Balance Druid Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.1.0)
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Balance Druid leveling guide for The War Within. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Druid leveling guide.
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Gear Options
When you are leveling, equip the highest item level gear. You will be replacing your gear often enough that you can indiscriminately equip based on item level without worrying about other stats.
Balance Druid Mechanics
When leveling in open-world or dungeons, Balance Druid is a very basic
builder-spender rotation priority. The basic idea is to rotate between
Eclipses, which lasts 15 seconds and takes two spells to enter the next
one after the previous one expires. Apply your DoTs (
Moonfire and
Sunfire) to your target and cast the Eclipse-appropriate filler
(
Wrath for Solar and
Starfire for Lunar). When you
have enough Astral Power, you can cast a spender (
Starsurge on a single
target and
Starfall on multiple targets).
Here are some explanations for some of the phrases inside the guide that may help you understand it more:
- A DoT refers to Damage over Time spells such as
Moonfire and
Sunfire.
- Fillers refer to spells that generate your main resource, which is Astral
Power. Fillers should always be cast when there is nothing else we can do. Our
fillers are
Wrath and
Starfire.
- A spender is an ability that consumes our main resource. These are powerful
abilities that a crucial to damage dealing.
Starsurge is spent on single or priority targets, and
Starfall on multiple targets.
Balance Druid Cooldowns
Balance Druid cooldowns all come from the talent tree.
Celestial Alignment is your big cooldown and
provides the benefit of both
Eclipse states, allowing you to cast
whatever you want as well as buffing all of your spells. On a single target, you
will still be casting
Wrath, and on multiple targets, you will
want to cast
Starfire.
Level by Level Rotation and Talents
Talents to Level Up as Balance Druid
Tier 1 Talents are as follows:
Eclipse
Shooting Stars
Solstice
Solar Beam
Twin Moons
Nature's Grace
Force of Nature
Wild Surges
>We skip Aetherial Kindling, but you can take
this talent if you are leveling through dungeons. You would swap out
Force of Nature for Aetherial Kindling if leveling through Dungeons.
Throughout these levels, focus on fewer enemies, as you do not have all the tools to deal with big pulls if you are not geared.
DoT up one or two enemies and focus them down using Starsurge.
Tier 2 Talents are as follows:
Celestial Alignment
Whirling Stars
Astral Smolder
Touch of the Cosmos
Hail of Stars
Sunseeker Mushroom
Cosmic Rapidity x2
Stellar Amplification
Umbral Embrace
Starlord x2
At this point, you are going to have some good utility talents to help you run away from enemies, as well as a fair amount of cleave damage.
Use Celestial Alignment and
Whirling Stars liberally as they boost your damage significantly, and you
can speed up the leveling process by doing big pulls to finish whole quests
instantly.
Remember to keep your targets fully DoTed up to deal maximum damage.
Tier 3 Talents are as follows:
Rattle the Stars
Waning Twilight
Power of Goldrinn
Orbit Breaker
Umbral Inspiration
Convoke the Spirits
Balance of All Things x2
Harmony of the Heavens
Denizen of the Dream
You should have all of the tools you need to make
sizeable pulls while leveling. Use Force of Nature with
Celestial Alignment
and
Convoke the Spirits to do large pulls or kill dangerous enemies or
rares.
class="balance_level_71">We recommend Keeper of the Grove for The War Within
leveling as it is a fast paced rotation which focuses more on short bursts making
it good for leveling. You can even take Durability of Nature to keep
your treants tanking.
Rotation to Level Up as a Balance Druid
- Enter
Moonkin Form and be in this form at all times.
- Apply
Moonfire to the target.
- Apply
Sunfire to the target.
- Cast
Celestial Alignment on cooldown.
- Enter Lunar
Eclipse by casting two
Wraths if
Celestial Alignment is on cooldown.
- Cast
Starsurge when available on a single target and inside
Eclipse.
- Cast
Starfall on more than one target.
- Cast
Wrath or
Starfire as a filler to build Astral Power inside
Eclipse.
When talenting any Cooldowns such as
Wild Mushroom or
Convoke the Spirits, you should use them as they
come up. Most enemies, while leveling, will not pose much of a threat or have
extended battles. Use these cooldowns to help speed things up as you level.
Balance Druid War Mode Talents for Leveling
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking balance of Druid-specific PvE talents.
Balance Druid PvP Talents for Leveling
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 as well. 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.
Congratulations!
Changelog
- 27 Feb. 2025: Reviewed and Updated for Patch 11.1.0.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Reviewed and Updated for Patch 11.0.1.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5 talent rework.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within PrePatch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 25 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 09 Nov. 2023: Fixed Class Talent Selection Tree.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.0.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.7
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 08 May 2023: Updated for May 9th Hotfixes.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.7.
- 28 Jan. 2023: Updated broken talent link.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This was written by Borabank, a Balance Druid theorycrafter and raider in Muscle Memory. You can watch him on his Twitch channel or in the Dreamgrove Discord server.
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