How do you personally DPS as Resto with Balance affinity?

[Smashley]

I know that in high-level m+'s you can't really afford to moonkin form and do intricate DPS, but for lower-level m+ runs where I want to DPS/make the run go quicker, what is the best rotation?

Thanks!

[zeoos]

IMHO you should go with feral afinity for dps. Just keep the dots up.
If you need the 5y that balance afinity gives you, which I doubt, just keep dots up and starsurge on cd followed by wrath spam.
But feral should do better, easier to dps and heal at the same time since there's no casting involved.

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[Alltat]

just keep dots up and starsurge on cd followed by wrath spam.

Pretty much. There's not much else you can do.

[Smashley]

I guess my confusion comes with Lunar Strike. Should I only cast that on AoE packs, and only after casting Starsurge? Is it like Sunfire where it's not a DPS loss to cast it on single targets as well?

Oh, and I should have clarified my exact reason for moving away from the awesome DPS of Feral affinity:

Resto Druids, even in Feral form, do not have melee-healer immunity like my Mistweaver and Holy Pally do. This has caused issues in high-level m+'s and raiding where I get targeted by abilities such as Hymdall's Dancing Blade and Cenarius' Nightmare Brambles, which the aforementioned healers cannot get targeted by (since they're expected to be in melee range all the time and it would cause wipefests otherwise.)

So to avoid any more problems in the future I want to start practicing Balance Affinity as DPS instead and stay with the ranged group.

[MaddyLif3]

I'm not sure how balance affinity works for resto, but I'm balance, you only cast lunar strike when it is empowered after a starsurge. It is fine to use on ST as long as it is empowered. Spam wrath to gain AP to cast SS then lunar

[PowerGamez]

Go Feral affinity for 2-12s.

Guardian for 13+.

DPS in melee. Move boss if you need to.

[Halmarin]

I'm not sure how balance affinity works for resto, but I'm balance, you only cast lunar strike when it is empowered after a starsurge. It is fine to use on ST as long as it is empowered. Spam wrath to gain AP to cast SS then lunar

You cast Lunar Strike if it hits 3 or more targets in Boomkin, I imagine it's the same in Resto with Boomkin affinity.

[Deleted]

Go Feral affinity for 2-12s.

Guardian for 13+.

DPS in melee. Move boss if you need to.

Or you know, run balance spec with resto affinity for anything below 10. You don't need a healer for low end mythic+

[Emerald Archer]

IMHO you should go with feral afinity for dps. Just keep the dots up.
If you need the 5y that balance afinity gives you, which I doubt, just keep dots up and starsurge on cd followed by wrath spam.
But feral should do better, easier to dps and heal at the same time since there's no casting involved.

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Issue with feral, is that the bleed damage does like nothing at all when you're out of cat form, you'd get more damage just randomly swapping to moonkin to cast starsurge. Aswell as keeping sunfire and moonfire up.

[Smashley]

Guardian for 13+.

DPS in melee. Move boss if you need to.

I want to stay out of melee range to avoid the fact that, unlike Mistweavers and Hpallys, RDruids don't have melee-healer immunity to certain encounter mechanics.

[Myztikrice]

Such as? You don't pull enough DPS to pull with Skittish

[Smashley]

All healers are classified as ranged specs because, duh, they're not going to want to be in melee ever—except for two specs: Mistweavers and Holy Paladins. These two are classified under their own special category: Melee healers. They are immune to many ranged-only encounter mechanics that would wipe a raid if they targeted melee specs.

This has caused annoyances where RDruids in melee range get targeted by abilities, including but not limited to, Hymdall's Dancing Blade and Cenarius' Nightmare Brambles, which the aforementioned healers can safely assume they will never be targeted by.

“Don't stand in melee then!” is not something you can say to MWs or HPallys... but it is something you can say to RDruids. I want to practice having that option and still contribute DPS.

[ydraw]

All healers are classified as ranged specs because, duh, they're not going to want to be in melee ever—except for two specs: Mistweavers and Holy Paladins. These two are classified under their own special category: Melee healers. They are immune to many ranged-only encounter mechanics that would wipe a raid if they targeted melee specs.

This has caused annoyances where RDruids in melee range get targeted by abilities, including but not limited to, Hymdall's Dancing Blade and Cenarius' Nightmare Brambles, which the aforementioned healers can safely assume they will never be targeted by.

“Don't stand in melee then!” is not something you can say to MWs or HPallys... but it is something you can say to RDruids. I want to practice having that option and still contribute DPS.

Just don't use cat form when you're fighting a boss that has those abilities then. Cat form DPS is mostly superior on AOE because of swipe. Wrath spam is fine on single target.

[theburned]

must've missed the 7.1 change.

[PickleballAce]

Funny how clueless people are about balance affinity spells, and just assume its the same as boomkin spells.
Lunar strike does not cleave with balance affinity.

Couldn't resist, given the wording, but Lunar Strike given by Balance ability does cleave. Pretty easy to test, too.

I believe this was a 7.1 change (fix might be a better term).

[Alltat]

Funny how clueless people are about balance affinity spells...

Because virtually no one plays it. Feral has better cleave and Guardian is the go-to raid affinity, so there's little reason to ever play with Balance Affinity. There's also the fact that if you have enough DPS time for it to matter, the content is probably easy enough that it doesn't really matter anyway. The only time you'd need to min/max is if you're carrying undergeared DPS through low mythic+ runs and are struggling on bosses.

[Tiberria]

I suspect that your priority for Balance Affinity DPS is probably

Starsurge on CD > Keep Moonfire up > Keep Sunfire up > Empowered Wrath > Empowered Lunar Strike > Spam Wrath filler

And, if you have multiple targets that Starfire can cleave, cast that over Wrath as your filler. You're still definitely going to want to use both Wrath and Lunar Strike empowerments each time.

As far as why people don't really play Balance Affinity, I think it's a combination of the fact that
(1) The 5 yard range passive is by far the weakest of the 3 passive options. Movement speed or damage reduction are both a lot better.
(2) You're only going to do marginally more DPS taking Balance Affinity and doing the rotation vs just sitting in caster form and keeping Moonfire and Sunfire up and spamming Wrath. It's also more complicated/work to pull off and involves annoying stance dancing. If you aren't able to stay in Moonkin form for a certain amount of time, it's probably a DPS loss even doing it.

I could see people using Balance more often in M+ though the more gear scales, because it feels like caster damage abilities in Resto spec are outscaling Feral damage abilities. Feral does great AoE when you can Swipe spam large packs, but it feels like on single target/bosses the DPS difference between keeping up Rip/Sunfire/Moonfire/Shred and then spamming feral filler/melee swings in between vs just staying at ranged and casting Moonfire/Sunfire with Wrath spam is marginal at best, and becomes even more marginal the more you have to weave heals in. Plus, there are a lot of M+ bosses where being in melee range without melee immunity is potentially problematic (especially with a melee heavy group). It feels barely worth it a lot of the time.

[Smashley]

I could see people using Balance more often in M+ though the more gear scales, because it feels like caster damage abilities in Resto spec are outscaling Feral damage abilities. Feral does great AoE when you can Swipe spam large packs, but it feels like on single target/bosses the DPS difference between keeping up Rip/Sunfire/Moonfire/Shred and then spamming feral filler/melee swings in between vs just staying at ranged and casting Moonfire/Sunfire with Wrath spam is marginal at best, and becomes even more marginal the more you have to weave heals in.

Awesome reply! You put it better than I did, thanks!

Yeah, Feral Affinity single-target damage was basically the same as just spamming Solar Wrath + DoTs in regular Resto stance, this is also why I wanted to check out Moonkin Form: I felt like on bosses I could have contributed far more DPS, especially with Tyrannical.

Something you touched on that really threw me yesterday while trying this out: Stance dancing between three forms really sucks. The amount of extra GCD's increased exponentially because I still need to go into and out of Feral (Displacer Beast/Dash) in addition to in and out of Resto/Moonkin. It's just too much extra downtime in encounters that are already tight.

I'm starting to feel like the (heavily situational) single-target DPS increase of Moonkin Form isn't worth the skill investment.

Guess I'll stick to the basic single-target rotation and Swipe-spam as Feral during AoE packs that I know don't have ranged-only abilities.

[Deleted]

Plus, there are a lot of M+ bosses where being in melee range without melee immunity is potentially problematic (especially with a melee heavy group). It feels barely worth it a lot of the time.

I am kind of curious which bosses you are referring to here. I can't think of any M+ boss where you will seriously hinder a melee heavy group by being with them other than Hymdall (and his Blades are on a set timer), and Melandrus. All other bosses that drop something under a ranged player can be moved or sidestepped.

Also, I don't think people will really start using Balance affinity in M+. Even with the gear scaling, the potential single target gain won't offset the constant 3 Swipe burst that feral brings to pretty much every trash pack. If caster dps does scale better, people will just no longer do bosses in catform and simply Wrathspam. And on the more challenging content where you have no real time to do the awkward stance dance, people just go Guardian.

[Smashley]

I am kind of curious which bosses you are referring to here. I can't think of any M+ boss where you will seriously hinder a melee heavy group by being with them other than Hymdall (and his Blades are on a set timer), and Melandrus.

Basically anything that monk/paladin healers can't be targeted by. From BRH, off the top of my head:

Amalgam of Soul's Swirling Scythe. It's big AoE damage + that annoying knock-back effect. In high-level m+'s you can cause problems by having this land on the tank/melee in the center of the platform—all because you decided on that big Bloodlusted Feral Form opener.

Illysanna's Brutal Glaive and Eye Beams will never target or fixate on melee/melee healers. Guess who they will target if they're in Feral Form “helping” to DPS?

The forever annoying Raven's Dive (from the Risen Lancer trash packs) will only target ranged specs. Guess who's stun-locking the tank by standing in melee?

Dantalionax's Clouds of Hypnosis will only target ranged, which is why you should always be at the edge of the room. DPSing as Feral will cause them to be placed on the tank and melee in the middle of the room and make Dreadlord's Guile extra difficult.

Those are the only ones that feel like they could be very problematic in a melee heavy group.