Balance Druid Gearing Guide

Elune’s Chosen Balance Druid Season 3 Tier Set:

• (2) Set Bonus: Starfire damage increased by 20%. Gaining Astral Power with Starfire has a 40% chance to launch a Starsurge at a victim at 45% effectiveness.
• (4) Set Bonus: On Impact, Starsurges launched by Starfire split to up to 3 additional targets at 40% effectiveness and grant a stack of Gathering Moonlight. Casting Fury of Elune or Full Moon consumes Gathering Moonlight to increase your damage by 4% per stack for 12 sec.

Elune’s Chosen Tier Set Bonus Heavily focuses around Starfires, making Lunar Calling a must pick in every scenario. Especially the 2 set bonus, which gives us some good priority damage while doing our full AoE rotation.

Keeper of the Growth Balance Druid Season 3 Tier Set:

• (2) Set Bonus: Casting Celestial Alignment calls upon the assistance of a dryad for 10 sec that casts Starsurge at 360% and Starfall at 800% effectiveness.
• (4) Set Bonus: When your Dryad fades, your next 2 Starsurges damage for an additional amount equal to 3% of your damage done while it was active and splash 15% of their damage onto nearby enemies, reduced beyond 5 targets.

This was the tree that was changed a lot during this PTR cycle. It lets you “store” damage while the Dryad is active that gets released with 2 big Starsurges when the Dryad fades. Tuning wise Keeper of the Growth is not worth playing in its final PTR form. That being said, it fills a niche with its potential to burst on damage amplifications or priority targets, and if Blizzard makes further balance changes it could become more competitive.

You should still prioritize the gear you use by running a sim for your character, but the lists below will give you a good idea of what items are considered good for Balance Druid, and help you target the right content for each piece of loot.

• Overall
• Raiding
• Mythic+

The best trinket combination for Balance Druid in Season 3 is Astral Antenna and Araz’s Ritual Forge.

Astral Antenna spawns orbs that float towards you and provide you with Crit when reaching you. Note that these orbs can be kited if you wish to gain the buff at a later time.

Araz’s Ritual Forge has an on-use effect that increases your Intellect by a huge amount at the cost of 15% of your maximum health. Make sure to line this trinket up with Celestial Alignment.

Also, there are many other trinkets that are quite potent until you can get the best 2, for example:

• Azhiccaran Parapodia - Passive damage and stat procs.
• Diamantine Voidcore - Random Intellect procs, benefits from Shards of the Void set.
• Ara-Kara Sacbrood - Grants Flat haste with an Intellect proc.
• Empowering Crystal of Anub’ikkaj - Grants flat Intellect and procs random secondary stats.

Early on the best crafting option is Vagabond’s Bounding Baton with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension. Paired up with Writhing Armor Binding to increase the effect. You want to craft Writhing Armor binding on Bracers.

If you happen to get a Voidglass Kris you can craft Vagabond’s Torch with Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension, of course followed up by a Writhing Armor Banding on Bracers. This is the best long-term crafting option.

Puzzling Cartel Chips

The best items to spend Puzzling Cartel Chips on are (from top to bottom):

• Voidglass Kris
• Astral Antenna
• Araz's Ritual Forge
• Interloper's Reinforced Sandals
• Azhiccaran Parapodia

In theory you want to get all of these items. With receiving 3 Chips in week 1, then 1 chip per week, you might want to consider waiting until you get any of the list above first and then buy the other ones with Puzzling Cartel Chips after that. You're also capped at 9 Puzzling Cartel Chips in total per character, so you will only be able to purchase 3 items in total with Cartel Chips.

Note: The Azhiccaran Parapodia is only on your shopping list for Mythic+ purposes.

Reshii Wraps

Reshii Wraps is a new Cloak released in Patch 11.2 and will be the only cloak you use (and the only one that can drop from any content in Season 3). You gain access to it via a quest chain and completing chapter 3 of the main patch storyline.

The Reshii Wraps are upgradable via Ethereal Strands and can have secondary stats of your choice added to it.

To add a secondary stat to the Reshii Wraps you use a Fiber in the Fiber Socket of the Cloak. The highest quality version of the Fibers require a work-order to a Tailor.

When picking a Fiber, I highly suggest simming what stat is the best for your current situation. If you’re not into simming and prefer to just have a reliable Reshii Fiber that always works, I suggest going for Mastery (Pure Energizing Fiber).

To find out more about the Reshii Wraps, you can read the Method Reshii Wraps Overview Guide.