Balance keeps two dots on the boss and fills the time between them with a fixed cycle: one Wrath, two Starfires. Nothing waits on a long cooldown, so the work is keeping the dots up without delaying the cycle.

Before the pull

• Moonkin Form about 4.5 seconds out. It costs a global cooldown and 35 % of your base mana, and you stay in it all fight. Every spell on this page is cast in it.
• Starfire about 3 seconds out, timed to land as the fight starts. With Improved Starfire it is about a 3-second cast, and it is the only Starfire of the fight without an Eclipse charge. It is worth 3.6 %. Our simulator counts nothing dealt before the pull, so a Starfire that lands even a moment early is lost.

Priority

Each time you can cast, cast the first spell on this list whose condition holds. The order of your casts comes from what is ready, not from a fixed sequence.

In words:

1. Insect Swarm whenever it is off the boss, unless the fight ends within 10 seconds. With Nature's Splendor it lasts 14 seconds, 16 with the Swarming Idol. Each tick takes 15.8 % of your spell damage, so most of its damage comes from your gear. The line is worth 7.5 %.
2. Moonfire whenever its damage over time is off the boss, unless fewer than 6 seconds remain. It lasts 15 seconds, and Improved Moonfire gives it your best crit chance, 33.6 %. Worth 8.5 %.
3. Wrath in place of a Starfire that would let a dot drop. If either dot runs out before a Starfire would finish and you hold two charges or fewer, cast the 1.5-second Wrath instead. The dot goes back on a second or so sooner. It is a small line, 0.4 %.
4. Starfire while you hold an Eclipse charge. A 2.5-second cast with a charge, and your biggest hit: 53.4 % of your damage. Worth 9.8 %.
5. Wrath at no charges. It stores two charges, which is what makes the cycle one Wrath to two Starfires. Wrath deals less per second than a charged Starfire, but the second it saves on the next two Starfires pays for it. Worth 13.9 %.

In the last couple of seconds, cast Wrath rather than start a Starfire that won't finish. That is the first Wrath line in the list, and it adds nothing measurable.

Two procs need nothing from you. Clearcasting makes your next Starfire, Moonfire or Insect Swarm free, and Wrath doesn't use it up. Nature's Grace makes you cast 10 % faster for 3 seconds after a crit that isn't a dot tick. Neither changes the order.

More than one target

Against three bosses, keep Insect Swarm and Moonfire on all of them and renew each one as it drops. Your damage moves into the dots: on a three-minute fight against three bosses Insect Swarm deals 37.8 % of it and Moonfire 34.1 %, against 17.7 % for Starfire. Six dots cost far more mana than two, so on the three-minute fight you finish nearly dry. That is why Moonglow, Innervate and the mana potion are worth two to five times as much there.

On the one-minute fight, channel Hurricane once the dots are up. It has no cooldown in Forever and hits every boss each second for 10 seconds, and there it deals 34.8 % of your damage. After Moonglow a channel costs 1,121 mana, more per second than the Wrath and Starfire cycle. A one-minute fight can pay for that, so it does a little more damage there. On two and three minutes our search kept Wrath and Starfire.

Cooldowns

Use the Talisman of Ascendance on the pull and every minute after it. Each damaging spell after it adds 40 spell damage, up to five stacks.

Cast Innervate on yourself when you drop to about 500 mana with more than 20 seconds left. It quintuples your Spirit regeneration and lets all of it run while you cast, for 20 seconds. On a three-minute fight that happens once, a little past the middle. Over that fight it is worth 1.1 % with one boss and 5.1 % with three. A one-minute fight never gets that low. If your raid's healers need it more, giving it away costs you about that much.

Our simulator drinks a Major Mana Potion as soon as its largest roll, 2,250 mana, fits in your bar: early in the fight, and again when its two-minute cooldown is up on a long one.

A Night Elf presses Elune's Light on the pull, with the Talisman.

Cooldown	Uses	At
Elune's Light	1	0:00
Talisman of Ascendance	1	0:00
Major Mana Potion	1	0:13

What your log should show

Hold your Warcraft Logs report up against this table. If your casts a minute fall well short of these, you are losing time between casts.

Ability	Casts per minute	Of damage	Crit
Starfire	15.4	53.4 %	23.3 %
Moonfire	4.5	16.7 %	33.6 %
Insect Swarm	4.5	16.5 %	20.8 %
Wrath	8.2	13.3 %	24.9 %
Moonkin Form	1.0	–	–
Elune's Light	1.0	–	–
Major Mana Potion	1.0	–	–
Talisman of Ascendance	1.0	–	–

The numbers to look for: about 15.3 Starfires and 8.2 Wraths a minute, and Starfire near 53.4 % of your damage. Your Wraths should come to about half your Starfires. Fewer means some Starfires went out without a charge. More means Wraths cast while you still held charges, and charges above four are thrown away.

Uptimes

Buff or debuff	Uptime	Times per fight
Insect Swarmon the boss	100.0 %	9.0
Moonfireon the boss	91.1 %	4.0
Eclipse	82.4 %	8.2
Ascendance	34.0 %	1.0
Ascendance	33.3 %	1.0
Nature's Grace	28.2 %	6.3
Elune's Light	25.0 %	1.0
Clearcasting	13.8 %	3.1

Moonfire's damage over time should be up about 91.1 % of the fight. The gaps are the casts that miss and the moment between a dot ending and its recast. Insect Swarm shows 100 % because the benchmark raid's boss debuffs include its hit reduction, so the table can't show your own dot. Nature's Grace should be up about 28.2 %.