Balance Druid DPS Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.0.5

Balance Druid has evolved steadily over the course of Midnight Season 1 as players acclimated to the new Eclipse system. With the meta and rotation now more settled, both Hero Talent builds have carved out their own distinct niches and strengths, and our current recommendations are as follows.

• Single Target - There are multiple single target and single target focused cleave builds, but the main thing they share in common is the Hero Talent Keeper of the Grove. The short cooldown, high burst potential of this Hero Talent makes it competitive in raid and in lower keystone level Mythic+. There are builds that utilize Convoke the Spirits but most builds use Incarnation: Chosen of Elune.
• AoE - Both Hero Talents are viable in Mythic+. Keeper of the Grove is utilized in shorter, lower keystone level keys and Elune's Chosen is used on higher difficulty keys where you can take advantage of the higher sustained multi-target.

In pure single target scenarios, Keeper of the Grove is the clear favorite between the two Hero Talents. It has a plethora of usable Talent builds that allow it to adapt to the specific encounter. Keeper of the Grove is the best build for nearly all raid bosses in Midnight Season 1. Elune's Chosen has come close to the single target potential of Keeper of the Grove, but still falls short in raid and low level keys.

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The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

Midnight introduces three new Apex Talents for every class which will be earned as you level to max. The Balance Druid Apex Talent set is called Ascendant Eclipses.

1. Ascendant Eclipses – Activating an Eclipse makes your next Wrath or Starfire instant. The first three Starsurges or Starfalls you cast during each Eclipse deal 20% increased damage.
2. Ascendant Eclipses – Your Critical Strikes dealt during an Eclipse cause their victims to languish for an additional 12% of damage dealt for 6 sec.
3. Ascendant Eclipses – Activating an Eclipse also launches Solar or Lunar Bolts at enemies within 40 yds that always critically strike. Solar Bolt hits one target and Lunar Bolt hits three targets and deals splash damage.

There are some small gameplay changes associated with the first Apex Talent, Ascendant Eclipses. Firstly, when you are going into cooldowns, you use your free instant cast on Starfire. Additionally, you want to maximize the usage of your buffed spenders in your opener which delays your first cooldown cast.

The second and third Apex Talents are much more passive and do not affect gameplay. Ascendant Eclipses does heavily incentivize Critical Strike and ends up doing a large portion of our damage. Ascendant Eclipses is a minor damage boost at the start of Eclipse. The main gameplay adjustment is just in Eclipse charge management where you do not want to be sitting on 2-charges before going into cooldowns.

Upon reaching Level 71, Balance Druid gets to pick between two Hero Talent trees that fill vastly different roles, Keeper of the Grove and Elune's Chosen. The are both competitive and fill in different niches.

The benefit of Keeper of the Grove is it turns Balance Druid into a short cooldown, burst-focused spec. Burst damage is more often required in PvE content as the faster something dies, the less likely it is to kill you. Both the pure single target and high target count multi-target builds are slightly worse than the Elune's Chosen builds. Keeper of the Grove is much more likely to find its place somewhere in the middle taking advantage of Dream Burst and Force of Nature to do great priority target damage on many encounters that it excels on.

Elune's Chosen heavily focuses on Arcane spells and Starfire. It currently has the highest simming single target and mass multi-target builds. When it is able to take advantage of these profiles, it is a top-tier caster DPS. Lunar Calling makes you chain cast Starfire at all times within Eclipse which can be a bit clunky given its long cast time compared to Wrath.

There will be the option to go into "War Mode." Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP Talents enabled in the outdoor world.
• 10% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
• 10% more experience gained while leveling.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being killed while leveling or doing World Quests exists.

In this section, we will list the PvP Talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Note that these may not be optimal in actual PvP situations.

• Star Burst is a passive effect that calls down falling stars on enemies during Starfall. Enemies who run into this take damage and get knocked up. Allies can pick these up and run into enemies to detonate them.
• Moonkin Aura is amazing for group combat and strong for solo content. This can buff all members in your party and help finish quests and rares faster. We would recommend this for all group content.
• Thorns can provide minimal peel or damage in open-world content.
• Malorne's Swiftness will let you move at 100% Movement Speed even while in combat. Great for open-world content.

Bora

Guide Author

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This was written by Borabank, a Balance Druid theorycrafter and raider in Country Club. You can watch him on his Twitch channel or find him in the Dreamgrove Discord server.