Here are the druid related questions and answers from Developer Chat:

Q. Is there any ETA on tree / moonkin form graphical update?
A. Moonkin is hard because Moonkin players are so in love with that form. It’s tough to change it at all. We currently hope to do a new tree form for Cataclysm, but no promises.

Q. Has there been any thought of changing Eclipse to charges so that Moonkin dps doesn’t suffer so much from moving?
A. Yes. Expect a major overhaul in Cataclysm that keeps the same basic idea (alternating from Arcane to Nature) but in a way that is more core to the class. Like everything though, there is the risk that we may decide this idea sucks once we see it in action.

REALLY?  We love moonkin form?  REALLY?

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

Ghostcrawler actually admitted that his pride and joy, Eclipse, was fundamentally broken, that Moonkin are overly penalized on movement fights, and it’s over budgeted for a talent.  What is the world coming to?!  Now let’s see if he’ll try to fix it.

“As I’ve said before, the goal isn’t merely to get you to use Starfire and Wrath. The goal is to have a rotation that is more than just 12121212 or even 111222111222. RNG is something we actually want. The best players should be the ones who can pay attention and react to situations, not the ones who can mash their keys the fastest (or download the most recent macros).

The biggest problems with Eclipse are:

1) It’s too much of a damage increase. Here we see the problem with overbudgeted talents. The RNG wouldn’t be an issue if the magnitude of those random rolls wasn’t so huge.

2) It suffers too much from movement. Losing an Eclipse proc when you have to run is a problem, particularly given point 1. Now we have no problem with classes taking a dps hit when they have to move and we don’t even mind of some specs pay a heavier penalty than others. But it’s a problem when the delta between dps when moving and dps when not moving is so great. “

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

I’m still running 2pc/2pc, as I don’t have enough badges to buy the 4pc yet, and I must say the changes aren’t as bad as I expected.  I only had a few minutes to run with a pug 25man in ToC (please shoot me), so it really wasn’t the best medium to determine how I’m doing.  I missed raiding this week thanks to being stuck in Philadelphia last night as my flight to Chicago was canceled due to weather.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

Thanks to Lissanna’s post at Restokin, a bug has been noted in 3.3.  Essentially, Eclipse does not trigger the SPELL_AURA_APPLIED flag, so addons which track it do not work.  An addon called Class Timer / Class Timer Eclipse has the ability to track the Eclipse buff and it’s internal cooldown.  I suggest you download it from Curse and install it before 3.3 lands.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

According to MMO Champion, the following was added to the patch notes:

[Eclipse] now increases damage done by Wrath by 40% (up from 30%) and the critical chance of Starfire by 40% (up from 30%)

I guess they are trying to compensate for nerfing 2pc T8.  I definately did NOT see this one coming.

Thoughts?

I’m glad they’re attempting to fix the damage disparity. I am sure that 4pc T9 or T10 will be a huge boost in DPS. I really wish they would have tried to find a way to do it without putting more eggs in the proverbial Eclipse basket, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

According to MMO-Champion, the following changes are in the new PTR test build:

[Item - Druid T8 Balance 2P Bonus] – Increases the bonus granted by Eclipse for Starfire and Wrath by 7%. (Down from 15%)

I guess this will prevent us from keeping the 2pc T8 around.

Also, another change.  It looks like this one was created to purposefully disable WiseEclipse:

[Eclipse]: This effect will not activate again within 15 seconds of either type of Eclipse effect firing, in addition to the existing 30-second cooldown for each type of Eclipse.

So I guess my question for the devs are:

You’re purposefully nerfing our Tier 8, instead of making our Tier 10 better.  You’re purposefully nerfing WiseEclipse which allows us to keep our DPS semi-competitive.  What do YOU expect us to do now to stay competitive?  How are YOU going to fix the spec instead of just nerfing everything we’ve had?

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

Please join me in the damage dealing forums in this discussion regarding moonkin dps.  I didn’t start the thread, but it seems to share my similar opinion about movement spells overly penalizing us as we spend more time wasting Eclipse/procing Eclipse then using it.  The thread so far has been fairly troll free and qq free, and hopefully if enough people respond, the devs might pay attention.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]

Gripe of the Week: I do not know any other class that is such a slave to a single ability / talent as balance druids are to eclipse.  I’ve been asked many times why certain druids seem to be so bad (or so good, depending how you look at it) at standing in the proverbial (or not so proverbial) fire.  I think a lot of the time it’s due to the person being so consumed with maximizing their DPS and maximizing Eclipse output // DoT rotation between eclipses, they fail to see the environment around them.  I know 3.2 did help us a lot in allowing us much more flexability, and not causing one spell to consequently jack up 15 seconds of max DPS rotation, but it still causes a lot of focus to make sure we’re maxing properly.  I hope going forward in Cataclysm the developers are able to find a way to raise our DPS, still give us a more enjoyable rotation then “moonfire, starfire, rinse, repeat”, but not cause us to be so consumed in eclipse.

[Sunfyre's Nest RSS] | [Sunfyre's Nest on Twitter]