Dreamgrove

Balance Druid 10.2.6 Compendium

updated by Chicken, Jundarer, Dsune (Oi)

Changelog

Season 4 News

Tier Set

2-piece:

Starsurge and Starfall increase the damage of your next Wrath or Starfire by 30%, stacking up to 3 times

This is roughly a 4% 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 Starsurge or Starfall cost 15 less Astral Power and deals 40% increased damage.

This is roughly a 4.5% 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 Pulsar or pressing CA/Incarnation

Total DPS from set: ~8.6%

Tier sim (current ilvl ~489): https://www.raidbots.com/simbot/report/tdwsS2j8MJjAvYJYRofqg1

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

Feedback post for season 4 and War Within: https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-and-wishlist-on-balance-druid-for-season-4-and-war-within/501907


Precasting:

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.


Select which talents you have talented to filter the priority list:









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 Moonfire and Sunfire, refresh within pandemic (30% of base duration shown in the tooltip).
  • Use Celestial Alignment /Incarnation if you’re not in CA/Inc already.
  • Use Wrath to enter Lunar Eclipse if one of the following conditions is true:
    • You have 520 or more stacks of Pulsar
    • The cooldown of CA/Inc is less than 5 seconds.
  • Use Starfire to enter Solar Eclipse.
  • Use Starsurge if Starlord has less than 3 stacks or if you have more than 2 stacks of BoAT.
    • 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 /Inc is longer than 10 seconds.
  • Use Starsurge if one of the following conditions is met:
    • You would overcap AP with the next cast.
    • Solar or Lunar Eclipse will end in the next 4 seconds and you have more than 70 AP.
  • Use Wrath regardless of which Eclipse you are in.


Select which talents you have talented to filter the priority list:










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

  • Use Sunfire if 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 Moonfire if the targets will live for 6 or more seconds and you will not overcap on AP.
    • The target will live for at least 8s+1s per target that Starfire can hit
    • You will not overcap on AP.
    • You’re about to use CA/Inc
    • Your fighting less than 11 targets -1 per talent in Umbral Intensity or Astral Smolder.
  • Use Starfall if you would overcap Astral Power with your next cast.
  • Use CA /Inc if you are not in CA /Inc already.
  • Use Starfire to enter Solar Eclipse if you are fighting 2 targets.
  • Use Wrath to enter Lunar Eclipse if you are fighting 3+ targets.
  • Use Starfall if one of the following conditions is 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 /Inc is longer than 10 seconds.
    • The target will live for at least 8s+1s per target that Starfire can hit
    • You will not overcap on AP.
    • Your fighting less than 11 targets -1 per talent in Umbral Intensity or Astral Smolder.
  • Starfire if any of the below conditions are true:
    • You are in Lunar Eclipse.
    • You are in CA/Inc and Starfire will hit 4 or more targets.
  • Use Wrath if any of the below conditions are true:
    • You are in Solar Eclipse.
    • You are in CA/Inc and Starfire will hit 3 or fewer targets.


  • 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/Inc cast Wrath
  • On 4 or more targets inside CA/Inc cast Starfire.


Warrior of Elune is an off-gcd ability, making your next 3 Starfires instant for 25 seconds. The ability has a 45s cooldown that starts once you’ve pressed it.

Warrior of Elune can 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 /Inc /Lunar Eclipse. Using a Warrior of Elune Starfire in single target during CA /Inc is NOT a damage increase if you do not need to move.

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

Warrior of Elune can also be used during CA /Inc /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.


Use Owlkin Frenzy procs to enter Solar Eclipse, inside Lunar Eclipse or inside CA/Inc if Starfire will hit 3 or more targets.
Keep in mind that Warrior of Elune charges are consumed before Owlkin Frenzy procs.


Single Target

Single Target with Pad

Single Target with spread add spawn

Single Target with damage amp

Two Target Starweaver

Council of Dreams

The Primal Council


Balanced build

Weaver build

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 Moon and Fury of Elune can be used interchangeably.

New Moon provides more single target damage and is easy to pair with pulsar.
FoE does 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:

Single target focused build
Balanced build
AoE focused build

Class tree with Hibernate for Incorporeal
If you really need both Hibernate and Remove Corruption


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


Grand Banquet of the Kalu’ak: 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.


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:

  • Iced 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.


Hissing Rune: Mastery rune
Use this for every situation.


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


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.


For embellishments there are a couple of options this season:

Which embellishments should you choose?

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

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.
  • Belts have a higher stat budget, but they can have a socket.
  • Ring if you’ve chosen to craft https://www.wowhead.com/item=193946/blue-silken-lining is another good slot, comes with a socket.


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.


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 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. You could also check this video explanation of the compendium to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

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 Elune and 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 Twilight without mushrooms or flare?

With Astral Smolder

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

In the beginning of the season Toixic Thorn Boots + Patch were providing the biggest short term DPS gain in a purely ST scenario, and they’re still simming very good for many players, which is why they were considered the best choice. At the moment there are many other viable combinations depending on the gear and the content being done, so feel free to sim them and decide accordingly.

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.

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.


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


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.

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.


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 Starsurge to prevent overcapping.

#showtooltip
/cancelaura Starlord


[Embells 1T](https://www.dreamgrove.gg/balance/sims/embells_1T_10.2.html)
[Embells 6T](https://www.dreamgrove.gg/balance/sims/embells_6T_10.2.html)

Phials 1T
Phials 6T

Runes 1T
Runes 6T

Racials 1T
Racials 6T

Tierset 1T
Tierset 6T

Prestacking Pulsar
Proc Pulsar before Incarn on pull

Cancelling Starlord 1T
Cancelling Starlord 6T

Item strings for simming
Sample T31 Profile

Current APL

Quicklinks

1. News

2. Rotation
Precasting
Single Target priority
AoE priority
Eclipses and Fillers
How to Use Warrior of Elune
How to use Owlkin Frenzy procs

3. Talents
Raid
Mythic+

4.Consumables
Potions
Food
Phials
Runes

5. Gearing
Stats
Enchants
Embellishments
Trinkets

6. Miscellaneous
FAQ
Do our dots snapshot?
What is Astral damage?
Macros
Useful WeakAura(s)
Cancelaura Macros

7. Sims