Balance Druid Damage
Basic Damage Approach
Without worrying about dozens of modifiers, stats, and tier sets, the core of dealing optimal damage consists of 4 basic steps.
- Apply Moonfire and Sunfire
- Stay in Lunar Eclipse
- Cast Starsurge
- Cast Starfire
Check your Starfire casts. This is the differentiating factor between being top damage or not.
Single Target Damage
Key Damage Modifiers
Utilizing these damage modifiers will increase your damage output.
Mastery
Your mastery boosts your overall damage. More importantly, targets afflicted by Moonfire and Sunfire take significantly increased additional damage.
Eclipse
Nature or Arcane spells will deal 15% more damage. Your Astral spells deal 15% increased damage. Wrath damage increased by 60% or Starfire AoE damage increased by 60%.
Incarnation
Haste and Critical Strike increased by 10%, Solar + Lunar Eclipse are activated, and astral spells deal 30% increased damage.
Starsurge
- Moonkin Aura 2% Critical Strike to all allies, up to 3 stacks.
- Starlord 4% Haste up to 3 stacks.
- Chance to proc Power of Goldrinn. (Nerfed in PvP)
AOE Rotation
The AOE rotation is similar to the single target rotation, instead of using Starsurge, you use Starfall.
- Apply Moonfire and Sunfire
- Stay in Solar Eclipse
- Cast Starfall
- Cast Wrath
Key Damage Modifiers
Utilizing these damage modifiers will increase your damage output.
Aetherial Kindling
Removes the need to refresh dots. "Casting Starfall extends the duration" of dots by 3 seconds.
Soul of the Forest
Unlike PvE, enemies will not stack. This forces Balance Druids to play around Starfall and Dots as its primary source of damage. Soul of the Forest increases Wrath's astral power generation by 60%. This synergizes heavily with Aetherial Kindling.
Tip: Often attempting to dot EVERYONE, will not do the highest damage. Dot the majority of targets, then maintain dots with Starfall. This allows you to start generating Astral Power quickly with Wrath.
Telegraphing
With so many buffs and signals like the Fury of Elune, your damage can be extremely telegraphed. If people notice and pre-press defensive cooldowns, it can be hard to force an enemy trinket or major defensive. Not forcing trinkets, major defensive cooldowns, or a lot of mana can be game-losing.
Use Wild Charge and Focus macros to reduce this.
Moonfire and Sunfire
There are two main ways to use Moonfire and Sunfire.
1. Preparing for a target swap
Our mastery requires dots on a target to deal extra damage. Dotting before swapping saves 2 globals. Keep at least 1 target dotted in 2s, and at least 2 targets dotted in 3s.
Example: Dotting enemy healer before doing a bash beam swap. This works in high-momentum scenarios.
2. Rotting a team
You shouldn't try to triple-dot everything at all times unless your dot pressure forces mana-expensive heals from the enemy healer.
Example: Holy Paladins can heal through full dots on their teams with only Beacon. (No additional mana)
Example 2: Restoration Druids are forced to spend additional mana on more targets.
You are trying to force CDs to "Cycle" a team or force mana-expensive heals to "Dampen" a team.
Tip: Disable any addons that cover dot durations. Clear nameplates are essential for both arenas and especially RBGs.
Challenge Time!
Apply what you've learned and test your skills:
- ST Damage Check:Maintain 1700k dps Single target for 60 seconds. (673 ilvl with 2 set)
- AOE Damage Check:Maintain 2000k dps AOE for 90 seconds. (3 pvp targets, 634 ilvl)
Note: The ultimate goal for the rest of this guide is to enable you to do this kind of damage in an arena setting. Rotation is only 20% of the battle. The correct strategy to generate/maintain the most momentum is the other 80%.