WotLK Classic Balance Druid Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs
On this page, you will find out the best PvE talent choices and builds for your Balance Druid in WotLK Classic, as well as advised glyphs.
Balance Leveling Talents
If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Druids.
Wrath Balance Tier 8 PvE Talent Build
With the introduction of Ulduar and Tier 8, Balance Druids will be
leaving most Mana issues behind, but also need to do longer fights, where
Moonfire performs better than it used to.
Thus, Improved Moonfire is back as a strong DPS increasing talent, and
so is
Glyph of Starfire. We also recommend maxing out
Nature's Reach
to avoid threat issues on Hodir, but you can also maximize
Improved Insect Swarm instead for slightly more DPS.
Finally, we would recommend taking out Glyph of Typhoon for Ulduar,
as the knockback is useful on multiple fights, such as when knocking back exploding
adds in Freya.
Wrath Balance Tier 7 PvE Talent Build
Balance Druids are tight on points, as you want to go very deeply
into the Balance tree for Starfall, and there are also multiple strong
talents at the bottom of the Balance tree that all but force a huge amount of
points to be spent in the tree.
With Tier 7 gear and bonuses, as well as the short fights of Naxxramas,
Improved Moonfire is skipped, as the short fight rotation does not use it
other than as a movement filler, since to be good
Moonfire requires two
glyphs and two talents that can be spent elsewhere for more damage and a smoother
rotation.
If you have Mana issues, we recommend taking out Improved Insect Swarm
or
Nature's Reach and investing into
Dreamstate. You could also
remove
Typhoon and
Gale Winds for more single-target damage, but
the gain you would get is so small that it is almost never worth losing these
area-damage-focused talents.
Wrath Balance PvP Talent Build
While somewhat similar to the PvE spec, you want to drop Improved Faerie Fire,
Improved Insect Swarm, and
Furor in favor of
Nature's Focus,
Subtlety,
Improved Moonfire, and
Owlkin Frenzy, all of which
have strong PvP use cases.
If you are playing on a composition trying to nuke a single target in
large-scale PvP, an argument could be done for Improved Faerie Fire, and longer
fights promote
Dreamstate, but for 2v2 and 3v3 Arena the suggested build
should be ideal to maximize your chances of winning.
Wrath Balance Glyphs
In Wrath you will be able to unlock Glyphs that improve your abilities and can be swapped around freely as long as you have the consumable glyph item on your bags.
As a Balance Druid in PvE you will want to be using Glyph of Focus,
Glyph of Starfall, and
Glyph of Insect Swarm for maximum damage,
especially in AoE scenarios.
For PvP, keep using Glyph of Starfall and
Glyph of Insect Swarm but
swap Focus for
Glyph of Monsoon for extra radius on Starfall and a lower
cooldown on
Typhoon.
For minor glyphs, you will usually want to use Glyph of Typhoon in PvE
to lower
Typhoon's Mana cost, make it larger and remove the knockback.
In other situations simply pick any glyphs you like out of
Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth,
Glyph of Dash,
Glyph of the Wild, or
Glyph of Thorns.
Notable Balance Druids Talents
Balance Tree
The Balance Tree carries most of the power of a Balance Druid, as would be expected. It also has a lot of PvP utility, which you can learn more about in our Wrath Balance Druid PvP guide.
Nature's Grace increases your casting speed by 20% when you critically
hit with a non-periodic spell. This allows you to have a huge amount of Haste
very often, especially during
Eclipse when your
Starfire critical
chance is highly increased.
Insect Swarm is a powerful damage-over-time effect with an equally
powerful glyph option in
Glyph of Insect Swarm. When combined, they make
it worth casting in most scenarios, as explained in the Balance rotation page.
Improved Insect Swarm is not nearly as good as it reads, as it is only
a conditional 1% damage increase per point, and you will often not even be casting
Moonfire at all.
Owlkin Frenzy causes attacks against you to have a 15% chance to give
you a 10-second buff that increases your damage, removes spell pushback, and
regenerates Mana every second. While the buff is extremely strong, you will rarely
be directly attacked in PvE, making it only great for soloing and PvP.
Eclipse defines your
Wrath rotation and forces you into an alternating
cycle of Wrath and
Starfire spam in order to activate Lunar / Solar
Eclipse, respectively, at which point you swap to the opposite spell until a new
Eclipse is triggered.
Typhoon is a new spell which causes some damage and knocks back all
targets in a huge radius in front of you, also slowing them for 6 seconds. This
makes it very useful when soloing, in PvP, and also in group PvE when used with
Glyph of Typhoon.
Force of Nature creates 3 treant allies that deal significant damage
during their uptime, but also has a significant 3-minute cooldown.
Starfall causes up to 20 stars to fall on enemies around you over a
period of 10 seconds. These stars deal significant damage which splashes to nearby
enemies. Essentially, you will be doing top area damage and competitive
single-target every time you press this spell, as it is incredibly powerful!
Feral Tree
The Feral Tree provides no real benefits to Balance and should be ignored.
Restoration Tree
The Restoration Tree is mostly used for Improved Mark of the Wild,
Omen of Clarity, and some minor stat buffs.
Changelog
- 22 Jan. 2023: Added new talent options if you have moved past Tier 7 bonuses.
- 18 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Phase 2 release ahead of Ulduar raid release.
- 20 Sep. 2022: Page added.
This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Shaman and Druid, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
- Wrath Classic Hotfixes: January 23rd
- Wrath Classic Phase 2 Class and Gearing Guides
- Raid Buff Cooldown Resets and Terrain Exploits in Ulduar
- Wrath Classic Patch 3.4.1 Notes
- Wrath Classic Phase 2 Launching on January 17th
- Naxxramas Achievement Rewards to Remain Available Throughout Wrath Classic
- Patch 3.4.1 PTR Development Notes: January 6th
- Summon Gargoyle Changes on the Wrath Classic PTR