Balance Druid PvP Guide for Cataclysm Classic

Balance Druidss have very high burst damage during cooldowns, and can open from stealth, but also either require a lot of hard-casting for damage or are completely reliant on damage over time effects with no dispel protection, and are thus easy to shut down. Starfall also stops working while the Druid is crowd controlled.

They have decent control tools in Cyclone and Entangling Roots, but also a hard time using them while under pressure as both require hard-casting. Typhoon can also be a good disruptive tool, which helps particularly against melee cleaves.

Overall, the Balance Druid is a cheesy caster who can easily steal wins out of nowhere with Starfall and Force of Nature or uninterrupted casts, but fails to make an impact at the highest levels of coordinated PvP.

Strengths

• Powerful damage-over-time spells that can be applied to multiple enemies
• Resilient to interrupts as both Nature and Arcane can be used for damage purposes
• Strong cooldowns in Starfall, Force of Nature, and the Solar Beam + root combo

Weaknesses

• Usually gets focused in arenas as defensive capabilities are weak
• Relies on dispellable DoTs to deal the majority of damage, without any dispel protection for them
• Damage cooldowns are easy to shut down as Force of Nature trees can be CC'd and Starfall only works while the Druid is not CC'd

• Glyph of Moonfire — improves the periodic damage of Moonfire by 20%.
• Glyph of Insect Swarm — increases your Insect Swarm damage by 30%.
• Glyph of Starsurge — causes your Starsurge cast to reduce Starfall's cooldown by 5 seconds, increasing your burst damage potential.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational. While there are many different options for Balance, we will list below the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Entangling Roots — reduces the cast time of Entangling Roots by 0.2 seconds, making it easier to pull off your Solar Beam combo.
• Glyph of Starfall — reduces the cooldown of Starfall by 30 seconds, allowing you to do more frequent damage with it.
• Glyph of Barkskin — reduces the chance you will be critically hit by 25% while Barkskin is active, making it a much more powerful defensive cooldown.

• Glyph of Mark of the Wild — reduces the Mana cost of Mark of the Wild by 50% which makes it cheaper to cast.
• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth — removes the reagent requirement from Rebirth.
• Glyph of Dash — reduces the cooldown of Dash by 20%, increasing your potential mobility in the process.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this section. In PvP you will need to react and adapt to different situations, meaning you will not always follow the recommended rotation below. Aim to do whatever allows you to stick on your target the most while dealing as much damage as possible.

1. Use Force of Nature to burst, preferably when you have enemies under crowd control to avoid having them use their own crowd control on your treants immediately;
2. Use Starfall to help burst even more in a similarly favorable situation or to create more split pressure if all enemies are in range and you are at no risk of being crowd controlled for the duration;
3. Cast Starsurge on cooldown;
4. Apply and refresh Insect Swarm followed by Moonfire;
5. If you can free cast, use your Starfire and Wrath to build towards an Eclipse, otherwise use Lunar Shower to slowly build your Eclipse bar through instant casts.

Balance Druids have multiple cooldowns, both defensive and offensive.

Use your offensive cooldown Berserk when at high energy to maximize the amount of abilities you can use during its effect, preferably while the enemy healer is crowd controlled.

Use your defensive cooldowns Barkskin, Frenzied Regeneration, and Survival Instincts whenever you drop low or are facing heavy damage. Most of the time it will be enough to use a single one of these, but for extra dangerous situations you, will want to use multiple of them at once.

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game-changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Solar Beam can be used to silence the enemy healer for an extended duration alongside Entangling Roots to prevent him from walking out of it;
• Typhoon to reposition enemies or mass interrupt casts;
• Stampeding Roar — can be useful to chase fleeing enemies and also to allow yourself or allies to escape danger and kite away when low on health.
• Dash — provides you with a large movement speed increase, which has similar personal benefits to Stampeding Roar.
• Cyclone — is your main form of crowd control. This will prevent a target from being able to do anything, including being healed, but will also prevent any damage to them for the duration.
• Faerie Fire — reduces enemy armor and prevents restealthing.
• Nature's Grasp — causes players who attack you to be hit by automatic Entangling Roots, making it easier to get away from enemy melee.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Balance Druid in Cataclysm PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Blacksmithing — Gives you two additional sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, enabling you to stack more Resilience in this season.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you three powerful gems, in this case Mystic Chimera's Eye, which can boost your Resilience even higher.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for a Balance Druid in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Balance Druid's place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.