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Balance Druid DPS Beginner's Guide - Battle for Azeroth 8.3
By tettles
Last updated
2020/01/20 at 1:43 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
Looking to start playing a Balance Druid in World of Warcraft and just want simple advice? Look no further! In this guide, we will cover everything you need to start easily playing a Balance Druid in , without all the fuss of detailed guides Whether you're new to the spec, a casual achievement hunter, or a returning player looking to refamiliarize yourself with Balance in Battle for Azeroth, these easy guidelines, covering simple and effective talents, rotation, and gear setup, will get you into the action as easily as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get beginner players started quickly, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Balance Druid Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page.
If you need help leveling to 120 in Battle for Azeroth, check out our
leveling tips
.
Overview
Beginners
Azerite
Essences
NEW Corruptio̵̦͚̽̿n-̴̤̤̗͓̘̖̖̖̜̊̎̈́͗̀͗̅͂̌͑̚͠
Talent Builds
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Gear
Consumables
Simulations
Correcting Mistakes
Mythic+
NEW Ny'alotha Tips
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
About the Author
Hello, my name is
Tettles
, and I am currently a Balance Expert in the
Dreamgrove
. I am a top Mythic+ player, competed in MDI #2, and am a raider in one of the top NA guilds, Might - Zul'Jin - Horde - NA. You can find me in the
Dreamgrove Discord
, on
Youtube
, or on my
Twitch
.
Talents
The Balance Druid talent build below is easy to use while learning the class, and serves as a good starting point to get you through leveling, dungeon and world quest content with ease. For a deeper look at each talent and more specialized builds for specific activities, see the
Balance Druid Talent Guide
.
Azerite and Essences
Azerite and Essences can be really easy if you do not care to min/max it to its fullest potential! For Azerite you can get away with running 3
Streaking Stars
and 1
Arcanic Pulsar
for pretty much all content!
For Essences, for M+ you should be looking to use Essence of the Focusing Iris in the major slot with Conflict and Strife, Purification Protocol, and Breath of the Dying in the minor slots. For raid you should be looking to play Vision of Perfection in the major slot and Focusing Iris, Conflict and Strife, and Breath of the Dying in the minor slots!
Corruption
Corruption is a very new thing that is being added in patch 8.3, and it adds some INSANELY powerful effects. You should avoid going over 40 corruption after resistances at pretty much all costs, but these are some notable corruption effects that you should be looking for. If you would like to read further into explanations, check out the Balance Druid Corruption Guide
Here
.
Infinite Stars
- This effect is insane on Single Target, but gets mega diminishing returns on AOE. This is good for raid encounters.
Twilight Devastation
- This effect is wild on AOE as it does not split damage, but is pretty lackluster on Single Target damage profiles
Echoing Void
- Pretty well rounded effect damage profile wise, but the downside is that you need to be in melee range to get full value which is not always an option
Gushing Wound
- Point for point one of the best essences. Only has one rank, and it can be a good effect to round out your corruption profile.
Rotation
This simple Moonkin rotation uses the talents recommended above. More optimized rotations and talent variations use can be found in the
Balance Druid Rotation Guide
.
Spend Astral Power - don’t let it cap. Use
Starsurge
on 1-5 Targets and
Starfall
on 6+ Targets.
Maintain dot uptime - Don’t let
Sunfire
or
Moonfire
fall off your target.
Don’t overcap empowerments - Cast
Lunar Strike
and
Solar Wrath
to alleviate this while being aware of
Eclipse
.
Always be casting - Plant your feet and cast, don't move unless you have to.
In general, try to keep these tips in mind when performing the rotation.
DoTs can pandemic, so they can be refreshed with up to 30% of the duration remaining without loss. This means up to 7.2 seconds for Stellar Flare, 6.6 seconds for Moonfire, and 5.4 seconds for Sunfire.
Don’t hold your cooldowns,
Celestial Alignment
and
Fury of Elune
, for too long. Losing overall uses will lower your damage.
Be economical with movement and try to pool Astral Power beforehand. This will increase your uptime overall and allow you to do more damage.
Stat Priority
Intellect and Haste are by far the best stats for Balance Druids, however dropping a ton of item level for haste pieces is not worthwhile. Mastery is our second best secondary stat, so you will ideally be looking for pieces with both Haste and Mastery on them. Find out more about how stats work in the
Stats Guide
, or you can get an overview of gear to look out for from dungeons and raids in the
Balance Druid Gear Guide
.
Haste
Mastery
Critical Strike
Versatility
Enhancements
Only two gear slots can be enchanted by all players in Battle for Azeroth: weapons and rings. There are also glove enchants which can assist with professions, Enchanter-only bracer enchants which modify hearthstone use, and Tailor-only cloak enchants which reduce threat slightly.
Weapon -
Quick Navigation
or
Torrent of Elements
or
Enchant Weapon - Machinist's Brilliance
depending on gear (It's most likely brilliance).
Rings –
Enchant Ring - Accord of Haste
Gems -
Quick Sand Spinel
Our Balance Druid guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Balance Druid guides for Visions of N'zoth, Battle for Azeroth's third and final content patch, make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
Would you like to quickly find this guide using Discord? You can do it easily using
Jeeves Bot
! Click
here to add Jeeves
to your Discord server.
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Overview
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Azerite
Feedback
Thanks for reading our class guides! If you have any feedback about the guides, feel free to leave a comment in the section below and we will reply as quickly as possible. If you'd like to talk with any of our writers directly you can do so by joining our
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and finding them there!
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