Anuel
Legend
Hey guys, before we get into this guide I want to say just a few things, if you don't care, skip below...
I've been a main spec healer for around 9 years, played at max level as a full-time raid healer as a HPal, RDruid, RShaman, MW, and as a twink as every spec for healers for several years, around 7-8 years worth of twink healing experience. At the same time, I've been a full-time dps player for 6-8 years, and played just about every spec there is, even shockadon as both a twink and back in wrath during that patch where Prot-Holy was stupid broken... all this is just to show I have a stupid amount of experience as a raider, and I know how to figure out how to make a spec work quite well, but I am NOT perfect and will attempt to keep this guide as up-to-date as I can. Now, onto the guide!
1. Balance Druid
----a. Stat Priority
----b. Spells
----c. Talents
----d. Specs
------I. Starlord
------II. Soul
----e. Gear, Gems, Enchants, ect.
----f. Macros/General Tips
**Small update to Balance DPS Numbers, I am currently pulling anywhere from 1.1k to 1.5k dps on any single target fight as of 12/23/18**
**It is important to note you have 2058 mana at level 80 base. Mana is used for utility spells.**
Stat Priority
Balance's stat priority is straight forward: Int > Mastery > Haste(25%) > Crit > Vers
Balance has a fantastic mastery, and with it being recently buffed in 8.1 to give full benefit to Starsurge and Starfall, it went from being last on our list, to almost first. Since you can't get gear with mastery on it and can only realistically get it through enchants and buffs, to a reasonable max of around 59 (giving you a total of 20.45%) without procs, this being a constant 20% buff makes it fairly incredible. Haste allows you to get more Starsurges out more often and thus more dps. Crit doesn't benefit you in any specific or special way outside of just it's inherit benefits. Vers just scales poorly at 80 for balance, although not useless or really bad, it is out-performed by the other stats.
Spells
Moonkin Form: Increases the damage of your spells by 10%, your armor by 125%, and gives you a 15% chance when hit to make your next Lunar Strike instant cast.
Starsurge: 40 Astral Power, in my druids gear as off 12/17/18 does between 2.2k damage, and is your number one damaging spell but a lot, taking up around 34% of your total damage, making it your top priority, however you may change when you use it depending on your spec and situation.
Starfall: 50 Astral Power, your only AOE AP spender. You can layer multiple Starfalls ontop of each other for more damage.
Solar Wrath: Your primary AP builder, generates 8 AP per cast and does an average of 465 damage, and with a 1.5s cast time, is your go-to fill spell.
Lunar Strike: Your secondary AP builder, generates 12 AP per cast and does an average of 874 damage, and has a 2s cast time.
Moonfire: Generates 3 AP per cast, instant cast, and deals and 1.2k damage over 22 seconds.
Sunfire: Generates 3 AP per cast, instant cast, deals 1k damage over 18 seconds, and applies its dot to all targets within 8 yards of the primary target.
Celestial Alignment: Your only DPS CD as balance, increasing your damage and haste by 15% for 20 seconds. 3 minute CD.
Solar Beam: Your interrupt, creates an AOE Silence around the target, and when used to interrupt a spell, locks that spellschool for 3 seconds. 1 minute CD.
Soothe: Removes enrage affects from an enemy target. 10 second CD. 115 mana cost.
Innervate: Allows a target to cast without mana costs for 12 seconds on a 3 minute CD. No mana cost.
Rebirth: Allows you to resurrect a target in combat. Shares a 5 minute CD with other players in the raid with a similar spell, and has 2 charges that are also shared. 2 second cast time.
Remove Corruption: Removes all curse and desease effects on a friendly target on a 8 second CD. 134 mana cost.
Barkskin: Reduces all damage taken by 20% for 12 seconds, negates pushback on spellcasts from damage taken, and can be used while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, asleep, and feared. 1 minute CD.
Hibernate: Puts an enemy beast or dragonkin to sleep, any damage done to the target will wake them, lasts up to 40 seconds. Limit 1.
Entangling Roots: Roots the target in place preventing them from moving for 30 seconds, but damage done to the target may cancel the effect.
Regrowth: Heal a target for 1412 and put a Heal over Time on them for an additional 416 over 12 seconds. 449 mana cost. 1.5 second cast time.
Talents
------15 Tier------
Nature's Balance --- Warrior of Elune --- Force of Nature
------30 Tier------
Tiger Dash --- Renewal --- Wild Charge
------45 Tier------
Feral Affinity --- Guardian Affinity --- Restoration Affinity
------60 Tier------
Mighty Bash --- Mass Entanglement --- Typhoon
------75 Tier------
Soul of the Forest --- Starlord --- Incarnation: Chosen of Elune
Balance druid talents are fairly open when it comes to what you want and can run in any given situation, with most of your chooses coming down to what you prefer. I'll go over each talent, what my testing has shown them to be in terms of dps impact, and what I personally prefer to use, where I can see them being beneficial and if they are useless in my opinion, and of course why they are useless to me.
15 Tier - Resources
Nature's Balance: This talent essentially gives you 40 AP/minute, by far the most AP out of this first tier, and after combat ends it sets your AP back to 50. Along with this obvious benefit of the AP generation this offers, it means your trash dps will be very consistent, being able to use a Starfall for every pull if there's a break in combat between them.
Warrior of Elune: Makes your next 3 Lunar Strike spells instant cast, and generate 40% more AP. This averages out to be 19.2 AP per minute, making it the least AP/Minute out of the first tier, and overall the least damage gained from this first tier based on Starsurges/minute, however, if we take into consideration the 3 instant cast Lunar Strikes, it does make it the go-to for me for heavy aoe fights where you may need more burst aoe instead of consistant aoe damage over an entire fight since you can just spam the Lunar Strikes and use a Starfall off those.
Force of Nature: Summons 3 treant's that taunt and melee your target for 10 seconds and using the spell generates 20 AP. This spell has a 1 minute CD, making the math for this stupid proof, 20AP/minute and an average of around 2.2k damage per cast. Because these taunt the target when summoned, this talent is generally very bad in raids.
For this tier, I usually run Nature's Balance since it gives the most AP/Minute by far, and works out very well in the spec I run 90% of the time, but with that being said Warrior of Elune is a great burst AOE choice when the occasion arises. I cannot recommend using Force of Nature for any reason right now, both because it taunts the target and the damage averages too low to be really useful.
30 Tier - Movement
Tiger Dash: Changes you into cat form, and increases your movement speed by 200% that rapidly reduces back down to your standard movement speed over 5 seconds on a 45 second CD. This replaces Dash, your normal sprint buff but with a 45 second CD, along with the insane 200% speed buff for the first second, you can move very far with this, very fast. Allowing you to re-position very easily and quickly.
Renewal: This spell instantly heals you for 30% of your total max health on a 1.5 minute CD, pretty straight forward. Great for fights there there are periods of high damage incoming, but obviously offers nothing for movement.
Wild Charge: This talent does a different thing for each form, so I'll list what each one does below, but to make this simple for people who know more about druids in general, this is a great overall utility talent with a lot of versatility in how it can be used. 15 second CD.
---Caster Form (No Form Active): Fly's you to your target.
---Moonkin Form: Leaps backwards about 24 yards.
---Cat Form: Leaps behind your target, dazing them for 3 seconds.
---Bear Form: Charges to your target and immobilizes them for 4 seconds.
---Travel Ground Form: Leaps forward about 30 yards.
---Travel Aquatic From: Increases swim speed by 150% for 5 seconds.
This tier is pretty much entirely your choice, but I personally always use Tiger Dash because it just gives you so much mobility that I often use to re-position, but in heavy damage situations I use Renewal. So I pretty much never use Wild Charge but your mileage may vary.
45 Tier - Utility
Feral Affinity: This affinity gives you +15% base movement speed, great for general mobilty, as well as the core cat form abilities in case you ever need to deal strictly physical damage. Over-all this is just for the 15% movement speed buff, the cat form abilities will really never be used in any situation.
--Cat Form increases your movement speed by 30% baseline. You're really only ever going to be in Cat Form for when you use Dash, Tiger Dash, or Prowl, and only remain in Cat Form for quick re-positioning.
Guardian Affinity: Gives you a flat 6% damage reduction at all times as well as core bear druid abilities such as Frenzied Regeneration, Ironfur, and Thrash.
--When shifting into Bear Form, you generate 20 rage, gain 220% armor, and 25% stamina, combining this with the 6% DR you get from Guardian Affinity this makes you quite durable.
--Frenzied Regeneration is great for periods of high burst/sustained damage like Tympanic Tantrum on XT-002 Deconstructor in Ulduar. Costs 10 rage to cast but heals you for 24% of your max health over 3 seconds.
--Ironfur increases your armor by 75% of your agility for 7 seconds, and costs 45 rage. There's really no way for you as balance to gain that much rage in a short enough amount of time to really ever use this ability but on the off-chance you do, its a small, but nice, buff to your armor if Frenzied Regeneration is on CD.
--Thrash generates 5 rage on use and has a 6 second CD, deals some damage and applies a weak bleed to targets around you. This is really just there for the rage generation, and has no real other uses unless you need to tank in a pinch.
Restoration Affinity: Gives you Ysera's Gift which heals you for 3% of your maximum health every 5 seconds, and if you are at max health heals another raid member within 40 yards for 3% of your maximum health. This overall doesn't give you a ton of healing but you also gain access to Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth which are great healing utility overall and can be awesome self-healing whenever you might need it.
--Rejuvenation heals a target for 72% of spellpower over 12 seconds and costs 346 mana. This gives you a decent hot for yourself or your raid if you ever need to help out with healing. This also takes you out of Moonkin Form when cast.
--Wild Growth heals 6 injured players within 40 yards for 69.3% spellpower over 7 seconds, with the healing starting high but ramping down over the duration, this spell costs 617 mana and has a 10 second CD. Great raid healing utility but it does take you out of Moonkin Form.
--Swiftmend heals a single target for 240% of spellpower, costs 648 mana, and has a 25 second CD. This is a very strong instant cast heal you can use whenever your in a bind and need a quick burst of healing, but this does take you out of Moonkin Form when used so be mindful of that.
--Ysera's Gift heals you for 3% of your max health every 5 seconds, however if you are already at max health it will attempt to heal another injured raid member within 40 yards for 3% of your maximum health. As said above, good for self-sustain and very mild passive raid healing.
This tier is pretty much entirely your choice for any given fight. I end up setting Restoration Affinity and not really changing it because I often throw out a wild growth during high damage periods, and I can always use the swiftmend on myself alongside a healthstone for some emergency healing. But when I do change talents here I normaly go with Guardian Affinity for the 6% DR.
60 Tier - Control
Mighty Bash: Stuns the your target for 5 seconds on a 50 second CD and has a 10 yard range. This talent has some pretty good utility, if you need to CC a mob that spawns every 45 seconds, and your group needs you to help with that for whatever reason you can be the second stun for it with this talent.
--This talent has some drawbacks that limit how often you will be able to use it, but it's a good choice for when you need an extra interrupt on targets that can be stunned or need to just stun a target.
-The biggest drawback for me is that it has a 10 yard range on a single target stun, which means you have to put yourself into a potentially harmful position.
-It's a single target CC, on a 50 second CD. Meaning it's not as usable as your other choices on this tier.
Mass Entanglement: Instant cast AOE Entangling Roots, the AOE starts from your target and radiates out from that, it has a 30 second duration and 30 second CD.
--This talent has awesome potential for AOE CC on a lot of mobs at once, however it's not a hard CC like Mighty Bash, Psychic Horror or the like because it does break on moderate damage, its great for keeping melee adds away indefinitely, as long as you keep an eye on the CD you shouldn't have any issues keeping adds in place for as long as the group needs them to be.
-One of the downsides to this talent is that if you miss the CD too much it renders this talent essentially useless since your rooting melee mobs on-top of the melee/tanks.
Typhoon: Knocks back targets within 20 yards in front of you by 20 yards and dazes (6 second 50% snare) them on a 30 second CD. This talent has some really awesome potential to be either a huge asset to your team, or the source of all your wipes and why you might find yourself being burned alive by the tanks and melee dps. I often use this to knock back the bomb adds on XT-002 so that the dps can kill them Bomb adds and wipe out the smaller adds without much trouble.
--To properly use this talent, you need to position yourself in advance as close to 100% of the time as physically possible. This means you need to know each fight very well so that you can predict where you need to be 45 seconds before needing to be there, and being able to efficiently getting there as well without dropping too much dps.
-The downsides here are pretty dependent on you as a player and how well you handle this kind of talent. If you can position yourself well consistently you will be able to make outstanding use of this talent and it might become a staple for you, but if not you could very easily wipe the group a lot. Keep this in mind when taking this talent.
This tier is pretty fight dependent and can and normally will change on each fight, so the best advice I can give you is to learn all the fights you can and ask raid leaders what they would prefer if you're ever unsure. I normally switch between Mass Entanglement and Typhoon for different mechanics.
75 Tier - Damage
This tier has the largest impact on dps by a large margin, and will be the deciding factor in how your spec plays and can even impact to some degree your stat priorities. With that said, all three of the choices here are viable and can all be used if you prefer one over the others, and I will go over the two better (in my honest opinion) choices in the specs section below.
Soul of the Forest: Increases the damage bonus of your Solar and Lunar Empowerment's by 30% and decreases the AP cost of Starfall by 10. This 30% bonus is not a straight increase to their damage but an extra 30% modifier to your mastery for Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike, meaning that if you have 20% mastery, your Empowerments gain an additional 6% damage (20*0.3=26). This means that you will want more haste then the 25% I have listen above, because the more AP you generate, the more Starsurges and thus the more Empowerments you can utilize. This talent simplifies your rotation a lot, and it will mean you don't need to pool any AP past 40 for any reason, you just want to spend it as soon as you hit the 40 AP.
Starlord: Starsurge and Starfall increase your haste by 3% for 20 seconds, stacking up to 3 times for a total of 9% haste, however each subsequent stack does not refresh the buffs duration. This is additive and that changes how you use your AP. With this talent you want to keep the 6% stack up as much as possible and try to get to a 3rd stack as fast as you can. We'll go over this in more depth later on in the specs section. This talent also means you don't want to get too much haste because it will cause issues during lust/heroism with you hitting haste cap, the point where your spellcasts are faster then your Global Cool Down, and gives your spec a hard haste cap that you can reasonably hit.
Incarnation: Chosen of Elune: This talent replaces your Celestial Alignment, and increases your damage done by 25%, 10% more then Celestial Alignment, and your haste by 15% for 30 seconds, 10 seconds more then Celestial Alignment. 3 minute CD, same as Celestial Alignment. This talent only offers more damage during burn phases, and otherwise has no impact on your dps. Although a strong choice when a fight has a tight burn phase, you will lose overall dps from this talent over the other choices in this tier.
Since this is such a major tier, I'll go over my thoughts on each of these talents, where you might want to take them, and why I prefer the one I do (Starlord.)
--Soul is probably the simplest choice in this tier but in trade for that you will lose around 3-6% dps from taking that simpler route. It's a great choice, it is. It offers a flat mastery amp to your 2 most used spells, gives a great AP discount on Starfall, and allows you to focus entirely on fight mechanics without having to give any additional thought to pooling AP, duration of Starlord buffs. This was my go to while leveling, and for a while before all my testing. The base Balance rotation is all you will need to know with this talent, and if you love that, stick with this.
--Starlord is the most complicated choice here, adds a burn/conserve phase to your dps, and offers the most overall dps throughput. Having said all this, it does mean you will need to keep an eye on Starlord buffs throughout a fight, and if you have too much haste or the right trinket, you could go over haste cap with this talent pretty easily. Like I said above it is 3-6% more dps then Soul, requires you to pool AP far more often, but for me is the funnest talent here. If you like how Arcane Mage has a burn/conserve phase between Arcane Power/Evocation you'll probably love this talent because it is way more fast paced then that.
--Incarnation is the weakest talent in this tier, and offers overall the least dps throughput, but gives your burn phase and CD's overall a nice damage amp. It's not a bad talent, none of the talents in this tier are, but I find this talent to be the most boring by far, since it changes nothing about your spec, and only has any effect on your dps during your CD's. But when you need the burn phase damage amp, this is without doubt your best choice so long as the rest of the fight can be dealt without worrying about enrage timers.
Specs
There are two specs I will cover in this guide, and I will cover them to the best of my abilities. Note that balance druid can be played however you like, and if you find an option I miss, please leave a comment, but these are the specs I focus on while testing and playing.
Starlord Spec
I've been a main spec healer for around 9 years, played at max level as a full-time raid healer as a HPal, RDruid, RShaman, MW, and as a twink as every spec for healers for several years, around 7-8 years worth of twink healing experience. At the same time, I've been a full-time dps player for 6-8 years, and played just about every spec there is, even shockadon as both a twink and back in wrath during that patch where Prot-Holy was stupid broken... all this is just to show I have a stupid amount of experience as a raider, and I know how to figure out how to make a spec work quite well, but I am NOT perfect and will attempt to keep this guide as up-to-date as I can. Now, onto the guide!
This guide is intended to help those who are participating in any Level 80 Projects that have GEAR restrictions based on their current content progression, (i.e. not being allowed to use Heroic Halion Trinkets while progressing through Naxx10/25) and will give advice with that in mind. If you are looking for something that focuses on a 80 druid with no gear restrictions, this is not necessarily the guide for you.
Druid PVE Guide
v0.0.8 Latest Update: 12/26/18 10:15 PM CST
Table of Contentsv0.0.8 Latest Update: 12/26/18 10:15 PM CST
1. Balance Druid
----a. Stat Priority
----b. Spells
----c. Talents
----d. Specs
------I. Starlord
------II. Soul
----e. Gear, Gems, Enchants, ect.
----f. Macros/General Tips
Balance
Balance is incredibly fun in 8.1, and with practice and proper play can really pull some great numbers on a given fight, although it won't beat out the current major powerhouses like SV Hunter, Arms/Fury Warr, Arcane Mage, it will stay very competitive with the rest of the specs at 80. As of writing this guide, my druid is MS Balance, and I intend on learning and writing guides for both Feral and Resto as well, however if you want to see what my druid is using at any given time, here is his armory: Stêin - Korgath.**Small update to Balance DPS Numbers, I am currently pulling anywhere from 1.1k to 1.5k dps on any single target fight as of 12/23/18**
**It is important to note you have 2058 mana at level 80 base. Mana is used for utility spells.**
Stat Priority
Balance's stat priority is straight forward: Int > Mastery > Haste(25%) > Crit > Vers
Balance has a fantastic mastery, and with it being recently buffed in 8.1 to give full benefit to Starsurge and Starfall, it went from being last on our list, to almost first. Since you can't get gear with mastery on it and can only realistically get it through enchants and buffs, to a reasonable max of around 59 (giving you a total of 20.45%) without procs, this being a constant 20% buff makes it fairly incredible. Haste allows you to get more Starsurges out more often and thus more dps. Crit doesn't benefit you in any specific or special way outside of just it's inherit benefits. Vers just scales poorly at 80 for balance, although not useless or really bad, it is out-performed by the other stats.
Spells
Moonkin Form: Increases the damage of your spells by 10%, your armor by 125%, and gives you a 15% chance when hit to make your next Lunar Strike instant cast.
Starsurge: 40 Astral Power, in my druids gear as off 12/17/18 does between 2.2k damage, and is your number one damaging spell but a lot, taking up around 34% of your total damage, making it your top priority, however you may change when you use it depending on your spec and situation.
Starfall: 50 Astral Power, your only AOE AP spender. You can layer multiple Starfalls ontop of each other for more damage.
Solar Wrath: Your primary AP builder, generates 8 AP per cast and does an average of 465 damage, and with a 1.5s cast time, is your go-to fill spell.
Lunar Strike: Your secondary AP builder, generates 12 AP per cast and does an average of 874 damage, and has a 2s cast time.
Moonfire: Generates 3 AP per cast, instant cast, and deals and 1.2k damage over 22 seconds.
Sunfire: Generates 3 AP per cast, instant cast, deals 1k damage over 18 seconds, and applies its dot to all targets within 8 yards of the primary target.
Celestial Alignment: Your only DPS CD as balance, increasing your damage and haste by 15% for 20 seconds. 3 minute CD.
Solar Beam: Your interrupt, creates an AOE Silence around the target, and when used to interrupt a spell, locks that spellschool for 3 seconds. 1 minute CD.
Soothe: Removes enrage affects from an enemy target. 10 second CD. 115 mana cost.
Innervate: Allows a target to cast without mana costs for 12 seconds on a 3 minute CD. No mana cost.
Rebirth: Allows you to resurrect a target in combat. Shares a 5 minute CD with other players in the raid with a similar spell, and has 2 charges that are also shared. 2 second cast time.
Remove Corruption: Removes all curse and desease effects on a friendly target on a 8 second CD. 134 mana cost.
Barkskin: Reduces all damage taken by 20% for 12 seconds, negates pushback on spellcasts from damage taken, and can be used while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, asleep, and feared. 1 minute CD.
Hibernate: Puts an enemy beast or dragonkin to sleep, any damage done to the target will wake them, lasts up to 40 seconds. Limit 1.
Entangling Roots: Roots the target in place preventing them from moving for 30 seconds, but damage done to the target may cancel the effect.
Regrowth: Heal a target for 1412 and put a Heal over Time on them for an additional 416 over 12 seconds. 449 mana cost. 1.5 second cast time.
Talents
------15 Tier------
Nature's Balance --- Warrior of Elune --- Force of Nature
------30 Tier------
Tiger Dash --- Renewal --- Wild Charge
------45 Tier------
Feral Affinity --- Guardian Affinity --- Restoration Affinity
------60 Tier------
Mighty Bash --- Mass Entanglement --- Typhoon
------75 Tier------
Soul of the Forest --- Starlord --- Incarnation: Chosen of Elune
Balance druid talents are fairly open when it comes to what you want and can run in any given situation, with most of your chooses coming down to what you prefer. I'll go over each talent, what my testing has shown them to be in terms of dps impact, and what I personally prefer to use, where I can see them being beneficial and if they are useless in my opinion, and of course why they are useless to me.
15 Tier - Resources
Nature's Balance: This talent essentially gives you 40 AP/minute, by far the most AP out of this first tier, and after combat ends it sets your AP back to 50. Along with this obvious benefit of the AP generation this offers, it means your trash dps will be very consistent, being able to use a Starfall for every pull if there's a break in combat between them.
Warrior of Elune: Makes your next 3 Lunar Strike spells instant cast, and generate 40% more AP. This averages out to be 19.2 AP per minute, making it the least AP/Minute out of the first tier, and overall the least damage gained from this first tier based on Starsurges/minute, however, if we take into consideration the 3 instant cast Lunar Strikes, it does make it the go-to for me for heavy aoe fights where you may need more burst aoe instead of consistant aoe damage over an entire fight since you can just spam the Lunar Strikes and use a Starfall off those.
Force of Nature: Summons 3 treant's that taunt and melee your target for 10 seconds and using the spell generates 20 AP. This spell has a 1 minute CD, making the math for this stupid proof, 20AP/minute and an average of around 2.2k damage per cast. Because these taunt the target when summoned, this talent is generally very bad in raids.
For this tier, I usually run Nature's Balance since it gives the most AP/Minute by far, and works out very well in the spec I run 90% of the time, but with that being said Warrior of Elune is a great burst AOE choice when the occasion arises. I cannot recommend using Force of Nature for any reason right now, both because it taunts the target and the damage averages too low to be really useful.
30 Tier - Movement
Tiger Dash: Changes you into cat form, and increases your movement speed by 200% that rapidly reduces back down to your standard movement speed over 5 seconds on a 45 second CD. This replaces Dash, your normal sprint buff but with a 45 second CD, along with the insane 200% speed buff for the first second, you can move very far with this, very fast. Allowing you to re-position very easily and quickly.
Renewal: This spell instantly heals you for 30% of your total max health on a 1.5 minute CD, pretty straight forward. Great for fights there there are periods of high damage incoming, but obviously offers nothing for movement.
Wild Charge: This talent does a different thing for each form, so I'll list what each one does below, but to make this simple for people who know more about druids in general, this is a great overall utility talent with a lot of versatility in how it can be used. 15 second CD.
---Caster Form (No Form Active): Fly's you to your target.
---Moonkin Form: Leaps backwards about 24 yards.
---Cat Form: Leaps behind your target, dazing them for 3 seconds.
---Bear Form: Charges to your target and immobilizes them for 4 seconds.
---Travel Ground Form: Leaps forward about 30 yards.
---Travel Aquatic From: Increases swim speed by 150% for 5 seconds.
This tier is pretty much entirely your choice, but I personally always use Tiger Dash because it just gives you so much mobility that I often use to re-position, but in heavy damage situations I use Renewal. So I pretty much never use Wild Charge but your mileage may vary.
45 Tier - Utility
Feral Affinity: This affinity gives you +15% base movement speed, great for general mobilty, as well as the core cat form abilities in case you ever need to deal strictly physical damage. Over-all this is just for the 15% movement speed buff, the cat form abilities will really never be used in any situation.
--Cat Form increases your movement speed by 30% baseline. You're really only ever going to be in Cat Form for when you use Dash, Tiger Dash, or Prowl, and only remain in Cat Form for quick re-positioning.
Guardian Affinity: Gives you a flat 6% damage reduction at all times as well as core bear druid abilities such as Frenzied Regeneration, Ironfur, and Thrash.
--When shifting into Bear Form, you generate 20 rage, gain 220% armor, and 25% stamina, combining this with the 6% DR you get from Guardian Affinity this makes you quite durable.
--Frenzied Regeneration is great for periods of high burst/sustained damage like Tympanic Tantrum on XT-002 Deconstructor in Ulduar. Costs 10 rage to cast but heals you for 24% of your max health over 3 seconds.
--Ironfur increases your armor by 75% of your agility for 7 seconds, and costs 45 rage. There's really no way for you as balance to gain that much rage in a short enough amount of time to really ever use this ability but on the off-chance you do, its a small, but nice, buff to your armor if Frenzied Regeneration is on CD.
--Thrash generates 5 rage on use and has a 6 second CD, deals some damage and applies a weak bleed to targets around you. This is really just there for the rage generation, and has no real other uses unless you need to tank in a pinch.
Restoration Affinity: Gives you Ysera's Gift which heals you for 3% of your maximum health every 5 seconds, and if you are at max health heals another raid member within 40 yards for 3% of your maximum health. This overall doesn't give you a ton of healing but you also gain access to Rejuvenation, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth which are great healing utility overall and can be awesome self-healing whenever you might need it.
--Rejuvenation heals a target for 72% of spellpower over 12 seconds and costs 346 mana. This gives you a decent hot for yourself or your raid if you ever need to help out with healing. This also takes you out of Moonkin Form when cast.
--Wild Growth heals 6 injured players within 40 yards for 69.3% spellpower over 7 seconds, with the healing starting high but ramping down over the duration, this spell costs 617 mana and has a 10 second CD. Great raid healing utility but it does take you out of Moonkin Form.
--Swiftmend heals a single target for 240% of spellpower, costs 648 mana, and has a 25 second CD. This is a very strong instant cast heal you can use whenever your in a bind and need a quick burst of healing, but this does take you out of Moonkin Form when used so be mindful of that.
--Ysera's Gift heals you for 3% of your max health every 5 seconds, however if you are already at max health it will attempt to heal another injured raid member within 40 yards for 3% of your maximum health. As said above, good for self-sustain and very mild passive raid healing.
This tier is pretty much entirely your choice for any given fight. I end up setting Restoration Affinity and not really changing it because I often throw out a wild growth during high damage periods, and I can always use the swiftmend on myself alongside a healthstone for some emergency healing. But when I do change talents here I normaly go with Guardian Affinity for the 6% DR.
60 Tier - Control
Mighty Bash: Stuns the your target for 5 seconds on a 50 second CD and has a 10 yard range. This talent has some pretty good utility, if you need to CC a mob that spawns every 45 seconds, and your group needs you to help with that for whatever reason you can be the second stun for it with this talent.
--This talent has some drawbacks that limit how often you will be able to use it, but it's a good choice for when you need an extra interrupt on targets that can be stunned or need to just stun a target.
-The biggest drawback for me is that it has a 10 yard range on a single target stun, which means you have to put yourself into a potentially harmful position.
-It's a single target CC, on a 50 second CD. Meaning it's not as usable as your other choices on this tier.
Mass Entanglement: Instant cast AOE Entangling Roots, the AOE starts from your target and radiates out from that, it has a 30 second duration and 30 second CD.
--This talent has awesome potential for AOE CC on a lot of mobs at once, however it's not a hard CC like Mighty Bash, Psychic Horror or the like because it does break on moderate damage, its great for keeping melee adds away indefinitely, as long as you keep an eye on the CD you shouldn't have any issues keeping adds in place for as long as the group needs them to be.
-One of the downsides to this talent is that if you miss the CD too much it renders this talent essentially useless since your rooting melee mobs on-top of the melee/tanks.
Typhoon: Knocks back targets within 20 yards in front of you by 20 yards and dazes (6 second 50% snare) them on a 30 second CD. This talent has some really awesome potential to be either a huge asset to your team, or the source of all your wipes and why you might find yourself being burned alive by the tanks and melee dps. I often use this to knock back the bomb adds on XT-002 so that the dps can kill them Bomb adds and wipe out the smaller adds without much trouble.
--To properly use this talent, you need to position yourself in advance as close to 100% of the time as physically possible. This means you need to know each fight very well so that you can predict where you need to be 45 seconds before needing to be there, and being able to efficiently getting there as well without dropping too much dps.
-The downsides here are pretty dependent on you as a player and how well you handle this kind of talent. If you can position yourself well consistently you will be able to make outstanding use of this talent and it might become a staple for you, but if not you could very easily wipe the group a lot. Keep this in mind when taking this talent.
This tier is pretty fight dependent and can and normally will change on each fight, so the best advice I can give you is to learn all the fights you can and ask raid leaders what they would prefer if you're ever unsure. I normally switch between Mass Entanglement and Typhoon for different mechanics.
75 Tier - Damage
This tier has the largest impact on dps by a large margin, and will be the deciding factor in how your spec plays and can even impact to some degree your stat priorities. With that said, all three of the choices here are viable and can all be used if you prefer one over the others, and I will go over the two better (in my honest opinion) choices in the specs section below.
Soul of the Forest: Increases the damage bonus of your Solar and Lunar Empowerment's by 30% and decreases the AP cost of Starfall by 10. This 30% bonus is not a straight increase to their damage but an extra 30% modifier to your mastery for Solar Wrath and Lunar Strike, meaning that if you have 20% mastery, your Empowerments gain an additional 6% damage (20*0.3=26). This means that you will want more haste then the 25% I have listen above, because the more AP you generate, the more Starsurges and thus the more Empowerments you can utilize. This talent simplifies your rotation a lot, and it will mean you don't need to pool any AP past 40 for any reason, you just want to spend it as soon as you hit the 40 AP.
Starlord: Starsurge and Starfall increase your haste by 3% for 20 seconds, stacking up to 3 times for a total of 9% haste, however each subsequent stack does not refresh the buffs duration. This is additive and that changes how you use your AP. With this talent you want to keep the 6% stack up as much as possible and try to get to a 3rd stack as fast as you can. We'll go over this in more depth later on in the specs section. This talent also means you don't want to get too much haste because it will cause issues during lust/heroism with you hitting haste cap, the point where your spellcasts are faster then your Global Cool Down, and gives your spec a hard haste cap that you can reasonably hit.
Incarnation: Chosen of Elune: This talent replaces your Celestial Alignment, and increases your damage done by 25%, 10% more then Celestial Alignment, and your haste by 15% for 30 seconds, 10 seconds more then Celestial Alignment. 3 minute CD, same as Celestial Alignment. This talent only offers more damage during burn phases, and otherwise has no impact on your dps. Although a strong choice when a fight has a tight burn phase, you will lose overall dps from this talent over the other choices in this tier.
Since this is such a major tier, I'll go over my thoughts on each of these talents, where you might want to take them, and why I prefer the one I do (Starlord.)
--Soul is probably the simplest choice in this tier but in trade for that you will lose around 3-6% dps from taking that simpler route. It's a great choice, it is. It offers a flat mastery amp to your 2 most used spells, gives a great AP discount on Starfall, and allows you to focus entirely on fight mechanics without having to give any additional thought to pooling AP, duration of Starlord buffs. This was my go to while leveling, and for a while before all my testing. The base Balance rotation is all you will need to know with this talent, and if you love that, stick with this.
--Starlord is the most complicated choice here, adds a burn/conserve phase to your dps, and offers the most overall dps throughput. Having said all this, it does mean you will need to keep an eye on Starlord buffs throughout a fight, and if you have too much haste or the right trinket, you could go over haste cap with this talent pretty easily. Like I said above it is 3-6% more dps then Soul, requires you to pool AP far more often, but for me is the funnest talent here. If you like how Arcane Mage has a burn/conserve phase between Arcane Power/Evocation you'll probably love this talent because it is way more fast paced then that.
--Incarnation is the weakest talent in this tier, and offers overall the least dps throughput, but gives your burn phase and CD's overall a nice damage amp. It's not a bad talent, none of the talents in this tier are, but I find this talent to be the most boring by far, since it changes nothing about your spec, and only has any effect on your dps during your CD's. But when you need the burn phase damage amp, this is without doubt your best choice so long as the rest of the fight can be dealt without worrying about enrage timers.
Specs
There are two specs I will cover in this guide, and I will cover them to the best of my abilities. Note that balance druid can be played however you like, and if you find an option I miss, please leave a comment, but these are the specs I focus on while testing and playing.
Starlord Spec
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