Thursday, February 4, 2010

Why Eclipse is Broken: Wow.com Guest Post

While I was not chosen to be the permanent Druid columnist for WoW.com I was asked to be one of the first bloggers to right a guest post for them. When I was asked for some ideas, I knew right away what I wanted to post about: Why Eclipse is Broken.

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately about what everyone thinks is wrong with Eclipse. A vast majority of those posts basically boil down to "I don't like Eclipse because it doesn't proc when I want it to. (aka - it is to random). Well I disagree. The post I wrote for WoW.com goes over why I disagree and takes a look at what I consider to be the real issues with Eclipse. Also, check out the comments. There are a lot of good ones from Murmurs, Lissanna and other folks.

Anyway, I want to say thanks to Dan O'Halloran the Managing Editor at WoW.com for giving me this opportunity. It was quite an honor.

18 comments:

Cerista said...

I saw your guest post this morning on wow.com! Congrats. I think it summed up quite nicely the problems moonkins are currently having in raids.

Great job! Hopefully you'll be asked to write more. :)

Onatar said...

Very very good post.
Its nice to know the developers at Blizzard are aware of the issue.
Nice one dude. keep it up! :)

Maestro said...

I also read your post. Enjoyed it a lot!

Any chance on you writing up something on the flaws of Nature's Grace as such a low tier spell? I was thinking about writing an article on it, but don't want to re-invent the wheel if you've got one in the pipeline.

Ande said...

i agree with this xD

in mmy point of view blizz need to nerf eclipse and buff some of the other talents... dont get me wrong i love the mechanics and "feel" of the eclipse proc its what makes a boomkin's dps rotation fun and uniqe BUT from what ive seen is that we need atleast 30secs-1minute to get the full effect from our damage and i cant think of many fights in icc where we get to do that so my solutuin would be to maybe nerf eclipse a but and instead buff some other talents (like they just did with the 3% damage increase)

Vromeov said...

Very well done

Anonymous said...

You and Tyler keep talking about how much you disagree with each other, but do you really? Isn't this post almost exactly what he wrote in the official forums some time ago, but with a bit mathier outlook? :p

Laura said...

Congrats, Graylo. :)

I read your post in Wow Insider yesterday: it is as good as usual. Besides being useful for other balance druids, I think what makes it really interesting is that explains to RL and other raiders who have no idea about moonkins what's the problem with our unpredictable dps.

Dale said...

Thanks for bringing the problems with eclipse to a wider audience. Most people have no idea about moonkin rotations, haste caps and crit caps. Hopefully this can help a few more people understand.

Megami said...

Excellent post. I can point my friends and fellow raiders to that so they can better understand my swings in dps on heavy movement fights. Most people don't roll moonkin alts or even raid with them.

I have kind of an odd question to put out there. We know we have a much higher potential dps with a properly budgeted Eclipse and a fix/change to Nature's Grace. Do you think Blizzard is fine with where Moonkins stand in overall dps, compared to the other dps classes?

We aren't ever topping the charts unless we severely out-gear and outplay everyone around us. If they were to fix all of our issues I think our dps would skyrocket and then they'd have to worry about keeping pure classes at a clearer advantage.

As an answer to my own question, look at other hybrids- Ferals, Deathknights and Ret paladins. They aren't pure dps but they can beat pure dps more consistently.

Ande said...

uhmm megami tbh i dont think blizz are satisfied with boomkins atm since they just gave us a 3% dmg increase that must mean they want us to do more damage xD

Murmurs said...

@Anon

Graylo and I really don't disagree on all too many things, it's true. Most of what we disagree on are the minor details.

Blappa said...

@ Megami
Form what i have seen in my ICC raids is that feral druids and unholy DKs are topping the DPS,so i dont think Blizz has any problem with hybrid classes... just moonkins

Megami said...

I'm just very annoyed that our problems carry over from each expansion and then it's always "can't fix it until the next expansion!". =(

Duskstorm said...

I think my other big issue with Eclipse is Heroism/Bloodlust. It's obviously a consequence of the haste cap, but it sucks that other classes shoot way up in the meters during heroism and I can barely hold my place if I'm able to time my lunar eclipse to proc during bloodlust :\

Also, <1sec wraths give me carpal tunnel syndrome. I remember our old "IS->SF->SF->SF" rotation being more boring, but easier on the left hand.

Unknown said...

Good summary.

I think that the "simplest" fix would be to make NG a crit proc and have a lunar eclipse give haste.

Requiring a crit to proc a crit is a bit weird- but Fury warriors have the same thing in Rampage.

40% haste on Starfire and 20% crit from Nature's Grace would avoid both haste and crit caps. It's a bandaid, but I think an adequate one.

Anonymous said...

Yeah i do think druids are broken and i can see why basically everything you put in your post but the most important no real moving attacks. I come from a hunter background and if i had the same gear level on my hunter i would be 5ooo dps in a 10 man and with my boomer i can only reach 3500-4000 tops and then if i have to move watch my dps drop bigtime. I know the hunter class is broken too as its not leveling well with the high end gear but not as bad as the Moonkins out there. However i like the heals with 3 hots you can cast on the run why not give us boomers another dps spell which can be casted on the move to try and help rectify the mess.

Erin said...

I too am getting massive cramps in my left hand with 1 sec wraths. It hurts soo bad!

I also don't notice an increase in damage with heroism.

But a question....

Glyph of Moonfire... is it worth dropping for the heavy movement fights, just to spam while moving? or is the periodic damage better?

Anonymous said...

I think the real problem is that it just adds more random inconsistency to a spec already plagued with random procs.