How is Balance in Alpha without Moons?

[Avikur]

I'm tempted to use my 110 boost on a Druid and go Balance, I have one on Alliance and enjoy it but I play Horde now so would like one on that side. I'm a bit worried about the rotation feeling slow without the Moon spells to generate AP, I was wondering what peoples opinions are on this?

[Polarthief]

I'm tempted to use my 110 boost on a Druid and go Balance, I have one on Alliance and enjoy it but I play Horde now so would like one on that side. I'm a bit worried about the rotation feeling slow without the Moon spells to generate AP, I was wondering what peoples opinions are on this?

Well Balance has a LOT of dead talents, yet none of ours have been touched yet (besides Displacer Beast being removed for Tiger's Dash), so I wouldn't say it's accurate of what Balance will actually feel like in BfA.

That said, I don't have the Alpha so I wouldn't know. I also heard that only Full Moon was removed and NM/HM are still around or something? I'd definitely wait for more info before making a boost decision based for BfA over right now.

[Tyze]

Try and play without moon spells on live = The experience on alpha

It's still alpha, and Balance hasn't been touched. So you can easily get your question answered by a quick google search..

[Polarthief]

If Moon spells are truly gone for BfA, you can bet your ass SOMETHING will replace it. Way too simplistic and lacking a core tool for AsP generation. So many dead talents, way too many actually.

[huth]

If Moon spells are truly gone for BfA, you can bet your ass SOMETHING will replace it. Way too simplistic and lacking a core tool for AsP generation. So many dead talents, way too many actually.

So far, literally nothing has changed for Balance specificially. So Moon Moon is gone when you unequip the Scythe.

We absolutely need something to replace them in the rotation, or we'll get bored to death. I hope they realise just increasing AP generation isn't going to cut it.

[Lightwysh]

I HATED Moons... it's the only reason I didn't touch boom at all this xpac.

[Deleted]

I HATED Moons... it's the only reason I didn't touch boom at all this xpac.

how can you HATE literately dropping a MOON on someone?

[Lightwysh]

how can you HATE literately dropping a MOON on someone?

The variable cast time and recharge rate. It felt really clunky to me. Clunky to the point I couldn't get into the flow of it.

[Department]

The variable cast time and recharge rate. It felt really clunky to me. Clunky to the point I couldn't get into the flow of it.

Of all the specs in the game, the Balance artifact ability is the most integral because it's rotational and required for resource generation. If they were going to bake anything in I would hope it'd be MoonMoon.

[huth]

Of all the specs in the game, the Balance artifact ability is the most integral because it's rotational and required for resource generation. If they were going to bake anything in I would hope it'd be MoonMoon.

The only one that comes close is Phoenix Flames i think. And Fire had a working rotation without that, while we just got a redesign.

[Nihilan]

I hate suddenly having that slow ass fullmoon cast pop up when the rest of the rotation feels so fluid. I do hope it goes away for goodsies, and i do hope that it gets replaced with something that feels impactful to cast, but i do not want it to get replaced by something with that atrociously long cast time.

And Real Talk:
The fullmoon cast spell effect is fucking stupid. "Hurr, i drop wittle moon on you! Huurrr." Its got no style at all. Unlike the rest of the lazerchicken spells.

[XcrossroadX]

And Real Talk:
The fullmoon cast spell effect is fucking stupid. "Hurr, i drop wittle moon on you! Huurrr." Its got no style at all. Unlike the rest of the lazerchicken spells.

No style at all? You're telling me that Solar Wrath, the most generic spell effect in the entire game, has more style than dropping a freaking moon on your enemies?

[Malmmoc]

I used to hate the variable cast times of the moons at the beginning of legion, and I dislike long cast times in general, but once I got used to it, and got some haste, I quickly grew to love the spell. I would love it even more it was 3 charges of just full moon. I feels so awesome to chunk down a mob's health AND get a full spender's worth of ap. I think they really did a great job with the visual and the sound effect as well. I am definitely among those who hope the devs just haven't gotten around to adding it baseline.

[cafecito820]

I HATED Moons... it's the only reason I didn't touch boom at all this xpac.

I'm with you man... The Balance rotation itself is pretty easy, but oddly enough, it already has way too many abilities despite that simplicity. When I saw that the artifact ability was yet another hard-casted nuke ability, I went, "Meh" and moved on. Balance needs something to make the existing rotation more interesting, not just another spell like the ones they already have (even if the visual is cool).

[Mythicalchicken]

I'm with you man... The Balance rotation itself is pretty easy, but oddly enough, it already has way too many abilities despite that simplicity. When I saw that the artifact ability was yet another hard-casted nuke ability, I went, "Meh" and moved on. Balance needs something to make the existing rotation more interesting, not just another spell like the ones they already have (even if the visual is cool).

Original post got lost in the internet, methinks.

I love, love love the Moon spells. That said, their presence also made fury of elune and/or stellar flare more cumbersome to include. Especially with movement, it became too much to juggle for often a dps loss.

So to me I see two options:

Make Moons baseline with a talent that allows them to replace our other fillers to make other talented spells more realistic.

Take moons away, address the astral power needs another manner, and make our talented spells more lucrative (Stellar Flare's pretty useful even now, but it needs a little help; I personally can't stand fury of elune but the rotation being freed up gives it a new chance at life).

[huth]

I love, love love the Moon spells. That said, their presence also made fury of elune and/or stellar flare more cumbersome to include. Especially with movement, it became too much to juggle for often a dps loss.

Eh, no. Stellar Flare mostly had tuning issues and a lack of fights were it could shine(i.e. SotF and Inc are simply better in nearly every actual situation).
FoE failed due to its own problems, not because of the rest of our rotation, like not scaling with our strongest secondaries or just plain being way to hard to use due to having to manually control a tiny area of effect that nobody but you can see while also trying to maximise AP generation. Removing Moon Moon would make it even less usable.

FoE is a case of looking cool on paper, but not working in practice. It's original incarnation would likely have worked way better, but given us two independent talents that replace the same spell. Personally i think they should make it replace Starfall and turn it into a burst AoE.

[Department]

FoE is a case of looking cool on paper, but not working in practice.

What's funny is Blizzard is doubling down on this design by introducing it to Elemental.

[Mythicalchicken]

Eh, no. Stellar Flare mostly had tuning issues and a lack of fights were it could shine(i.e. SotF and Inc are simply better in nearly every actual situation).
FoE failed due to its own problems, not because of the rest of our rotation, like not scaling with our strongest secondaries or just plain being way to hard to use due to having to manually control a tiny area of effect that nobody but you can see while also trying to maximise AP generation. Removing Moon Moon would make it even less usable.

FoE is a case of looking cool on paper, but not working in practice. It's original incarnation would likely have worked way better, but given us two independent talents that replace the same spell. Personally i think they should make it replace Starfall and turn it into a burst AoE.

Well, to be fair Stellar Flare made a slight comeback in Antorus: I found it far more beneficial/useful on High Command than I expected. It's one of those weird spells that I really *want* to like, but just didn't play nicely with the rest of the spells on top of lackluster dps except for discrete circumstances.

I'm with you on FoE. I could make it work with Radiant Moonlight and almost never casting wrath/starfire, but the dps wasn't worth all the extra effort and paying dearly for movement or reacting to mechanics.

But I'm talking mechanics not tuning here. Having all three was insane to juggle (for me anyway), Having moons and one of them was inconvenient. Beyond the damage pass, I wouldn't underestimate how much moons affected how we percieve these spells on the whole.

[Kluian05]

What's funny is Blizzard is doubling down on this design by introducing it to Elemental.

The thing is elemental can generate an insane amount of maelstrom with chain lightning, especially with the artifact in use (though this is probably going away). Perhaps it will work better for them, though I personally prefer how earthquake is now.

I feel like if FoE was to actually work well for Moonkins then Lunar Strike needs to generate more AP based on the amount of targets it hits in the splash. So FoE could be sustained longer via Lunar Strike spam on a group of targets. I still don't like the concept of FoE though, because Starfall + Dots are already efficient at AoE, the only weakness is burst AoE.

[Rhaxus]

i'd like for FoE to be a costless nuke like the vindicar laser, maybe it reduces AsP generation afterwards until you've hit it's costs and is only castable while you don't have that debuff, so you can basically spec into it for burst dps in low m+/priority adds content and spec into SD for sustained, stronger aoe.

edit: i wish it could still linger for the graphical effect, but the idea is to have it's damage be frontloaded, so that it loses the awkwardness when your enemies have to be moved