Balance Druid DPS Uldir Raid Guide — Dragonflight 10.2.5

The Balance Druid toolkit in Battle for Azeroth is greatly suited to handle the mechanics in Uldir. A Balance Druid's main strengths would be strong priority target swapping, high burst with essential Azerite traits, powerful off-heals, and short cooldown/long duration defensives. Balance Druid multi-target is still strong, however it is not very necessary in this raid.

Heroic and normal Taloc should be a very simple boss from the Balance Druid perspective. The fight is comprised of two main mechanics, Plasma Discharge and Sanguine Static. Sanguine Static targets a player in the raid and shoots 5 blood orbs at towards target. Be ready to sidestep the projectiles when he finishes the cast.

A location to drop Plasma Discharge should be marked before the fight begins. We would recommend using Wild Charge to get the debuff out quickly and place it in an optimal spot, away from the raid. If Taloc has cast Cudgel of Gore and his weapon remains on the ground, do not stand between the boss and his weapon at any time in Phase One or Phase Three.

In Phase Two, you begin your descent into the raid. Taloc goes immune to all damage and begins to spawn two sets of adds. Coalesced Blood is the phase two exclusive add and must be prioritized over all other targets. Volatile Droplet will be soaked or burned down quickly as a secondary target. This add persists through to Phase Three. Volatile Droplets are rootable, knockable, and stunnable, so if possible, use your talents and spells to prevent the Droplets from colliding with a player that is not a tank. If the tank is not soaking these, focus them down before they reach their target.

Mythic Taloc is very similar to its Heroic counterpart. We would highly recommend talenting Wild Charge, as the slow applied from Hardened Arteries will reduce the effectiveness of movement speed increases such as Tiger Dash.

M.O.T.H.E.R. is another 3-phase fight, split into three rectangular boss rooms. Each room is on a timer based on when the boss enters. All players must pass through the barrier and reach the end to defeat M.O.T.H.E.R. before they are incinerated.

Each room has set mechanics. While the boss is in the first room, she will cast Wind Tunnel and Purifying Flame, and once she enters the second room, she can cast Uldir Defensive Beam. Once she reaches the final room, she begins to take additional damage and the fight ends quickly thereafter.

Wind Tunnel conjures a gust of wind in the room, which pushes you towards zones of fire. It has about a 40-second cooldown and lasts for 10-seconds. Wild Charge will be the higher DPS choice, but can leave you at risk of getting caught on the wrong side of the room. You can Tiger Dash for almost every wind if you are concerned with getting caught. Additionally, you can talent Stellar Drift and place one Starfall to assist with movement. Purifying Flame creates several void zones beneath players that must be moved from. Once she enters the second room, she begins to cast Uldir Defensive Beam. These create either vertically or horizontally traveling beams that cover the whole room, except for one safe spot.

The main fight mechanic revolves around Defense Grid. Everytime players cross into the next room, the entire raid takes damage and adds spawn, based on how many players crossed the threshold. If many players are crossing over, make sure you preemptively cast Barkskin.

These adds are the top priority in this encounter. They must be stunned, interrupted, and knocked back until they are dead. If their cast completes, the raid will wipe. Balance Druids are not particularly adept at handling these adds. While they do bring CC, they do not bring the burst required to kill them quickly. If you must kill them, we would recommend talenting Warrior of Elune and Fury of Elune.

Mythic M.O.T.H.E.R. has two new add types and combines the vertical and horizontal traveling beams at the same time. If your raid group is low on stuns for the Healer add, you can talent Mighty Bash to single target stun the disease cast. Save Solar Beam for when it is called or for when adds remain while the raid group runs to the safe spot for Uldir Defensive Beam.

Depending on how your raid does this encounter, you can talent pure single target using Stellar Flare, full multi-target in Twin Moons, or safe with Stellar Drift. We always recommend keeping Incarnation: Chosen of Elune and Fury of Elune to make use of the increased damage taken in the final chamber.

Fetid Devourer is a fight that Balance Druids should excel on. There is priority target swapping and a vulnerability phase. During the vulnerability phase, the boss will take increased damage from 50% onwards. If the boss is close to 50%, save your cooldowns to burn the boss. If possible, wear Azerite gear with Streaking Stars to increase your burst potential.

The main boss casts very few abilities. Rotting Regurgitation is a cone ability targeted at a random player, which must be dodged or you will take a large amount of damage and have Malodorous Miasma applied to you. If you are afflicted with Malodorus Miasma, be it random or through the breath, it will evolve into Putrid Paroxysm, which is another debuff which does substantially more damage in a short duration. If you have this debuff, consider casting Barkskin, especially if it lines up with Shockwave Stomp.

Shockwave Stomp (Heroic and up) is a raid-wide knockback, which pushes you backwards a considerable distance. If you talent Wild Charge, you can cancel the knockback by turning around and casting Wild Charge in Moonkin Form. This will keep you relatively still until you must move to kill your add or avoid Rotting Regurgitation.

Two adds will spawn from six waste disposal units at random. If possible, DoT up one of the Corruption Corpuscles and move onto the second one. Save small cooldowns, such as Force of Nature or Warrior of Elune, to burst them down quickly and avoid letting the boss consume them for Health and Energy.

Mythic Fetid Devourer is one of the tougher mythic boss inside of Uldir. It is essential to take Wild Chargeand use it to negate and reposition properly after each Shockwave Stomp or risk spreading Malodorous Miasma through the raid.

The adds that spawn are much more important that on other difficulties and must be killed very quickly. Before each add wave, try to pool two Starsurges worth of Astral Power as well as Force of Nature and Fury of Elune (which we would recommend be taken for this encounter due to their burst potential) and quickly apply your DoTs and unload all of your Astral Power and cooldowns on the Corruption Corpuscle. Afterwards, move in to attack the large add that spawns while taking care to give plenty of room to passing players.

This encounter was split into three phases on Heroic and Normal difficulties, with a few basic mechanics that persist through the whole fight. The main mechanic is Surging Darkness. This creates three zones of darkness centering where the boss casted the ability. One zone will be safe for every pulse. Pool Astral Power for movement during this mechanic.

Phase 1 spawns many Silithid Warriors that fixate a target and can be stunned and burned down effortlessly. Moonfire them as they clump up and then cast a Sunfire and Starfall on top of them. During Phase One, players will be targeted with Eye Beam at random. Players fixated by C'Thun's gaze will have a small indicator below them that will show if they are standing close enough to cleave another player. Always avoid having other players in your circle while being fixated and use a personal.

Phase 2, is a priority damage phase. Three adds will spawn and will begin casting on players. These casters can be interrupted, stunned, CC'd, but not moved. Solar Beam is an incredible ability versus these adds, because the 8-second blanket silence remains after the original kick. Offer your Solar Beam early on mobs that are not being focused down. The boss mechanic during this phase casts Roiling Deceit on a handful of players. These players will take damage and then drop a cloud at their feet upon expiration. Get this cloud out of the raid by running out before the debuff expires.

Phase Three is the final phase of the fight. There will be no more adds or previous Old God mechanics during this phase. Instead, the boss will spawn Orb of Corruptions around the boss room. These orbs must be soaked by players. Players who soak the orb get a temporary damage increase and once the buff times out, they will be mind controlled until killed. Mind controlled targets must be silenced, stunned, or interrupted while they live.

You can talent and gear based on your role during this encounter. If your group is light on multi-target damage, consider talenting for multi-target. If you struggle to kill the caster adds quickly enough, swap to a more consistent damage build and sacrifice your multi-target slightly. If you are an assigned orb soaker in Phase Three, save your cooldowns and spec into burst abilities.

On mythic Zek'voz, phases 1 and 2 are combined into a single phase, and phase 3 begins at 40% instead of 30%. Additionally, phase 1 and 2 mechanics persist through to the final phase with the exception of the add spawns.

For this boss, players should take Warrior of Elune and Fury of Elune to best kill the adds that spawn in the first 60% of the encounter. Monitor the timer and make sure both cooldowns are ready for the adds which spawn every 2-minutes. If your raid group has sufficient knockbacks, talent Mighty Bash to help control the casters more easily. Generally, save your Solar Beam for the final add as it lines up with mechanics that force melee off of the add.

As far as cooldown usage is concerned, there are two primary ways to cooldown this encounter. You can cooldown with the first add wave, the 3rd add wave and maybe once more at the end of the encounter. Or you can cooldown on pull, on the second add wave, and in the final phase. The first way is optimal for killing adds but weaker for final phase boss DPS. Use this if you are progressing and struggling with killing the adds fast enough. You should see a third cooldown usage by the end of the fight during progression. If your add DPS in raid is amazing, consider using your cooldowns the second way to maximize boss damage. If you kill the boss too quickly during farm, you should use your cooldowns like this to ensure three usages.

Vectis will begin the fight casting Omega Vector on a few party members. This debuff does not expire and will bounce from target to target the entire fight. Everytime the debuff bounces, the player contracts one stack of Lingering Infection, which increases all nature damage taken. While Omega Vector deals shadow damage, other fight mechanics deal nature damage.

During the "up phase", the boss will cast two abilities. Contagion is a raid wide nature damage explosion and Gestate stuns the target dealing shadow damage to all players around the target and spawns an add. This add must be burned down immediately or the healing absorb debuff it casts on the raid will be too much for your healers.

Vectis submerges and spawns Plague Bombs, which must be soaked by players. During this phase, Vectis will also send out waves of blood that must be sidestepped or the player will take a stack of Lingering Infection.

Mythic Vectis is also similar to its Heroic counterpart with more emphasis on add damage and personal survival. Adds spawn more quickly and apply a larger absorb shield on the raid. Pool Astral Power for every add to ensure maximum damage output.

Talent Restoration Affinity and Renewal for access to quick instant heals that allow you to remain healthy through dangerous portions of this fight.

On mythic, at 6 and 12 stacks of Lingering Infection, Contagion casts interact differently with the player. At 6-stacks, you must spread for every Contagion cast as you will emanate Bursting Lesions which will damage and increase the stacks of players too close to you. At 12-stacks, every Contagion cast will spawn a parasite which will damage your raid and must be killed or healed through.

Zul, Reborn is a pretty complex boss, but as Balance Druids, we get to just mindlessly mash multi-target abilities for most of the fight.

The main mechanic that Balance Druid can handle is Pool of Darkness (Heroic and up). With our innate damage reduction via Guardian Affinity and our ability to reach the zones quickly by talenting Tiger Dash, we are one of the prime candidates to soak the pools during their duration.

There are three sets of adds that spawn in Phase One. Nazmani Bloodhexer spawn in packs of two and must remain separated. Focus these first and kill them quickly. The second Bloodhexer may possibly cast Congeal Blood and the add that spawns from this cast is the only target that takes priority over the two Bloodhexers. Bloodhexer's can be hard CC'd, knocked back, stunned, and silenced as well as the add that they spawn.

Nazmani Crusher is your second priority and Bloodthirsty Crawg are normally just burned down through passive cleave. The Crushers will spawn one at a time and the Crawgs will spawn four at a time. When there are no Nazmani Bloodhexers active, target the Crusher and cleave off of him.

In Phase One and Two, there is large raid-wide damage through Dark Revelation and Deathwish. If either of these abilities line up while you are soaking a Pool of Darkness, be sure to use Barkskin. Also use Barkskin when targeted by these abilities as well.

On mythic Zul, players will primarily burn only the boss and when called, the Nazmani Crusher. Take all single target talents for this encounter and do not perform your multi-target rotation or multi-DoT Bloodthirsty Crawgs intentionally.

Mythrax is another fight with some Balance Druid interaction. Occasionally, players will be targeted with Oblivion Sphere and become mind controlled. These players can be knocked out of the mind control if you cast Typhoon on them. If Typhoon is on cooldown, make sure you damage them out using Wrath.

This fight consists of a boss phase and an intermission phase. During the boss phase, just be aware of any Annihilation stacks you have. Clear them if they get too high or if you are called to clear them using Existence Fragments. You can limit the number of stacks you receive by avoiding casts of Obliteration Blast, which targets a random player and shoots a laser at them and its intermission counterpart, Obliteration Beam.

During the intermission, two large N'raqi Destroyers spawn and must stay separated and burned down. Additionally, several players will be targeted with Visions of Madness. Try to stay grouped so players can cleave them down easily. DoT and silence any adds that are out of the main group and if the adds live long enough, be sure to fully DoT up all adds.

Damage timings are very announced during this fight. Raid wide damage is dealt after every mind control break, at the beginning of every intermission, and also when Imminent Ruin expires. If any mechanics line up or you are afflicted with Imminent Ruin, be sure to use your personal cooldowns.

For mythic Mythrax, we would suggest talenting Warrior of Elune and Fury of Elune to best kill adds throughout the encounter. Make sure you have both cooldowns for every living weapon spawn as they provide burst for each add. Before the living weapon returns at 50%, reapply both DoTs to the add.

During the intermission, pool Astral Power for every set of Visions of Madness and apply both DoTs to all targets while moving. Use Wild Charge to quickly move away from the Obliteration Beam bait spot while slowed by the adds cast.

G'huun is the final boss of the raid. The encounter consists of an upstairs minigame portion as well as three downstairs phases.

Phase One is the add phase. Your focus in this phase is to cleave down all units, but have at least one target ready to be focused down. The priority is Blightspreader Tendril (Heroic and up), then Cyclopean Terror, and finally Dark Young. Make sure all casts during this phase are kicked. The Dark Young add will cast an ability called Dark Bargain in a circle around itself. If you take one stack, you deal increased damage and healing but also take increased damage. If you get a second stack, you will be mind controlled. During this phase, G'huun will also cast Explosive Corruption on one random player. This player should move to the edges of the room so they do not infect any other members. This ability will persist through the fight.

When G'huun is forced from his lair, he stops stops spawning the adds from the previous phase and brings new mechanics to the fight. Be sure to spread to reduce stacks of Putrid Blood contracted from the Wave of Corruption. A player will be targeted with Blood Feast and be rooted to the ground. Stack up on that player to remove all stacks of Putrid Blood. He will spawn a Gibbering Horror, whose strength is increased by the amount of Putrid Blood stacks that were removed. Focus this down when it is active and avoid being interrupted by Mind-Numbing Chatter.

The upstairs phase is a minigame separate from the rest of the boss encounter. Players must run through a gauntlet to deposit a Power Matrix. After 5-seconds of holding the Power Matrix, you will become rooted to the ground and have to throw it to another player using your extra action button. The power matrix is not the only thing to slow you down while traversing the upper platform.

The path is covered in Amorphous Cyst that will slow you considerably. When damaged, they are forced to shrink. Abilities such as DoTs and Starfall are best for shrinking the cysts. The best mobility talent for this job is Tiger Dash, but since this can only be done by a player every 7 minutes, Tiger Dash is more of a recommendation and not a requirement, as other mechanics of the fight are easier dealt with using Wild Charge.

When three Power Matrix are deposited, Phase One will end. If three are deposited in Phase Two, the boss and any boss adds will be stunned and take 100% additional damage for 24-seconds. Be sure to save cooldowns for these vulnerability phases, as well as defensive cooldowns because players are taking damage as well.

At 20%, the final phase begins. The upstairs mechanics end and the raid takes a large amount of damage. Only two new mechanics are added to the phase, but you are no longer able to remove Putrid Blood, so spreading is very important. Malignant Growth (Heroic and up) must be moved away from if they spawn nearby and G'huun will also be casting Gaze of G'huun, which will fear you if you face him and that should never happen.

There are three major changes to the G'huun on mythic difficulty. Each time an add is slain, they split into Spawns of G'huun which chase players in an effort to infest them. The second change is the introduction of Bursting Boils from phase Two onwards. Finally, for every Power Matrix deposit, both sides must dunk within 3-seconds of each other.

For mythic difficulty, you should talent Warrior of Elune for add cleave and either New Moon for phase 3 damage or Shooting Stars for phase 1 and phase 2 damage. Take Typhoon to displace the Spawns of G'huun that spawn throughout the fight. Wild Charge is best suited for this encounter as it provides quick movement towards boil soaks as well as allows Druids to teleport to the balcony using the human form wild charge in conjunction with a pet or Monk statue being placed on the ledge.

Cooldown usage on mythic is very straight forward. You must use your cooldown within the first 40-seconds of the encounter, on the second beam which happens at roughly ~3:40 and once more in phase 3. After you use your cooldown in phase 3, try to assist healers by using Restoration Affinity to cast Wild Growth and Swiftmend as often as possible.