The Shadowlands version of the Balance Druid is both very fun and incredibly powerful. As more people are giving the spec a try, many have asked questions about how to play one. In this guide, I’ll give an overview of how the class is played, what tools they have at their disposal, and teach you how to make your laser-chicken go BOOM!

This is not really a return to me actually blogging about WoW, but since I’ve been asked to write guides on how to play this spec in particular, I decided I might as well put it on the blog instead of just writing it up in Discord. 

Side Note: I threw this together in a few hours, because a couple of guildies had asked about it. I haven’t bothered proof-reading it, and I didn’t do much in the way of research to make sure I had all of my numbers right, so there may be a few minor mistakes of that variety floating around. 

Playing a Balance Druid

Before we get into the details of the abilities, we need to talk about what a Balance Druid is, and what makes them unique. Balance Druids are a ranged DPS class, that naturally blends single-target and AoE spells together in the closest thing that current expansions have to an actual spell rotation.

Astral Power
Balance Druids have an additional resource bar called Astral Power, which ranges from 0 to 100. Most of your damaging spells generate Astral Power, and two of your spells spend this Astral Power. We’ll get into the specifics of those spells in the next section, but here is a short description of them:

Astral Power Generators

• Wrath: Generates 6 Astral Power
• Starfire: Generates 8 Astral Power
• Moonfire: Generates 2 Astral Power
• Sunfire: Generates 2 Astral Power
• Shooting Stars (Passive): Generates 3 Astral Power, per proc

Astral Power Spenders

• Starsurge: a single-target spell that deals Astral damage and empowers your active Eclispes
• Starfall: an AoE spell centered on your character that deals Astral damage all enemies within 45 yards who are in combat

Talents can also impact Astral Power gain. Nature’s Balance (level 15) generates 1 Astral Power every 2 seconds. Stellar Flare (level 45) generates 8 Astral Power when cast. Fury of Elune (level 50) generates 40 Astral Power over 8 seconds, on a 1 minute cooldown.

Eclipse
The Eclipse mechanic is the signature of the Balance spec, and has been for quite some time. It has worked in several different ways over the years, and every time they change it there are people who love it and others who hate it.

When you enter an Eclipse, you empower certain spells based on which type of Eclipse was triggered (Lunar or Solar). In its current form, you trigger an Eclipse state by casting one of your two primary spells (Wrath and Starfire) twice. Casting Wrath will trigger a Lunar Eclipse, while casting Starfire will trigger a Solar Eclipse. These Eclipses are self buffs that will appear automatically when you trigger them, and there is a visual that happens near your character when it happens as well.

Each version of Eclipse lasts for 15 seconds, and triggering one will prevent the triggering spell from activating the other while Eclipse is active. You also cannot trigger the same Eclipse back-to-back, which means you’ll swap back and forth between spamming your Nature damage spells during Solar Eclipse and then your Arcane damage spells during Lunar Eclipse, back to Nature spells for Solar Eclipse, and so on.

You can ignore an Eclipse cycle if you really want to, or if there are mechanics in the fight that prevent you from utilizing the Eclipse (boss goes inactive for RP, long stuns, transitions where you have no targets, and so on). If you have lots of targets to cleave (5+), you may choose ignore a Solar Eclipse by continuing to cast Starfire. There is an internal cooldown on entering an Eclipse during combat, which is roughly 25 seconds from the time it was first activated. So if you use Lunar Eclipse, and want to ignore your Solar Eclipse, you can’t enter Lunar Eclipse again until 25 seconds after you started the first Lunar Eclipse (which is 10 seconds after it has run out).

Now that you know how it works, lets talk about what it actually does. Solar Eclipse reduces the cast time of Wrath by 15% and increases its damage by 20%. Lunar Eclipse reduces the cast time of Starfire by 15% and increases its critical strike chance by 20%. So you’ll activate Eclipse to make its related spells more powerful until they activate the other Eclipse, making its related spells more powerful, and continue that cycle throughout the fight.

Balance Druid master is called Mastery: Total Eclipse which increases your Nature damage during Solar Eclipse, and your Arcane damage during Lunar Eclipse. Your Astral spells also benefit from these damage bonuses. If you have your Celestial Alignment (DPS cooldown) active, you activate both Eclipses at the same time, which allows your Astral spells to benefit from both damage increases at the same time. The Astral damage spells you have access to are Starfall, Starsurge, Stellar Flare (level 45 talent), Fury of Elune (level 50 talent), and New Moon (level 50 talent).

Important Spells & Abilities

• Wrath: single-target spell that deals Nature damage. Generates 6 Astral Power.
• Starfire: single-target spell that deals Arcane damage to the target, and splash damage to all enemies within 8 yards of your target. Generates 8 Astral Power.
• Moonfire: single-target damage-over-time (DoT) spell, lasts 22 seconds. Generates 2 Astral Power.
• Sunfire: single-target DoT spell, automatically applies itself to all enemies within 8 yards of the target, lasts 18 seconds. Generates 2 Astral Power.
• Starsurge: single-target spell that deals Astral damage, and empowers your active Eclipse buffs. Costs 30 Astral Power.
• Starfall: AoE spell centered on the caster, lasts 8 seconds, deals Astral damage to all enemies engaged in combat, and extends the duration of Moonfire/Sunfire on all targets by 4 seconds. Costs 50 Astral Power

Wrath is the spell you’re going to spam during Solar Eclipse, and it’s the spell you use to trigger your Lunar Eclipse. Starfire is the spell you’re going to spam during Lunar Eclipse, and it’s the spell you use to trigger Solar Eclipse. These are your two primary filler spells, which generate the majority of your Astral Power.

Sunfire and Moonfire are your DoTs, which you will want to keep up on basically any target that will survive long enough for their damage to matter. Sunfire does 200% more damage than Wrath does, and Moonfire deals 200% more damage than Starfire does, but it takes 18 and 22 seconds respectively for them to deal that damage. These DoTs also trigger your passive ability, Shooting Stars, which deal damage to an enemy and also grants 3 Astral Power. This means that the more DoTs you have, the more Astral Power you stand to gain.

Starsurge and Starfall are how you spend your Astral Power, and they will contribute more to your DPS than any other spells. Starsurge “empowers” your active Eclipse buffs by an additional 6% each time you cast it. This empowerment applies to the bonus 20% damage of Wrath and 20% crit chance of Starfire, so the first cast increases those to 26%, the second 32%, and so on. The sooner you can pour Astral Power into a new Eclipse buff, the more benefit you will get from it over its duration, since that empowerment stays in effect until the Eclipse(s) wears off. For this same reason, you should always try to avoid casting Starsurge at the end of an Eclipse, and never outside of an Eclipse, unless the target would potentially die from Starsurge’s damage alone. In addition, the damage bonus from your Mastery only applies during an Eclipse, so not only are you missing empowerments if you cast Starsurge outside of an Eclipse, you’re also causing it to deal less damage.

Starfall is an AoE spell, but you may want to use it on single target encounters as well. If the fight requires a lot of movement, Starfall effectively acts like a DoT, dealing damage while you’re otherwise unable to stand and cast your two primary spells. If you take the Steller Drift talent at level 45, you can cast spells while moving so long as Starfall is active, making it a critical part of even your single target rotation if the fight requires a lot of movement. If little or no movement is required, then Starfall is a waste on single target.

In a typical boss encounter, your spells ranked from most damage to least will typically be: Starsurge > (Starfall) > Starfire > Wrath > Sunfire >= Moonfire

If there are multiple targets in those encounters, you will of course see an increase in damage from your AoE/cleave spells: Starfall, Starfire, Sunfire, and your passive ability Shooting Stars.

• Soothe: dispels any Enrage effects on the target.
• Cyclone: makes the enemy target invulnerable and unable to take actions, lasts for 6 seconds.
• Entangling Roots: roots an enemy target in place for 30 seconds. Damaging the target may cancel the effect.
• Typhoon: a frontal cone knockback for 20 yards, dazes enemies hit for 6 seconds.
• Hibernate: puts an enemy Beast or Dragonkin to sleep for 40 seconds.
• Solar Beam: interrupts and silences the target and all enemies within the beam, lasts 8 seconds.

Above are your crowd control spells and your interrupt. Solar Beam has a 1 minute cooldown, which really sucks, but it is an AoE silence. The area that it effects is centered on the location of your target when the spell is cast, and it does not move. If you really need to shut down a caster, cast Entangling Roots first to lock them in place, then follow it up with Solar Beam to keep them stuck in the silenced effect for as long as possible.

• Remove Corruption: removes all Curses and Poisons from a friendly target.
• Rebirth: is a resurrection spell that you can cast while in combat, 10 minute cooldown
• Regrowth: healing spell that also applies a heal-over-time (HoT) to the target
• Barkskin: reduces damage you take by 20% and preventing spell pushback for 12 seconds, 1 minute cooldown.

Above are your utility, healing, and defensive spells.

Regrowth is the only healing spell you can cast while in Moonkin form, even if you take the Restoration Affinity talent that grants access to three more healing spells. Barkskin might be nothing to write back home to mom about, but it’s useful and it’s on a short cooldown, so use it any time you’re taking a fair amount of damage. You can also cast it while you’re stunned, and it does not trigger the global cooldown, so you can cast it at the same time as another spell (such as the Renewal talented spell).

Rebirth is your combat rez, which does nothing for you if you’re solo, but it used to be the envy of all non-Druid healers before Blizzard decided to start sharing the love. It’s an excellent tool for group play, and one you certainly want to be familiar with casting if you want to play well with others.

• Celestial Alignment: Triggers both Eclipse states and grants 10% Haste for 20 seconds. 3 Minute cooldown.

This is your only DPS cooldown (without talents), but it’s a really good one. This triggers both Lunar and Solar Eclipse to be active at the same time. It really shines when you have a fight that’s strictly single-target or strictly multi-target for long stretches of time. Something else that it does, without explicitly saying it, is it resets the timers associated with your Eclipses. So if you just finished a Solar Eclipse you can cast Celestial Alignment to turn on both Eclipse buffs, keep on doing your single-target rotation, and after the double Eclipse you can cast double-Starfire to go right back into another Solar Eclipse, giving you 50 total seconds of Solar Eclipse goodness before you ever have your first Lunar Eclipse. It works exactly the same way for Lunar Eclipse, of course.

Stat Priority
Stat priority is pretty simple, but slightly different based on your Covenant choice.

• Night Fae: Intellect > Mastery > Versatility > Haste > Crit
• Kyrian: Intellect > Mastery > Haste >= Versatility > Crit
• Venthyr: reroll Night Fae
• Necrolord: reroll Night Fae

Joking aside (I’m not joking), Venthyr and Necrolord priority is the same as Kyrian. Night Fae value Haste less mostly because Convoke the Spirits does not utilize Haste at all, and Convoke is a major contributor to their DPS, so they benefit more from Versatility buffing those 16 random spells.

Playing a Balance Druid
Balance Druids only have one effect that procs something new, and that one effect does not have any impact on your rotation. The effect is part of the Moonkin Form ability, and the proc is called Owlkin Frenzy. This ability can proc any time you are hit with a single-target attack, with a 15% chance, and the effect is that it makes your next Starfire an instant-cast. When it procs, you’ll have an image kind of like a shooting star pop up over your head. For the most part, just ignore this. Use it if you need to move, or to pull more mobs into an AoE farm, but don’t bother trying to use it outside of a Lunar Eclipse.

As a Balance Druid, you build Astral Power with your main filler spells, then you spend the Astral Power on your heavy hitters. To some extent, this makes Balance very easy to play when compared to other classes/specs. As long as you have a basic understanding of the Eclipse mechanic and how to use Astral Power, you are well on your way to being a Boomchicken.

Pull “Rotation“:

• Pull with Starfire
• Apply DoTs: Moonfire then Sunfire (single target), Sunfire then Moonfire* (multi-target)
• Enter Eclipse by casting: Starfire (single target), or Wrath x2 (multi-target)

If a fight where you are going to want to cleave with Lunar Eclipse, you can pull with Wrath instead of Starfire, if you feel like entering Eclipse sooner is a higher priority. The timing of Bloodlust/Heroism can play a role in how quickly you enter Eclipse as well, since you want to get as many casts of your spells during Eclipse as possible. If you lust on the pull, enter Eclipse asap. If you lust after a few seconds into the pull, start with the spell for the opposite Eclipse so that you delay entering your Eclipse without missing damage. Just try not to accidentally proc the wrong eclipse by casting the spell twice.

*See the “AoE Combat” section a bit further down, for details on how and when you should bother using Moonfire in a multi-target pull.

Here is the core of your rotation/priority list:

• Enter your desired Eclipse – for single target cast Starfire x2, for multi-target cleave cast Wrath x2
• Refresh Moonfire and Sunfire if they will expire in the next 6 seconds (and target will live long enough to matter)
• Use Cooldowns as desired (Celestial Alignment/Incarnation, trinkets, etc)
• Spend your Astral Power on Starsurge/Starfall
• Spam your Eclipse-related filler – Wrath (Solar) or Starfire (Lunar)

Optimizing your spells is where things can get more tricky. A lot of that is not something I can really teach you how to do, I can only teach you the things to watch for. For example, you don’t want to refresh your DoTs if the targets would die before their damage can be dealt. In some cases, you do want to use Sunfire, but you wouldn’t bother with Moonfire. Learning the timing is something you have to do on your own, since that will vary from one group to another, gear levels, group compositions, the content itself, and so on.

Here are some things to keep in mind for each spell, to know whether or not you should cast it. This is getting into the tall grasses, so if you’re new to the spec this is where things may start to feel overwhelming. It sounds worse than it is, and you’ll get a feel for all of this on your own, with time. If you’re new or prone to feeling overwhelmed, just skim this section for now and use the addon that I recommend at the end of this post to manage some of this stuff for you.

Starsurge: You should cast Starsurge as early in the Eclipse as possible, so that you can maximize the empowerment effect that it provides to your Wrath/Starfire. That empowerment only lasts for the current Eclipse, though, so avoid casting it at the end of an Eclipse, and always avoid casting it when you do not have either Eclipse active. Having enough AP to cast Starsurge requires 4-5 Wraths, 3-4 Starfires, or about 2 of each (talents and RNG depending). Use that to help you decide whether you should hold onto your current AP pool for your upcoming Eclipse, or if you should dump some of it now because you’ll make up for it by the time you reach the next Eclipse. You don’t want to waste AP if you can avoid it, but you also don’t want to waste Starsurge casts if there is no Eclipse to take advantage of it. If you have enough time between right now and the next Eclipse to earn back the AP you would spend, then cast Starsurge/Starfall.

Starfall: If you have taken either of the talents that buff Starfall (Soul of the Forest or Stellar Drift), then use Starfall anytime you have at least two targets. With the Stellar Drift talent, you also want to cast it any time you would need to cast spells while on the move. Starfall does not have a cap on how many targets it can deal damage to, so the more targets you have the higher priority Starfall is to keep going. You can refresh Starfall when there are up to 3 seconds left on its current duration. It will not stack the damage it deals, but it will extend the duration.

AoE Combat: When you have a lot of targets, you actually get more damage done if you ignore the usual Solar Eclipse, and focus on cleaving with Starfire. Your first priority in AoE combat is to make sure you always have Starfall active. If there are 5+ targets, and they have enough health to survive for the next 20 seconds or so, use your Solar Eclipse as an opportunity to cast Moonfire on as many targets as possible, not casting Wrath at all, then go back to Starfire spam until you can enter a new Lunar Eclipse with a couple of Wrath casts. If the mobs will not survive long enough for you to enter another Lunar Eclipse, then forget Moonfire, just keep spamming Starfire even during Solar Eclipse. Spend your extra Astral Power on Starsurge when you have the AP to do so, as long as you have enough to keep Starfall up at all times.

Covenants and Conduits
When it comes to choosing a Covenant, your options are Night Fae, Night Fae, Night Fae, or in certain situations…Kyrian. If your primary focus in WoW is arena PvP, you can go ahead and take Kyrian. If it’s not, just trust me on this and pick Night Fae.

The Night Fae class ability, Convoke the Spirits, is a 4-second channeled ability that casts 16 random druid spells throughout the channel. It’s the epitome of RNG, and it is fantastic. It shines best in single target, then clustered multi-target cleave. In multi-target situations where all of the mobs are spread out, it’s not that great, so just make sure you’re near the biggest clump of them that you can reach when you cast it. You can move while channeling Convoke, and you can cast it in all of your druid forms. The RNG does tend to favor spells related to your current form, so it will most often cast DPS spells while in Moonkin form, but it will also throw some HoTs on your party. If you are close to the mobs, it will throw some Rake and Thrash casts in there as well. This gives you some control over what kind of spells it will cast, so if your party needs healing you can break form and have a higher chance of spreading HoTs. If you need to emergency off-tank some adds, swap to bear form before you cast Convoke. If you ever use Convoke while in Cat Form, as a Boomkin…I’ll reach through the internet and punch you.

Soulbind options are Niya for Night Fae, and Pelagos if you opted for Kyran. Both grant you additional Mastery, which is your top secondary stat. Niya’s is more useful, but they’re both good.

Conduits are whatever level of craziness you actually want to take them to. You can choose single-target focus, multi-target focus, or you can do a bit of a hybrid that just works well in all situations without being optimal for any of them. If you’re one of the wakadoos who choose Kyrian, don’t use your Kyrian conduit since it will actually cause you to lose DPS by forcing your abilities to fall out of sync.

Night Fae: If you want to focus on single-target, then you should always take the path on the left. This will give you one Potency, one Finesse, and two Endurance conduits. If you want to optimize multi-target conduits, then choose the left path twice, then the middle path at the bottom. This option will net you two Potency, and one each of Finesse and Endurance conduits.

Kyrian: You only have one real path for optimization: left, left, right. This option will net you two Potency, and one each of Finesse and Endurance conduits.

Potency for Single Target: Conflux of Elements (Night Fae only), Fury of the Skies, Umbral Intensity
Potency for Multi Target: Umbral Intensity, Stellar Inspiration
Potency for General Use: Conflux of Elements (Night Fae only), Umbral Intensity, Fury of the Skies

Finesse and Endurance conduit choices are mostly up to you. Think about the content that you like to do and whether or not the options in those paths fit those situations. I’ll give you my general rankings of them in the overall sense, but it’s really mostly up to your preferences:

Endurance: Well-Honed Instincts >= Tough as Bark > Ursine Vigor >>> Innate Resolve
Finesse: (Born Anew) >= Front of the Pack > Tireless Pursuit >> Born of the Wilds

One note about Born Anew. If you don’t need the extra movement stuff, Born Anew is a great conduit. However, if you only really play solo, or if you are never the person called on to do a combat rez, then it’s completely wasted. I personally choose Front of the Pack for mine, because I use Stampeding Roar all the time, in all content, and my raid leader never calls on me to do the battle rez, so I don’t generally have a use for it. As I’m starting to spend more time in Mythic+, I may end up swapping to this one before too long. Innate Resolve really sucks, don’t use that thing no matter what content you’re doing.

Talent Points
The nature of the modern talent tree, and the fact that you can change your talents basically any time you want to, means that giving a set talent tree is pointless. I’ll go ahead and talk about them all, but the only setup I’m going to show you is the one that I use as my default, which is this:

• Nature’s Balance: Generates 1 Astral Power every 2 seconds while in combat. Out of combat, Astral Power rebalances to 50.
• Renewal: Instant 30% self-heal on a 1.5 minute cooldown.
• Restoration Affinity: Heals you for 3% of your health every 5 seconds, hits a raid/party member if your HP is full. Gives you access to 3 more healing spells, and Ursol’s Vortex.
• Mass Entanglement: Roots your target and all enemies within 15 yards of them.
• Soul of the Forest: Wrath generates 50% more Astral Power during Solar Eclipse, and Starfire’s damage is increased by 150%.
• Stellar Drift: Increases Starfall’s duration by 2 seconds, and allows you to cast while moving when Starfall is active.
• Solstice: During the first 6 seconds of each Eclipse, Shooting Stars fall 300% more often.

The other level 15 talents have their place. Warrior of Elune can be taken for fights that need short window burst, or that have a lot of movement. Force of Nature is decent for solo play, leveling, AoE farming, Mythic+, and for Torghast. For raiding and solo world content, I don’t think either of these compete with Nature’s Balance. Having your Astral Power settle in at 50 while you’re out of combat seems like it’s not a big deal, but it actually helps a ton for reducing your ramp up time at the start of a fight, and you have the option of opening with Starfall to cast while moving into position (if you take Stellar Drift) if you have fights that require such.

You can use any of the level 25 talents. I prefer Renewal for basically all content since I find the movement abilities to be rather unnecessary. We have a lot of movement abilities already, making these a bit redundant. If you’re good at the different uses of Wild Charge, it’s technically a better ability, I just find Renewal to be more useful and useful in more situations/content. Take whatever you want here. If you want the movement, I would say Wild Charge trumps Tiger Dash in nearly every situation.

Level 30 lets you pick one of the other specs to have an affinity for. In my opinion, Feral Affinity is garbage for a Balance druid. It’s more movement, which is helpful and technically lets you do more damage by getting to a place you can cast sooner, but if you’re that tight on DPS needs then you’ve probably got other problems that this talent is not going to solve. Guardian and Restoration affinities are both good. If you do more solo content, then I suggest Guardian, while for more group content I suggest Restoration. Either of those two is good, though. I find far more opportunities to off-heal effectively as a Boomkin than I do to off-tank.

Level 35 is much the same. Mighty Bash and Mass Entangle are both crowd control abilities that are useful for different things. Heart of the Wild makes your level 30 talent choice stronger for 45 seconds. For Feral it gives 30% bonus damage to cat attacks and they grant extra combo points. For Guardian it gives 20% bonus Stamina, Ironfur can stack, and Frenzied Regen gets two charges instead of one. And for Resto you get 30% bonus healing and a 50% reduction to mana costs for your healing spells. I’ve had Torghast runs where Bash saved my run. I’ve done AoE farming where Entangle let me pull and kill a stupid amount of mobs with ease. Heart of the Wild will let you be a fairly decent off-healer if you took Resto Affinity, but I can only guess at how effective you could be at emergency off-tanking with Guardian Affinity.

Level 40 has some good choices. Soul of the Forest is your best bet for multi-target damage while Starlord is your choice for single-target. Both are really good, and helpful in both situations, they just happen to shine in one or the other. Incarnation is a good ability, but it mimics the effect of a spell you already have and makes it a bit better with a crit buff and extends the duration by 10 seconds. I don’t like chosing Incarnation for normal play, but I’m happy to pick it up in Torghast for some chunky Eclipse/Convoke burst shenanigans.

For Level 45, I think Stellar Drift outshines both of the other options. Stellar Flare is alright for a lot of single target encounters, but I don’t like the feel of playing with it as it pushes you further toward DoTs and I don’t think it’s needed at all. Stellar Drift increasing the duration of Starfall, especially after Soul of the Forest in the previous tier increases its damage, is already great on its own. The fact that it also lets you cast on the move while Starfall is active is incredible in all types of content. You can save up your Astral Power to plan for that movement, and while other classes have abilities that let them do that too, we can have 100% uptime on it if necessary. Twin Moons is garbage, don’t take that crap.

I think at level 50 the clear winner is Solstice. However, Fury of Elune can be really useful as well. New Moon may have been the business back in Legion, but not so much anymore. The only time I use New Moon is when Convoke uses it on my behalf. Fury of Elune gives a lot of Astral Power, and its damage is really good too. With Solstice you’re going to have more Astra Power flowing at a consistent basis, and it’s good for both single target and multi-target situations. Fury of Elune is good, but it’s good for 8 seconds, once per minute. I only ever use Solstice, the others just don’t compare for me.

Macros and Addons

If you are new to Balance, then the addon that I will recommend to you is Hekili. This is a rotation addon, that basically tells you which spells to cast next. I know, some people are going to hate it, but others are going to love it. While you’re still getting a feel for when to build your Astral Power and when to spend it, this is going to be a huge help to you. When things get crazy and you have to stop your rotation to move or rez, or whatever else, sometimes you’ll forget where you were in your Eclipses. Were you in Solar or Lunar? Or were you in between? Had you just started an Eclipse, or were you just ending one? This will help you with that (to some extent) just be looking at which spells it’s telling you to cast. If all you see is Starfire queued up, then you know you’re in Lunar Eclipse, for example. It will also help you with refreshing your DoTs, not forgetting to use your cooldowns, and so forth.

Other addons that I would recommend really depend on how you play the game and what areas you would personally need help with. WeakAuras can help you with all of the same things that Hekili does, for example, and far more. As I’ve gotten more involved with raiding in Shadowlands, I’m starting to lean more toward adding more WeakAuras to my toolkit to centralize more of the things that I need to keep an eye on.

I don’t think anything the Balance Druid does really requires macros. I mean, I have a ton that I use regardless, but you don’t need any of them to perform well. You can make mouseover macros to make your healing, cleansing, and de-enraging abilities easier to use. You can use @cursor/@player macros to make placing things like your Force of Nature easier. I’m happy to help with macros if there’s something you need.

In case you’re new to Druid all together, I’ll go ahead and put this macro here, which is a one-button shapeshifting macro that also includes a mount, so that you can change into the appropriate form for the situation. I’ve used it for years, and made adjustments as necessary for changes that they implemented along the way. You could probably clean it up even more by combining the various triggers for Travel Form, but it works perfectly fine as-is, so I’ll leave it like this.

#showtooltip
/cancelform
/cast [outdoors,nocombat] sky golem
/cast [swimming] Travel Form
/cast [indoors] Cat Form
/cast [flyable] Travel Form
/cast Travel Form

If you’ve been playing this game for a long time and already have a full collection of the heirlooms, then this change means almost nothing, except that you don’t have to bother with carrying around multiple sets of heirlooms while you’re leveling if you’re one who swaps to one spec for questing and another for dungeons/PvP. If you’re new to the game and haven’t completed a collection yet, then this change means you just saved yourself a small fortune in heirloom and upgrade item purchases. Potentially.

Secondary Stats
This is the part that doesn’t change, so technically if you want to be optimized to the teeth in all situations then you would still need to buy all of the various heirlooms to make sure you can cover that for the different specs. How anal you want to be about optimization is up to you. If you’re trying to save gold and don’t want to buy a full set of heirlooms, then the secondary stat that I suggest you focus on most often is Haste. If you want to be optimized all the time, then buy all of the armor pieces out there.

The other half of the class-specific heirloom guides are nearly done and will be coming out soon.

Assassination (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Agility > Mastery > Versatility > Critical Strike > Haste

Outlaw (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Agility > Versatility > Critical Strike > Mastery > Haste

Subtlety (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Agility > Mastery > Versatility > Critical Strike > Haste

Elemental (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Intellect > Multistrike > Haste = Critical Strike > Mastery > Versatility

Haste is better for single target DPS, where Crit is better for your AoE DPS. If you’re going to run a lot of dungeons you may want to prioritize the crit, but I tend to lean towards haste for my casters as it allows me to cast more spells in less time which also improves mobility. Similarly, Multistrike is a higher priority than either Haste or Crit, but I would probably stick with Haste over even Multistrike personally just because that fits my playstyle more and I don’t really care much for multistrike overall.

Enhancement (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Agility > Haste > Mastery > Multistrike > Versatility > Critical Strike

Another option I wanted to point out for weapon enchants is Landslide for one or both weapons. I recently leveled an Enhancement Shaman with dual Elemental Force and it was fantastic. I frequently did 30-100% more DPS than other people in dungeons, and often 300-400% higher than the second highest DPS in battlegrounds. Elemental Force procs often and its effect can crit. After a lot of testing, I’ve found Ele Force to be one of the most useful weapon enchants in the game for non-healers (and it’s even good for them if you’re going to do any amount of DPS while leveling).

Restoration (Healing)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Jade Spirit is one that’s particularly uncommon as it was locked behind a MoP rep grind that I found very few people had access to when I came back to the game in mid-WoD. My suggestions for replacements there would be Mark of Warsong > Major Spellpower > Elemental Force. Ele Force might seem like an odd enchant for a healer, but I found that with heals as powerful as they are I’m almost always doing some form of DPS as a healer, and I don’t really need more strength as a healer, so buffing my damage was handy.

Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Intellect > Spirit > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike = Critical Strike > Versatility

Arcane (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Choices made are based on info from Icy-Veins.com.

Fire (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others.If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Choices made are based on info from Icy-Veins.com.

Frost (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Stat priorities from Icy-Veins depend on what Tier 7 talent you decide to use, which of course doesn’t matter until you’re level 100. You can see their list here.

Arms (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Strength > Crit > Mastery > Multistrike > Haste > Versatility

Fury (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Strength > Haste > Crit > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike > Versatility

Protection (Tank)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Also, while Mastery is higher on your stat priority list than Crit, you don’t actually benefit from Mastery until level 80, which is why I suggest Crit enchants on ring, neck, and back rather than Mastery. If you want to switch the enchants out at level 80+ feel free to do so, but I personally reuse my heirlooms because I level an army of alts as well, so I prefer to get the most bang for my buck by benefiting for as many levels as possible rather than getting maximum effect for only 10-20 levels and nothing for the previous 60-80.

Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Strength > Bonus Armor > Mastery > Crit = Versatility > Haste > Multistrike

Blood Spec (Tanking)

* While Mastery is the best stat that you can get for survivability, Multistrike is also a very good option for you. If you find that survival is not an issue, switch to Multistrike.

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Balanced: Strength = Bonus Armor > Multistrike > Mastery > Haste = Critical Strike > Versatility

Survival: Bonus Armor > Strength > Mastery > Haste > Critical Strike = Versatility > Multistrike

DPS Oriented: Strength > Bonus Armor > Multistrike > Critical Strike > Mastery = Versatility > Haste

Frost (DPS)
For Frost, there are different enchants depending on whether you are going to dual wield or use a two-handed weapon because of how your attacks and passive abilities work. While dual wielding you want to prioritize Mastery, where using a two-handed weapon you’ll want to prioritize Haste. I’ll note that below with [2H] for the two-handed enchant and [DW] for dual wielding.

In Legion, Frost DK’s are forced to dual-wield one-handed weapons instead of having the choice between dual wielding or using a two-hander. This guide has been updated to reflect that, removing the Bloodied Arcanite Reaper from this list. If you’re reading this guide pre-Legion then you still have the choice of either option, but personally I would get started in preparation for Legion right now since the patch is rumored to be dropping on 7/19/2016.

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Dual Wielding: Strength > Mastery > Multistrike > Versatility > Haste > Critical Strike

Two-Handed: Strength > Haste > Multistrike > Versatility > Critical Strike > Mastery

Unholy (DPS)

If you don’t have access to the enchants mentioned above, you may choose others. Your stat priorities are as follows (from Icy-Veins.com):

Strength > Multistrike > Mastery > Critical Strike > Versatility > Haste

In typical Psynister fashion, the the Medic that I was writing about in the previous leveling guide has already been deleted and rerolled, so it will be awhile before I get back to writing about Medic healing. However, since Stalker was my original main class (technically, Engineer was, but I deleted him too), I figured it was time to write about it instead. I also have some friends that have struggled with the Stalker in the teens and twenties, so I wanted to bump this one up in priority to help them out.

This guide will look at which spells to use, how and when to use them, and how to allocate your ability and AMP points to maximize your performance without having to learn a lot of math.

Playing a Stalker DPS
Stalker DPS is similar to playing the typical Rogue-like character in other MMO’s in many ways, but definitely different in some ways as well. If you’re coming here from another MMO such as WoW or Rift, the first major difference is that while Stalkers do spend their primary resource in a similar way (starts full, uses it up for burst) there is no combo point system that you’re building up. Instead, you’re going to unleash burst damage by spending that resource and then using weaker attacks as filler while you wait for the resource to refill.

Suit Power is the name of that resource I was just talking about. While there are some abilities that can restore Suit Power (SP), it primarily just refills itself over time. By default, Suit Power restores at a rate of 7 SP per 1 second

The second major difference is that Stealth can be used any time the cooldown is available. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the middle of combat or not, if it’s off cooldown then you can use it. Stalkers do have some spells that benefit, generally in the form of bonus damage, from being used while behind a target or from stealth, but they’re not so gimped while being used otherwise that you want to avoid using them if you can’t stay behind your target (like when you’re leveling solo and the mobs auto-face you).

Stalkers have three versions of their innate ability, Nano Skin, which gives them access to bonus damage, extra mobility, or extra survivability. As a DPS Stalker, you’ll almost never use the survivability stance, as you’re mainly focused on killing all the things. We’ll talk about the stances in more detail in the next section.

Important Spells & Abilities
Wildstar spells come in three flavors: Assault, Support, and Utility. Assault spells are typically used for dealing damage, Support for healing or shield regeneration, and Utility is usually for things related crowd control (giving and receiving). There are times where spells end up in one category when they seem like they fit better in another, but generally speaking that’s how spells are lined up in Wildstar.

I’m not going to list every spell available to you in this level range, since you have all of your spells unlocked by level 31, instead I’m going to list the ones that I specifically think you should be using while on the path to level 25, even if you’re only going to use a certain spell until level 10 or so before moving to something else.

Note that the math here comes from JabbitHole.com, so if any of it’s wrong, talk to them about it.

Innate Ability (Nano Skin Stance):
One thing I wanted to note about stances, because I’ve seen it come up a lot in comments to videos I’ve watched, is that Innates can be keybound. By default, they have no keybind associated with them, so people think you always have to use the little UI toggle to change from one stance to another, or they’re asking for addons that let them do so easily. Personally, I bind my different stances to F2, F3, and F4 so that I can easily change from one to another as needed.

• Nano Skin: Lethal: Increases Damage Dealt by 18% and decreases all Resistances by 5%. Attacks from Stealth have a 100% chance to land as a Critical Hit. Active: Enter Stealth, making you invisible to foes unless detected. Reduces Movement Speed by 20%. No cooldown while out of combat.
• Nano Skin: Agile: Increases Dash Regeneration by 10%, Endurance by 10% and Lifesteal by 5%. Exiting Stealth in combat increases Movement Speed by 20% for 4.0s. Active: Enter Stealth, making you invisible to foes unless detected. No cooldown while out of combat.

Nano Skin: Lethal is the stance that you’re going to spend the vast majority of your time in because it provides a solid increase in damage, and guarantees a critical hit with whatever attack you use coming out of stealth. The guaranteed crit is one of the main reasons you’re using this, as it gives you control over when to proc abilities that require a crit in order for you to use them, and because crit damage is higher than normal damage, so it just makes sense.

Nano Skin: Agile is listed here primarily because it’s useful for getting around the map when you don’t have access to a mount. Also, if you’re feeling a bit squishy, the 5% life steal can make a difference. The mobility is really the main reason this is listed at all. It’s very useful for getting around the map in Walatiki Temple to chase mask carriers, get away from people trying to kill you, or for getting a quick mask steal. If combat is approaching though, switch to Lethal.

Assault:

• Shred (1): Deal 9.66%AP +4.22*lvl physical damage 3 times to 5 foes.
• Impale (2): Deal 72.2%AP +31.43*lvl physical damage, 80%AP +37.716*lvl if Behind or in Stealth, to 1 foe.
• Analyze Weakness (4): Mark 5 foes for 15.0s. Dealing damage to a marked foe consumes the mark and deals 50.32%AP +21.88*lvl technology damage. Does not break Stealth.
• Neutralize (13): Deal 57.5%AP +25*lvl technology damage to 5 foes. Suit Power cost is increased by 5 each time if used within 8.0s of the previous use. Stacks 6 times. If used from Stealth the cost is not increased.
• Punish (15): Deal 54.55%AP +23.74*lvl physical damage to 5 foes and regenerate 30 Suit Power if below 35 Suit Power. Usable after landing a Critical Hit.
• Concussive Kicks (24): Deal 38.64%AP +16.74*lvl physical damage twice to 1 foe.

Shred is your primary spam attack, which you’ll be using while other things are on cooldown or your suit power is low.

Impale is your primary single-target damage attack, which hits like a truck but also has a fairly steep suit power cost. It deals bonus damage when you use it from stealth or when you’re behind your target, so take advantage of positioning whenever you can. In early levels this will hit so hard that position doesn’t matter, but its best to develop good habits from the start.

Analyze Weakness is a nice debuff causes you to deal extra damage the first time you hit the target. You’ll destroy things with this when you first get it, but as you get higher in levels the bonus damage doesn’t really keep up. But, for the early stages it’s a great spell.

Neutralize is an incredible AoE damage spell that hits everything in a circle around you. It applies a stacking debuff on you that increases its suit power cost every time you cast it, but things are usually dead before you care. Just don’t go rushing into another fight if you still have the debuff on you.

Punish is another heavy hitter, but this one has the twist of only being able to cast it after you’ve scored a critical hit. In addition to its high damage, it also restores 30 suit power which can provide an additional Impale or 1-2 Neutralize casts after using it.

Concussive Kicks is a decent damaging spell that hits a single target. It’s mostly used because it has a low suit power cost so that when you fight single mobs you have something besides Shred to cast while you’re waiting for enough Suit Power to cast another Impale. In the lower levels you’ll kill just about everything with a triple-Impale, but the higher you get the less that’s going to be the case, so you’ll need this to help kick (get it?) it up a notch.

Support:
While Stalkers do have some really great Support skills, you won’t be using any of them for this spec, at any point in the leveling process. Leveling as a Stalker Tank is completely viable, and currently overpowered in PvP, but as that’s not the focus of this guide I will not be covering any of these spells here.

Utility:

• Stagger (3): Deals 3.5%AP +3.5%SP +3*lvl physical damage 4 times and applies a Stun to 5 foes. Destroys 1 Interrupt Armor. Stun: Prevents any action for 2.5s.
• False Retreat (6): 1st Press: Drop a marker at your position for 5.0s and leap backwards 15m. 2nd Press: Leap back to your marker, dealing 9.4%AP +9.4%SP +8.19*lvl physical damage and Knocking Down 5 foes within 8m. Destroys 1 Interrupt Armor. Knockdown: Prevents any action, except Dash, for 2.0s.
• Pounce (9): Leap forward to the nearest foe and apply a Snare to 5 foes within 5m. Snare: Reduces Movement Speed by 25% for 4.0s. Additionally, grants a Swiftness increasing Movement Speed by 15%.
• Tether Mine (13): Deploy a mine, lasting 30.0s, at the targeted location. The first foe that walks into the mine will be Tethered. Tether: Prevents moving more than 3.0m from the Tether object for 7.5s.
• Tactical Retreat (15): Flip backward 6m, drop Threat, and activate Stealth. Prevents damage taken from breaking Stealth for 2.0s.

Stagger is a great spell that can stun/interrupt up to 5 targets at once. You’ll get access to it at level 3 and it will basically never leave your LAS bars from that time forward.

False Retreat has multiple uses. First, it’s a reverse blink that sends you back 15 meters from your current position. Second, it allows you to activate it again to blink back to the original location (within 5 seconds) to deal damage and knock down/interrupt all of the targets within the effect. It’s great for AoE interrupts, or for getting out of a sticky situation if you just use the first activation to blink back, then stealth and get the heck out of there.

Pounce is a blink spell that has some crowd control and mobility benefits to it as well. I used this a lot on my first Stalker, but over time I found that it’s really most useful in PvP but even then there are other spells to put on your LAS that are better. It’s still really nice to have, especially if you happen to have chosen the Explorer path, since it can help you get to some of those harder to reach places, but overall it’s just not necessary enough to keep it on my bars all the time. However, I do keep it on my secondary LAS so that I can switch to it anytime it’s needed.

Tether Mine is mostly a PvP ability, which is why I list it here even though I won’t be telling you to put it on your bars. In PvP it can provide some great value, especially at lower levels where its HP is actually high enough to make people waste some time killing it. In solo PvE it’s almost completely worthless, but in group PvE it has some occasional use. It attaches to a nearby mob and prevents them from moving more than a few meters away from the mine’s location. The reason that kind of sucks in PvE is because you’re a melee class, so it doesn’t matter to you whether a mob can move or not unless you’re trying to run for your life.

Tactical Retreat is similar to False Retreat as a reverse blink, except that it also puts you into stealth and drops all of your agro. For solo play, the threat dropping will result in you resetting combat, so you’ll survive but your targets will return to full health. It is a useful spell in PvP for obvious reasons, but it’s also useful in group PvE because it’s yet another way to obtain stealth to trigger another critical hit, and it’s a good thing that you’re dropping your threat.

Leveling a DPS Stalker
While you’re running around Nexus laying the smack down, gathering the whatsits, and blowing things up you need to know how to wield those awesome skills, right? In this section I’m going to talk about what kind of rotations you’re generally aiming for when it comes to killing things. This guide covers 25 levels worth of content, so obviously you’re not going to have access to all of your skills starting out, so I’m going to show these in terms of character level.

Remember, you’re using Nano Skin: Lethal the whole time, and whenever possible you should always initiate combat from stealth to benefit from the guaranteed crit that NS: Lethal gives you when attacking from stealth.

Single Target Questing Rotations
Levels 4-14: [Stealth], Analyze Weakness, Impale+Shred or Impale x2, (Stagger or False Retreat if you get a chance to interrupt)
At level 4, you’ll have a hard time finding anything that can survive the first Impale with Analyze Weakness already applied. If something does manage to survive, they won’t have much health at all (unless you missed or they deflected an attack) so a Shred will usually finish them off or you can toss another Impale in there if you want.

As you start to get closer to level 10 you’re going to find mobs living longer, and you’re going to run into more primes. When this starts to happen you really need to watch out for your enemies to cast spells that you can interrupt with Stagger and False Retreat. When you interrupt an NPC (not a player) you’ll see their health bar turn purple which indicates that they will receive 50% additional damage from all sources, allowing you to absolutely destroy them.

Levels 15-23: [Stealth], Impale, Punish, Impale x2, Shred spam (Stagger or False Retreat to interrupt)
Notice that Analyze Weakness is no longer part of our rotation. We remove it at level 15 because the amount of damage that it gives is no longer as appealing as it was at lower levels, and because our limited action set has more important spells to put in our limited number of slots.

At level 15 you gain access to Punish which is a high damage ability that can only be used after you land a critical hit. Since we’re using Nano Skin: Lethal, we get a guaranteed crit every time we attack from stealth, which means we can force Punish to proc. Otherwise, you’re going to keep right on doing what you’ve been doing.

If you face a mob that’s got really high health and isn’t dying to your simple rotation here, that’s when you use your Innate ability to enter stealth while in combat. Remember, unlike most other MMO’s, there’s nothing stopping you from entering stealth at any time except for the ability’s cooldown. So if it’s available and the mob has enough health to warrant another Impale crit, serve it up and follow it with another Punish.

Levels 24-25: [Stealth], Impale, Punish, Impale, Concussive Kicks, Impale x2, Shred spam (Stagger or False Retreat to interrupt)
Level 24 opens up the last ability we need in the Assault tree, which is Concussive Kicks. The main reason you want to use this ability is because it doesn’t use suit power, which means that you have some filler besides Shred when you don’t have enough power to cast Impale.

Multi-Target Questing Rotations
Levels 1-12 [Stealth], Analyze Weakness, Shred spam, (Stagger or False retreat if you get a chance to interrupt)
You also have the option here of opening up with Impale to try to finish off one of the targets quickly to reduce the amount of damage you take overall, it’s mostly up to you. Because we don’t have access to a really good multi-target attack yet, you want to make sure you’re applying Analyze Weakness as often as possible to get that bonus damage out to all of your targets.

If you see a red telegraph pop up on the ground (in PvE, not PvP), that’s when you use Stagger or False Retreat to interrupt the cast for 50% bonus damage on whichever target was stupid enough to cast a spell against you. Luckily, you won’t have to use this slow AoE rotation for very long, but those last few levels before 13 can certain seem long.

Levels 13-25 [Stealth], Neutralize, Punish, Neutralize x2, Stealth, Neutralize spam, (Stagger or False retreat to interrupt)
Notice that Analyze Weakness is no longer part of our rotation. We remove it at level 15 because the amount of damage that it gives is no longer as appealing as it was at lower levels, and because our limited action set has more important spells to put in our limited number of slots.

Neutralize is the biggest spell we’ve added here as it’s an incredible AoE spell. Neutralize gives you a stacking debuff that causes the spell’s suit power to increase every time you use it, which is its only drawback. On the bright side, most mobs will be dead before you care about the suit power cost. Just keep the cost in mind so that you don’t rush right into another group of mobs and find that you don’t have the suit power available to cast it. After you finish one group fight either wait a few seconds for the debuff to fall of, or look for a solo target to fight instead.

Some people prefer to cast a couple of Neutralize’s before casting Punish because Punish restores 30 suit power which helps to make up Neutralize’s increasing cost. Now that my Stalker is over level 30, I’m starting to do this as well, but while in my 20’s I didn’t find that necessary. But, I also had a leveling partner for the majority of that, so you may need to start that sooner than I did.

Killing things as a Stalker DPS/
The rotations section above pretty much covers the whole what to cast when side of things, but how about just playing it in general?

As a Stalker you need to remember that while your damage potential is pretty crazy, you’re also fairly squishy. Your high damage is there specifically to make up for that, but don’t get too cocky and then that you can fight a pair of primes by yourself. Chances are, you probably won’t be able to take on even a single prime by yourself in many cases until you’ve mastered your timing and cooldowns to the point that you can nail a Stealth-Impale-Punish every time the cooldowns line up.

You also want to keep in mind that you have access to two interrupts by level 6, which is the best of all classes. Use that to your advantage by interrupting NPC targets for bonus damage every chance you get. If the mobs are close to dying, then you don’t want to blow one of your interrupt cooldowns, but otherwise you definitely want to build that habit and get the muscle memory in place to do so at an early level so that you’re ready to use it when the time comes later on.

Also, don’t forget that Stealth can be cast in the middle of combat. Stalkers aren’t pretending to hide in the shadows like the RPG’s of old, you’re wearing a friggin’ suit full of nanotechnology here. Use it. Abuse it. Take advantage of those guaranteed critical hits.

Limited Ability Sets (LAS)

[NOTE: I left 5 ability points unspent in that link because where they should go depends on where you’re at. If you’re questing in a zone that has a lot of mobs packed together, then you want to spend all 5 of those points to get T4 Neutralize, but if you’re facing a lot of big solo mobs then you want to drop Neutralize down to 2 points and bump Impale up to T4 instead. If there’s a mix of both groups and solo mobs, then you’ll need to make a judgement call on which of those two is harder for you to kill. If the solos are harder, T4 Impale, otherwise T4 Neutralize.]

The screenshot above shows how I have the bar set up at level 25, but of course you are free to move things around however you wish.

Level 4: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Analyze Weakness
Level 6: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Analyze Weakness, False Retreat
Level 9: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Analyze Weakness, False Retreat, Pounce
Level 13: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Analyze Weakness, Neutralize, False Retreat
Level 15: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Punish, Neutralize, False Retreat, Tactical Retreat
Level 24: Shred, Impale, Stagger, Punish, Neutralize, Concussive Kicks, False Retreat

For the most part, that’s what I suggest you run in just about every situation. If you want to make changes to it early on, Analyze Weakness is the best spell to take out.

At level 15 Tactical Retreat can be switched to something else, especially if you’re leveling solo. Since you drop threat when you use it, you’ll be resetting the mobs you face when you cast it, so it’s really only good for dropping combat if you’re about to get killed. It’s mostly for group leveling, dungeons, and PvP. In solo play, I would personally replace it with Pounce until Concussive Kicks opens up at level 24.

AMPs

Because prices for Skill AMPs vary from server to server, I’m trying to keep locked AMPs to a minimum in this guides. In fact, I’m only using one of them. You can get more damage by investing in some of the other AMPs in place of things like Armor Pierce or Strikethrough, if you have access to them. Just keep in mind that Brutality and Assault Power are what you want most.

Assault:
Assault Power III: Increases your Assault Power by 7.5%.
Critical Hit III: Increase your Critical Hit Chance by 6%.
Brutality Mastery: While above 70% health, gain an Empower. Empower: Increases Brutality by 30% of your current maximum.

Assault Power III is there strictly to increase your damage output. Critical Hit III does the same thing, but you’re also looking for crits to proc Punish, so it’s extra nice.

Brutality Mastery requires a Skill AMP item to unlock, and you might not have easy access to it. If you have it, great. If not, then I suggest you spend those 4 points in Critical Hit Severity III for another 12% increase to your crit damage, and the last point to bump Cooldowns to rank II for more cooldown reduction. If you’re feeling particularly squishy, you might want Maximum Shield Capacity III instead of the crit severity. Either one is fine.

Hybrid A/S:
Strikethrough III: Increases Strikethrough chance by 3%.
Lifesteal III: Increases Lifesteal by 6%.

Strikethrough is Wildstar’s version of Hit rating. The higher it is, the less likely you are to miss your attacks. Lifesteal heals you for a portion of the damage that you deal, so it adds to your survivability, which reduces your downtime, which improves your leveling experience.

Utility:
Cooldowns I: Increases cooldown reduction by 5%.

The cooldowns we’re talking about here are mostly your crowd control, Stagger and False Retreat. It impacts all of your cooldowns, of course, but Punish and Concussive Kicks both have an 8 second cooldown so the reduction doesn’t impact them as much as the others.

Hybrid A/U:
Armor Pierce III: Increases Armor Pierce by 6%.

Armor reduces the amount of damage that you take, so by piercing the armor you increase your damage.

Gearing Up Your Stalker DPS
The Stalker world revolves around your Assault Power stat, Brutality. Critical Hit Chance is another big one, which comes from Moxie, but a decent increase in Brutality beats a good increase in Crit any day.

Brutality (Assault Power) > Moxie (Crit Chance/Crit Severity) > Finesse (Crit Severity) > Grit > everything else

Your damage is based on your Assault Power score, not your Brutality itself, so if you find a new piece of gear that gives a Brutality loss but an overall Assault Power gain, then it’s still an upgrade.

You want Critical Hit Chance because crits deal more damage than non-crits, and because Punish requires a critical hit before it can be cast so the more often you crit the more often you get to use that big spell, thus the more damage you deal overall.

Walatiki Temple is the first battleground, or Practice Ground, that you get access to in Wildstar. It becomes available for play at level 6, with the first bracket being levels 6-14, the second 15-29, then 30-49, and finally level 50. Walatiki Temple is a 10 v 10 matchup against the opposing faction. Each match lasts for 30 minutes, or until a team manages to capture 5 masks.

In this guide, I want to teach you the basics of this map and give you an idea of what PvP feels like in Wildstar. I will talk about some of the basics of strategy, but I don’t plan to go into too much detail beyond which methods of capturing the masks are best for which situation, and how things like guarding your masks is important.

I will cover the different parts of the map, how to utilize them, where to find the buffs, different routes to take for capturing the flag, timers for respawning after death, timers for masks to spawn or despawn, and some basic strategies for playing the game.

Win Condition: Capturing Moodie Masks

In some ways Walatiki Temple is similar to battlegrounds you find in other games, such as Warsong Gulch from WoW or (loosely) Huttball from SWTOR. The object of the game is to capture Moodie Masks, and the first team to 5 is declared the winner. Each team starts the game with 1 Mask, and there is a neutral mask that spawns randomly at one of four points in the middle of the map. Teams most often fight over the neutral masks, but you can also steal masks from the opposing team.

In order to pick up, or steal, a mask you have to click on it and interact with the item for a period of time (3 seconds) before you pick it up, and any damage that you take or movement that you make while trying to pick up the mask will interrupt the process and you’ll have to start all over. I believe the timer to obtain the mask is 3 seconds, but don’t quote me on that. (I’ll try to time it in a game and update this with a confirmed time.) At this point in time, all forms of damage prevent you from picking up a mask, including damage over time effects.

If your mask carrier drops the mask, you have 30 seconds to pick it back up before the mask despawns. If a neutral mask despawns, a new timer starts up for 60 seconds and then a new mask will be unearthed at a random location. If a stolen mask despawns, then it returns to the team that owned it previously.

In order to capture the mask, you must return it to the mask stand located in your team’s base.

While carrying a mask, you will receive a slight movement penalty, and you cannot use any movement or teleportation abilities without dropping the mask. The movement penalty is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20%; I don’t know the exact number as it doesn’t tell you anywhere in-game. You can be the target of spells that other players cast which impact your movement, such as a Warrior’s Grapple ability or a Medic’s Extricate ability (removed in a recent patch), without dropping the mask. You can also benefit from the speed buffs in the battleground itself. There’s a map further down the article here that shows you where the battleground buffs are located, and what they do.

Basics of the Map
The Walatiki Temple (WT) map consists of 5 different regions: Graveyards, Bases, Caves, Bridges, and Middle (Mid). We’ll talk a little bit about each one of these regions, take a look at where they are on the map, and how to utilize them.

Graveyards:

The graveyards, which also happen to be your starting point, are located at the south-east (Dominion) and north-west (Exile) corners of the map, roughly 40 yards counter-clockwise from the entrance of your team’s base. Exiles are based on the north (top) side of the map, and Dominion are located on the south (bottom) side.

The graveyards are raised above the battleground, with no access into the graveyard from outside. Each graveyard has two exits, one that heads towards your own base, and one that heads across the map towards your opponent’s base. Which one you want to use will depend on your situation. When the match is first starting, the left exit, the one nearest your base, gives you the fastest access to the masks, so it’s the one most players tend to use. The exit on the right, nearest to your opponents’ base, is generally used at the start of a game by those people who want to capture the enemy mask right away.

Once the match has begun, which one you use is generally going to depend more on what’s going on in the match. If you need to protect your masks, or if you have a mask carrier that’s close to capping but needs support, you generally want to use the one on the left to provide that support.

Also, the resurrection timer is set to 30 second intervals that follow the clock, so if you die at 25:29 left in the match, you’ve got 29 seconds to wait before you resurrect, but if you die at 25:02 then you only have to wait 2 seconds. If you’re capturing a flag and wondering if it will be safe for you to go to the enemy’s side of the map, that’s how you know.

Bases:

Your base is where your team keeps their captured masks, and where you capture new masks. Bases are located at the top and bottom of the map, with Exiles at the top and Dominion at the bottom.

Each base has three entrances. You can see two of them on the map above, and you’ll see the third on the map down below. The two forward entrances are located on either side of the U-shaped wall that I’ve drawn on the map above. The one on stage-right from the mask stand is near the teams’ graveyard, and the other is opposite it. The third entrance is the cave, which I’ll discus below, which is located stage-left of each base. [For those of you unfamiliar with stage directions, stage-x means if you’re standing in a base with your back to the mask stand, your character’s perceived left and right are stage-left and stage-right respectively, regardless of which direction is left or right when looking just at the map itself.]

Some people talk about directions in terms of the map itself, which ignores character perception, meaning that left=West and right=East, while others like to talk about directions in terms of the team’s perception which means left=West and right=East for Dominion while left=East and right=West for Exile. People can’t be bothered to agree on a specific definition for some reason, so you’ll have to figure out what people mean on your own.

Caves:

Some people love the caves, and some people hate them. On the one hand, using the caves is the only way to utilize a speed buff from the map without wasting time by dropping down into the middle, which is nice given that you can’t use any speed related abilities. It also keeps you out of the primary fighting areas, which means that it’s a somewhat safer method of going after a flag or returning one that you’ve captured yourself.

In the picture above, you’ll see the two entrances to each of the caves. Each cave has a PvP buff that increases your Assault and Support power, though you have to go a little bit out of your way to get it, so it can be a waste of time if you’re rushing to either capture a flag or steal it. The cave entrance that’s away from the connecting base also has a speed buff located right outside the entrance, which is the only way that a mask carrier can increase their speed without dropping the mask (more on that later).

The main drawback of using the caves is that it takes more time to use them, so if you don’t manage to get that speed boost at the end of it, then you’ve wasted the time as a flag carrier. The benefit of the caves, is that there’s very little reason to use the caves otherwise, so there’s almost never anybody in the caves to fight you. A defender will follow you in there, but otherwise it’s the “safest” route for a mask carrier to take because of the general lack of opponents found inside.

If someone steals your flag and you see that they’re going to use the cave, your job is to use sprint, dodge rolls, movement boosts, and whatever else you can to get your butt to the cave exit and get that speed boost before the mask carrier can. That way you’ve made them waste a significant amount of time to use the cave in the first place, and you’ve removed their ability to make up for some of that lost time by robbing them of the boost. If you’re escorting your own mask carrier through the enemy cave, you likewise need to make sure that you’re not stealing that speed buff from your mask carrier, or you’ve wasted your own team’s time in a similar fashion.

One thing that’s not shown about the caves by looking at the maps is that the caves travel up in elevation, so not only are you spending time by taking a less direct route, you’re also spending that time changing elevation, so it takes longer than it appears if you simply look at the map. If I knew the exact elevation I could get into the math of it all, but just trust me when I tell you that because elevation is involved you’re losing even more time that you would think.

If you want to visualize the effect though, lay your hand flat on the table in front of you with your fingers spread out, then take one of your fingers and bend it so that your palm and the tip of that finger are still touching the table but the middle knuckle is raised. Notice that the more you bend that finger, the higher the middle knuckle is raised (increased elevation) and the shorter the distance between the palm of your hand and the tip of that finger. Take note of where your fingertip is and then straighten out your finger again and notice how much distance you lost by walking over the elevation of the bent finger compared to if you had simply walked straight and avoided that elevation.

If you steal a flag at the same time I respawn at the graveyard, and you decide to take it to the cave, then I can generally beat you to the other cave entrance as shown below. While carrying the flag you don’t have access to sprint, dodge, or any of your movement abilities, while I do. So I can cover significantly more distance in the same period of time so long as I know how to counter your cave-based steal.

I’m not saying that using the caves is bad, I do it myself sometimes, it’s just the least efficient method in terms of time without getting too ridiculous and running all over the map. As I said before, it’s one of the safest method of stealing a flag out there because of it’s drawbacks, you just need to be aware of what the pros and cons are in order to utilize it effectively.

Bridges:

The bridge runs above the middle of the map, and it’s the fastest way to get from one side of the map to the other. Because there are four ways to get on the bridge, and both teams have equal access to it, the bridge is also the most dangerous route to take. The center of the bridge is also the only location for a mask to spawn that’s now down inside the pit/bowl/mid. The center of the bridge is one of the most contested areas because it’s the easiest place for you to split off and go after a mask that’s just been unearthed. One mask can spawn on top of the bridge’s center, another spawns directly below that same point, and then the other two spawn off to either side of it.

If you’re trying to go from one side of the map to the opposite side, the bridge is the fastest method to do so, plain and simple. If you want to get from one side to an adjacent side (east/west to north/south for example), then you’re generally better off just going around mid in terms of time. If there’s fighting going on around mid though, the safer bet might be to go ahead and use the bridges if they’re open. You run the risk of having opponents who’ve recently respawned catch up to you on the bridge, but at least you miss the clusters.

Mid:

People refer to this as a lot of different things, but the most common I’ve heard is “Mid” because it’s the middle of the map. Other names I’ve heard simi-commonly are Pit and Bowl, because they’re referring specifically the part of mid that’s beneath the bridge, rather than the bridge itself. Three of the four spawn points for Moodie Masks are found in mid, with one in the very center and the other two on the east and west sides of it. The four lines that intersect the circle there show you the paths in and out of the pit.

Mid is generally where you’ll find more people skirmishing than any other point for the majority of your games. Since masks spawn here a lot, there are always people down here looking for masks or looking to kill people who are looking for masks. When skirmishes happen on the bridge, people generally decide to jump down into mid when they’re about to die in hopes of escaping death or committing suicide to prevent someone from getting kill credit, and that leads to people chasing them off the bridge which leads to more people in mid. I’m sure you get the point.

Generally speaking, you’re going to spend time in mid to grab masks or to prevent the other team from doing the same. On one hand, fighting in mid for the sake of fighting in mid doesn’t really help your team as far as objectives go, so fighting in mid is kind of dumb. On the other hand, if you’re distracting the enemy team by making them fight in mid, then you’re also helping the team by tying up their players, which is brilliant. So be aware that wasting time in mid can be bad for your team, but also be aware that there are times where fighting in mid is a perfectly valid tactic. If you’re not good at being the bait though, help your team and focus on objectives.

Map Buffs

Walatiki Temple has two types of buffs. The first one increases your speed for a short time (8 seconds), and the other increases your Assault Power and Support Power. I read an article today that said grabbing either of these buffs will refresh the other if it’s currently active, but I haven’t had a chance to try that out for myself, so I cannot verify. If you can, then stealing via cave is potentially much more viable since there’s a power buff located fairly close to the speed buff. I’ll try to confirm that and let you know. You used to be able to refesh your run speed buff by grabbing the power buff, but that was fixed in a recent patch.

I don’t have hard numbers for how much these buffs give you, unfortunately. I’m pretty sure that the Power buff is percentage based, and I want to say the speed boost is 50%. I’ll have to see if I can find an addon or a macro that can calculate those things for us, or see if maybe I can find a resource online that has those answers.

Typical Steal-Capturing Routes

There are all kinds of different method you can use to capture a mask that you’ve stolen from the enemy team. When you’re grabbing an unearthed mask from mid, you’re basically going to take whichever route is shortest based on your current location so there’s not much reason for me to cover that beyond saying that generally the best/safest route is to go towards your team’s graveyard so that those who respawn after dying can more easily come to your aid rather than going towards their graveyard which makes it easier for their resurrecting players to reach you.

Cave: Slow & Safe

This seems to be the method a lot of people like to use when first getting into Wildstar PvP because it seems sort of sneaky and they think it’s cool. There’s nothing particularly wrong with capturing flags with this method, except that it uses up additional time (see above) and can really slow it down if the speed buff isn’t available. Because combat is usually focused around mid and the bridges, and the enemy team respawns on the opposite side of the map, the cave is usually a pretty safe option for returning with the flag. That’s not always true, but generally it is.

If I’m stealing a flag and I don’t find any defenders at all, that’s usually when I’ll go for the cave. If there are defenders, then I don’t take the cave unless for some reason I feel that I have to because every class has crowd control abilities that can slow you down and this is already the slowest method out there so you’re just asking to fail by taking the cave. There’s just too much time for the opposing team to react, and not enough time for your own team to get there to offer the necessary support without abandoning other parts of the field and potentially giving up an uncontested mask while they’re at it.

Bridge: Risky-Quick

Returning a stolen flag via the bridge is one of the riskiest moves you can make beyond running the flag up to the enemy base and then coming in on the side of your own cave. Chances are pretty high that you’re going to be attacked on your way back, but it is hands down the absolute fasted method of capturing without utilizing things like the Medic’s Extricate ability which essentially teleports teammates to your location (edit: fixed in patch). It’s a risky business, but the speed of the capture can be high rewards.

If things get really hairy you can move left or right instead of crossing direct, or you can even drop down into the pit if absolutely necessary. Most players tend to use the graveyard exit that’s closer to the base, so it’s often “safer” to push forward towards your base where other people can support you, but you have no control over where they go so you can’t count on that.

As with all things PvP, people have control over their own actions and can change on the fly, so you need to be able to react. If you’re looking for the absolute fastest way to capture a stolen flag though, here it is.

Default: Safe’ish & Quick’ish

This method is the one that I most often use myself, which is why I call it the default. It’s not as quick as running it over the bridge and straight down the middle of the field, but it’s as close as you can get without doing that. It’s also a bit safer because you’re going opposite of the enemy graveyard so their respawns have to run across the field to get to you while your respawns have a more direct route. It also gives you the option of moving over to the bridge if there’s a skirmish going on near your graveyard or between you and the base. You can then take the bridge over to the center and then up to your base and decide from there whether you’re going to enter your base on the left or the right.

Other Useful Tips
Beyond that, here are some other things that need to be aware of in Walatiki Temple.

1. Only 1 mask can be stolen from each team at a time. If a Dominion mask has been stolen, another Dominion mask cannot be stolen until the first is returned to the Dominion base.
2. When an unearthed mask is captured, the next mask will spawn in 60 seconds.
3. You can switch your LAS during a PvP match as long as you are not in combat. Use this to your advantage if you’re playing a class with healing capabilities to heal yourself between fights, to switch to a more survival focused set when you’re carrying a mask yourself, or to switch to a utility spec for escorting flag carriers.

If you have any tips you would like to share, or any questions that came up while reading, please leave me a comment below.

I’m not talking about the whole “get to level 14 and get sucked into housing” thing, I’m talking about people who get to level 10 and then stop playing the game because it’s boring. People who get to level 25 and then feel like it’s just too grindy to push forward. People who think that leveling a DPS Medic offers about as much appeal as sawing off your own leg with a rusty butter knife.

In the past, I have taken this kind of feedback as a challenge, to see for myself whether or not those claims are true, and to see if there is a way around it. So I’m putting a call out to you, readers, to tell me the struggles that you’ve personally had with leveling, and I want details. If you’re having trouble with a particular class, level range, zone, or something else in the leveling process then I want to know what it is.

As I said, I’ve seen a lot of these complaints on twitter. But, the nature of twitter’s 140 character limit means I don’t get much detail, so I want to open the blog to this instead.

This isn’t just a place for you to log every complaint you have about Wildstar in general, I’m looking specifically at struggles you’ve had in the leveling process. If you don’t like how today’s hot fix only included three official fixes for 90 minutes of downtime, I don’t care about that crap. But if you’ve struggled with leveling, I want to know about it.