Balance Druid Shadowlands Leveling Guide From 1 to 60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Balance Druid leveling guide for Shadowlands Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Druid leveling guide.
Gear Options
When you are leveling, equip the highest item level gear. You will be replacing your gear often enough that you can indiscriminately equip based on item level without worrying about other stats.
Balance Druid Mechanics
When leveling in open-world or in dungeons, Balance Druid is a very basic
builder-spender rotation priority. The basic idea is to rotate between
Eclipses, which last 15 seconds and take two spells to enter the next
one after the previous expires. Apply your DoTs (
Moonfire and
Sunfire) to your target and cast the Eclipse-appropriate filler
(
Wrath for Solar and
Starfire for Lunar). When you
have enough Astral Power, you can cast a spender (
Starsurge on single
target and
Starfall on multiple-targets).
Here are some explanations for some of the phrases inside the guide that may help you understand it more:
- A DoT refers to Damage over Time spells such as
Moonfire and
Sunfire.
- Fillers refer to spells that generate your main resource, which is Astral
Power. Fillers should always be cast when there is nothing else we can do. Our
fillers are
Wrath and
Starfire.
- A spender is an ability that consumes our main resource. These are powerful
abilities that a crucial to damage dealing.
Starsurge is spent on single or priority targets and
Starfall on multiple targets.
Balance Druid Cooldowns
Balance Druid is a class with only a single baseline cooldown and a few
Talent cooldowns. Celestial Alignment is your baseline cooldown and
provides the benefit of both
Eclipse states, allowing you to cast
whatever you want as well as buffing all of your spells. On single targets, you
will still be casting
Wrath, and on multiple-targets you will
want to cast
Starfire. Celestial Alignment resets your Eclipses
allowing you to choose which one to enter after the buff expires.
You talent cooldowns can be cast whenever. For leveling, many of those
talents can be outshone by what is suggested, but if you do pick any of them,
Fury of Elune should be cast on multiple-targets or on cooldown,
Force of Nature should be cast on cooldown or to help your tank, and
Warrior of Elune should be cast inside Lunar
Eclipse and on
multiple-targets or on cooldown.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Talents to Level Up as Balance Druid
Your first talent row unlocks at Level 15.
Your talent set up should be as follows.
- Level 15:
Nature's Balance
- Level 25:
Wild Charge
- Level 30:
Restoration Affinity
- Level 35:
Mighty Bash
- Level 40:
Soul of the Forest
- Level 45:
Stellar Drift
- Level 50:
Solstice
Rotation to Level Up as a Balance Druid
Due to Balance only being unlocked as a talent specialization at Level 10, you should make use of the abilities provided to you in the intro quests until you are presented with the option.
- Enter
Moonkin Form and be in this form at all times.
- Apply
Moonfire on the target.
- Apply
Sunfire on the target.
- Cast
Celestial Alignment on cooldown.
- Enter
Eclipse by casting two
Wraths or
Starfires.
- Cast
Fury of Elune on cooldown.
- Cast
Starsurge when available on a single target and inside
Eclipse.
- Cast
Starfall on more than one target.
- Cast
Wrath or
Starfire as a filler to build Astral Power inside
Eclipse.
Summary of Unlocked Abilities for Balance Druids
The following list is each ability you unlock along the way:
- At Level 10,
Starfire is unlocked; this is the designated filler while inside Lunar Eclipse.
- At Level 11,
Starsurge is unlocked; this is our single target nuke. Try to use this at the beginning of every
Eclipse as it further empowers your fillers.
- At Level 19,
Remove Corruption is unlocked; a utility ability used to cure Poison and cleanse Curses.
- At Level 21,
Moonkin Form is unlocked; you want to be in form at all times.
- At Level 23,
Sunfire is unlocked; an AoE DoT which should always be kept on the target.
- At Level 26,
Solar Beam is unlocked; a strong AoE silence ability with a long cooldown.
- At Level 28,
Typhoon is unlocked; a crowd control ability which knocks back and slows all targets in front of you.
- At Level 34,
Starfall is unlocked; a pulsing damaging aura that deals damage to all targets in a large area.
- At Level 39,
Celestial Alignment is unlocked; balance's major cooldown granting 10% Haste and granting the benefits of both
Eclipse states.
Alongside the ability unlocks, there are also passive effects that improve your abilities unlocked along the way:
- At Level 10,
Mastery: Total Eclipse is unlocked, which increases your damage inside
Eclipse.
- At Level 11,
Eclipse is unlocked; allowing you access to both Solar and Lunar Eclipse which reduces the cast time of their respective fillers by 8%. Additionally
Wrath deals bonus damage and
Starfire has bonus Critical Strike chance.
- At Level 27,
Astral Influence is unlocked, increasing the range of all of your spells by 5-yards.
- At Level 32,
Sunfire rank 2 is unlocked, making Sunfire to cleave to all targets within 8-yards of your main target.
- At Level 33,
Moonfire rank 3 is unlocked, increasing the duration of both DoTs by 6-seconds.
- At Level 47,
Eclipse rank 2 is unlocked, increasing the cast time reduction to 15%.
- At Level 49,
Shooting Stars is unlocked, giving your DoTs a chance to deal a small amount of damage and generating 3 Astral Power.
- At Level 54,
Starfall rank 2 is unlocked, which adds 4-seconds onto all of your active DoTs when cast.
- At Level 56,
Starsurge rank 2 is unlocked, increasing increasing the bonuses of your Starsurge on your Eclipse state. The bonus increases from 4% up to 6% per Starsurge cast.
Balance Druid War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking balance Druid-specific PvE talents.
Balance Druid PvP Talents for Leveling
In this section we will list the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Note that these may not be optimal in actual PvP situations.
Moonkin Aura is amazing for group combat and strong for solo content as well. This can buff all members in your party and help finish quests and rares faster. We would recommend this for all group content.
Thorns can provide minimal peel or damage in open-world content.
Those are the only two truly damaging passives / abilities that the PvP
talents have. Deep Roots or
Faerie Swarm can be used as kiting
mechanisms however.
Congratulations!
Congratulations on reaching Level 60! Now that you have hit Level 60, we recommend looking at our Easy mode page to get a good overview of the class!
Changelog
- 31 May 2022: Page reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 28 Jun. 2021: Reviewed and approved for Patch 9.1.
- 18 Apr. 2021: Updated for clarity.
- 09 Mar. 2021: Reviewed for Patch 9.0.5.
- 22 Nov. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands.
- 13 Oct. 2020: Guide added.
This was written by Borabank, a Balance Druid theorycrafter and raider in Muscle Memory. You can watch him on his Twitch channel or in the Dreamgrove Discord server.
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