[Balance] Shadowlands Class Updates

[Argenon]

Balance
Solar and Lunar Empowerments are being strengthened and updated into Eclipses. Reminiscent of past expansions like Wrath of the Lich King, Wrath and Starfire will grant each other alternating Lunar and Solar Eclipses for a longer duration, with special moments of Celestial Alignment allowing both to occur at once. Balance Druids who master the flow of these Eclipses will be able to ensure a period of sustained power to either Wrath or Starfire at key moments of a fight. Starsurge will extend the current Eclipse to continue focusing power into either Wrath or Starfire, while Starfall instead extends your current Moonfire and Sunfire effects, giving the main Arcane Power spenders distinct roles based on situation.

Starfall will also return to its previous design, used from Wrath of the Lich King through Warlords of Draenor. Instead of needing to telegraph the affected area, Balance Druids again call down waves of stars, which strike the surrounding ground while they stand, run, or flap for its duration.

When I first saw the part about Eclipse returning, it read like an April Fools joke. Who knows exactly what this will look like, but it could be interpreted to be Eclipse Metronome Version 2.0. I like some of the iterations of eclipse, but I don't like the way this reads. I am okay with the starfall reversion.

How do all the moonkins out there feel about the return of eclipse? And what version does this wording remind you of?

[huth]

We've already got reports. It mostly works like the WotLK incarnation(25% chance to proc on the opposite spell, 30s CD), except there's a clear distinction between ST and cleave Eclipses.

I'd have preferred the Starfall change without the rest. This smacks of change for the sake of change.

[Azzurri]

It seems like Eclipse are just as boring as empowerments were.

In the Preach video he had a cool idea, when we proc a lunar eclipse we can cast new moon and when we proc a solar we can cast stellar flare. That sounds like a better payoff and just more fun to play tbh.

[Argenon]

We've already got reports. It mostly works like the WotLK incarnation(25% chance to proc on the opposite spell, 30s CD), except there's a clear distinction between ST and cleave Eclipses.

I'd have preferred the Starfall change without the rest. This smacks of change for the sake of change.

Well at least its not the metronome. If we get any eclipse variation, the one from WotLK was my favorite. But I agree that it does seem like change for the sake of change. Had Eclipse, changed eclipse, changed eclipse, goodbye eclipse, and now eclipse is back.

[GringoD]

I'd have preferred the Starfall change without the rest. This smacks of change for the sake of change.

Right on the money. Who exactly is this change for? I've never seen anyone clamoring to have Eclipse back.
Why they feel the need to take the spec two steps back is beyond me.

[Illusions]

Hmm, I didn't play a Boomie during Eclipse era, one of the reasons being the Eclipse bar. I dabbled in Cataclysm, and found it super clunky. Here's to hoping it's not going to be trash, but Blizz's let me down before so...

[jontah]

GIVE FERAL DRUIDS THE FOLLOWING:

1. Leader of the pack passive (baseline only on feral, not a talent) to bring something to raids. Just like demonhunters, since we have NOTHING that is unique for the spec at all, since the only utility we had (stampeding roar) became baseline and maim kan be specced into by going feral affinity. I feel like this change is mostly needed. Blizzard we NEED this. What else do we bring to raids? not even stampeding roar is unique for us anymore - what do we bring? NOTHING AT ALL.

2. Make savage roar baseline (not a talent), Does not need to be 10% dmg increase, but this is an interesting ability to keep up! Adds to the rotation very nicely. Heck even 5% would be good enough imo.

3. Change bloodtalons completely or add a new talent or something - putting bloodtalons up on a target then let it be there permanently due to that you specced into sabertooth is just plain booring. I would prefer something like empowering the first rip and rake or making 2 ferocious bites hit even harder or something. To be honest I like bloodtalons as it is now in BFA except for having to use regrowth. Not sure on how to tune/change this talent, but something needs to be changed. Please comment and give suggestions on how to change this.

4. Our defensives are so weakened by the removal of 2 x survival instincts, barkskin is never gonna make up for it, and needing to talent into Heart of the Wild just to survive a little bit like other classes do is pure stupidity. So we need some other defensive too or add a charge of barkskin or something. Not talk about the 5min CD on this talent which makes it a really weak talent for survival in general in raids. This talent is more pointed towards offtanking as of how I look of it.

THEN feral might be FUN and able to contribute with something in raids. Otherwise the spec is completely dead.

Oh, not to mention the removal of jungle's fury and Wild Fleshrending (as well as Blood of the Enemy increasing our crit) will feel horrible in overall for the spec. We will lose a %^&* ton of crit basically. And shred will automatically get nerfed due to the damage increase the azerite talent Wild Fleshrending gives us in boost.

And please, feral druid mains - let us be heard, or blizzard will never change us in time before release.

And blizzard for the love of god please make us transmog and keep our weapons while transmogging our druid forms! it's annoying to only be able to transmog into our legion artifact weapons and not keeping the look of our staff/polearm/whatever we use in each spec. It's a slight change but been waiting for this one forever now.

[Lahis]

Gonna be damn hectic to try to maintain the eclipse for the whole 30 sec ICD to proc the right one again after it ends.

[cparle87]

Right on the money. Who exactly is this change for? I've never seen anyone clamoring to have Eclipse back.
Why they feel the need to take the spec two steps back is beyond me.

Proclaims that since they don't want it nobody wants it, then declares it a step back. Glad to know the game isn't being centered around GringoD.

[Laqweeta]

I love that they're going as far back as WotLK for some specs.

I mained Balance in WotLK, and it was extremely fun to play - I absolutely loved it. They even went as far as to rename Lunar Strike to Starfire, fantastic!

Now I'd just like to see Starfall buffed to fuck so Starfire can go back to It's ST truck hitting ability like it did in Wrath. 40% increased crit chance during Lunar Eclipse.

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Proclaims that since they don't want it nobody wants it, then declares it a step back. Glad to know the game isn't being centered around GringoD.

Right? lmao. Turning the spec into yet ANOTHER resource chaser was idiotic and made no sense, like yay ANOTHER resource. At least Shamans get theirs deleted, so happy for them (still praying for the removal of Priest's Void Form and Insanity). Anyway, I hate how Balance Druid plays now. Get to 40 Astral Power, Starsurge, Lunar Strike and Wrath. It's dumb and boring. Not to mention you need THREE Shooting Stars Azerite to be competitive.

[cparle87]

I love that they're going as far back as WotLK for some specs.

I mained Balance in WotLK, and it was extremely fun to play - I absolutely loved it. They even went as far as to rename Lunar Strike to Starfire, fantastic!

Now I'd just like to see Starfall buffed to fuck so Starfire can go back to It's ST truck hitting ability like it did in Wrath. 40% increased crit chance during Lunar Eclipse.

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Right? lmao. Turning the spec into yet ANOTHER resource chaser was idiotic and made no sense, like yay ANOTHER resource. At least Shamans get theirs deleted, so happy for them (still praying for the removal of Priest's Void Form and Insanity). Anyway, I hate how Balance Druid plays now. Get to 40 Astral Power, Starsurge, Lunar Strike and Wrath. It's dumb and boring. Not to mention you need THREE Shooting Stars Azerite to be competitive.

It was worse in Legion imho. The rotation was completely on rails. At least now having wrath and lunar strike can proc each other's empowerments so the entire rotation can be automated and done with your eyes closed.

[Hipnos14]

I hate the changes with all my soul, since they gave starfire and wrath a chance to proc empowerments the druid felt amazing, thanks to that simple change I never get bored of playing balance druid, I don't like this stupid eclipse system again, it's like back in the day but worse, this time you don't have a bar to controll perfectly when you enter each eclipse, now it's a chance of getting one, with a 30sec colldown each one.

I swear to god...just when I though balance was perfect.

[Ragnarohk]

I was excited at first, I thought the old eclipse bar was comming back. But we're stuck with the same boring bar

[huth]

Gonna be damn hectic to try to maintain the eclipse for the whole 30 sec ICD to proc the right one again after it ends.

I don't think you'll be able to outside of extreme haste scenarios. It is the WotLK version where each Eclipse has a seperate CD, though, so you can just run the other one in the meantime unless you need it for something. They seem to have about 16s/Eclipse as their design goal.

[InfiniteRetro]

Did they remove the New Moon spells etc?

[GringoD]

Proclaims that since they don't want it nobody wants it, then declares it a step back. Glad to know the game isn't being centered around GringoD.

What's with your reading comprehension?
Asking who wants it back is a weird way to proclaim nobody wants it back, isn't it? I mean you could answer the question.
Going back to eclipse is a literal step back, since it is what came before. That much should be obvious.

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Right? lmao. Turning the spec into yet ANOTHER resource chaser was idiotic and made no sense, like yay ANOTHER resource. At least Shamans get theirs deleted, so happy for them (still praying for the removal of Priest's Void Form and Insanity). Anyway, I hate how Balance Druid plays now. Get to 40 Astral Power, Starsurge, Lunar Strike and Wrath. It's dumb and boring. Not to mention you need THREE Shooting Stars Azerite to be competitive.

>Having to alternate between spells is dumb and boring. I want to spam the same spell for 15 seconds!

That's you.

[God Save The King]

What's with your reading comprehension?
Asking who wants it back is a weird way to proclaim nobody wants it back, isn't it? I mean you could answer the question.
Going back to eclipse is a literal step back, since it is what came before. That much should be obvious.

You implied exactly what they stated though.

Asking "Who exactly is this change for" is an indirect way of suggesting that no one wanted the change. It's like "am I the only one" or "who would want this". It implies something beyond the literal meaning of the words. No one writes that honestly asking who asked for the change, it is a means to criticize the change by suggesting that no one, or very few people, wanted it.

Also "2 steps back" is another phrase. It does not literally mean regression. It can, but it often just means that something got worse.

You wrote two common phrases often used to mean "No one wanted this change and it's inferior to the current version". You can't be surprised people interpreted your words like that. Now you're falling back on literal definitions while ignoring the phrase's connotation and popular usage. Then you insulted the poster's ability to read to suggest that the failing is on them. If you did not mean what that poster understood, then the communication failure falls on you.

[Lahis]

I don't think you'll be able to outside of extreme haste scenarios. It is the WotLK version where each Eclipse has a seperate CD, though, so you can just run the other one in the meantime unless you need it for something. They seem to have about 16s/Eclipse as their design goal.

Then why not just have the pendulum back if they want to force cycling them instead of using the one that is appropriate for the situation?

[Laqweeta]

What's with your reading comprehension?
Asking who wants it back is a weird way to proclaim nobody wants it back, isn't it? I mean you could answer the question.
Going back to eclipse is a literal step back, since it is what came before. That much should be obvious.

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>Having to alternate between spells is dumb and boring. I want to spam the same spell for 15 seconds!

That's you.

The spec just played better during WotLK, as did most other specs.

[huth]

Then why not just have the pendulum back if they want to force cycling them instead of using the one that is appropriate for the situation?

Not forcing the cycle is pretty much the point. You don't have to go through Solar to trigger another Lunar. Under normal circumstances, you just won't have anything better to do.