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Spell Rotations

[top]The Short Version

* Start by applying Insect Swarm and Moonfire, and casting Starsurge. Whenever either DoT falls off the target, or Starsurge comes off cooldown, recast it.
* Cast Starfire until until a Solar (Wrath) Eclipse procs, then switch to Wrath. Cast Wrath until a Lunar (Starfire) Eclipse procs, then switch back to Starfire.
* Repeat this Eclipse cycle, always keeping your two DoT's on the target and using Starsurge, Starfall and Force of Nature on cooldown.


For more detail, continue to the following sections.

[top]The Eclipse Rotation

You will generally operate in a four-step cycle.

1. Pre-Lunar. Cast Wrath until the Eclipse buff appears (have some mod that will make it very obvious when you gain the buff).
2. Lunar Eclipse. When you see the buff, finish casting your current Wrath and then cast Starfire for the duration of Eclipse.
3. Pre-Solar. When Eclipse fades, continue casting Starfire until the Eclipse buff appears.
4. Solar Eclipse. Cast Wrath for the duration. Continue casting when it ends to loop back around into step 1.


Basically, you cast Wrath until Lunar procs and cast Starfire until Solar procs. But once DoTs and other instants are involved, thinking in terms of the four-phase cycle helps you plan your casts well.

[top]Subtleties of Transitions

Solar: You want to watch for when your Solar energy is at 80 or higher, so that you know your current Starfire cast is your last one, and queue a Wrath.
Lunar: Since Wrath gives its Eclipse energy upon landing, it's a bit trickier to time the swap to Starfire correctly. If your Lunar energy as you start a Wrath is 74 or higher, it will be your last Wrath (because the one in the air will give 13 energy when it lands).
Do your best to avoid casting extra spells beyond what's necessary to proc Eclipse.

If you use the mod Balance Power Tracker (below) things look slightly different. That mod can display a modified energy bar, which projects your energy value from currently casting/traveling spells, so all you have to do is check for when it reads 100. Remember that if you move or interrupt a cast though, your energy will appear to go back down.

[top]Managing Eclipse

When you die, you Eclipse bar is reset to 0. So on learning attempts for any boss, you'll get used to starting from 0 energy. As you attempt a particular fight more and more, you can sometimes plan out your Eclipses for certain AoE/movement phases. I'm not going to give a boss-by-boss guide here, but you should pay attention to the order of events in each fight and refine your routine. An important technique is that using Moonfire/Sunfire/Mushroom spam doesn't move your Eclipse bar, so sometimes you can use that to control when you enter or leave Eclipse at various points in an encounter. At some encounters, planning out your Eclipses at specific points in the fight will be a major part of doing good DPS.

When you're not wiping, you can start boss fights at 100 energy with a freshly procced Eclipse. As you get near the end of the trash, go to the end of the Eclipse bar and stay there (by stopping Wrath/Starfire usage). During trash itself, where you're often going to be using DoT's and AoE spells, you can simply sit in Solar and use the Sunfire-based style (see below).

[top]DoT Refreshing

Compared to WLK, our DoT's are far stronger now. You want to do your best to maintain very high uptime on both of them. Typically, the only time you will hold up recasting of a DoT is if it falls off and the corresponding Eclipse is coming up very soon--you'll wait one or two casts and refresh at the beginning of Eclipse. If both DoT's are coming up at around the same time when you start Eclipse, remember that Nature's Grace will only affect the second one, so you want to remember to use Insect Swarm first (because Moonfire/Sunfire is stronger than IS under either Eclipse).

Cataclysm changed the way DoT refreshing works--when you refresh a currently ticking DoT, you no longer waste a partial tick. Significantly, if you refresh a DoT when it has only one tick remaining, there is no loss at all. This means the optimal time to refresh a DoT is during its last tick, thereby maintaining true 100% uptime. Failing that, refresh at the same time you do now, as soon at it falls off.

DoT ticks use your spellpower, haste, and +% damage (e.g. Eclipse) values from the moment the DoT was cast--they do not update in real time until the next time you cast the DoT. Crit chance of the ticks, on the other hand, does change dynamically if you gain or lose crit buffs while the DoT is ticking. Because the entire DoT is effected by your stats at the moment of cast, there can be detailed decisionmaking in when to apply them--see "Advanced Points" below for more.

[top]Starsurge

Similarly to DoT's, simply use this on cooldown or any time Shooting Stars procs. As with DoT's, the only notable exception is if it would be the last spell before Eclipse. Then you can hold it up for one spell to cast it with the Eclipse buff. With the T11 4-piece bonus, you can hold up Starsurge a bit longer for the guaranteed Starsurge crit as soon as Eclipse starts.

[top]Other spells

* Starfall: If possible, cast this at the beginning of Lunar Eclipse. But depending on your haste and other factors, your cycle might be too short to use Starfall during Lunar each time. In that case, use it on cooldown. In fights which occasionally have multiple targets up at once, save Starfall for those times. With the tier 11 4-piece bonus, try not to have Starfall up when you gain an Eclipse, because it will immediately consume the buff.
* Force of Nature: use this as many times as possible in a given fight. If you know when Bloodlust/Heroism is coming, try to cast this immediately beforehand (but not if this requires waiting so long that you can't use it as many times during the encounter). There's no special benefit for having a spellpower buff active at the moment you cast this; the Treants' attack power changes dynamically with your spellpower. This macro is handy:

/use Force of Nature
/petattack

This way, while your Treants are out, you can just press your FoN button again to make them attack your current target.
* Thorns: This spell can do good damage. At around 15 procs per cast, it starts to become worth casting on cooldown. In situations where any tank is tanking multiple mobs, you will definitely want to use this on cooldown and probably Glyph it as well. Note that it is expensive, so you have to be careful if you're planning to use it heavily. Here's macro to cast it on your target if friendly, otherwise on the target's target (useful if you're targeting the boss and want to cast Thorns on the tank):

#showtooltip
/use [@target, help, nodead][@targettarget, help, nodead][@mouseover, help, nodead][] Thorns

(The mouseover part is mostly there for Resto purposes, but could still be handy).
* Typhoon: With Wild Mushroom and DoT's providing stronger AoE options, the main reason you use this is for the knockback. Occasionally it's useful in a raid encounter to spend a GCD pushing something away. For this it must be unglyphed. If you do ever want to use it for any DPS reason, make sure to Glyph it.
* Faerie Fire: We no longer need to use this unless the raid is missing an Armor debuff.
* Innervate: As discussed above, you need to evaluate your mana situation to know whether you plan to use this on yourself or on others, since it affects talent/Glyph choices, but using it on others is probably more common. Remember that if you have some Int procs (such as Power Torrent, or especially DMC:Volcano), you can maximize the value of Innervate by casting it when you have a large mana pool.
* Rebirth: The most important issue is to avoid wasting it, especially now that the raid can only use a limited number per attempt (3 in 25-man, 1 in 10-man). First, make sure to coordinate with other Druids in your raid using macros or Vent so two of you don't cast on the same target. Second, people love to accept the resurrection as soon as it appears and die to something immediately. It can be good to warn them if it's a bad time to accept, and Glyph of Rebirth provides further insurance. Remember that Rebirth drops Moonkin Form, so be ready to reshift as your next cast.
Here's a macro that casts Revive instead of Rebirth if you're out of combat, and also alerts your raid if Rebirth is used:

#showtooltip
/use [nocombat] Revive
/stopmacro [nocombat]
/use Rebirth
/ra Rebirth on %t

* Tranquility: This spell does quite a large amount of healing due to our high spellpower (only slightly less than that of a Resto Druid). Don't forget to use it at some point during the fight when the raid has taken a lot of damage.


[top]Bloodlust/Heroism

With the WLK haste cap issues gone, our spells are now all buffed nicely by Bloodlust. Nothing significant will change during the rotation, except that DoT's are exceedingly good. Make sure to DoT any possible target as soon as Bloodlust starts, probably even clipping any existing DoT's at that point (use any timers here if possible, such as Berserking and your Volcanic Potion). If you have a Nature's Grace near the beginning of Bloodlust, even better to spam DoT's with.

[top]Movement

The basic solution to any movement situation is to try to get the most out of DoT's and Lunar Shower. Cast Moonfire the instant movement begins (or even just before) to start stacking the buff, then spam it on the target while running. Use IS, Wild Mushroom, and any other instants you have available (such as Shooting Stars) as well. Planting Wild Mushrooms at the enemy's feet while moving take some practice but is worthwhile; remember that you can wait until your next Solar Eclipse to detonate them.

Finally, if at all possible, you want to be in an Eclipse for movement, although you might often have little control over this.

It's important to manage our DoT's well during high-movement situations. You want to plan your casting so that you cast DoT's (or other instants) while moving, and nukes while standing still. This requires you to be highly aware of both your spell rotation and your surroundings, so you can anticipate movement. It's always worth delaying a DoT by a few seconds to cast it while moving, so you can cast another nuke while still. This also holds true for other instants.

[top]Multiple Targets and AoE

In multi-target (3 or more) situations, Wild Mushroom and DoT's tend to overpower all other spells due to their high DPET.

* Wild Mushroom should always be used on cooldown against clumped targets (i.e. plant a set of 3 Mushrooms and detonate them every 10 seconds).
* Always put both DoT's on any target that's going to live for more than a few seconds.
* Save Starfall for multi-target situations if there are any in the encounter.
* Hurricane and Typhoon have little use for DPS right now, since you can basically fill your time with Wild Mushroom and DoT's.
* Since all of the above spells are instant, you can move continuously while doing all this (it takes a little bit of practice). This keeps Lunar Shower stacked, while slightly increases the DPS of any Moonfire casts and makes them much more affordable.


You want to be in Solar if possible for AoE phases. On encounters with a major AoE component, a big part of your planning should revolve around being in Solar Eclipse at the right time, due to the importance of Wild Mushroom.

[top]The Sunfire Spam "Rotation"

In Solar Eclipse, Insect Swarm, Sunfire (with Lunar Shower), and Wild Mushroom do quite a lot of damage, and do not deplete your Solar Energy. Because of this, you can sometimes use an alternate "rotation" where you use only these three spells, and remain in Solar Eclipse permanently. You simply keep moving to maintain Lunar Shower, maintain both DoT's on all possible targets, use WM on cooldown, and spam Sunfire on any target at all other times. The advantages are constant mobility, very little attention required, and virtually no mana cost. The only important factor is to keep your DoT's ticking on everything, it's where most of the DPS comes from.

Against a single target, this is a DPS loss and generally not recommended (although you will wind up doing something similar whenever you're forced to move). As the number of available targets for your DoT's increases however, this technique becomes increasingly viable. It's something to keep in mind for trash, add phases, or any other multi-target situation where the added mobility is helpful. As mentioned above, you can also use it to save an Eclipse for an important part of an encounter.

One refinement is that you can work instant Starsurges into the mix, depending on the situation (you get very frequent Shooting Stars procs with all the DoT's going). Your Solar Eclipse will fade after 7 Starsurges, so if you want to maintain this rotation for a long time, you can't do it. But if you're only doing it for a short fight or part of a fight, Starsurge will add DPS. Try out the various options when you're learning a fight to come up with a smooth routine.

If you're doing this often, Blessing of the Grove adds a marginal amount of DPS.

[top]Advanced Techniques

The Balance spec in Cataclysm has a number of interacting buffs and procs, making it currently one of the complex classes in the game to play well. There's no concise list of rules for what to cast and when (which is part of why this guide is so long); you need to have the solid understanding of how the different abilities works and use your judgment in a variety of situations. When you feel you've mastered the basic techniques described so far, here are more subtle points you can try to start working into your play:

* If you queue an instant spell after the final Wrath/SF that procs an Eclipse, that instant will not be affected by the Eclipse. So if you want to refresh DoT's at the beginning of an Eclipse, you have to cast one other spell first.
* Corollary: if you queue a Starsurge at that point, it will be affected by Eclipse unless it's instant cast. So be careful with Shooting Stars procs around the beginning of Eclipse. This is especially important with the tier 11 4-piece bonus, as you don't want to use your first guaranteed crit on an uneclipsed Starsurge. It's often quite good to hold your Starsurge cooldown or an SS proc into the beginning of a new Eclipse, just keep this is mind if you do.
* Similarly, if you queue an instant spell after the last spell of an Eclipse (i.e. the spell that takes you past 0), the instant will also be Eclipsed. You can use this to refresh DoT's as Eclipse ends, or even cast an instant Starsurge. If that last spell is Wrath or Starsurge, you can sometimes get two extra instants off, depending on travel time.
* There are a wide variety of things that affect the damage done by a DoT at the time you cast. A non-exhaustive list: Nature's Grace, Eclipse, trinket procs, Lightweave/Synapse/Power Torrent, Bloodlust, Volcanic Potion, Berserking. Depending on you closely you monitor your buffs (there's no way you can watch all these things effectively without a mod organizing your buff information), you can squeeze out extra DPS by watching what's going on as you refresh DoT's, and adjusting slightly earlier or later as necessary.
* This also means that if you're moving, sometimes you don't want to use the usual Lunar Shower spam because it will overwrite a strong DoT with a weak one (for example if Eclipse just faded). This is the sort of situation where you might plant Wild Mushrooms to fill time for 3 GCD's, and detonate them at any later time (e.g during Solar).
* From a reset Eclipse position, Starsurge will give Solar energy. Keep this in mind when planning your first few casts of the fight, to make sure you start cleanly towards whichever Eclipse you want first (which Eclipse this is depends on your plan for the fight). A solid starting routine is important, because you have your Volcanic Potion, first set of trinket procs, and often Bloodlust, and want to maximize their effect. Pay particular attention to DoT refreshing.
* The 4T11 bonus constricts your use of Starfall and Moonfire, since you want to avoid using up charges on either. Be especially careful not to Starfall near the beginning of a new Eclipse. Conversely, you might hold your Starsurge cooldown for many seconds to start an Eclipse with a crit Starsurge.
* The 4T11 bonus allows a particular trick with Wild Mushroom. If you detonate a set of Mushrooms with the Astral Alignment buff up, all of the hits will be affected by the current number of charges (i.e. the crit bonus applies before the charges are used). By carefully planning an Eclipse (ideally Solar) to start right before you use a set of Mushrooms, you can do enormous burst AoE damage with 100% crit on the detonation.
* Glyph of Starfire further complicates DoT refreshing. If you have it equipped, any Starfire will cause the number of ticks on your current Moonfire to be recomputed based on your current haste. This means that, among other things, it's no longer important to try to cast Moonfire with Nature's Grace up (since further Starfires will apply it anyway). So during Lunar Eclipse you should reverse the usual DoT order and refresh Moonfire before Insect Swarm.