Season of Discovery Balance Druid DPS Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities

We will present the skill rotation of a Balance Druid as a priority list. This is not an exact sequence in which abilities should be cast. Instead, whenever you must choose between using different skills, try to use the one at the top of the list first.

Our list assumes you are running the recommended build from the talents page and are playing a maximum level character. If you are still leveling, please refer to the leveling-specific rotation located in the table of contents.

While they are extraordinarily powerful, explosives such as Heavy Dynamite will not be detailed in the rotation. Usually, you will want to use them as soon as the tank has solid threat on the target. The main exception is when you are facing multiple or particularly dangerous (such as enraged) enemies at some point in the fight. Saving explosives to carry you and your group through these moments (and possibly do a ton of AoE damage in the process) is probably worth it.

1. Use instant Healing Touch as an emergency heal for players about to die, as it can now be cast while instant without breaking Moonkin Form;
2. Remove dangerous curses from group members as soon as possible with Remove Curse and dangerous poisons with Cure Poison as they are now fully compatible with Moonkin Form;
3. Use Starsurge on cooldown, preferably with the Eclipse 30% critical strike buff provided by Starfire;
4. Use Starfall on cooldown, preferably while under the effect of temporary power buffs such as trinket procs;
5. Use Starfire whenever it is buffed by Starsurge;
6. Maintain Moonfire on the target;
7. Maintain Sunfire on the target;
8. Maintain Insect Swarm on the target;
9. Use Wrath as a Mana-free filler that enables Starfire's Eclipse buff.

For the most part you will be following the single-target damage rotation, with the difference that Hurricane with Gale Winds should be used when it will be hitting 4 or more targets during its channel and Moonfire, Sunfire, and Insect Swarm should be applied to each available target, rather than a single one.

If not using Hurricane due to 3 or fewer targets, make sure to rotate Starfire and Wrath among the targets in order to extend your dots as much as possible with the help of Elune's Fires!

Starfall is quite powerful and should be used as much as possible, with delays being potentially worthwhile if there will be more clumped targets to hit soon or a trinket's internal cooldown about to finish.

Rebirth is currently the only combat resurrection of WoW Classic Season of Discovery and should be used on any party member that dies in a fight, with priority for the tank.

Innervate is a potent Mana cooldown and should be used on any (Spirit-based, preferably) Mana user running low, especially healers.

Remove Curse can be used to dispel curse effects from party members and this should be done as soon as possible in most situations.

Cure Poison can be used to dispel poison effects from party members and, just like Remove Curse, should be done as soon as possible in most situations.

In this section, we will dive a bit deeper into the core mechanics and various abilities of Balance Druids. Understanding these topics is an important step to truly mastering the specialization.

A Druid's primary resource is Mana. It is important that you understand how Mana is generated, so you can effectively manage and use it.

Mana has a maximum capacity based on your Intellect, and starts full by default. Mana is slowly used by your spell casting, and does not regenerate naturally if you have cast something in the last 5 seconds. However, using certain talents, such as Reflection, allows a part of your Mana regeneration (which scales based on Spirit) to continue during this period, and Innervate will let you regenerate Mana normally while casting. Items that restore X Mana per 5 seconds, such as Smoked Sagefish are also active at all times.

Your goal in any fight, is to kill the enemy before your Mana is completely gone. This is made much easier by the SoD rune Fury of Stormrage which causes your Wrath spell to be free, and the new Dreamstate rune also helps a lot, as you will be dealing a lot of critical strikes due to Eclipse.