Balance, I just can't get it

Classes Druid
#1

I usually run Feral or Resto…I always see Balance on top of the DPS charts and in Icy reviews.

No matter how much I read or what I try, I just can’t get it to even break even with my Feral DPS.

If I understand correctly, the main rotation is Moonfire/sunfire , then I usually drop a starsurge, push out 2 star fires to get solar eclipse and all the wraths I can while that’s active. Then I reverse and push out 2 wraths to get lunar eclipse and all the starfires I can. Pepper in the re-application of Moonfire/sunfire and occasional starsurge.

I mean that should be the thick of it, why is the DPS so low? What am I missing?

#2

You don’t have to reverse now. In ST situations, just do the Solar Eclipse rotation always. If AoE situations, do the Lunar Eclipse rotation.

1 Like
#3

I’d also recommend just mashing your CDs.

I pop trinkets, Celestial Alignment, Convoke, Burn Astral Power, and settle into a regular rotation.
(Keeping moon/sunfire up, getting into solar, wrath spam, bleed astral power.)

That’s the ultra simple breakdown, but it seems to work.

#4

We don’t have to switch anymore? I’ve been playing Resto / Guardian, but I’m interested in understanding why switching eclipses is no longer desirable.

#5

You’re not the only one struggling with balance. I really, really like feral and guardian. That is because I don’t have to find different weapons and trinkets when I switch between the two. (agility vs intelligence) so I rarely “try” balance and restro.

#6

Switching eclipses wasn’t desirable in Shadowlands, it’s just that you had to do it. You couldn’t enter back to back lunar eclipses, now you can.

To answer the OP though, for single target, don’t ever cast starsurge unless you are in an eclipse. Ever. The tooltip doesn’t say it, but it gets buffed by being in an eclipse. Once you get that rule down try not to ever cast starsurge without having 3 dots on the target for the 8% damage buff. That means you are going to have to talent into stellar flare.

There is more advanced stuff to try to maximize the starlord buff, but if you just work on getting 3 dots up, and being in an eclipse, your dps will go up.

#7

I’ve been tinkering a lot with talents for the past week or so. Granted, my gear is not great, and I’m curious to see how the stat priority shakes out for balance going forward. There’s been a lot of talk about stellar flare being semi-required to keep the 3 dots going, which most folks seem to find less than pleasurable, myself included. So for 3 dots, the other options are a short one procced off of mushrooms, popping cat to spread rake (kind of a PITA, but instant AE dot), or getting the “free” stellar flare from Incarn/CA, or getting Astral Smolder.

I’ve been playing with that last one, and because of the way eclipse interacts with starfire, you can keep that ticking quite a lot. I’ve also talented into Balance of all Things to keep the crits up, and get about 50% crit rate on starfire. That does mean the only time I cast wrath is to get back into eclipse.

Gonna probably roll with this for now (leveling). Seems to test out about as well as hardcasting stellar flare to keep the dots going, as far as dps goes, probably just picking up globals to drop starfires instead of refreshing dots. Still on the fence about Circle of Life and Death, as it’s a nice bump to dot damage, and by extension, shooting stars. It just makes the rotation feel even more tedious.

#8

As it currently stands, you never enter solar eclipse.

#9

That’s interesting. Is it just that wrath doesn’t do competitive damage compared to starfire?

#10

yeesh I had no idea about the surge buff in eclipse.

I wish we didn’t have to do 3 dots. If you choose not to talent into stellar, is it really detrimental to your overall dps output? I would prefer not to manage 3 personally but I don’t want to severely gimp my dps.

#11

I think it’s just 8% more damage. I ran some numbers yesterday before the exp kicked off.

My starsurge hit for 3500 with no eclipse and no dots.

Hit for 8500 with 3 dots and no eclipse.

Hit for 4500 with eclipse but no dots.

Hit for 9500 with 3 dots and an eclipse.

Hit for 8500 with sunfire/moonfire and an ecplise with no stellar flare.

I had a crapton of mastery so that matters more than anything but stellar flare will help.

#12

hmm yea that’s pretty substantial. Maybe I just need to get used to stellar flare being added to the rotation.

#13

It was never desirable. It is no longer required.

#14

It was never desirable; it just used to be mandatory. Now it isn’t.