WotLK Classic Balance Druid Spec, Builds, Talents, and Glyphs

If you were looking for leveling builds, please refer to our leveling guide for Druids.

If you are no longer using the Tier 9 2-set bonus, you should use these talents. Mana talents are mostly avoided, but Omen of Clarity is taken to enable the Tier 10 2-piece bonus. Improved Moonfire is not great but Mana issues are no longer present at Icecrown Citadel gear levels, thus it is picked. We also recommend a point into Nature's Reach to avoid threat issues on lucky pulls.

We also recommend running Typhoon without the Glyph of Typhoon, at least in fights such as Deathbringer Saurfang where the knockback is great against the blood beasts.

When using the 2-piece bonus Tier 9 set in Trial of the Crusader Moonfire damage over time can critical strike, making it worth prioritizing on your rotation and glyph choices. Mana is also mostly a non-issue with the added critical strike rating and Intellect present in the higher item level gear available.

Thus, Moonglow and Omen of Clarity (unless you are also using 2-piece Tier 10) are abandoned, Glyph of Insect Swarm is removed in favor of Glyph of Moonfire and the nature of Tier 9 fights allows for swapping 1 point out of Nature's Reach and the AoE of Gale Winds for the added single target burst of Brambles.

In Wrath you will be able to unlock Glyphs that improve your abilities and can be swapped around freely as long as you have the consumable glyph item on your bags.

As a Balance Druid in Tier 10 PvE gear you will want to be using Glyph of Focus, Glyph of Starfall, and Glyph of Insect Swarm for maximum damage, especially in AoE scenarios.

For minor glyphs, you will usually want to use Glyph of Typhoon in PvE to lower Typhoon's Mana cost, make it larger and remove the knockback unless you have a specific use for it. In other situations simply pick any glyphs you like out of Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth, Glyph of Dash, Glyph of the Wild, or Glyph of Thorns.

The Balance Tree carries most of the power of a Balance Druid, as would be expected. It also has a lot of PvP utility, which you can learn more about in our Wrath Balance Druid PvP guide.

Nature's Grace increases your casting speed by 20% when you critically hit with a non-periodic spell. This allows you to have a huge amount of Haste very often, especially during Eclipse when your Starfire critical chance is highly increased.

Insect Swarm is a powerful damage-over-time effect with an equally powerful glyph option in Glyph of Insect Swarm. When combined, they make it worth casting in most scenarios, as explained in the Balance rotation page.

Improved Insect Swarm is not nearly as good as it reads, as it is only a conditional 1% damage increase per point, and you will often not even be casting Moonfire at all.

Owlkin Frenzy causes attacks against you to have a 15% chance to give you a 10-second buff that increases your damage, removes spell pushback, and regenerates Mana every second. While the buff is extremely strong, you will rarely be directly attacked in PvE, making it only great for soloing and PvP.

Eclipse defines your Wrath rotation and forces you into an alternating cycle of Wrath and Starfire spam in order to activate Lunar / Solar Eclipse, respectively, at which point you swap to the opposite spell until a new Eclipse is triggered.

Typhoon is a new spell which causes some damage and knocks back all targets in a huge radius in front of you, also slowing them for 6 seconds. This makes it very useful when soloing, in PvP, and also in group PvE when used with Glyph of Typhoon.

Force of Nature creates 3 treant allies that deal significant damage during their uptime, but also has a significant 3-minute cooldown.

Starfall causes up to 20 stars to fall on enemies around you over a period of 10 seconds. These stars deal significant damage which splashes to nearby enemies. Essentially, you will be doing top area damage and competitive single-target every time you press this spell, as it is incredibly powerful!

The Feral Tree provides no real benefits to Balance and should be ignored.

The Restoration Tree is mostly used for Improved Mark of the Wild, Omen of Clarity, and some minor stat buffs.