Balance Druid DPS Gear and Best in Slot — 12.1

Welcome to our Gear and BiS Page for Balance Druid for Midnight Season 2! Check this page to learn everything you need to know to make your character as powerful as they can be!

Upgrading gear in Midnight continues to use the Crest system which lets you increase the item level of gear along tracks that relate to where you obtained the item, which harder content dropping gear that can be upgraded to higher Item Levels. For more information, read up on our dedicated page on how the gearing system works and what has changed in the Midnight expansion.

OverallMythic+Raid

This list contains the best overall items for Balance Druid using all available content including the newly released Sporefall raid. This is gear to chase towards but will not include gear that can not be reliably obtained, such as some gear from the Weekly Vault.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. Depending on your previous Great Vault choices and the gear you have available, your BiS gear might look different in some spots than the below list.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

In Season 2 you will want to try and prioritize getting the Helmet, Gloves, Chest, and Legs set pieces. Completing the bonus is more important than getting the perfect items so take whatever you can get. In the long term, you will want to get the Elevated item level items from Ula'tek and Coiled Altar. The Catalyst will also retain the effect of special items such as Gaze of the Coiled Watcher.

With the Catalyst changes for Season 2 you also retain the secondary stats and any other potential passive effects like damage and stat procs when catalyzing a set piece. This means we want to try and catalyze the items that ensure we get the best possible secondary stats on our gear. Some optimal stat items to catalyze are:

• Helmet: Gaze of the Coiled Watcher from Ula'tek
• Shoulders: Frothing Venom Spaulders from Vashnik
• Chest: Vest of Reverent Adoration from King's Rest
• Gloves: Desiccator's Blessed Gloves from King's Rest
• Legs: Coiled Hex Legguards from The Coiled Altar

TipsWhich Items Do I want the most from all content?

Here are some of the items worth bonus rolling or taking from your Vault if you see them at an appropriate item level.

• Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang: Our best weapon. It drops from the final boss of the raid at an elevated item level. There is no weapon that could be better.
• Vile Vial of Volatile Venom: Our best on-use trinket from Altar of Fangs.
• Twisted Horror's Tendril: Our best raid encounter passive trinket.

FAQHow Strong is the Tier Set?

The Balance Druid Midnight Season 2 Tier set is extremely powerful. On single target, the 2-piece is approximately 6%-7% DPS and the 4-piece is 11%-13% DPS. The Tier set is even stronger on multi-target with the extra burst damage it adds to Starfall.

Balance Druid

1.1.

Overall Best in Slot

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Somnolent Stare Helm

Catalyst + Ula'tek Empowered Hex of Leeching

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Gauntlets Hands

Catalyst or Entombed Sentinels

Aqirbane Reliquary Neck

Ula'tek

Sash of the Forlorn Vessel Waist

Coiled Altar

Frothing Venom Spaulders Shoulders

Vashnik Amirdrassil's Grace

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Leggings Legs

Catalyst + Coiled Altar Sunfire Silk Spellthread

Silken Voodoo Drape Cloak

Coiled Altar

Silvermoon Agent's Sneakers Feet

Crafted by Leatherworking Shaladrassil's Roots

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Lunar Raiment Chest

Catalyst from Kith'ix Mark of the Worldsoul

Band of the Swarmcaller Ring

Vashnik Enchant Ring - Eyes of the Eagle

Shirt

Charged Sandstone Band Ring

Temple of Sethraliss Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Vile Vial of Volatile Venom Trinket

Altar of Fangs

Restless Spirit Shackles Bracers

Nek'zali

Twisted Horror's Tendril Trinket

Kith'ix

Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang Main Hand

Ula'tek Rite of the Hash'ey

Aln'hara Lantern Off Hand

Crafted by Inscription

This list contains the highest DPS setup with farmable gear from Midnight Season 2 Mythic+ Dungeons.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. Depending on your previous Great Vault choices and the gear you have available to yourself, your BiS gear might look different than this list in some spots.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

For Midnight Season 2 as a Balance Druid, you will want to try and prioritize getting the Helmet, Gloves, Chest, and Legs set pieces. Completing the bonus is more important than getting the perfect items so take whatever you can get. In the long term, you will want to get the Elevated item level items from Ula'tek and Coiled Altar. The Catalyst will also retain the effect of special items such as Gaze of the Coiled Watcher.

With the Catalyst changes for Season 2 you also retain the secondary stats and any other potential passive effects like damage and stat procs when catalyzing a set piece. This means we want to try and catalyze the items that ensure we get the best possible secondary stats on our gear. Some optimal stat items to catalyze are:

• Helmet: Hood of the Slithering Loa from Temple of Sethraliss
• Shoulders: Somber Spaulders from Murder Row
• Chest: Vest of Reverent Adoration from King's Rest
• Gloves: Desiccator's Blessed Gloves from King's Rest
• Legs: Breeches of Deft Deals from Murder Row

TipsWhich Dungeons Should I Farm?

If you have limited time to play the game, we recommend to farm the following dungeons:

• Altar of Fangs: This dungeon has our best on-use trinket, Vile Vial of Volatile Venom.
• Voidscar Arena: Drops a good passive trinket in the Mindpiercer's Sigil and a decent weapon but the raid items will be better.

Balance Druid

1.2.

Best Gear from Mythic+

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Somnolent Stare Helm

Catalyst + Temple of Sethraliss Empowered Hex of Leeching

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Gauntlets Hands

Catalyst + King's Rest

Graft of the Domanaar Neck

Voidscar Arena

Primal Dinomancer's Belt Waist

King's Rest

Somber Spaulders Shoulders

Voidscar Arena Amirdrassil's Grace

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Leggings Legs

Catalyst + Murder Row Sunfire Silk Spellthread

Speakeasy Shroud Cloak

Murder Row

Silvermoon Agent's Sneakers Feet

Crafted by Leatherworking Shaladrassil's Roots

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Lunar Raiment Chest

Catalyst + King's Rest Mark of the Worldsoul

Sickening Signet of Atroxus Ring

Voidscar Arena Enchant Ring - Eyes of the Eagle

Shirt

Charged Sandstone Band Ring

Temple of Sethraliss Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Vile Vial of Volatile Venom Trinket

Altar of Fangs

Rootwarden Wraps Bracers

The Blinding Vale

Mindpiercer's Sigil Trinket

Voidscar Arena

Polished Lightwood Channeler Main Hand

Altar of Fangs Rite of the Hash'ey

Aln'hara Lantern Off Hand

Crafted by Inscription

This list contains the highest DPS setup, using raid gear alongside recommended crafted items in Midnight Season 2.

This list is by no means a replacement for simming yourself. Depending on your previous Great Vault choices and the gear you have available to yourself, your BiS gear might look different than this list in some spots.

FAQWhich Tier Set Pieces Do I Want?

For Midnight Season 2 as a Balance Druid, you will want to try and prioritize getting the Helmet, Gloves, Chest, and Legs set pieces. Completing the bonus is more important than getting the perfect items so take whatever you can get. In the long term, you will want to get the Elevated item level items from Ula'tek and Coiled Altar. The Catalyst will also retain the effect of special items such as Gaze of the Coiled Watcher.

With the Catalyst changes for Season 2 you also retain the secondary stats and any other potential passive effects like damage and stat procs when catalyzing a set piece. This means we want to try and catalyze the items that ensure we get the best possible secondary stats on our gear. Some optimal stat items to catalyze are:

• Helmet: Gaze of the Coiled Watcher from Ula'tek
• Shoulders: Frothing Venom Spaulders from Vashnik
• Chest: Base Tier item from the tier token is better.
• Gloves: Ruthless Slaughtergrips from Sszorak
• Legs: Coiled Hex Legguards from The Coiled Altar

TipsWhich Raid-Items Do I Want Most?

If you need to submit a list of highly-important items to your raidleader, or simply want to focus on the most important bosses and items, we got you covered!

• Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang: Our best weapon. It drops from the final boss of the raid at an elevated item level.
• Twisted Horror's Tendril: Our best raid encounter passive trinket.
• Venomcursed items such as Aqirbane Reliquary and Gaze of the Coiled Watcher. They offer the same amount of secondary stats as other items as well as additional Critical Strike and Haste procs.

Balance Druid

1.3.

Best Gear from Raid

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Somnolent Stare Helm

Catalyst + Ula'tek Empowered Hex of Leeching

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Gauntlets Hands

Catalyst or Entombed Sentinels

Aqirbane Reliquary Neck

Ula'tek

Sash of the Forlorn Vessel Waist

Coiled Altar

Frothing Venom Spaulders Shoulders

Vashnik Amirdrassil's Grace

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Leggings Legs

Catalyst + Coiled Altar Sunfire Silk Spellthread

Silken Voodoo Drape Cloak

Coiled Altar

Silvermoon Agent's Sneakers Feet

Crafted by Leatherworking Shaladrassil's Roots

Enigmatic Dreamwatcher's Lunar Raiment Chest

Catalyst from Kith'ix Mark of the Worldsoul

Band of the Swarmcaller Ring

Vashnik Enchant Ring - Eyes of the Eagle

Shirt

Charged Sandstone Band Ring

Temple of Sethraliss Eyes of the Eagle

Tabard

Hex Lord's Dooming Idol Trinket

Coiled Altar

Restless Spirit Shackles Bracers

Nek'zali

Twisted Horror's Tendril Trinket

Kith'ix

Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang Main Hand

Ula'tek Rite of the Hash'ey

Aln'hara Lantern Off Hand

Crafted by Inscription

Itemization

Enchants and Stat Priority

Looking to optimize your character? Check out our Enchant and Stat Priority guides for more information!

EnchantsStats

There are many usable trinkets for Balance Druid in Midnight Season 2. The two best overall options are Vile Vial of Volatile Venom for an on-use choice and Twisted Horror's Tendril for our passive trinket option.

Aim to pick up one trinket from each of these categories as a pair:

Balance Druid Trinkets

On-Use - Vile Vial of Volatile Venom or, alternatively, Freightrunner's Flask
Passive - Twisted Horror's Tendril is our primary passive trinket from the new raid.

There are quite a few other valuable trinkets out there, so make sure to click on our ranking chart to see if they are worth equipping.

Click for Balance Druid Trinket Rankings

Ranking	Best Balance Druid Trinkets
S Tier	Twisted Horror's Tendril Vile Vial of Volatile Venom Wavecaller's Seastone
A Tier	Gebbo's Bottomless Bag Freightrunner's Flask Hex Lord's Dooming Idol
B Tier	Vexhul's Everflowing Gland Sapling of the Dawnroot Mindpiercer's Sigil Lightspire Core Fang of Umbral Malignance
C Tier	Ruby Whelp Shell Knot of Writhing Serpents Stormbound Emblem of Dazar Sethraliss' Defiled Relic Font of Venomous Rage

Patch 12.1 continues the bonus roll system that was initially introduced in Patch 12.0.7. Notably, bonus rolling on a Heroic raid boss will grant you the item at 1/6 Myth track, so you can acquire some of the later raid gear quite early, as long as you commit additional crests to upgrade it.

Nebulous Voidcores can be spent after finishing a dungeon or killing a raid boss, and will grant you a random from the dungeon's or boss's loot table. Once an item has been looted through a Voidcore roll, it cannot appear again when you bonus roll on the same boss or dungeon again.

After 8 weeks, you will also be granted one additional Voidcore for free from Orin Straylight in Silvermoon, next to The Catalyst. This happens with the launch of Patch 12.1.5.

Which item you want to chase after depends heavily on the items you have already acquired through content such as the Great Vault, or whether you expect to down certain bosses on your highest achievable difficulty, as you do not want to waste your Voidcores on items you may be able to get on a higher difficulty track in a few weeks.

Voidcore (Bonus Roll) Priority

1. Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang
2. Aqirbane Reliquary
3. Twisted Horror's Tendril
4. Gaze of the Coiled Watcher
5. Replace low item level, high stat budget pieces where possible, preferably elevated items from the final 2 raid bosses.

Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang fully upgraded is your handsdown best item to coin from Ula'tek, only replaced by the same item at a higher item level or a massive item level gap increase. Both Gaze of the Coiled Watcher and Aqirbane Reliquary are great adds from the same boss making it worthwhile to coin.

As always, we recommend using Raidbots to sim your character and see which bosses have the best item to roll.

Ascendant Venomstones allow you to increase the item level of Weapons, Offhands, Necks and Trinkets by 6, up to a maximum item level of 340 for non-crafted gear and 337 for crafted gear. You cannot upgrade items that are already 344 item level.

As with Crests, you should prioritize upgrading items that provide the largest DPS increase. For Balance Druid, we recommend the following order:

1. Your Mainhand Weapon
2. Your on-use Trinket
3. Your passive Trinket
4. Your Offhand, if you are not using a Staff

Generally, you should prioritize upgrading Myth-track items over Hero-track items, particularly if you expect to replace the Hero-track version relatively soon. Upgrading a Hero-track item is still a reasonable choice if you do not expect to obtain its Myth-track equivalent in the near future.

Ultimately, the best item to upgrade depends on your current gear and progression. We recommend saving your Venomstones for items you expect to keep for a while rather than spending them on pieces you are likely to replace.

You can have two Embellishments which are special effects attached to crafted items. What you craft depends entirely on which encounters you are able to defeat.

For the competitive Heroic and Mythic Raider, you should follow this crafting order:

1. Aln'hara Lantern is an off-hand which can use weapon embellishments such as Hunter's Ritual Stone. Pair this with Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang or Hexing Spiritrender at Mythic item levels.
2. If you are stuck with a Heroic weapon and need the power boost, you should then craft a Main-hand weapon with a second embellishment and replace this later on when you get a Jan'thrazet, the Soul Fang.
3. If you have two embellishments, it is often best to hold the third craft for when you do not need crests. As a third craft, you should craft Boots, Gloves, or Shoulders with Arcanoweave Lining (if possible) to replace your lowest item level piece that is not reliant as a tier slot.

If getting a Mythic item level weapon is not possible from the raid or you need an immediate power boost, consider crafting Aln'hara Cane instead (make sure it is the Int staff!).

We recommend crafting your items with Algari Missive of the Feverflare, but if you want to fully min-max for another half percent or so, you should use Raidbots to sim your character first in case a different secondary stat combination is better for you.

For more information about crafting gear you can visit our Professions page.

Early on, crafting a main-hand and off-hand paired with Hunter's Ritual Stone can be an easily obtainable DPS boost. The embellishment is powerful and usable on both items allowing you to stack the power early to carry you through most Mythic content.

Arcanoweave Lining is a good embellishment for non-weapon embellishments. The amount of stats provided scales with the stat-budget on the item so crafting on an item with higher stats is actually preferred in this situation. In this raid, you will be targeting mid-budget items such as boots, gloves, and shoulders depending on what other items you have.

As always, it is recommended to sim yourself to see what would be best with your gear situation.

Late in the tier when you have full sockets on your Helm, Bracers, and Belt as well as the double socket on Aqirbane Reliquary, you can consider simming Loa Worshiper's Band.

You can add sockets to Helmets, Belts, and Bracers with the Miasmic Jewelbinder consumable that you can get if you do not select any of the choices in your Great Vault. Not picking a choice will grant you tokens, six of which can be traded in for the Miasmic Jewelbinder item that allows you to add a socket to the above piece of gear, if you acquired them in Season 2.

Early into the season, or if you have just started playing an alt, you will have limited access to upgrading-crests such as Myth Mistcrest. These can be used to upgrade gear to higher itemlevels. Since crests are limited each week and upgrading different items costs the same amount of crests regardless, you will want to prioritize your usage of them on items you plan on not replacing anytime soon, or that offer the biggest benefits.

1. Weapon and Trinkets often provide the best value for each item level
2. Helm, Chest, and Legs have the highest stat bonuses
3. Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, and Belt have medium stat bonuses
4. Cloak and Bracers have the lowest stat bonuses
5. Jewelry is the lowest priority as it does not have primary stats

As always, it is recommended to sim yourself to see what would be best with your gear situation.

Throughout this page and elsewhere in our guide, we regularly refer to the importance of simming yourself on Raidbots. This is because every character is unique, and each gear piece you have access to can change what is best right now for you.

While we do offer recommendations for gear and trinkets, these are not complete replacements for simming yourself. The only way to truly optimize your character to that degree is by making use of the tools available!

Optimization

Simulations and Tools

For further reading on how to truly maximize your character's potential, check out our guide on Raidbots!

Go to Guide

Bora

Guide Author

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This was written by Borabank, a Balance Druid theorycrafter and raider in Country Club. You can watch him on his Twitch channel or find him in the Dreamgrove Discord server.

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