Ten Ton Hammer's Class Guides - Druid

Balance Talent Guide

This Balance talent guide goes over each of the talents in the Druid balance talent tree. The Balance talent tree is for Druids that either want to gain some mana efficiency for other trees or want to become DPS casters known as Boomkin. The Balance talent tree is most commonly used as a fill in talent tree for the other two trees. However it has gained some acceptance as a caster based DPS tree since the release of the Burning Crusade.

Return to the Druid Talent Guide. The Druid Talent guide contains the links to all three talent trees: Balance, Restoration and Feral. These Talent guides provide you with the resources to better understand Talents and the best ways to go about spending your Talent Points.

Tier 1

Tier 1 is available at level ten, when your first talents open up.

  • Starlight Wrath - Max 5 points, reduces the cast time of your Wrath and Starfire spells by up to 0.5 seconds.
    • Cutting the casting time is a big increase to your DPS output and nice decrease in the time you have to be interrupted when doing PvP.
    • Strongly Recommended

  • Nature's Grasp - 1 point skill, Instant spell that places a buff on you that while active has a 35% chance of placing Entangling roots on anyone who strikes you. Has one charge and only usable outdoors.
    • Very good preemptive crowd control. Cast if before combat and then control anything that hits you briefly.
    • Great for PvP where it can allow you to escape.
    • Recommended

  • Improved Nature's Grasp - Max 4 points, increases the chance of your nature's grasp entangling your enemy by up to 65%.
    • If you rely on nature's grasp this can be a good talent, however it is very rare to put all 4 points into it as generally it will proc after a hit or two without wasting talent points.
    • Skip it

Tier 2

Tier 2 talents are available as soon as you have 5 points in that talent tree.

  • Control of Nature - Max 3 points, decreases the chance to be interrupted by damage when casting entangling roots and cyclone by up to 100%
    • Very useful for PvP late in the game once you have both spells.
    • Limited use early since you will only have 1 of the spells.
    • Limited use in dungeons and raids since most are indoor where you cant use the spells.
    • Skip it unless you are max level and PvP allot.

  • Focused Starlight - Max 2 points, Increases the critical strike chance of your wrath and starfire spells by up to 4%.
    • If you are a Boomkin it is a very nice up to your DPS for only 2 talent points.
    • Required to get the Vengeance talent.
    • Recommended

  • Improved Moonfire - Max 2 points, Increases the damage and critical strike chance of your moonfire spells by up to 10%.
    • This is a very nice upgrade to DPS as you will often spam moonfire
    • Great for PvP when chasing after players.
    • Recommended

Tier 3

Tier 3 talents are available as soon as you have 10 points in that talent tree.

  • Brambles - Max 3 points, increases the amount of damage caused by your thorns and entangling roots by up to 75%
    • While 75% is a big number, the base damage of both spells is relatively small, therefore it doesn't really do allot.
    • Can be ok in PvP when fighting fast attacking opponents, but overall not that useful
    • Skip it

  • Insect Swarm - 1 point skill, the enemy is attacked by a swarm of insects decreasing their chance to hit by 2% and causing 792 damage over 12 seconds.
    • A very useful talent since it is 1 point and provides a decent DoT spell.
    • Very mana efficient
    • Strongly Recommended

  • Nature's Reach - Max 2 points, Increases the range of your balance spells and Faerie Fire (feral) abilities by up to 20%.
    • A nice ability as it provides you the distance to hit things earlier.
    • Great for PvP where you can hit them before being hit.
    • Nice to have

Tier 4

Tier 4 talents are available as soon as you have 15 points in that talent tree.

  • Vengeance - Max 5 points, Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your starfire, moonfire and wrath spells by up to 100%.
    • This ups your critical damage caused by these spells to 200% of the base damage.
    • Great overall damage increase, amazing for burst damage in PvP, can be hard to manage aggro in PvE
    • Strongly Recommended

  • Celestial Focus - Max 3 points, Gives your starfire spell up to a 15% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds, and increase the chance you'll resist interruption from damage when casting your wrath spell by up to 70%.
    • Nice when your soloing or PvPing to avoid losing casting time
    • The stun is infrequent so only really nice in PvP where it can help allot.
    • Recommended for PvP players

Tier 5

Tier 5 talents are available as soon as you have 20 points in that talent tree.

  • Lunar Guidance - Max 3 points, Increases your spell damage by up to 25% of your total Intellect
    • At high levels this can easily be over +100 damage to spells.
    • Scales with your gear, so as you get better its benefit becomes bigger as well.
    • Must have Talent

  • Nature's Grace - 1 point passive skill, All spell critical's reduce the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 seconds.
    • Nice ability since you will be critting a lot at high levels.
    • Does not effect the global cool down triggers so does not help all spells.
    • Required to gain access to Moonfury
    • Must have Talent

  • Moonglow - Max 3 points, reduces the mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by up to 9%.
    • A great talent for any build that can reach it other than PvP builds.
    • Restoration druids often find the points to come into Balance to get this for mana efficiency.
    • Boomkins run through mana like water, so need this.
    • Must Have Talent

Tier 6

Tier 6 talents are available as soon as you have 25 points in that talent tree.

  • Moonfury - Max 5 points, increases the damage done by your starfire, moonfire and wrath spells by up to 10%.
    • A 10% increase in 3 of your main damage spells as a Boomkin.
    • Strongly Recommended

  • Balance of Power - Max 2 points, increases the chance to hit with spells by up to 4% while reducing the chance you will be hit by the same amount.
    • +To hit is hard to find on Boomkin gear and much needed at higher levels. Making this a very good use of 2 talent points.
    • Very useful to reduce resists against other players in PvP.
    • Strongly Recommended

Tier 7

Tier 7 talents are available as soon as you have 30 points in that talent tree.

  • Dreamstate - Max 3 points, Regenerates mana equal to 10% of your intellect every 5 seconds, even when casting.
    • Boomkin are always low on mana and this can easily provide up to an additional +40mp5 at high levels.
    • Essential for long fights where mana becomes an issue, not always useful when soloing though as you can always take time to sit and drink to regen mana.
    • Must Have for Raid Builds

  • Moonkin Form - 1 point skill, Transforms the Druid into Moonkin Form. While in this form the armor contribution from items is increased by 400%, attack power is increased by 150% of your level and all party members within 30 yards have their spell critical chance increased by 5%. Melee attacks in this form have a chance on hit to regenerate mana based on attack power. The Moonkin can only cast Balance spells while shape shifted. The act of shape shifting frees the caster of Polymorph and other movement impairing effects.
    • This is the form you have come down the balance tree for, this is what turns you into a Boomkin.
    • Excellent armor bonus and even better spell bonus.
    • Can not heal while in this form, so mainly a group build but can work well when soloing.
    • The Essential Boomkin Talent

  • Improved Faerie Fire - Max 3 points, your faerie fire spells also increase the chance the target will be hit by melee and ranged attacks by up to 3%.
    • This is a great group buff while in raids as it allows everyone to hit more often. Loses some effect as all players reach the to hit cap.
    • Great in PvP for the same reason as above.
    • A selfless use of points since it will up everyone else's DPS, but not your own.
    • Recommended for Raiders

Tier 8

Tier 8 talents are available as soon as you have 35 points in that talent tree.

  • Wrath of Cenarius - Max 5 points, Your starfire spells gain up to an additional +20% of your +damage effects, while your wrath gains up to and additional 10%.
    • This is a nice talent since it scales with your gear. By this point you will have a lot of +damage gear anyway and it will be worth while.
    • Recommended

Tier 9

Tier 9 is the top tier talent and is available as soon as you have 40 points in that talent tree.

  • Force of Nature - 1 point skill, Instant cast, 3 min cool down. Summons 3 treants to attack the enemy target for 30 sec.
    • This ability can be very useful since the treants can attack quickly and do a decent amount of damage.
    • Not useable on many bosses since they are susceptible to AOE and have a small health pool.
    • Great in PvP as they can constantly interrupt a caster and force them to focus on them instead of you.
    • Strongly Recommended

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Ten Ton Hammer's Class Guides - Druid

 


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Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

About The Author

Byron has been playing and writing about World of Warcraft for the past ten years. He also plays pretty much ever other Blizzard game, currently focusing on Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, while still finding time to jump into Diablo III with his son.

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