#0 - July 9, 2010, 4:29 p.m.
I have a few questions/concerns about Eclipse in Cataclysm.
1. Currently on the Beta, it takes 4-5 creatures to get eclipse to build up all the way, and that's with only casting wrath or starfire. I think most people who play moonkin typically pull with like a starfire and cast wrath because when you're being beat on starfire is just boring/not worth my time to use. So if I chain wrath, on about 4-5 mobs right in a row, I fight the decay rate enough to get eclipse to proc, and then if I hurry and get into range of another creature, I can cast a crit starfire (And likely one-two shot it).
Are you looking at maybe changing the decay rate, or is eclipse not meant to be used for non-elite soloing while leveling? In Wrath it was a nice perk to get a proc, now it feels like it's solely for elites/bosses. All in all, even if there was no decay rate I think it might be better. Maybe let the decay start ~15-20 seconds out of combat. Building it up on trash before hand would probably be done by some of the best guilds in the world to seriously MIN/MAX but at the same time, they always find things like that to do. I know you want to eliminate as many as possible but most players, even on the near-cutting-edge of raiding still won't want to bother for that short dps increase at only the very beginning of the encounter.
2. I'm not quite sure how Starsurge is supposed to work. I use it while leveling because it's pretty cool on caster mobs and it's a ~Starfire sized nuke for a ~Wrath sized cast time. But it appears when I have high Solar, it adds the Lunar and reduces my meter? I don't think this is intentional, maybe it is since it's a nice spell and it's to make it a situational nuke instead of a "When this is off CD, replace it with your wrath/starfire you were going to cast." My question here is, "What is the design goal of Starsurge in regard to Eclipse and your rotation?"
3. Have you considered a talent for moonfire/insect swarm that instead of straight-up +damage or crit to your wrath/starfire, it instead makes those spells add more of their lunar/solar 'rating' or whatever you want to call it. Could also do something like, chance on tick for moonfire or insect swarm to add their schools eclipse rating, depending on which is higher. I think this would be an attractive way to make sure we keep our dots up properly, although the current system does work, sometimes insect swarm just isn't worth it. With the changes to the glyphs and the changes to moonfire (Wrath of Cenarius) I'm not sure the 90% initial damage reduction glyph will be worth it anymore, which means less damage to stand still fights and more to moving fights.
Are you designing that on purpose, so the we should switch that glyph out for heavy movement, and keep it in for nuke fights, or was there some oversight to a good new talent heavily conflicting with a good old glyph?
4. Sometimes when it was described it sounded like there was a gradient component to it, but that definitely is not there on the beta. Is the balance bar solely for eclipse the way it currently is, or is there another gradient-like damage bonus being added? If there were, it may alleviate some concerns in question 1 about leveling and leave it better to proc eclipse than play the gradient with groups.
This thread is for constructive criticism of my ideas and offers of your own, on Eclipse and Balance spec in general. Maybe a ghostcrawler response if I'm lucky! Please be civil. :]
(Bonus question: Whatcha gonna give us for level 10 if not moonkin form, I'm having a hard time figuring out what would actually be useful that wouldn't remove it from our talents. )
