Balance Druid DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — Shadowlands 9.0.2

Level	Choices
15	✓ Nature's Balance	✗ Warrior of Elune	? Force of Nature
25	✗ Tiger Dash	? Renewal	✓ Wild Charge
30	? Feral Affinity	✓ Guardian Affinity	✓ Restoration Affinity
35	? Mighty Bash	? Mass Entanglement	✓ Heart of the Wild
40	✓ Soul of the Forest	✓ Starlord	✗ Incarnation: Chosen of Elune
45	✓ Stellar Drift	✗ Twin Moons	✓ Stellar Flare
50	✓ Solstice	✗ Fury of Elune	✗ New Moon

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Still Mind and Codex of the Still Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

Balance Druids have two main ways to play the class in PvE content. Single target focused and multi-target focused. Try to have a good understanding of which one a fight or dungeon might require as the DPS differences will be considerable.

Apart from some niche scenarios where there needs to be burst cleave damage or some use of Force of Nature, the following talents are essentially best on 2+ targets.

• Level 15: Nature's Balance
• Level 25: Player's Choice
• Level 30: Player's Choice
• Level 35: Player's Choice
• Level 40: Soul of the Forest
• Level 45: Stellar Drift
• Level 50: Solstice

When there are single-target bosses or even bosses where there is only one main target you want to focus on, the following talents are often best.

• Level 15: Nature's Balance
• Level 25: Player's Choice
• Level 30: Player's Choice
• Level 35: Player's Choice
• Level 40: Starlord
• Level 45: Stellar Flare
• Level 50: Solstice

✔ Nature's Balance

✘ Warrior of Elune

? Force of Nature

• Nature's Balance is a passive talent that generates 2 Astral Power every 3-seconds. Out of combat, your Astral Power climbs until it reaches 50.
• Warrior of Elune is an active ability with a 45-second cooldown which causes your next 3 Starfires to be instant cast and generate 40% additional Astral Power.
• Force of Nature is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown that summons 3 treants for 10 seconds and generates 20 Astral Power. Force of Nature is targeted in an area, and the treants will taunt and attack targets in that area while they are alive.

Before we talk about all the talents, we should further clarify why Nature's Balance is almost always default for the class, despite other options potentially simming slightly higher.

Firstly, the Astral Power equilibrium it establishes out of combat is an amazing quality of life passive. This enables openers to be done more quickly and for extra generation to be done in dungeons between packs. It is also the most flexible choice. It does not require just a single target, it does not require stacked mobs either. It allows you to choose what you do with your resource rather than be forced into another niche, which will perform significantly more poorly when outside of that niche.

Warrior of Elune is a little too under-tuned to be taken in even its most niche situation. It can be used in burst cleave situations or on heavily stacked multi-target.

Force of Nature can be a viable choice in Mythic+ to deal with Necrotic and Skittish affixes as well as open world content. Additionally, when Night Fae, this can be used on pure single-target, even up to Mythic quality gear.

✘ Tiger Dash

? Renewal

✔ Wild Charge

• Renewal is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It heals you for 30% of your maximum health, it is usable in all shapeshift forms, and it is off the global cooldown.
• Tiger Dash replaces Dash with a 45-second cooldown, 200% movement speed sprint that decays over 5 seconds when activated.
• Wild Charge is an active ability that is off the global cooldown and which differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
  • No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
  • Travel Form: you leap forward.
  • Moonkin Form: you leap backwards.
  • Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilising them for 4 seconds.
  • Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
  • Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

Typically it is more beneficial to have an ability to help with movement than a self-heal, so Renewal should not be taken. On fights with low movement, or in PVP, Renewal can be a niche choice.

With Wild Charge off of the global cooldown, this talent has become drastically better for mobility than its counterpart in Tiger Dash. Tiger Dash can be taken in niche situations where you can make use of the distance traveled over the 4-second duration.

? Feral Affinity

✔ Guardian Affinity

✔ Restoration Affinity

• Feral Affinity grants you the Feline Swiftness passive ability, which increases your movement speed by 15%. Additionally, you gain access to the Feral-spec abilities Rake, Rip, Ferocious Bite, Swipe, and your energy regeneration is increased by 35%.
• Guardian Affinity grants you the Thick Hide passive ability, which reduces all your damage taken by 6%. Additionally, you gain access to the Guardian-spec abilities Thrash, Ironfur, and Frenzied Regeneration.
• Restoration Affinity grants you the Ysera's Gift passive ability, which heals you (or a nearby ally, if you are at full health yourself) for 3% of your maximum health every 5 seconds. Additionally, you gain access to the Restoration-spec abilities Rejuvenation, Wild Growth, and Swiftmend.

Restoration Affinity is not as good as it was in BfA with the nerf to Swiftmend which can only be cast with your HoT already up. Choosing this still allows for good off-healing as well as giving access to Ursol's Vortex, a strong crowd control ability.

Guardian Affinity is preferable when not making use of the healing or vortex. The flat damage reduction is the main reason for this choice and it also grants Incapacitating Roar as a bonus.

Feral Affinity can be used whenever you can make sure survivability will not be a problem, as it provides you with a small movement buff that is, in the long run, beneficial to damage. Being non-defensive, it is not advised in most encounters and the single-target stun it grants is redundant.

? Mighty Bash

? Mass Entanglement

✔ Heart of the Wild

• Mighty Bash is an active ability with a 60-second cooldown, which stuns the target for 4 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Mass Entanglement is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which roots the target and all enemies within 15 yards of them in place for 30 seconds. Damage done to rooted targets may break the effect. Mass Entanglement is usable in all shapeshift forms.
• Heart of the Wild is an active ability with a 5-minute cooldown. It substantially increases your chosen Affinity's abilities.

The choice in this tier is largely irrelevant in terms of DPS performance. You will simply choose the one which you prefer most, or which best suits the encounter mechanics. That said, Heart of the Wild will be the default choice in most any fight where you cannot make use of a stun or root.

✔ Soul of the Forest

✔ Starlord

✘ Incarnation: Chosen of Elune

• Soul of the Forest further enhances our fillers giving Wrath extra generation and Starfire extra cleave.
• Starlord grants 4% Haste for 15 seconds which stacks up to 3 times whenever you cast Starsurge or Starfall.
• Incarnation: Chosen of Elune replaces Celestial Alignment. It lasts for 30 seconds (up from Celestial Alignment's 20), during which time it increases your Critical Strike by 10% as well as the other benefits of Celestial Alignment.

Soul of the Forest will be the main multi-target talent being good for both damage and smoothing out the generation discrepancies while maintaining Starfall.

Starlord is going to be the go-to single-target talent. This synergizes well with the overall cadence of the rotation and allows for increased generation.

Incarnation: Chosen of Elune is the least appealing choice on the row. This can sometimes see use when you are using certain Covenant and Conduit combinations. Night Fae and Venthyr can sometimes use this in conjunction with Precise Alignment to produce some extremely strong Eclipse buffs.

Additionally, this can also be used on multi-target where you can not take advantage of the cleave bonus of Starfire.

✔ Stellar Drift

✘ Twin Moons

✔ Stellar Flare

• Stellar Drift increases Starfall's duration by 2-seconds and its damage by 15% while also allowing movement during the duration of the buff.
• Twin Moons increases the damage done of Moonfire by 10% and allows it to spread onto one additional target.
• Stellar Flare is an additional DoT that generates 8 Astral Power and does a minor amount of Astral damage over 24 seconds.

Stellar Drift is a strong talent now that Starfall is also strong again. Usable on even 2-targets, the added mobility tied in with the increased duration makes for a solid combination.

You can talent and use Stellar Flare for single target as it generates a fair bit of Astral Power and does a good amount of damage given the global it takes.

Twin Moons is not in a great place right now. It has little to no viability at this current time.

✔ Solstice

✘ Fury of Elune

✘ New Moon

• Solstice is a passive ability which increases the proc chance of your Shooting Stars by 300% in the first 6-seconds of an Eclipse.
• Fury of Elune is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown that deals damage to the target as well as all enemies within 8 yards of that target for 8 seconds. Over the duration of the ability, you generate 40 Astral Power.
• New Moon is a 3 charge spell on a 25-second recharge rate. The first charge does a minor amount of damage, generates a small amount of Astral Power, and has a very short cast time. The other two spells ramp up in cast time, Astral Power generation, and damage.

Solstice is actually a very useful passive on the 50 row. Usable on single and spread multi-target the increased generation allows for more consistent Eclipse cycles.

Fury of Elune can be used as a burst multi-target ability. This is also an Astral ability, meaning it can double dip on the Mastery buff inside cooldowns.

New Moon is currently not worth taking.

In Shadowlands, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open world PvP, and the possibility to be killed while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

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 onle two truly damaging passives / abilities that the PvP talents have. Deep Roots or Faerie Swarm can be used as kiting mechanisms however.