How To Improve As Balance Druid — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Capping Your Resources

Balance Druid operates on a dual resource system. The first resource being Astral Power, and the second resource being empowerment charges. With changes to how we generate both of these resources, it is much easier to "cap" on them.

Astral Power generation was changed significantly with the pre-patch; you now receive much more Astral Power from talents such as Fury of Elune, Warrior of Elune, and Force of Nature. While the overall resource generation of the class has been reduced, these talents give bursts of Astral Power which can sometimes be difficult to manage in the midst of combat.

As for our empowerments, the new Eclipse passive adds a little RNG and reaction to the rotation. Whereas in Legion you could cast almost anything in any order, in Battle for Azeroth you need to be more mindful of your Solar Empowerment and Lunar Empowerment charges. Avoid pooling Astral Power for Starsurges and spend as frequently as possible. If you get a good string of procs, that RNG could lead to a possible damage loss if you cannot spend them quickly enough. Obvious exceptions to the rule would be incoming movement or priority damage. On top of that, if you have one empowerment stacked up to 3, do not cast the opposing spell or you will be at risk of wasting a proc.

2. Have the Right Multi-Target Cast Sequence

In Battle for Azeroth, Starfall lost a large chunk of its power with the removal of Stellar Empowerment. That damage has been somewhat shifted directly into both Moonfire and Sunfire.

This change allows players to approached their multi-target rotation in a variety of different ways. When you are about to start your multi-target rotation, you need to take into consideration several factors first.

• How far apart are the targets?
• How much Health do the targets have? Will they die quickly?
• How many targets are there?

So, now we have to look at what to do when taking into account all of that information. If the targets have very low Health Pools, you should prioritize instant damage. Starfall should come first, if you have the Astral Power, followed by Sunfire, when you can hit the majority of the targets. If they are going to die extremely quickly and are close together, you can cast Lunar Strike. If they are still spread out, you can cast Solar Wrath to build more Astral Power, or even apply Moonfire to the high Health targets.

If the targets are very spread, you can lead with a Starfall and apply Moonfire, while they clump up, and then apply a Sunfire on all the enemies that are close enough to be afflicted by the DoT. If you need to build Astral Power on spread targets, apply Moonfires first, then Solar Wrath until they are close enough for Sunfire and Lunar Strike cleave.

3. Changelog