As World of Warcraft: Shadowlands rapidly approaches, there’s a nearly-endless current of news pouring out of Blizzard with what we can expect to see in the new expansion. Recently, they outlined some specific changes that would be coming to the Druid class, honing in directly on the Balance specialization’s ability, Eclipse.
Blizzard’s heightened focus on transparency in the last few months has earned them a great amount of credit back from a fanbase that has become a bit disenfranchised over recent years as complaints went seemingly unheard. This new release of a developer insight is only the most recent in a long line of Blizzard’s increase in transparency during the development of Shadowlands.
Blizzard has posted some developer insight on the recent Balance Druid Eclipse changes on the Shadowlands Alpha this week. https://t.co/LAsuxIhHno pic.twitter.com/LSF0B36o5t
— Wowhead💙 (@Wowhead) April 30, 2020
Blizzard summarized two specific issues with the Eclipse ability, decisions of which were reached through feedback on the current Shadowlands alpha:
- Eclipse’s RNG-focused startup is generally disliked by players. While many players stated that the proc of the ability had some strong “bad-luck protection,” it ultimately is still something that needs to be addressed
- The 30s ICD causes too much confusion when it was simply meant to alternate Eclipses in long combats. Instead of relying on the 30s ICD, the developers intend to take a more straightforward approach
To remove the RNG entirely, Blizzard has set Eclipse to always proc after three casts. This count will be visible in the default UI-highlighting to let you know, among other things, when you’ve been out of combat long enough to reset the stacks and be able to start with another Eclipse. The hope is that this will remove some of the guesswork from the ability and make the mechanics much clearer.
“Another problem solved by no longer being random is that you’re not stuck in the middle of a ‘wrong’ cast when Eclipse starts,” Blizzard writes in the patch note. “You can plan a buffed nuke or Starsurge crisply at the start of Eclipse, as well as allowing more advanced planning around DoT refreshes and movement.”
It’s certainly fantastic to see that Blizzard is finally working towards moving away from the RNG that has become incredibly commonplace in World of Warcraft. While RNG is completely different in relation to abilities as it is to, say, looting, it’s still a great frustration to not be able to pull off the combo you want because your abilities aren’t proccing in a necessary way.
As Shadowlands comes closer and closer, Blizzard seems thankfully dedicated to this new level of transparency they’ve brought to this development cycle.
