Every Friday, Shifting Perspectives explores issues affecting balance druids and those who group with them. This week, we are delving back into the world of betacraft as we examine what is that is making the balance rotation tick, how there might be some flaws in it, and what might patch everything back together.

Greetings and salutations, friends. Those of you who follow the Cataclysm forums or read either Relevart’s or Graylo’s blog know that we’ve had something of a discussion going on about how the balance rotation currently exists and how, if at all, it might or could be changed. While these two both posted up blogs on the matter last week, I had originally not wanted to bring that particular discussion up within Shifting Perspectives; however, I’ve had something of a change of heart. Note, the intention here is not to really bring up the interesting debate again — for that, I would much rather direct you all to the thread on The Moonkin Repository. Instead, I’d rather bring up the theory behind the discussion.

Not too long ago, Blizzard finally activated mastery effects on the beta servers, meaning Eclipse now actually does something for a change. This has given the balance community, myself included, a bit more practicality in how we can test rotations. Previously, we could test Eclipse gains to get theoretical DPS fluctuations, but now we have some actual numbers to work with. This allows us to go into deep theories of Eclipse, such as whether or not using non-Eclipsed spells to extend the effect’s duration is an effective DPS gain; however, there are still a few tweaks that need to go through, particularly reaching level 85, before anything really solid can be configured. There are things that we do know. One of those things is that our rotation is rather bland. The current incarnation of Eclipse is very mechanical, very predictable — which is not to say that’s a bad thing. It does allow for a certain level of “zoning out” while playing, though.

Continue reading Shifting Perspectives: Building a better rotation