Balance Druid DPS Easy Mode — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or simply want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.

Balance Druid is a caster specialization that deals good single and multi-target DPS, but has a slightly difficult/demanding rotation which when optimized requires both reactive gameplay and pre-planning to master.

Your main goal throughout fights will be to manage your Lunar Empowerment and Solar Empowerment buffs so that you do not waste any, all while ensuring you do not waste Astral Power.

The following talent choices are effectively best in all situations.

• Level 15: Nature's Balance
• Level 30: Wild Charge
• Level 45: Restoration Affinity
• Level 60: Typhoon
• Level 75: Starlord
• Level 90: Twin Moons (multiple-targets) or Stellar Flare (one and two targets)
• Level 100: Shooting Stars (single target)

Currently, you will want to prioritize stats as follows:

1. Haste = Critical Strike;
2. Versatility;
3. Mastery;
4. Intellect.

On multi-target, Mastery begins to pull back into relevance:

1. Haste;
2. Mastery;
3. Critical Strike;
4. Versatility;
5. Intellect.

Balance Druids generally want to lock in two specific traits into four of the available six slots. You will always want one Arcanic Pulsar and then three Streaking Stars in all content. After this, there are several good choices to fill in your remaining options, but you should always sim to be sure:

• Swirling Sands adds a Critical Strike proc which is very powerful, given our preferred secondary stats.
• Blightborne Infusion is another Critical Strike proc.
• Heart of Darkness grants all secondary stats, as long as you remain over 25 corruption. Not particularly remarkable, but stats are always good.
• Clockwork Heart grants a reliable burst of all secondary stats on a 60-second timer.

See the Balance Druid Azerite Traits page for a full ranking of each trait.

With Patch 8.2, we received power boosts in the form of Azerite Essences. Each Essence has a Major and Minor effect. Below are some of the strong Essence effects for Balance Druid:

• Vision of Perfection ( Vision of Perfection + Strive for Perfection) increases our uptime on our chosen cooldown, which plays back into Streaking Stars.
• Essence of the Focusing Iris ( Focused Azerite Beam + Focused Energy) does a large amount of upfront multi-target damage on a relatively short cooldown. This helps make up for the lack of multi-target burst in the Balance Druid toolkit.

• Purification Protocol ( Purification Protocol) can be very powerful on multi-target and more so against aberrations.
• Breath of the Dying ( Lethal Strikes) grants 10 corruption resistance, which will be relatively useful later down the line.
• Blood of the Enemy ( Blood-Soaked) grants high uptime on a Haste buff as well as a stacking Critical Strike buff when you are in combat with multiple targets.
• Essence of the Focusing Iris ( Focused Energy) provides a stacking Haste buff as long as you attack a single target.
• Worldvein Resonance ( Lifeblood) is a good choice for grouped content, if you are all using this trait.
• Conflict and Strife ( Strife) provides a stacking Versatility buff good for all combat. It is better when you can crowd control enemies you are fighting against.

See the Balance Druid Azerite Essences page for a full ranking of each Essence.

The general Balance Druid rotation is based on the following priority list. If you are not Starfalling, you follow this rotation.

1. Apply and maintain Moonfire, Sunfire, and Stellar Flare (if talented) on the target(s).
2. Cast Starsurge to consume Astral Power.
   • Keep in mind that using Starsurge grants you a charge of Lunar Empowerment and Solar Empowerment, which cap at 3 and are consumed by using Lunar Strike and Solar Wrath, respectively. Avoid generating Empowerment charges when you are at maximum capacity.
3. Cast Lunar Strike while you have Lunar Empowerment up.
4. Use Solar Wrath while you have Solar Empowerment up.
5. Cast Solar Wrath without an empowerment, to generate Astral Power. If you can cleave onto a second target, cast Lunar Strike.

At all times, you should avoid generating Astral Power when you are at maximum capacity.

Against a target amount that you can Starfall, the rotation is the following (see the Rotation page for when to Starfall).

1. Cast Starfall to consume Astral Power.
2. Apply and maintain Moonfire, Sunfire on all targets, if they will live longer than 6 seconds.
3. Keep Fury of Elune (if talented) on cooldown.
4. Cast Solar Wrath when you have a Solar Empowerment and Lunar Strike if you receive a Lunar Empowerment through the Eclipse passive.
5. Cast Solar Wrath to generate Astral Power, but if you can hit one additional target with Lunar Strike, use that instead.

Your only cooldown is Celestial Alignment (or Incarnation: Chosen of Elune if you talent it). You should aim to use these cooldowns as many times as possible throughout an encounter. Ideally, you can also time it so that it is active if a boss takes increased damage.