needed to change.

    3. More complexity with another DPS spell. Maybe if Force of Nature or Stellar Flare went baseline.
    The Boomkings(WIP) :: YouTube Project

  2. #2
    Deleted
    1) the WoD eclipse is extremely monotonous for the most part. It has the obvious benefit of needing very little attention, making it easy to focus on other tasks like raidleading and still maintaining nearly perfect numbers. The downside is that after the first 10 pulls on a progress boss you fall asleep because you are literally doing the exact same thing everypull with the exception of a SS more or less, which has 0 impact on the rest of the rotation. It is also extremely annoying that when dps changes during progress on a boss whose mechanics/phases depends on boss health percentage instead of time, your positioning on the eclipse bar is pushed back/forward for the rest of the fight, often times making the boss a completely new fight. On the bright side that sometimes solves my previous problem.

    Then there is fact that it being uncontrolable makes it terribly annoying to deal with short lived adds that needs to die in 5-10 seconds. This however I believe is more an issue with encounter design, as it was pretty much irrelevant in HM and BRF, while it was the main challenge on the majority of HFC bosses. Had it been balanced better between the two tiers I think it would be perfectly fine to be that terrible at it.

    2) I didn't play boomkin in Wotlk. I loved the cata eclipse, mainly because of solar camping + shrooms. I'm thinking Cho'gall, Beth'tilac (small spiders duty) and Ragnaros. I really enjoyed balance on those fights, being able to trade single target dps for setting up insane aoe burst was amazing.

    3) I'd like to see talent choices similar to what Shadow Priests have in CoP/AS where one talent point allows you to change the strength of your spec. It doesn't have to be ST vs Multi dot, it could for instance be a talent that gave us an option to better deal with short lived adds at the cost of either ST or multi target dps.

  3. #3
    What I hate most, is the problem of not wanting to cast another starsurge, since A the add dies before it hits the target (slow projectile). or you dont want to override your sf/wr-stacks.
    also a problem is that on fights like gorefiend is your add dps too unreliable since if an add spawns and you are at the start of solar your dps will just suck.(well at least we dont to as bad as ferals in that regard -_-')
    3) maybe the ability to store phase time. so you need big singletarget dps, stay in lunar for 5 secs. you will accumulate a 5 stack debuff. you can then use up the debuff in solar if you stay an extra 5 secs in solar. maximum could be 10 secs.
    Last edited by Seikusa; 2015-10-20 at 10:03 AM.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Cyous View Post
    1.) Do you like WOD's Eclipse? Why or why not?
    - Worst eclipse design ever, because it is just too bad without addons. There should not be such a difference in effectivity when you use or not use addons (checking bar, dots, buffcharges, charges and spell alert is just mess, till you dont clean it up).
    Thats just wrong design in my eyes. And even when you master it (of course with addons) then its repetitive and boring.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyous View Post
    2.) Which iteration of Eclipse did you like the most? Why did you enjoy it?
    - I liked Cata most, even with forced solar eclipse atleast that bar meant something now its just metronome while you follow it like monkey. Also we have been very strong dotbased spec in PvP. I dont like eclipse mechanic at all, because over time it fucked "nature based spellcaster" to "star wars", we even lost spells like Shrooms, hibernate, insect swarm, typhoon... all nature based.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cyous View Post
    3.) Given you had to stick with WOD Eclipse, what would make the gameplay better for you?
    - They would need to change it so its playable without addons while it would need some depth so you can master something.

    Imho eclipse is just fail, because even after 4 expansions they didnt make it good, worth and popular, its just annoyance.
    It didnt have even lore backup and it prune our nature spells.

  5. #5
    For me, moonkin is the most frustrating PvE spec in game - rotation wise.

    - you dont have 100% control over your abilities use, you are depended on your eclipse state.
    Not being able to use your ability (e.g. Sunfire) when you need it, is absolutely wrong. Channeling few seconds with Astral Communion simply wont fix it.

    - rotation is very clunky - besides normal rotation, you do many other stuff (running away from fire, CCing, being CCed etc.), when you pause your rotation for a while, your eclipse bar dont, so after your "rotation pause" you cant simply continue where you ended, you must check stupid eclipse and act accordingly - this feels very unfluent

    - another thing that bugs me is using instant spell to boost spell with casting time
    e.g.: You are fighting regular mob. To be effective, you open with instant SS to boost Starfire, now GDC triggers. You wait for GDC till you can start to cast Starfire. When Starfire hits, mob is already at you. What I'd like to see is to change casting order, open with 2-3 Starfires during mobs running to you and finish him with boosted instant from Starfire casts. I think it would be much fluent and enjoyable. Eventhough this is minor thing, I'd like to see it changed.

    What I'd like to see changed:
    I would love to have back old eclipse bar, that moves only when you cast Starfire/Wrath/Hurricane(Astral storm)
    SS buff reworked or removed.
    Implement shroom to AoE rotation (e.g. it explodes on enemy touch and spreads dot)
    Make Sunfire baseline or make Moonfire to spread dot too.

  6. #6
    My problems with eclipse largely echo Hellgast. I don't want to get into it but in short the lack of feedback on whether you're making optimal decisions plus an essentially random timer controlling my DPS/options feels bad.

    As for fixing it I'd probably prefer it become untied from the rotation la incanter's focus. Or a choice/cooldown type thing a la Chaka/Archangel. The reward for using 1 type repeatedly or The choice to suddenly switch types for an additional effect type thing.

    That said number's balancing aside I didn't really mind the casting a spell moves the bar x amount in a direction and extra dmg upon reaching the eclipse at which point you change spells. Although I would probably prefer something like Solar be the AoE spellset and lunar be the single target spellset with some overlap like starfall staying lunar for weak passive aoe, but Solar's AoE being bursty and wrath while being weaker ST cleaving to 2-3 targets and "rechargeing" your aoe burst quicker.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    I didnt play pre-WoD but I like the fact that its easy to play and on a first look it might seem like an easy rotation you have to do but there is alot of micromanaging you can do and the difference between a good Boomkin and an average one can be maybe an extra 10k DPS.

    What i dont like is that you have almost no control over your spells, did the imps in Xhulhorac spawn during Lunar? Well no cleave for you

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Cyous View Post
    Title is stupid. Answer my questions please.
    ______________________________________

    1.) Do you like WOD's Eclipse? Why or why not?

    2.) Which iteration of Eclipse did you like the most? Why did you enjoy it?
    WOTLK -- Buff-based casting.
    Cata -- Casting Bar
    MOP -- Casting Bar (simplified)
    WOD -- Auto-Cycle

    3.) Given you had to stick with WOD Eclipse, what would make the gameplay better for you?
    1. No, not a fan. There's no interesting decision making around the eclipse bar, it simply dictates wrath versus starfie. There aren't any interesting spell selection decisions to make around the resource. The only even remotely close thing to a choice is around the mid point where I can choose between wrath and starfire but in the end the difference is inconsequential. As a resource it can't be pooled in anyway to be consumed at a more useful time.

    In a sense, eclipse went from at least having the appearance of a resource in its cata and mop versions (I understand that nature's grace made it such that we had to basically push from eclipse to eclipse as fast as we could), to something that was in no way a resource for us. I also understand that our starsurge/starfall charges are our pooling resource—but actually in this respect the eclipse bar is only a source of frustration. If I want to sit on a charge to make sure I have starfall up for a ~10sec long add phase, but those 10 seconds happen to be in solar, my pooling efforts are massively wasted. Even worse having a lot of mastery makes that effect only even more painful

    2. I enjoyed the Cata eclipse bar. I didn't enjoy all of the features of the moonkin spec in cata. I liked having the control over nature's grace with our dots as opposed to the auto proc on eclipse of mop. MoP and Cata starfall, however, were boring.

    3. I'm not sure. I don't think another dot is the answer for making things more interesting, though. Anything that could add some degree of interactivity with the bar might help. For example, maybe casting starsurge gives a mini CA-like effect: it pauses the eclipse bar for the length of a peak and gives max eclipse for that peak duration.

    It also seems like the most important thing they could do is make euphoria baseline and get an interesting talent choices somewhere in our tree. The value in real encounters of being able to swing between eclipses is just too much. I really wish I had a chance to swap talents at some point in this expansion.

    Ultimately, though, if eclipse has to stay the same then it might just be that the best way to improve the spec to make it remotely as interesting as a spec is to monkey with what used to function (before the class trinket) as more of a real resource system (something that allows choices, that can be pooled, etc.)—the starsurge charges.

  9. #9
    Personally, (and I fully expect to be flamed for my opinion) I have never been a fan of the eclipse concept period. I never understood why Blizzard decided Balance needed a special mechanic to work their entire rotation around rather than just designing the spells in such a way that you want to do more than spam Wrath or Starfire exclusively. Perhaps it could have been a proc of some sort or an additional resource that you actually have some control over. Personally I prefer a more traditional rotation like Wrath 3x then Starfire 1-2, rinse, repeat but I'm old and dislike the new action game style Blizz seems to be going after with some class rotations.

  10. #10
    1) No, lack of control
    2) WotLK, even if it was RNG fest it was the most fun to play with (because rng is fun). Cata one was best for theorycraftiness imo.
    3) Some spell that adds control. Say a spell that stops eclipse until you un-stop it but decreases your mastery by X% per second. you'll get the mastery back at the same rate when you un-stop eclipse.

  11. #11
    We already have a spell which lets us control the current eclipse it's called astral communion, now considering the spell is entierly useless as it mostly just drains gcd's.

    Wouldn't it be more appropriate to ask for a buff to this spell rather than saying that the current version of eclipse lacks control.
    Personally I am still hoping for a change in lvl 100 talents which allows for more control though.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Bearshield View Post
    Personally, (and I fully expect to be flamed for my opinion) I have never been a fan of the eclipse concept period. I never understood why Blizzard decided Balance needed a special mechanic to work their entire rotation around rather than just designing the spells in such a way that you want to do more than spam Wrath or Starfire exclusively. Perhaps it could have been a proc of some sort or an additional resource that you actually have some control over. Personally I prefer a more traditional rotation like Wrath 3x then Starfire 1-2, rinse, repeat but I'm old and dislike the new action game style Blizz seems to be going after with some class rotations.
    I don't really see what the difference between "wrath 3x and then starfire 1-2" and the current version of eclipse, even the cata one had something very similar to that.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by theburned View Post
    We already have a spell which lets us control the current eclipse it's called astral communion, now considering the spell is entierly useless as it mostly just drains gcd's.
    Wouldn't it be more appropriate to ask for a buff to this spell rather than saying that the current version of eclipse lacks control.
    Personally I am still hoping for a change in lvl 100 talents which allows for more control though.
    Controlling it in a very clunky and unefficient way and doing exactly different kind of "control" than what I'd want to have.

    According to this "control" our lvl 100 talents should be perfect for you since Euphoria speeds up eclipse thus giving you "control" of the speed.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by lappee View Post
    Controlling it in a very clunky and unefficient way and doing exactly different kind of "control" than what I'd want to have.

    According to this "control" our lvl 100 talents should be perfect for you since Euphoria speeds up eclipse thus giving you "control" of the speed.

    Yeah I agree it is very clunky, been using it in timewalking dungeons as most of my damage comes from starfall (when not on bosses.), and it really is very clunky, I can see it being an overall gain due to 140% mastery, while rest of stats are fairly weak in comparison, and most damage seems to come from starfall/dots. A buff to it could make it less clunky. (though I the spell is probably designed with non-euphoria eclipse. where it is supposedly less clunky, yet completely useless due to spending gcds on it.)

    the theme of eclipse control fits so well into the 100 talent row, I can't see why they never bothered to do anything about it. Barely anything interesting to any of the talents, also annoys me because it leaves particularly BoP a lot less useful, and not interesting at all considering you cant snapshot the dots, so the talent is not interesting, also not particularly useful either, even though it has been useable on certain fights.

    stellar flare I suppose is a very pseudo effect on eclipse as it gives you something to do during the middle of the eclipse, but yeah its very much pseudo and in reality it doesnt affect anything as you wouldn't use it on single target.

  14. #14
    I think Euphoria is actually partially at fault here. It basically rendered control of your Eclipse state nearly completely irrelevant, so there was neither a need to learn how to do it, nor any incentive for Blizzard to give us better tools to do so.


    Though for myself, i actually prefer the conceptual idea of Eclipse as an unerring force of nature that we cannot fully control and need to build our play around. It just shouldn't prevent us from doing what needs to be done. Forcing your will upon the world seems more of a Warlocky thing to do.

  15. #15
    I think a 30sec Eclipse cycle would be fantastic. 40sec was too slow. 20sec seems rushed. Euphoria should be changed to "When you enter Lunar Eclipse, your Starfire gains 12% Spell Haste. When you enter Solar Eclipse, your Wrath's damage is increased by 12%."
    The Boomkings(WIP) :: YouTube Project

  16. #16
    1) To be honest? Yeah I do. I enjoy playing with it Specially that we don't have to much control over it. It really fits into the nature sense of being in "tune" with your souroundings and don't force your will on the nature (speaking from the Basic Druid fantasy point of view and how its represented)
    I Don't know why people get annoyed or sleepy over Moonkin rotation. Each encounter plays out a bit differently all the time. If you have to move and et voilá your rotation is on another spot. It feels more like an intuitive thing. Rotations like Afflilock that is basically micromanaging dots, or destro where you do the same rotation all the time no matter if you moved or not and just wait for some Procs to dumb chaos bolts, those bore me much quicker.

    If you talk interface design, then there is a lot more wrong with the vanilla interface then just the eclipse bar. But i played with standart Eclipse bar for quiet some time, and if you can't follow it there you are just lazy or arent focusing well enough.

    2. Even if I will get all the hate in this Forum but Its WoD for me. The overall feel is really good and I like to play it.
    feel really similar: you have one of 2 dots (its basically the same besides one is aoe) and then its just an instant cast to boost casttime casts. So I would like to see both sides a bit more diversified.
    Also the basic cycle is only 4 Spells (counting the dots as one and leaving stellar flare aside) so why not give the Empowered debuff (maybe only on lunar side) to 2 different spells that have different purposes?

    And yes a rework on Astral Communion would be nice. I don't have a good Idea what to do with it. But it woud be nice to have another baseline Meta spell to alter the Rotation here and there a bit.

    That being said, don't forget that there will be Artifact weapons specially created for each Spec. So this can be something that, potentially, can alter a lot of how the class is played specially Meta-wise, having another skilltree like Runes (even tho Runes feel really weird atm ).
    Last edited by miDnight77; 2015-10-27 at 01:55 PM.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by miDnight77 View Post
    1) To be honest? Yeah I do. . .
    I would like it too if played only with wod version... Whole your post looks like russian troll post with defending blizz here lol with month old registration.
    Moonkin without powerauras (or anyother addon who checks buffs) is awful because basic interface is hardly readable. In pvp your eclipse/charges/empowered shine-up same buttons so you have no idea what kind of buff you have, while your buffbar jump crazy with all buffs and debuffs. Third party Addons should not be prerequisite to have good experience in game, that's wrong design. Artifact weapons will be negligible grind because they are mean for every player something like wod ring and definitely not change any meta (they were not able do that with talents)...

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Madus View Post
    Moonkin without powerauras (or anyother addon who checks buffs) is awful because basic interface is hardly readable. In pvp your eclipse/charges/empowered shine-up same buttons so you have no idea what kind of buff you have, while your buffbar jump crazy with all buffs and debuffs. Third party Addons should not be prerequisite to have good experience in game, that's wrong design. Artifact weapons will be negligible grind because they are mean for every player something like wod ring and definitely not change any meta (they were not able do that with talents)...
    Sorry, but that's just wrong. Empowered does not actually shine up anything, only Shooting Stars does it for SS and Starfall, Wrath and Starfall light up when you're close to maximum Eclipse, and Sunfire and Moonfire do so when you have the peak buff. Each only has a single trigger condition.

    The only one of those that is actually relevant is Shooting Stars anyway, since the rest is dependent on the Eclipse bar, which is on a static timer.
    Which, for me, means i generally don't even need to look at it, i already know where it is based on elapsed time.

    To me, that makes it sound like you never actually paid any real attention to how it works. Having played with all incarnations of Eclipse, i am very confident to say that this is actually the one with the least need for any addons, maybe even to a fault so. There's just not enough going on to make tracking it worthwile.

  19. #19
    1) I really don't like it. I can't say I hate it, because if I felt that strongly I would have given up the class. It being the first character I made and the first character I raided with probably accounts for my unreasonable attachment to the moonkin. My problems with Eclipse's current incarnation have already been stated by others - the lack of control, the rotation feeling kind of clunky, etc. It just doesn't feel great, and yes, at times it feels kind of boring.

    2) Cataclysm's was probably my favorite version, with MoP's being a close second (I don't want to ignore that I hated being a crit-based class while leveling and before getting some raid gear, though). Despite WotLK being the first expansion I raided in, I don't have a very detailed memory of that version of Eclipse (I remember using Squawk and Awe). I was also - at best - extremely mediocre at that time. I'll just say I was bad. Maybe terrible. Sometimes I went resto to make myself feel better. So what I remember is cast Wrath until proc, cast Starfire until proc, rinse and repeat. Something about DoTs and Starfall actually being okay when ICC rolled around (I think?).

    Cata was when I really grew as a player in general, so that may have something to do with my enjoyment of it, but I really felt like (both in Cata and Mists) I was being rewarded for improving my play, and that there was a lot of room for improvement. I want that back. I remember people in Cata saying the spec was complicated or challenging, but I also remember being at the top of the meters and handling mechanics well and finding and exploring ways to do better and it felt GREAT. I remember getting Starsurge procs in Mists during a phase where a lot of movement was required, and running around casting felt amazing (maybe that doesn't have much to do with Eclipse itself...maybe I just woke up and am going on wild tangents). Need to proc Nature's Grace with a DoT? Got it. Need to camp Eclipse for an add phase? Sure! DoT snapshotting? I'll admit I really liked it.

    3) Given I had to stick with WoD Eclipse... oh, now the nostalgia high is gone and I feel kind of sad. I really don't know what they could to do to make it better beside adding some element of control. Every time I think of something to fix this I feel it would be stupid or clunky or out of place.

    So, moving on to other gameplay - FoN would be nice baseline, but only if I could see my three little trees run up to mobs and melee them and not have them be some weird electric blue color (they look like that now, right?). They used to be so cute. Or maybe give us faerie dragons, I like our faerie dragons. Trees AND faerie dragons (and zombie dragons). Give us another defensive CD (things started to hurt after the removal of the flat DR from the form and then the removal of Symbiosis to borrow a CD), or maybe give us Nature's Swiftness so that Healing Touch doesn't feel completely useless. I want Nature's Grace and Insect Swarm and talent choices that make me think. Faster casting.

    Maybe I shouldn't have had so much coffee. And now I feel like I should be walking around, shaking and cane and ranting about the good ol' days and telling all those moonkids to get off my lawn.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by huth View Post
    Sorry, but that's just wrong. Empowered does not actually shine up anything, only Shooting Stars does it for SS and Starfall, Wrath and Starfall light up when you're close to maximum Eclipse, and Sunfire and Moonfire do so when you have the peak buff. Each only has a single trigger condition.

    The only one of those that is actually relevant is Shooting Stars anyway, since the rest is dependent on the Eclipse bar, which is on a static timer.
    Which, for me, means i generally don't even need to look at it, i already know where it is based on elapsed time.

    To me, that makes it sound like you never actually paid any real attention to how it works. Having played with all incarnations of Eclipse, i am very confident to say that this is actually the one with the least need for any addons, maybe even to a fault so. There's just not enough going on to make tracking it worthwile.
    Well i played wod pvp only for 1 month or so but im pretty sure that without power auras i lost "instant sf" procs till i didnt make powas. Loading "unbuffed" sf/wrath in pvp was same mistake same as "depleting" all ss charges. Im here from vanilla too but i found current eclipse most annoying ever bcs pvp... Procs in pvp work different as in pve, while in pve you wanna unload it fast as possible in pvp you sometime wanna setup burst around it and that can be problem with basic interface.
    But you are right that i "never actually paid any real attention" because i quited/got bored of wod too fast.

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