Below is an overview video and detailed walkthrough guide to maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS. This Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide will cover all aspects of Balance Druid Boomkin DPS including, talents, glyphs, gear, stats, enchants, gems, professions, addons, and actual DPS application. This DPS guide also includes tips on being an effective raider in endgame Cataclysm. Boomkins are awesome to play and definitely my favorite character ever. I hope this Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide makes you want to make one or play yours more! Please enjoy this Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide and if you have any questions or feedback feel free to post them on our forums.

• Overview: How to maximize Boomkin DPS! Updated for Patch 4.0.6

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Spec'ing properly - Talents

The first thing you'll need to do to max your Balance Druid Boomkin DPS is spec properly.

Spec'ing is fairly simple and usually rests on what you want to accomplish or avoid. There are many different variations to the spec I have come up with but my overall goal is to maximize boss dps in a 10m or 25m raid. I won't put any points into any mana regen talents simply because I don't have any mana issues. If you find yourself running out of mana, choose a spec below that helps with mana replenishment. Below is a list of different specs you can use for different situations.

• Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Talent Spec Choices:

Maximum Single Boomkin DPS Spec (No Mana Regen Talents)

Maximum Single DPS + AoE Spec (No Mana Regen Talents)
Partial Mana Regen Talents DPS Spec
Full Mana Regen Talents DPS Spec

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Best Glyphs

• Once you get your talents situated it's time to add some Glyphs.

  Prime Glyphs:
  [Glyph of Moonfire]
  [Glyph of Insect Swarm]
  [Glyph of Starfire] Or [Glyph of Starsurge]

  Major Glyphs:
  [Glyph of Starfall]
  [Glyph of Focus]
  [Glyph of Innverate] Or [Glyph of Rebirth] - Get if you have no mana issues or don't self-innervate.

  Minor Glyphs:
  [Glyph of the Wild]
  [Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth]
  [Glyph of Dash]

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Gear Suggestions/Selection by Stats | Reforging

• Alrighty, moving on to gear.

  Best Balance/Boomkin Druid Idol/Relic Examples:
  [Relic of Norgannon] - Valor Vendor (700pts)
  [Book of the Well Sung Song] - Deadmines: Vanessa Vancleef
  [Tattooed Eyeball] - Crafted by Scribes

  Best Balance/Boomkin Druid Trinket Examples:
  [Darkmoon Card: Volcano] - Auction House
  [Heart of Ignacious] - The Bastion of Twilight: Elementium Monstrosity
  [Theralion's Mirror] - The Bastion of Twilight: Theralion
  [Bell of Enraging Resonance] - Blackwing Descent: Atramedes
  [Witching Hourglass] - Blackrock Caverns: Ascendant Lord Obsidius

• When choosing any gear you'll want to consider a few things to see if it's worth it. Ask yourself; Does it have the stats I need now or in the future and what will I lose if I get it? I am always thinking of now and the future when I choose any piece of gear. I figure this out by calculating stats. A simple rule of thumb is:

  Best DPS Stats for Balance Druids (In order of priority):
  Intellect: Gives Spellpower, Crit, Mana, & Regen
  > greater than
  Spellpower: Oldschool stat was basically replaced by Intellect and is now only found on trinkets and weapons.
  > greater than
  Hit or Spirit: Balance of Power makes 1 Spirit = 1 Hit rating. Get either until reaching a total of 1742 which is the hit cap for Boomkin/Balance Druids. Because the tooltip doesn't update your chance to hit properly, instead take the Spirit written in green and add it to your Hit rating to find out how close you are to the cap.
  >/= greater than or equal to
  Haste rating: Haste pretty much adds the same DPS as Hit/Spirit until you get 1742 Hit rating and then Haste becomes superior. Haste doesn't have a realistic cap as of yet in Cataclysm.
  > greater than
  Mastery rating: Mastery doesn't help Balance Druids as much as other classes thereby making it a low ranking stat priority but is still decent.
  > greater than
  Critical strike rating: A stat that was once extremely important and beneficial has now sunk to the bottom in priority.
  When choosing gear I think about what stats I'm lacking or don't need and what I'd have to replace or remove to make a piece of gear work. Reforging has made this a lot easier. If I lose too much hit but know I can temperarily reforge around it until I get another piece that will make up the hit, I'll take the piece. I take such precaution because I don't want to be a prick and take a piece of gear from another player if I have no use for it.

• With the introduction of Reforging choosing gear has become less of a headache. Now when a piece has a stat you need now but won't next week, you can change it. Reforging adds a lot of flexibility we didn't previous have with gear although some could argue enchants and gems did just that.
  

  Best Reforging Practices for Most Cases:
  
  Below 1742 Hit rating:
  Crit/Haste Rating Gear -> Reforge Crit to Hit/Spirit
  Mastery/Haste Rating Gear -> Reforge Mastery to Hit/Spirit
  
  Above 1742 Hit rating:
  Spirit/Hit Rating Gear -> Reforge to Haste if possible. If not, Mastery.
  
  At or slightly above 1742 Hit rating:
  Crit or Mastery Rating Gear -> Reforge Crit or Mastery to Haste

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Suggested Enchants

• Once you get new gear the first thing you'll want to do is enchant and gem it. Duh. Enchants are quite simple and should be spellpower to bracers, gloves, and weapon. Spellpower/crit to helm and shoulders, stats to chest, haste to cloak, spellpower/spirit to pants, and stam/minor run speed to boots. I've listed all the typical Enchants below.
• Suggested Boomkin DPS Enchants:

Bracers - [Enchant Bracer - Mighty Intellect] +50 Intellect
Gloves - [Enchant Gloves - Haste] +50 Haste
Weapon 1h - [Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent] Proc: 500 Int for 12 secs
Off-Hand - [Enchant Off-Hand - Superior Intellect] +40 Intellect
Staff - [Enchant Weapon - Power Torrent] Proc: 500 Int for 12 secs
Shoulders - [Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone] +50 Intellect & +25 Haste - Therazane: Exalted (+30int/20haste version at Honored)
Helm - [Arcanum of Hyjal] +60 Intellect & +35 Crit - Guardians of Hyjal: Revered
Chest - [Enchant Chest - Peerless Stats] +20 stats
Cloak - [Enchant Cloak - Greater Intellect] +50 Intellect
Pants - [Powerful Ghostly Spellthread] +95 Intellect / +55 Spirit
Boots - [Enchant Boots - Lavawalker] +35 Mastery & +minor run speed

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Suggested Meta/Gems & Professions

• For gems it's also easy since you'll be gemming Intellect everywhere pretty much unless a socket bonus is worth getting. Put [Brilliant Inferno Ruby] into any red or prismatic socket. For yellow/blue sockets, if the bonus is less than +20 Intellect, gem Brill and if it's +20 Intellect or better, use [Purified Demonseye] or [Reckless Ember Topaz] . The best meta for Boomkins is currently the new [Burning Shadowspirit Diamond]. It requires atleast three red gems so make sure to absolutely nothing pretty much because you should have a ton more than three red gems anyway.

  Best Suggested Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Meta and Gems:
  [Burning Shadowspirit Diamond]
  [Brilliant Inferno Ruby]
  [Purified Demonseye]
  [Reckless Ember Topaz]

• Next, you'll want to think about which professions to choose. Tailoring is currently the best DPS profession a Boomkin can have in my opinion although it may seem very impracticle. I chose Alchemy for the extra 1 hour on my Flask and Jewelcrafting for it's convenience plus the extra 1 Intellect above other professions is amazing; well not really lol but I do really like Jewelcrafting. Both are also great gold makers and if you know me, I'm pretty big about making gold (^_-).

  Boomkin Profession Benefit Breakdown:
  Tailoring (Cloak Proc): Avg. +120 Intellect
  Leatherworking (Bracers): +80 Intellect
  Blacksmithing (2 Sockets Bracers/Gloves): +80 Intellect
  Jewelcrafting (3 Gems): +81 Intellect
  Alchemy (Flask): +80 Intellect
  Enchanting (Rings): +80 Intellect
  Inscription: +80 Intellect
  Engineering (Gloves): Avg. +80 Intellect
  
  Lesser DPS Increase:
  Herbalism: +80 Haste
  Skinning: +80 Crit
  

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Suggested Addons

• Finally, the last thing to worry about before pulling a boss is addons. Personally I'm a minimalist and barely use any but they can be quite helpful to some. Standard raid addons should be something like Omen Threat Meter, Deadly Boss Mods, and Recount. For Boomkins it's good to have SquawkAndAwe and Quartz. I've included some links below and brief explanation of what each addon does.
• Suggested Boomkin DPS Addons and Brief Explanation:

Standard Raiding Addons:
• Omen Threat Meter - Provides accurate values of your group's relative threat level on individual enemies, so that you can see when you're in danger of pulling aggro (or, if you're next on the snack list if your tank bites it).
• Deadly Boss Mods - An all in one boss mod with many options and customization.
• Recount - A graphical damage meter with appearance settings.

Boomkin DPS Addons:
• SquawkAndAwe - SquawkAndAwe provides a timer for:
  Trinket procs and Use
  Eclipse procs, with differences based on which proc occurs
  Eclipse cooldown
  Omen of Clarity
  Omen of Doom
  Elune's Wrath
  Wrath of Elune (gg Blizzard set bonus names)
  Moonfire (and a smaller bar for each tick)
  Insect Swarm (and a smaller bar for each tick)
  Faerie Fire
  Entangling Roots
  Hibernate
  Cyclone
  Starfall
  Typhoon
  Force of Nature
  Innervate
  Barkskin
  the GCD
  Options exist to turn on/off each bar separately, allow text on the bars showing name and duration, whether to flash the Proc bars, tick bars for DoTs, and SquawkAndAwe integrates with SharedMedia to allow textures and fonts.
• Quartz - The core of Quartz is lightweight implementation of a standard casting bar, with configurable size, text and icon positioning, and colors.

While I've never had a problem with any addon I've downloaded from Curse, it never hurts to virus scan any file you download from the internet.

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Before the Pull Preparation

• Alright so you got your talents, glyphs, gear, stats, enchants, gems, professions, and addons, it's finally time for the fun part. Blasting the hell out of any boss. Before the pull make sure you have all the buffs possible. Have Volcanic Potions ready, eat a feast or self buff any +90 Intellect food. Also make sure you have a Flask of the Draconic Mind up and if there is only one mage in the group, ask for Focus Magic. Also, see if there is a shaman in the group. One of the biggest mistakes I see players make is outranging totems. After you get all that situated, to maximize your dps on any boss, you'll want to actually use your brain and think a bit of the encounter. Ask yourself a few questions. Will I be moving a lot? Will there be things to AoE? Will I take a lot of damage? Do I expect someone to die? The last one is typically yes someone will die and be screaming for a brez. As a boomkin your job to most raids is to provide a dps buff, a brez, and an innervate. It's ok, the mage thinking that is only good for FM, food, and water or the shaman who's only good for Bloodlust or Heroism. Whoa ok, back to the Boomkin dps guide.

Maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide: Spell Rotation/DPS Encounter Suggestions

• As for your spell rotation, I personally believe there is no such thing as a Boomkin rotation. If you stick to thinking that then you won't ever maximize your dps potential. Sure we have a 'general' spell rotation but instead, think of your spells in a priority and situational sense. What do I do when? Every situation and boss is different but there are some easy to follow rules of thumb.
• Start every boss encounter by casting Insect Swarm then Moonfire then Starfall followed by Starsurge. Then spam Starfire until Solar(Wrath) Eclipse procs. Once Solar Eclipse procs, switch over to Wrath and spam that until Lunar(Starfire) Eclipse procs and then switch back to Starfire. During every boss encounter, make sure to keep both Insect Swarm and Moonfire up at all times and use Starsurge, Starfall, and Treants any time they are off cooldown. If you know Bloodlust is coming, you can always time it with your Treants as long as it doesn't reduce the amount of times you'll be able to use Treants in the encounter. It's also best to use any 'on use' type trinkets and Volcanic Potions during Bloodlust. This is just a basic spell rotation and many factors can change when each spell should be cast. For instance, you may want to save Starfall for AoE during an encounter if it happens early. It's also good to use DoTs on all adds if they will be alive for more than a few seconds as well as setting down Wild Mushrooms to AoE adds. If possible, being in a Solar Eclipse is ideal for any AoE situation.
• During high movement fights, when you know you'll have to move in a few seconds, cast as many Starfire or Wrath casts as possible even if you need to refresh DoTs. Once the movement starts, cast Moonfire then Insect Swarm and use Wild Mushroom on cooldown. It's ideal to be in the Eclipse while moving so if you can time that, you'll get a nice damage boost. I also like to do what I call Global Cooldown Moving. Basically, I will move during a Global, stop and cast, then move again. From there it's a constant thought process of what will come next in the encounter. Continue casting your spells at the best times and you should be topping charts in no time. This will take some getting use to and practice but I'm sure most players can decently perfect Balance Druid Boomkin DPS!
• Finally, have fun while playing your Boomkin. Get in a grove and your spells will just flow maximizing your DPS at the same time. Music can be a big help.
• Well there you have it, a simple, ok kinda complex walkthrough of maximizing Balance Druid Boomkin DPS.

Good luck and I hope you enjoyed this Balance Druid Boomkin DPS Guide. If you have any suggestions, comments, or feedback, please comment below or make a post on our forums.