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Contents 1 General 2 Notable Spells and Abilities 2.1 Moonfire 2.2 Faerie Fire 2.3 Cyclone 2.4 Moonkin Form 3 Attributes 4 Soloing 5 Grouping 6 Extra PvP Tricks

General

• Cast your spells in "bursts". Your mana will not regenerate for 5 seconds after you cast a spell, regardless of whether or not you are in combat. It is more mana-efficient to cast several spells at the same time and then wait for your mana to regenerate than to cast single spells at various times during a fight.
• Thorns contributes to threat and therefore should only be cast on tank while in a group. This makes it easier for the tank to hold aggro.

Notable Spells and Abilities

Balance spells are primarily oriented around doing magic damage to enemies and crowd control.

Moonfire

Moonfire plays a dual role in the druid's arsenal. First, if the druid allows the DoT to run its course it provides a steady reasonably mana efficient supplement to DPS. Secondly, it is the only instant cast damage spell with a Cooldown less than 6 seconds, and the druid can Spam it, producing relatively large DPS at the cost of mana efficiency. In long fights (i.e. most boss fights), balance druids should generally avoid Moonfire, unless they are confident that they have sufficient mana regeneration that they will effectively have spare mana at the end of the fight. Moonfire is the least mana-efficient of the druid's damage spells, providing the lowest damage per point of mana spent (DPM), although it does give the highest DPS when the DoT is allowed to run to completion. External mana regeneration, from a shadow priest or elemental shaman, makes all the difference on the viability of including Moonfire in spell rotation.

Faerie Fire

In addition to its useful armor debuff, this spell allows druids to keep Rogues from vanishing in PvP. This reduces their ability to stunlock and DPS, and also makes it harder for them to escape, unless they use Cloak of Shadows to remove the effect before using Vanish. Consider using Rake to keep them from vanishing.

Cyclone

This new spell makes an enemy invulnerable for up to 6 seconds. Unlike Polymorph, the health of the enemy is not increased, but it does not have the duration of similar spells like Banish. Cyclone is subject to diminishing returns in both PvE and PvP, lasting for 6 seconds on the first cast to a single target, 3 seconds on the second cast, and 1.5 seconds on the third. After the third cast a target is granted immunity to this spell.

Moonkin Form

Moonkin Form is a form available to druids with 30 points invested into the balance talent tree. Moonkins are often affectionately referred to as boomkins, oomkins, crit chickens, or laser chickens. Almost everyone is familiar with the distinctive 'moon lasers' (Starfire and Moonfire) which are its signature attack visuals.

In Moonkin Form you get

• A percent bonus to armor rating from items. Armor rating from enchantments and agility is not multiplied.
• An aura granting all party or raid members additional spell critical strike chance.
• The ability to regain mana when your single-target spells achieve a critical strike.
• The Moonkin can only cast Balance spells and Remove Curse while shapeshifted.

Attributes

• Each point of Intellect gives 15 mana and increases your chance for a spell critical strike. It contributes to mana regeneration as of patch 2.4. It also increases your mana regeneration with the Dreamstate talent, and spell damage and healing with the Lunar Guidance talent.
• Each point of Spirit increases your health and mana regeneration. Spirit also provides mana regeneration while casting with the Intensity talent. It also increases your damage with the Improved Moonkin Form talent.
• Spellpower increases the damage of your spells.
• Critical strike rating improves your chance to critically hit with spells, which is important for mana regeneration in Moonkin form.

Soloing

Druids work well as a soloing class. Pull the enemy creature with a Wrath spell to draw them away from other creatures that would gang up on you. Learn the maximum distance of your Wrath spell (36 yards with the Nature's Reach balance talent), and be in the habit of casting from there. While the Wrath bolt is still traveling to the enemy, cast Moonfire. Follow this with Entangling Roots. Move back to the limit of your Wrath spell and repeat. You should be burning through your mana until you have just enough to switch to Bear form. If you are patient, you can tackle powerful creatures in this manner without endangering yourself.

If you run out of mana while soloing a creature, Entangling Roots can save your life. Root the creature and then just stand back and wait for your mana to regenerate. Once you have enough mana, cast Entangling Roots again. If it is not resisted or immediately removed, heal yourself. Otherwise cast it again. Repeat the process. Entangling Roots does a small amount of damage. When you feel comfortable with your health vs the creatures health, go back to damaging it. Note: This trick might not work if your spirit is very low.

Train up First Aid for healing between fights in order to save mana and maintain the highest efficiency.

Grouping

Its is a common misconception that as druids are a hybrid class they will only be able to approach, but not match, the pure DPS classes. Although a warlock/mage has a larger arsenal of DPS spells, a properly specced druid can match, and in some cases surpass, the DPS of warlocks/mages. Blizzard has stated they want Hybrid classes to approach the DPS of pure classes much closer in Wrath of the Lich King.

Although druids in balance spec MAY have less DPS than a mage/warlock, druids in moonkin form have an amour value similar to that of a warrior, giving them a lot more flexibility. Mages/warlocks are highly susceptible to melee damage, and the moonkin form's high armor seriously mitigates this and gives them that little edge in raiding.

In endgame raiding the rotation is fairly mechanical since the change to eclipse. Put up dots and Starfire until you get a wrath eclipse, then Wrath during eclipse and keep casting Wrath until you get a starfire eclipse, then keep Starfiring until a wrath eclipse again. Refresh dots as needed, but if your dots fall off during the last half of an eclipse you should wait until eclipse is over before reapplying them.

Wrath is not viable during Bloodlust/Heroism due to almost certainly hitting the 1 second GCD limit with all that haste, so you should only Moonfire and Starfire.

The two absolutely essential glyphs for sustained raid DPS are Glyph of Starfire and Glyph of Moonfire. The Glyph of Starfire extends the dot of Moonfire, while the Glyph of Moonfire makes the dot portion more powerful, giving great synergy.

Extra PvP Tricks

Main article: Druid tactics#PvP

In PvP, balance druids are able to use their moonkin form to absorb large amounts of damage, and with recent talent additions suffer little knockback with many of their abilities. This has made a balance druid (specced correctly) a very exceptional class in PvP. However, due to the inability to use restoration spells in moonkin form the sometimes necessary tactic of dropping form and healing means a large mana cost and can be cumbersome.