News

Tier Set

2-piece

Starsurgeand Starfallincrease the damage of your next Wrathor Starfireby 50%, stacking up to 3 times

This is roughly a 6.2% DPS increase from having no tier.

You can treat this buff either as a passive or try stacking it to 3 before using a generator, as per usual pooling for movement and getting starlord up has higher prio.

4-piece

When you enter Eclipse, your next Starsurgeor Starfallcost 30 less Astral Power and deals 60% increased damage.

This is roughly a 7.8% DPS increase from having no tier.

The buff gives you a reduced cost on your next spender every time you enter Eclipse. Buff is also applied when activating Pulsaror pressing CA/Incarnation

Total DPS from set: ~14.5%

Tier sim current ilvl ~489

Antique Bronze Bullion

Season 4 brings back the Dinar system from Season 4 in Shadowlands, now under the name Antique Bronze Bullion. You will acquire this currency gradually from playing the game and it will allow you to buy "special" items from any of the 3 Dragonflight raids.

Before making any decisions on what you should spend this currency on, you should always sim your character using Droptimizer or Top Gear functions on Raidbots

Here are items you should potentially spend the Antique Bronze Bullion on

• Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno
• Neltharion's Call to Suffering
• Ominous Chromatic Essence
• Whispering Incarnate Icon
• Seal of Diurna's Chosen
• Dreambinder, Loom of the Great Cycle
• Seal of Filial Duty
• Voice of the Silent Star
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
• Icewrath's Channeling Conduit

Rotation

Precasting

• Cast Wrathtwice.
• Cast Stellar Flare.
• Cast Starfireif Stellar Flareis not talented.

You can precast from max range 4 seconds before a boss is pulled.

What is a priority list?

When reading the priority lists below, you should not think of these as steps to be followed in a specific order. At any given point in combat, you should cast the first ability on the list that you are able to cast, provided the conditions for its use are met.

Single Target Priority

Warrior of Elune

Force of Nature

Stellar Flare

Astral Communion

New Moon

Fury of Elune

Cancelaura Starlord

Wild Mushroom

Starweaver

Convoke the Spirits

Note: While not explicitly mentioned in the priority list, if you find yourself outside of eclipse and are about to cap astral power, it's better to spend it to prevent further capping before entering eclipse.

• Keep up Moonfireand Sunfire, refresh within pandemic (30% of base duration shown in the tooltip).
• Keep up Stellar Flareand refresh within pandemic (30% of base duration shown in the tooltip) if you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Celestial Alignment/Incarnation if you're not in CA/Incarnation already.
• Use Convoke the Spiritswhen below 40 AP, CA/Incarnation will last for more than 4 seconds or your next CA/Incarnation window is more than 30s away and your Eclipse will last for more than 4s.
• Use Wrathto enter Lunar Eclipse if one of the following conditions is true:
  • You have 520 or more stacks of Pulsar
  • The cooldown of CA/Incarnation is less than 5 seconds.
• Use Warrior of Eluneif your eclipse has less than 7 seconds left and you will enter Solar Eclipse next.
• Use Starfireto enter Solar Eclipse.
• Use Astral Communionif you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Force of Natureif you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Fury of Eluneif you are in CA/Incarnation, will proc Pulsarwith your next GCD or are at less than 280 Pulsarstacks.
• Use your macro to cancel Starlordas referenced here if conditions apply. Note that this is back to being an insignificant gain.
• Use Starfallif you have a Starweaver's Warpproc.
• Use Starsurgeif Starlordhas less than 3 stacks or if you have more than 2 stacks of BoAT.
• Use New-,Half- and Full Moonif all of the following conditions are met:
  • You will not overcap on AP.
  • You can finish the cast before your current eclipse ends.
  • You are in CA/Incarnation or you're about to cap on charges and Pulsarhas 520 or fewer stacks and the cooldown of CA/Incarnation is longer than 10 seconds.
• Use your macro to cancel Starlordas referenced here if conditions apply. Note that this is back to being an insignificant gain.
• Use Starsurgeif one of the following conditions is met:
  • You would overcap AP with the next cast.
  • You have a Starweaver's Weftproc.
  • Solar or Lunar Eclipse will end in the next 4 seconds and you have more than 70 AP.
• Use Wild Mushroomas a movement GCD.
• Use Wrathregardless of which Eclipse you are in.

AoE priority

Warrior of Elune

Force of Nature

Stellar Flare

Astral Communion

New Moon

Fury of Elune

Cancelaura Starlord

Wild Mushroom

Starweaver

Convoke the Spirits

Special Note: when NOT using the talents Aetherial Kindlingor Starweaver, use Starsurge as a spender on 2 targets still. AoE priority list(2+ targets):

• Use Sunfireif the target will live for at least 5.5 seconds. Subtract 0.5 seconds for each additional target beyond the first. Wait until all targets are gathered.
• Use Moonfireif the targets will live for 6 or more seconds and you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Stellar Flareif all of the following conditions is met:
  • The target will live for at least 8s+1s per target that Starfirecan hit
  • You will not overcap on AP.
  • You're about to use CA/Incarnation
  • Your fighting less than 11 targets -1 per talent in Umbral Intensity or Astral Smolder.
• Use your macro to cancel Starlordas referenced here if conditions apply. Note that this is back to being an insignificant gain.
• Use Starfallif you would overcap Astral Power with your next cast.
• Use CA/Incarnation if you are not in CA/Incarnation already.
• Use Warrior of Eluneif available.
• Use Starfireto enter Solar Eclipse if you are fighting 2 targets.
• Use Wrathto enter Lunar Eclipse if you are fighting 3+ targets.
• Use Wild Mushroomif you will not overcap on AP and Waning Twilightis not up on your targets.
• Use Fury of Eluneif you are in CA/Incarnation, will proc Pulsarwith your next GCD or are at less than 280 Pulsarstacks.
• Use your macro to cancel Starlordas referenced here if conditions apply. Note that this is back to being an insignificant gain.
• Use Starfallif one of the following conditions is met:
  • You have a Starweaver's Warpproc.
  • Starlordis below 3 stacks.
• Use Full Moonif all of the following conditions are met:
  • You will not overcap on AP.
  • You can finish the cast before your current eclipse ends.
  • You are in CA/Inc or you're about to cap on charges and Pulsar has 520 or fewer stacks and the cooldown of CA/Incarnation is longer than 10 seconds.
• Use Starsurgeif you have a Starweaver's Weftproc and you are fighting less than 3 targets.
• Use Stellar Flareif all of the following conditions are met:
  • The target will live for at least 8s+1s per target that Starfirecan hit
  • You will not overcap on AP.
  • Your fighting less than 11 targets -1 per talent in Umbral Intensity or Astral Smolder.
• Use Astral Communionif you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Convoke the Spiritsif you are fighting less than 3 targets, otherwise only use Convokefor movement in AoE.
• Use New Moonif you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Half Moonif you will not overcap on AP and you can finish the cast before your current eclipse ends.
• Use Force of Natureif you will not overcap on AP.
• Use Starsurgeif you have a Starweaver's Weftproc and Starfirewill hit less than 17 targets.
• Starfireif any of the below conditions are true:
  • You are in Lunar Eclipse.
  • You are in CA/Incarnation and Starfirewill hit 4 or more targets.
• Use Wrathif any of the below conditions are true:
  • You are in Solar Eclipse.
  • You are in CA/Incarnation and Starfirewill hit 3 or fewer targets.

Eclipses and Fillers

• On 1-2 targets, enter Solar Eclipse and cast Wrath.
• On 3 or more targets, enter Lunar Eclipse and cast Starfire.
• On 1-3 targets inside CA/Incarnation cast Wrath
• On 4 or more targets inside CA/Incarnation cast Starfire.

How to Use Warrior of Elune

Warrior of Eluneis an off-gcd ability, making your next 3 Starfireinstant for 25 seconds. The ability has a 45s cooldown that starts once you've pressed it.

Warrior of Elunecan be used 7 seconds before an eclipse ends, this way you will have just enough time to spend your third charge before the buff runs out and the CD will start earlier, which can net you more uses throughout the fight.

Use the charges to enter Solar Eclipse or as a movement GCD in CA/Incarnation /Lunar Eclipse. Using a Warrior of Elune Starfire in single target during CA/Incarnation is NOT a damage increase if you do not need to move.

If Warrior of Elune is falling off during CA/Incarnation and you still have a charge to spend, you can Starfireat 2+ targets.

Warrior of Elune can also be used during CA/Incarnation /Lunar Eclipse when there are adds up, this will net you a lot of Astral Power which can be useful to target down a specific add or to provide more boss damage by utilizing the AP on Starsurges.

How to use Owlkin Frenzy procs

Use Owlkin Frenzyprocs to enter Solar Eclipse, inside Lunar Eclipse or inside CA/Incarnation if Starfire will hit 3 or more targets.

Keep in mind that Warrior of Elunecharges are consumed before Owlkin Frenzyprocs.

Talents

Raid

Mythic+

The following are dungeon talent builds that will always serve you well but mind that there can be some variations based on your group comp or affixes. New Moonand Fury of Elunecan be used interchangeably.

New Moonprovides more single target damage and is easy to pair with pulsar. FoEdoes slightly more AoE but is more difficult to align with Pulsar, making it annoying to play.

The below picture showcases which talents are "mandatory" and which talents you can opt-in to:

Secondary builds:

Class tree with Hibernate for Incorporeal

If you really need both Hibernate and Remove Corruption

• Ursine Vigor, Well-Honed Instinctsand Improved Stampeding Roarare the major competing talents. Ursine Vigorshould be taken if you need it to survive certain abilities. Well-Honed Instinctsis always on 1 point but a 2nd can be taken if you rarely/never use Bear Form. spell 288826 "Improved Stampeding Roar">}} is extremely useful in indoor dungeons and in spiteful weeks.
• Remove Corruptionshould be taken in Afflicted weeks.
• Cyclonehas basically no use other than stopping Bursting and can be replaced with anything else(which also won't have any use).
• Hibernatecan be used for the Incorporeal affix.
• For lower keys, you can put 1 point into Feline Swiftnesslike this. This skips Ursine Vigorand Typhoon. You can also drop any of the other bottom talents you don't need to get a 2nd point in Feline Swiftnessto get around even quicker for farming keys.
• All other talents in the druid tree are more or less set.

Consumables

Potions

Potion of Ultimate Power

Use this for every situation. Potion of Elemental Power is only minorly worse if you want to save gold.

Food

• Grand Banquet of the Kaluak: Intellect buff
• Deviously Deviled Eggs: Same buff as Banquet but with a cheaper individual price.
• Sizzling Seafood Medley: Provides Haste + Mastery which can be more dps than the Intellect food.
• Thousandbone Tongueslicer: Provides Crit + Mastery which can be more dps than the Intellect food.

The secondary food can be better as you acquire more gear, they provide more total stats than the main stat one. Sim your character to see what is best for you.

Phials

ST & AoE

Damage wise, with 100% uptime on all of the Phials and not counting in the downsides their hierarchy is as follows on ST:

• Phial of Corrupting Rage: Default phial unless the fight has too high damage intake or you are at risk of dying. Do not use this in progress fights unless you really need the damage.
• Phial of Tepid Versatility: Has the same value as Corrupting Rage at 60% uptime. Can be worth to play if the damage intake is high.
• Phial of Elemental Chaos: Generally similar dps throughput as Tepid Versatility, but less defensive benefits.

Runes

Our main rune is Hissing Rune In some cases either Howling Rune or Buzzing Rune might sim slightly better.

Gearing

Stat Priority

Sim yourself using Raidbots Top Gear. Do not follow any stat priorities.

Enchants

• Weapon - Sophic Devotion/Wafting Devotion Sim between these two options to determine which one is best for your character.

• Chest - Waking Stats Intellect

• Cloak - Graceful Avoidance Avoidance + Reduced fall damage

• Legs - Lambent Armor Kit/Frozen Spellthread

  • Sim between these two options to determine which one is best for your character.

• Wrist - Devotion of Avoidance Avoidance

• Boots - Watchers Loam Stamina

• Ring - Devotion of Mastery You should always sim your own character to determine what enchant to use in this slot.

Gems

Use Skillfull Illimited Diamond as your Primalist Gem. For normal gems refer to Raidbots Top Gear

Embellishments

For embellishments there are a couple of options this season:

• Toxic Thorn Footwraps with Toxified Armor Patch.
  • Provides great single target damage and has an early spike since only the boots needs to be crafted at 525 for the effect to scale to that itemlevel.
  • Locks you in to boots as your crafted items with predfefined stats.
• Shadowflame Tempered Armor Patch
  • Good single target damage.
  • Deals a small amount of self-damage.
  • Can be added to any crafted leather slot.
• Verdant Conduit
  • Performs slightly worse in single target.
  • Performs well in aoe.
  • Can be added to any crafted leather slot.
• Elemental Lariat
  • Requires a lot of gems.
  • Performs well in AoE and Single Target.
  • Locks you in to a crafted neck but you can choose the stats on it freely.
• Blue Silken Lining
  • Performs the best of all embellishments both in AoE and Single Target.
  • Requires you to be above 90% health for it to be active.
  • Can be applied on any crafted item.

Which embellishments should you choose?

This is entirely up to you, below are some guidelines to make your choice more informed.

• Blue Silken Lining provides the most amount of DPS given that you have the uptime for it(usually more than 40%). Can be swapped at any point by recrafting and adding/removing the embellishment.
• Toxic Thorn Footwraps is a single target focused embellishment with an early power spike. Locks yourself with crafted boots with predfefined stats.
• Shadowflame Tempered Armor Patch and Verdant Conduit are good for the flexibility, you can change these around at any point depending on what fits the content you're doing.
• Elemental Lariat performs well in both Single Target and AoE, but requires a lot of gems and locks yourself with a crafted neck as the embellishment can't be removed from it.

What slot should i craft in?

This will depend on your current gear situtation, below are some guidelines:

• Bracers are often used as they have the lowest stat budget and can have a socket. This will be good later on when your other pieces can be upgraded to 525 itemlevel.
• Cloaks are another slot with the lowest stat budget, but they can't be socketed.
• Belts have a higher stat budget, but they can have a socket.
• A Ring, if you've chosen to craft Blue Silken Lining, is another good slot. It also comes with a socket.

Trinkets

Umbreiskul's Fractured Heart is simming better than a lot of other options at lower ilvl. It may be worth getting this trinket early on in the season, but it loses value on higher ilvls.

Doing Dawn of the Infinite on hard mode without your group dying can reward you with a Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows at myth track, making it possible to upgrade it to 528. This makes the trinket perform very good in both ST and AoE and should be your ideal on-use trinket if you manage to get your hands on it.

Vessel of Searing Shadow is simming very good when paired with Seal of Diurna's Chosen for ST. These items are not that good seperately, but together they are outperforming other options by around 0.5%

Please use Top Gear or Droptimizer on Raidbots in order to decide what trinkets to use/farm, but the following list should give you a good idea of some of the trinkets you will want to look out for. The list is in roughly power-level order assuming the highest item level versions of the trinkets.

• Neltharion's Call to Suffering
• Mirror of Fractured Tomorrows
• Vessel of Searing Shadow
• Irideus Fragment
• Whispering Incarnate Icon
• Spoils of Neltharus
• Tome of Unstable Power
• Belor'Relos, the Suncaller
• Ominous Chromatic Essence

Miscellaneous:

FAQ

I've read the priority list and I think my rotation looks correct but I'm still doing very low damage. What could be the reason?

Log one of your fights and check it with warcraftlogs and wowanalyzer. The main thing to check is if you're always casting: the timeline should have no downtime and, as close to zero as possible, cancelled casts. Another common issue is incorrectly planning your movement and wasting casts on dots: you should always have enough AP to cover some distance just by using spenders.

How do I sim for AoE?

Balance Druid's gear mostly doesn't change from ST to AoE so simming "5m 1t patchwerk" is usually fine even for AoE situations. Other sims like "5t 40s" are unrealistic scenarios that will provide skewed and wrong sims in most cases and hence shouldn't be used. If you want to do an accurate M+ sim consider using the MDT Sim WeakAura and remember that ST fights are still a big part of Mythic+.

I'm doing really low damage in Mythic+, what am I doing wrong?

If you double-checked your rotation and still feel like you're underperforming you could just be playing low keys, together with classes that have very bursty damage profiles. When playing a Balance Druid, mobs need to live long enough for you to actually start doing damage, which is something that doesn't really happen in keys lower than 20+ and especially on Tyrannical. Consider focusing a bit more on ST or trying another spec, but take into account the fact that DPS isn't everything in a key.

I've seen a lot of people running build X instead of Y in Mythic+, is X better?

This season there are many viable builds and in the end, once the necessary talents are taken, it just comes down to personal preference. One notable example is the choice between Fury of Eluneand New Moon: the former performs slightly better in AoE scenarios, while the latter is slightly better in ST, so people will usually pick the one they're most comfortable with. Feel free to use any of the builds mentioned in the Talents section.

How do I track our tierset?

You can use the following WeakAura

How can I proc Waning Twilightwithout mushrooms or flare?

With Astral Smolder

Why are some top players running different embellishments from the ones mentioned in the Compendium

The DPS gain provided by the embellishments can vary significantly because of many external factors such as gear, type of content and group composition. Some of the top players might also happen to use niche embellishments for the same reasons. If you don't have any specific requirements then your best option is to just sim your character and choose the embellishments that provide the highest DPS upgrade.

Do our dots snapshot?

No, all of our periodic damage (like Moonfire, Sunfire, Stellar Flare) do NOT snapshot, everything is dynamic. That means any dots gain/lose the damage bonus upon entering/leaving the Eclipse that buffs them and whenever any other stat/damage increases are applied/expire.

What is Astral damage?

Astral damage is both Arcane and Nature damage. Effects that buff Nature spells also applies to Astral spells, and effects that buff Arcane spells likewise also applies to Astral spells. For example, Solar Eclipse multiplies the damage of all Nature & Astral spells by 1.15x, and Lunar Eclipse multiplies the damage of all Arcane & Astral spells by 1.15x. If you have both eclipses, Astral spells get 1.15 * 1.15 = 1.3225x multiplier, while Nature & Arcane spells get 1.15x.

Mind that class buffs only affect class spells so if a trinket does nature or arcane damage they are not affected by our buffs to these spell schools.

Additional Resources

Macros

Orbital Strike macro:

#showtooltip
/cast [@cursor] Celestial Alignment

Trinket macro:

If you are using an on-use trinket that should go along with your cooldowns, use the following macro (/13 for top trinket slot, and /14 for bottom trinket slot)

#showtooltip
/use 13
/use 14
/cast [@cursor] Celestial Alignment

Cancelaura Macros

Cancelling Pulsar

As of 10.1.5 and forward this no longer represents a relevant gain with the change to Radiant Moonlight increasing the cooldown of Fury of Elune by 5 seconds.

Cancelling Starlord

With baseline changes and new set in 10.2, cancelling your Starlord aura is back to being insignificant (~0.2%)

If you want to engage in this entirely optional method without incurring a dps loss, you should aim to cancel Starlord at any point in an Eclipse window where the buff is currently at less than two seconds, and you are about to use Starsurgeto prevent overcapping.

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Starlord

Useful WeakAura(s)

Balance WeakAura Packs

The following links lead to various balance druid WeakAura packs. These contain everything that's recommended to track to play at a high level. None of these are particular better or more useful than others, and which one you should use is up to your personal preference.

• Shrom's Ultimate AP Bar
• Genesis DF Balance Druid
• Oi Balance pack

Casts until you can cast Starfire

Starfire Alerter: See the description of the WA for more details. This is not a required WA but will make it easier to not get into situations where you are wasting a Starfire cast inside Solar Eclipse.

Current APL