Updated for Mists of Pandaria 5.2
Balance can be an effective spec for Druids in all forms of PvP.
If you’re looking for info on raiding or leveling then see our Balance PvE and Druid Leveling pages.
For the new Druid abilities and such, see our page on Druid Changes in Mists of Pandaria.Note: Some aspects of this guide may not apply to your character until higher level. If you are interested in getting your character to max level quickly, take a look at this leveling guide.
Contents
Balance Stats
Intellect/PvP Power > Resilience > 6% Spell Hit > Haste/Critical > Mastery
Spell Hit over 6%, for PvP, is useless. (For PvE raiding, you will want 15%)
Point for point PvP Power is of lower value than Int, but you get twice as much from PvP Power gems (320 Vs 160.) If you PvE with the same gear, then go Int. See here for how PvP Power and Resilience work.
Hit and Spirit (Balance of Power) and Expertise add into your Spell Hit. If your Spell Hit is low and you have a piece of Hit/Crit gear you can reforge the Crit to Expertise and see the increase in your Spell Hit. Getting the 6% Hit should be trivial, you’ll probably want to reforge some of it away.
Spirit how much you need depends on how happy you are with your mana regen. It also adds to your Spell Hit rating.
Crit becomes very strong when you have many targets, they’re all DOTed, and you’re getting the procs.
Reforging:
- You shouldn’t need Hit (see above)
Your gear should provide enough Resilience, but if you feel otherwise then you can gem and enchant for more.
Roatations – while PvP doesn’t have rotations you can get some idea of how to generate maximum damage on our Balance for raids page. Just adapt those routines appropriately.
Also check out the video, below, for BG tips.
You can see much more about Druid PvP on Skill-Capped. Not free, but a very low-price.
Balance Talents
Talents can be changed, one at a time, on the fly, just like glyphs. Need to change for a particular fight? Moving from Altarac Valley to 2s? All you need is one Tome of the Clear Mind, from your reagents or Inscription Supplies vendor, per talent change. (Naturally your trainer can clear the whole list, for just a few gold.)
See below for talent explanations.
Why These Talents?
The above picks are checkmarked 
below.
Tier 1 Talents
- Feline Swiftness - This is a nice all-purpose movement increase, but doesn’t add any form of charge or burst.
- Displacer Beast - Blink forward, take cat form, and have a brief movement boost. Nice for getting out of trouble or generally adding to movement.
- Wild Charge - In Moonkin Form, WC acts like the Hunter’s Disengage and has a 15 second cooldown. You jump backwards up to 20 yards, to continue blasting from a safer distance. Usable only during combat. This might be a tossup with Displacer beast, just for this one feature. It does different things in your other forms, such as leap behind and daze your opponent in cat form, so it looks like a winner for versatility.
Tier 2 Talents
- Nature’s Swiftness - Various useful spells become free to cast, with increased effect and duration, from any form. Once every minute. This provides a great deal of flexibility.
- Renewal - Insta-heal usable in any form. Nice for those situations, but not as versatile as Nature’s Swiftness. Not as useful as the other two.
- Cenarion Ward - Protect someone else? What? Who would ever do that??? PvP is about being the solo hero, right? A decent talent, but Nature’s swiftness is much more versatile.
Tier 3 Talents
- Faerie Swarm - Adds a snare to Faerie Fire. Damages armor, slows, and prevents restealth for the duration. Great for one on one fights, though the other two have definite use in crowd situations, eg: Battlegrounds or World PvP.
- Mass Entanglement - The good ol’ entanglement spell, now usable on the masses. Also usable in any form. Great for those time when you’re dealing with runners, or need to get away, but has a 2 min cooldown. Only lasts a few seconds in PvP, not 20.
- Typhoon - Great for a boomkin, not only because it’s sweet for knocking people off boats or cliffs. That knockdown also interrupts spells and effctively silences them while they stand up. A 20 second cooldown makes this a sweet talent.
Tier 4 Talents
- Soul of the Forest - Faster energy return is always nice, but Incarnation is more generally useful.
- Incarnation - Versatility and greater potential for slaughter. What’s not to like?
- Force of Nature - Summon trees to fight for you, much like the Mage’s Mirror Image. Incarnation is more useful and has the potential for greater burst.
Tier 5 Talents
- Disorienting Roar - Nice for crowds, especially when you find yourself in the middle of one or you need to stop a charge. Rogue/feral pops in, roar, escape, nuke. Keep in mind that damage will break the effect.
- Ursol’s Vortex - Basically a group Slow that keeps people from escaping the area. Great for crowds. Slow ‘em and nuke ‘em. Can be used to keep someone pinned to an area. More useful in BGs than elsewhere.
- Mighty Bash - Stuns are sweet and this one certainly has its uses, but this is a melee range stun and melee isn’t where you want to be. Certainly has its uses, though. Stun > Disp. Beast > escape/burn.
Tier 6 Talents
- Heart of the Wild - 6% increased Int isn’t bad at all. Various benefits if you shapeshift a lot.
- Dream of Cenarius - Not worth taking unless you’re mixing enough healing and damage to be worthwhile.
- Nature’s Vigil - Straight-up damage and healing increase for 30 seconds every 1.5 minutes is the best choice here, for most situations. Your damage will also heal (for a small amount) your nearby ally.
Balance PvP Glyphs
One of the Developer goals in M of P was to make a variety of glyphs useful, instead of just a couple. They’re succeeded. Depending on your situation different glyphs will be better than at other times. Fortunately they can be easily changed, one at a time, just like talents, with a Tome of the Clear Mind.
More or less in order of interest:
Major Glyphs
- Glyph of the Moonbeast - cast various spells while remaining in form.
- Glyph of Barkskin - Reduce your chances to be critically hit.
- Glyph of Solar Beam - increases the radius by 100%, which is great for those crowded situations.
- Glyph of Stampeding Roar - Your whole (within 40 yards) group moves faster and loses roots and snares.
- Glyph of Entangling Roots - Reduced cast time of 0.2 seconds doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t.
- Glyph of Cyclone - Increased range of one of your favorite spells.
- Glyph of Nature’s Grasp - reduces cooldown by 30 seconds.
- Glyph of Innervate – Depending on how your mana regen is, and your chosen role, this might be a decent choice.
Minor Glyphs
These are all of non-combat utility or simply cosmetic.
- Glyph of Grace - This one is as close to required as any minor glyph as it reduces falling damage in all forms. Now you can leap off high places and blast away on the way down, without taking major damage.
- Glyph of the Stag – Carry a buddy from place to place, which is nice if it’s your healer…
- Glyph of Stars – Changes your form, for the one or two who might not be fans of the Boomkin form.
- Glyph of Charm Woodland Creature – you can charm one of the critters running around in the BGs and just maybe save it from a horrible death!
- Glyph of Aquatic Form – Faster swim speed is occasionally quite nice.
- Glyph of the Cheetah – if you don’t like the Stag form, can’t take a buddy with you, though.
Gems for the Balance Druid
In M of P, the gems with secondary stats have twice the value of gems with primary stats, so your PvP Power gems are 320 points and your Int gems are 160. This gives reason to match socket bonuses, esp. since they are all for Int, PvP Power, or Resilience.
2 points of PvP Power is certainly at least equal to 1 pt of Int.
- The Green gems are a good choice for yellow and blue sockets
- The Purple gem is a good choice for Red sockets.
- The Blue gem is perfect for blue sockets.
Your Leather Specialization adds to any Int gem (and other Int) bonuses, making them worth 5% more Int. That bonus does not add to other stats.
| Gems for Balance | ||
|---|---|---|
| Meta |  |
Burning Primal Diamond: +216 Int & 3% Increased Crit Effect |
| Red |  |
Brilliant Serpent’s Eye: 320 Int, self-only Jewelcrafting gem Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 160 Int |
| Yellow |  |
Mystic Sun’s Radiance: 320 Resilience |
| Blue |  |
Stormy River’s Heart: +320 PvP power |
| Orange |  |
Willful Vermilion Onyx: +80 Int & +160 Resilience Reckless Vermilion Onyx: 80 Int, 160 Haste |
| Green |  |
Vivid Wild Jade: +160 Res, +160 PvP Power |
| Purple |  |
Mysterious Imperial Amethyst: +80 Int, +160 PvP Power |
| Prismatic |  |
Brilliant Primordial Ruby: 160 Int |
| Cogwheel |  |
Cogwheels require an engie helm, such as this. Quick Tinker’s Gear: 600 Haste Smooth Tinker’s Gear: 600 Crit Fractured Tinker’s Gear: 600 Mastery |
Balance Druid Enchantments
Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.
Helm enchants are gone in Mists of Pandaria, shoulder enchants come from the Inscription profession. The only Resilience enchant is the chest piece, there are no PvP Power enchants.
Keep in mind that an Expertise enchant will add to your Spell Hit rating, if you need to top it off.
| Balance Druid Enchantments | |
|---|---|
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon – Glorious Tyranny: 400 PvP Power, 200 Resilience, 50% Disarm reduction, cost is 1,000 Conquest points. Enchant Weapon – Jade Spirit: Sometimes increases Int by 1650, might increase Spirit by 750 if mana is low. Enchant Weapon – Windsong: Sometimes increase Crit, Haste, or Mastery by 1,500 for 12 seconds. |
| Shoulders | Secret Crane Wing Inscription: – 520 Int and 100 Crit rating, Requires Inscription 550. Greater Crane Wing Inscription: +200 Int and 100 Crit |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak – Superior Intellect: +180 Int Lightweave Embroidery – attacks have chance to increase Int by 2k for 15 sec, requires tailoring |
| Chest | Enchant Chest – Super Resilience: +200 Resilience Enchant Chest – Glorious Stats: +80 to all stats |
| Bracers | Enchant Bracer – Super Intellect: +170 Int Fur Lining increases Int by 500, requires leatherworking. Socket Bracer – Pop in a gem, requires Blacksmithing 400 |
| Gloves | Enchant Gloves – Greater Haste: +170-Haste Socket Gloves – Pop in a gem, requires Blacksmithing 400 |
| Belt | Ebonsteel Belt Buckle: Gem slot for a nice Int gem |
| Leggings | Greater Pearlescent Spellthread: +285 Int and +165 Spirit Greater Cerulean Spellthread: +285 Int and +165 Crit |
| Boots | Enchant Boots – Greater Precison: +175 Hit rating Enchant Boots – Pandaren’s Step: +140 Mastery, slight run speed increase. |
| Rings | Enchant Ring – Greater Intellect: +160 Int, Requires Enchanting 550 |
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Comsumables
If Pandarens could be Druids they’d get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour.
Alchemists get about 30% more effect and an extra hour from Flasks and Elixirs.
Foods
- Mogu Fish Stew: 300 Int
- Braised Turtle: 275 Int
Flasks
- Flask of the Warm Sun: 1,000 Int for an hour.
Elixirs
- Go with the flasks, they’re better.
Potions
- Potion of the Jade Serpent: 4k Int for 25 seconds. If you pop one immediately before combat you will be able to pop another during combat.
- Master Healing Potion: Heals 120k HP
- Master Mana Potion: About 30k Mana
- Crystal of Insanity – this is an uncommon (under 10%) drop from a rare Elite in the valley of four winds. It increases all stats by 500 for an hour. Since Druids, in one form or another, have use for Int, Stam, Ag, and Spirit that’s 2k points of stats and it’s not used up.
Druid Races for Balance
Cataclysm allowed the Worgen and Trolls to become Druids. Mists of Pandaria
The difference between races is largely visual as opposed to bringing any real advantage to any particular race. Trolls might be the most generally useful, but pick the race that works best for you. But, if you want to be “efficient,” then here are the details for each race:
- Tauren
- War Stomp stuns nearby opponents, allowing for more nuking or an escape. Stomp, Wild Charge or Displacer Beast away, start nuking.
- Increased health doesn’t seem to scale well at very high levels, but is still a plus.5% of 300k Health is 15k that the Night Elf doesn’t have.
- Good with Herbalism
- Resistant to Nature damage.
- Worgen
- Can periodically move quickly, which is always useful.
- Increased crit chance is nice, since Crit is a good stat for you.
- Increased skinning speed and skill, but you can’t skin Tauren.
- Troll
- Berserking increases attack and casting speed. Stick it in a macro for those bursty times.
- Damage increased Vs beasts, all 5 million of them, which is nice while leveling and will have some use Vs beast mobs in dungeons and raids,but is pretty useless in PvP since it doesn’t count Vs Worgen.
- Ranged weapon Expertise is not useful to you.
- Reduced duration of movement imparing effects, useful for most, but your shapeshift is a far superior “break free” ability.
- Night Elf
- Shadowmeld has situational use. It can break incoming spells if you time it just right. You can also ‘meld while in combat and then prowl away to get better positioning. This works better in chaotic groups than situations where you’re being the focus of attention.
- 2% dodge is a nice ability for bear tanks and cats, you have will have little use for it.
- Faster movement while stealthed is nice when prowling, but you waddle and usually don’t prowl.
- Resistance to Nature damage
Balance tips for Battleground PvP
Now Get Your Druid Leveled Faster
Now that you’re on the way to becoming a lean, mean, killing machine you should grab a full blown leveling guide for your blast to the top levels. Why? It will save you many days of in-game time and a good deal of frustration, even if you already know many or most of the quests. You’ll never again wonder about where to go, what to do, or where to find that thing you’re looking for.
Our recommended leveling guide is Dugi’s Guide. Dugi’s nearly automates the whole leveling path (automatically updating as you complete tasks and quests) and is like having an expert helping you every step of the way.
Pick your starting point and the guide automatically updates and advances as you complete quests, sets a waypoint arrow automatically, and includes all the important quest info.
If you gain a few levels in the dungeons or in PvP, then come back to the guide, you’re still covered. It’ll figure out where you are and adjust accordingly, allowing you to ignore obsolete quests. Whether you’re brand new to WoW or decked head to toe in heirlooms Dugi will get you to the level cap faster than anything else out there. Grab your copy of Dugi’s Leveling Guide, here.
