Balance Druid PvE Guide - latest update: 25.05.2012

[Thelan]

Welcome to the World of Druidcraft! The purpose of this guide is to provide a basic reference for the new and experienced alike, but mostly for those who find Balance confusing.

[Changelog]
25.10.2011 - Initial release for 4.0.6
- 27.10.2011 - Added a note about Euphoria.
- 29.10.2011 - Added Macros and Races. Updated the guide to spells.
- 30.20.2011 - Updated Starsurge description to reflect todays fix.
- 25.05.2012 - Euphoria got fixed while I was gone.

Basic talent spec: 31/2/8

Balance has the uncommon quality of being a fairly open spec. While some talents are mandatory, quite a few can be mixed and matched to preference.

In this case, I'm presenting you with a build that offers excellent mana regen while maintaining all the important dps aspects along with a couple of utilities. A perfect build for beginners with entry level gear.

As you gear up, you will find that you can safely drop talents like Dreamstate (wowhead link) or Furor (wowhead link) in favor of things like Typhoon (wowhead link) or Fungal Growth (wowhead link). In order to find the spot where you can safely drop them, try dpsing a dummy until you run completely dry and check the time. If you managed to go for at least 5 minutes without having to Innervate yourself, you can safely mess around with your build.

Here's a handy list of optional talents and their impact:
Moonglow (wowhead link) - a pretty bad talent all around, if you're in need of mana, Dreamstate and/or Furor are far better.
Typhoon (wowhead link) - Mostly useful for soloing and pvp. In our case functions as a mandatory requirement for Gale Winds.
Gale Winds (wowhead link) - Quite useful for AoE-heavy fights. Bear in mind that Hurricane will deplete your mana VERY quickly if used repeatedly.
Owlkin Frenzy (wowhead link) - One of my favourites, with 3 points it's quite possible to keep it up all the time in fights featuring constant damage. Takes care of one of Balance's biggest issues - lack of spell pushback protection. On top of that boosts your damage considerably.
Dreamstate (wowhead link) - A great talent for those having mana issues.
Fungal Growth (wowhead link) - Potentially life-saving, but requires specific conditions and careful planning to really shine.
Furor (wowhead link) - Another mana-boosting talent. Works great with Dreamstate and Euphoria (wowhead link).
Perseverance (wowhead link) - Survivability talent, useful for those having issues surviving in raid situations.

Glyphs:
Prime:
Glyph of Insect Swarm - DoTs are a key to maintaining high dps, this glyph boosts one of them considerably.
Glyph of Moonfire - DoTs are a key to maintaining high dps, this glyph boosts the other one considerably.
Glyph of Wrath - A solid dps increase in most fights.
Glyph of Starsurge - Performance relies of your luck and the number of targets you'll be regularly Starfalling.

Both Glyph of Wrath and Starsurge are solid choices for the third slot. Keep a couple of dusts handy and switch those depending on fights.

Major:
Glyph of Starfall - Significant dps increase. Mandatory.
Glyph of Rebirth - Good choice for any druid as it makes Rebirth oh so much better.
Glyph of Focus - Can help you control the number of targets you Starfall, but requires more careful positioning.
Glyph of Innervate - Useful for helping healers in particularly nasty fights. Nearly useless otherwise as you'll be primarily innervating yourself.

Minor:
Glyph of Typhoon - For Typhoon lovers.
Rest are primarily a choice of convenience.

A Guide to Spells:
Moonfire (wowhead link)/Sunfire (wowhead link) - One of our two main DoTs, stronger of the two. Does not provide or expend energy.
Insect Swarm (wowhead link) - Second DoT, does not provide of expend energy.
Wrath (wowhead link) - Main spell to cast during Solar Eclipse. Provides Lunar energy.
Starfire (wowhead link) - Main spell to cast during Lunar Eclipse. Provides Solar energy.
Starsurge (wowhead link) - Balance's strongest nuke. Provides whichever energy will get you closer to the next Eclipse. This means that if it is cast in Eclipse state it will deplete the energy to move you closer to the next one. Example: You're in a Solar Eclipse with 65 solar energy left; Starsurge will provide 15 LUNAR energy, thus moving you closer to 0 and leaving you with 50 solar energy after being cast.
Force of Nature (wowhead link) - Summons 3 handy treants that will intercept the target which you have the most aggro on. They also come with a handy pet bar which can be used to redirect them.
Typhoon (wowhead link) - Fairly wide radius and low damage. Used primarily as a pushback tool.
Wild Mushroom (wowhead link) - Excellent burst AoE, with the addition of Fungal Growth makes an even better kiting tool.
Starfall (wowhead link) - Covers a large area around you with a fairly strong AoE. Master it as it's known to cause ninja pulls.
Barkskin (wowhead link) - A defensive cooldown, always keep it somewhere handy.
Innervate (wowhead link) - Provides 20% of your total mana over 10s. With Dreamstate it goes up to 35/50% if cast on yourself.
Rebirth (wowhead link) - Many consider this the selling point of the class. A quick rez spell that can be cast in combat. Will often turn the tide of battle in your favour.
Thorns (wowhead link) - Cast them on the tank during trash fights as they help with aggro management immensely.
Entangling Roots (wowhead link) - First of our two CC spells. This one roots the target to the ground for a good amount of time, but doesn't prevent it from taking other actions such as casting spells or striking you in melee if you don't move away fast enough.
Nature's Grasp (wowhead link) - Automatically casts the above spell on any target that strikes you in melee. Used primarily in pvp.
Cyclone (wowhead link) - Second of our two CC spells. This one makes the target completely immune, but also prevents it from taking any actions for several seconds. It is worth noting that it can serve as an interrupt in pvp.


Rotation:

One could compare Balance rotation to a swinging pendulum, as in the nutshell your goal is to swing from one Eclipse to another. Here's a basic rotation for a situation where you are in a state of 0 solar and lunar energy.

1) Apply DoTs, Treants
2) Wrath
3) Starsurge, cast on cooldown and procs (wowhead link) from this point
4) Wrath until Lunar Eclipse procs
5) Starfall
6) Refresh DoTs, Treants if off cooldown
7) Starfire until Solar Eclipse procs
8) Refresh DoTs, Treants if off cooldown
9) Wrath until Lunar Eclipse etc.

Here's the reasoning behind this particular rotation. Ideally you will want to keep Starfall on cooldown all the time, but also you will want to use it with Lunar Eclipse active as it boosts its damage considerably. Afterwards it's just a matter of swinging the Eclipse one way or another.

Note: If you're starting a fight with either energy already present, cast to achieve the nearest Eclipse. If it's a solar one, cast Starfall regardless of what's written above, it's simply not worth to wait.

Important: Do not remain in one Eclipse state all the time. It's horrible dps and screws your mana regen.

Some finer points of spell mechanics:

- If you cast Starsurge at the 0 energy state, it will give you solar energy, which isn't always welcome as explained above.
- Solar/Lunar energy is generated the moment cast is finished, unlike retail where it's generated when it lands.
- Sunfire and Moonfire are treated as different spells, so it is possible to have both of them active at the same target.
- Cataclysm has changed the rules of reapplying DoTs. The duration resets after the next tick rather than immediately. This means that recasting a DoT on a target with a single tick left causes no loss in DPS.
- In order to squeeze a little of extra dps cast Insect Swarm before Moonfire. This way you can use more of the 15% haste buff.
- Unlike retail, our lunar/solar energy does not reset to 0 upon death. This bug has its uses, primarily in pvp.

Casting when moving
If you know you will have to move for at least 5 seconds, try to achieve an Eclipse before that happens. It will boost your Moonfire dps output considerably. Other than that, keep spamming Moonfire, keep Insect Swarm up all the time and watch for Starsurge procs.
Also, remember that you can always switch to cat form and dash to a safe spot in order to get a couple of extra seconds of regular dps.

Races
Alliance - Worgen are the better dps option thanks to increased crit (wowhead link) and Darkflight (wowhead link)(which stacks with Dash (wowhead link)!). Night Elves don't offer any dps increase.
Horde - Troll are the best dps option thanks to Berserking (wowhead link) and increased damage against beasts (wowhead link). Tauren don't offer any dps increase.


Stats:

Spirit/Hit (until capped - 17% or 1742 rating) >> Intellect >> Haste > Mastery > Crit

Intellect - provides SP, crit and mana. An obvious winner.

Spirit/Hit - thanks to Balance of Power each point of Spirit translates to a point of Hit. If you are planning to having a resto offec always reforge for spirit rather than hit. This way you'll have hit as balance and regen as Resto without swapping gear. And always remember the old saying: 'You can't crit if you can't hit!'.

Haste - extra dot ticks and faster casting go a long way with the 'don't stand in fire' mentality encounters are designed with. Scales better than mastery and crit.

Mastery - close to haste in terms of usefulness, but as one can't be always in Eclipse state it's not as valuable.

Crit - a great stat if it's rating conversion wasn't so horrible.

Gems:
Red: Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Blue: Purified Demonseye if you're not hitcapped after reforging or if the socket bonus is attractive (Intellect, Haste or Mastery >= 15 per socket), otherwise go with Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Yellow: Reckless Ember Topaz if the socket bonus is attractive (Intellect, Haste or Mastery >= 15 per socket), otherwise go with Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Meta: Burning Shadowspirit Diamond is the only meta you should use.

Enchants:
- Head: 60 Int/35 crit
- Shoulders: 50 Int/25 haste
- Back - 50 Int (wowhead link)
- Chest - 20 stats (wowhead link)
- Wrists - 50 Int (wowhead link)
- Gloves - 50 haste (wowhead link)
- Legs - 95 Int/55 Spirit
- Boots - Run speed/35 mastery (wowhead link)
- Weapon - Power Torrent (wowhead link)
- Offhand - 40 Int (wowhead link)


Gear:
While Druids excel at wearing leather, the actual bonus isn't worth sacrificing your ilvl for. In other words, especially on new toons - just grab the highest ilvl caster gear you can get your hands on. After you've jumped over the initial gearing phase you should strive to wear leather gear only.

Macros:

Quote:

#showtooltip Entangling Roots /clearfocus [modifier:shift][target=focus,dead][target=focus,noexists] /focus [button:1] /cast [button:1] Entangling Roots /cast [button:2, target=focus,exists] Entangling Roots

A CC macro - upon clicking with left mouse button you'll automatically set the current target as your focus and cast ER on it. Afterwards, a simple right click will recast the spell on the focused target. When the target is dead, a left click will clear the focus. Alternatively you can press it while holding shift for the same effect.
This can be easily adapted to other forms of CC.

Quote:

#showtooltip Force of Nature /cast Force of Nature /petattack

A simple macro for managing treants. First click will summon them, second will send them to attack your current target if they aren't already.

Quote:

#showtooltip /cast [stance:0]!Travel Form;[stance:/0/4/6,flyable,nocombat]!Swift Flight Form;[stance:1]!Bear Form;[stance:2]!Aquatic Form;[stance:3]!Cat Form;[stance:4]!Travel Form;[stance:5]!Moonkin Form

The super shapeshift macro. It will allow you to shift out and back into your current form in less than a second. Extremely useful in pvp. It will also put you into travel if you're in caster form, or into swift flight form if you're in caster/travel form outside of combat and the area you're in is flyable.

References:
Elitist Jerks Balance thread


Balance Druid PvE Guide - Elemental Shaman PvE Guide

[->Erflo]

Pare destul de complicat.

[Zohlomg]

->Erflo wrote:

Pare destul de complicat.

Translation: "Is pretty complicate"

Yes, indeed. It's pretty complicate to post in english at the English zone .

[mariix]

Dots -> starfire (no wrath)-> Starsurge

.... [url=https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/eu/draenor/lothrohan[/url]