Wow, this makes the Arms Warrior changes look minor.
Balance Druids, with their awesome laser chicken form and their totally unique resource system (which, granted, after the Warlock revamp in Mists is less unusual) are getting a hell of an overhaul. I don't play my Moonkin a huge amount, but I have enough to know that the changes coming are pretty freaking enormous.
First off, the whole Balance Energy bar and Eclipse is being redesigned. Solar/Lunar Energy is no longer tied to abilities you use. Instead, the bar will go through a natural day/night cycle every 30 seconds. I'm not sure, but this could actually continue regardless of whether you're in combat or not.
Rather than a binary (or trinary?) "in an Eclipse state" or "not in an Eclipse state," Eclipse will now increase the damage of appropriate spells based on how close you are to full of that particular form of energy. Baseline, before Mastery, there's a total Eclipse bonus of 30%, split depending on how far the bar is along. So if it's all the way at the Solar side, your nature spells will get 30% extra damage. If it's not quite there, you'll get a 27% bonus to your nature spells, and a 3% bonus to arcane. When it's halfway between, you'll get 15% bonus to both types of spell. Mastery will then increase that total bonus (with a baseline of 12% extra.)
So you'll still be switching off between Wrath and Starfire, but it'll be more about timing and watching the bar. Got that? Ok, there's more.
Moonfire and Sunfire now replace each other when the Balance bar is shifted to night or day respectively. However, their DOT effects are not mutually exclusive. Both effects last 16 seconds, so you should be able to keep them up even while you can't cast them. These effects are no longer extended by Wrath/Starfire/Starsurge crits, though, so it'll be a challenge to maintain uptime.
Lunar Shower is now Astral Showers, and looks like it might be an active ability? Moonfire's initial damage and duration are increased by 100% while Sunfire's initial damage is also increased by 100% and its DOT is applied to all enemies within 5 yards of the target.
Phew, keeping them coming.
Starsurge now has 3 charges on a 30 second recharge. It grants Lunar or Solar Empowerment (perhaps based on your Eclipse state?) Lunar Empowerment increases the damage of your next two Starfires by 30%, and Solar Empowerment increases the damage of your next three Wrath by 30%. So it looks to me like you'll want to save Starsurge for right as you're about to hit full Solar or full Lunar and then blast away with empowered Wraths or Starfires.
Starfall now shares the charges and recharge time of Starsurge, hitting all nearby enemies and clearly taking on the role of the AoE counterpart to Starsurge.
Shooting Stars now adds a charge for these two spells, having a 2.5% chance to trigger off Moonfire and Sunfire ticks, or with a 5% chance when those ticks crit.
But wait, there's more!
Hurricane's range is increased, but it looks like Astral Storm's gone (nature is for AoE? I guess?) Wild Mushroom now basically detonates immediately, and is a single spell. Actually, it might be purely for the snare now.
Celestial Alignment now works by pausing the Balance Bar cycle and maximizing the Eclipse bonus for all spells (which is not that far from what it does now.)
Astral Communion just increases the rate of the cycle by 300% while channeled.
There are more changes, though I think we're getting into talents.
As you can see, this is some huge stuff for Balance. I'm curious to see how a resource system (or at least something like a resource system) that is completely based on just time passing will work. You will have some control over it with Astral Communion, so if you're a super-pro player you can line it up for extra-damage portions of a fight. Balance could prove to be pretty crazy and dizzying, but it certainly gives players a new option on how they want to play.
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