I. The ideal opening rotation at the start of the fight is as follows:
1)Cast Incarnation: Chosen of Elune 3 seconds before the pull.
Prepot and cast Starsurge Icon Starsurge 1.5 seconds before the pull. In case you are closer to the boss than maximum range when you begin the fight, use Starsurge 1 second before the pull, instead.
2)Cast Celestial Alignment and Moonfire to apply both of your DoTs.
3)Cast two Starfire to use up the Lunar Empowerment charges.
4)Cast Starsurge again to trigger Lunar Empowerment.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 until Celestial Alignment is about to expire.
Refresh your DoTs just before Celestial Alignment expires.
When you need to perform the opening rotation against more than one target, then you will do the same as above, except that you will cast Starfall in between steps 2 and 3. You will continue to prioritise Starfall casts over Starsurge , so long as there is more than one target.
II. The Balance Druid rotation can best be summarised as:
1)Apply and maintain Moonfire Icon Moonfire and Sunfire on the target.
You should try to apply and refresh both DoTs when you are their respective Peaks (Lunar Peak for Moonfire and Solar Peak for Sunfire).
Since Sunfire lasts considerably less than Moonfire, and since it is only available when you are in a Solar Eclipse, you will have to refresh it before leaving Solar Eclipse (or right after entering it) in order to maintain full uptime on it.
2)Cast Starsurge.
You should cast Starsurge often enough to make sure that its charges are always rolling.
Casting Starsurge in Lunar Eclipse will grant Lunar Empowerment Icon Lunar Empowerment, and casting it in Solar Eclipse will grant Solar Empowerment (both buffs last 30 seconds). You should always use up the charges provided by these buffs before re-casting Starsurge, so as not to waste any charges. You should cast Starsurge as you are approaching a Lunar or Solar Peak so that you can cast the buffed spells at (or close to) the Peak.
Thanks to Shooting Stars, you will sometimes get a free charge of Starsurge.
3)Cast Wrath while you are in a Solar Eclipse.
4)Cast Starfire while you are in a Lunar Eclipse.
This is the basic rotation cycle. There are certain subtleties with regards to eclipses that you will need to understand. This is a very important aspect, which we discuss in our detailed rotation section.
III. Rotation in Detail
The first thing you have to understand is that between Starfire and Wrath, you should always choose based on the state of your Balance Energy. Simply put, if the arrow on your Balance Energy bar is located on the left side (Lunar Eclipse), you should be casting Starfire, and if it is located on the right side (Solar Eclipse), you should be casting Wrath. Since these spells have a cast time, you will need to pre-cast the opposite spell when you are about to change from one eclipse to another. For example, if you are about 1 second away from changing between Solar and Lunar Eclipse, you should begin pre-casting Starfire, since by the time this spell lands, you will already be in Lunar Eclipse.
Regarding how to apply and refresh DoTs, we have spoken at length already. You can only apply each DoT when you are in its respective eclipse, but you should go a step further and apply these DoTs whenever you are at their respective peaks. In the case of Sunfire, you will have to refresh it right before leaving Solar Eclipse, or right after re-entering it.
A few words are needed about Starsurge. This ability is absolutely essential to your rotation and to your DPS. There are several things to keep in mind about it.
First of all, you should always keep your Starsurge charges rolling. This means that you should only ever be sitting on 2 charges of Starsurge at most. You will have to always be on the look-out for Shooting Stars procs (caused by ticks from your DoTs), as these will grant you an extra charge, and they can sometimes cause proc back-to-back, so you will have to quickly cast Starsurge to free up charges if this happens.
Second of all, casting Starsurge grants you one of two buffs, depending on which eclipse you are in. In Lunar Eclipse, you will gain Lunar Empowerment Icon Lunar Empowerment, while in Solar Eclipse you will gain Solar Empowerment. Lunar Empowerment increases the damage of your next 2 Starfires by 30%, and Solar Empowerment increases the damage of your next 3 Wraths by 30%. Both of these two buffs lasts 30 seconds.
Making use of these buffs is very important. This means two things. One is that you will have to make sure to use up all the charges of the current buff before re-casting Starsurge in the same eclipse. For example, if you have 2 stacks of Solar Empowerment, you should not cast Starsurge again in Solar Eclipse, because the stacks will be overwritten. We cannot stress enough how vital it is never to overwrite an Empowerment buff.
The other important thing is the timing of Starsurge with respect to the Empowerment buffs. The ideal time to cast it is when you are around 20 Energy away from a peak. This is because you want to benefit from the respective Empowerment when you are at the peak, because this is when the affected spells will deal their maximum damage. So, if you cast Starsurge when you are at 80 Lunar Energy, then both of the buffed Starfires will be cast with a very large bonus to their damage.
Finally, we would like to mention that, generally, it is optimal to use Starsurge Icon Starsurge when you are in Lunar Eclipse (instead of Solar Eclipse), if you only have 1 Starsurge charge. This is because Starfire has a higher damage per execution time than Wrath.
