Introduction

Welcome to the Rudar Balance Druid PvP Guide. The guide is a deep dive into the strategies used by top balance druids. Much of the information in this guide is credited to many of whom I've watched and theory crafted closely with. Some of the most influential include, Dipi, Camel, Supatease, Corkiri, Shamms, Astralisk, Jaybeezy, Asbur, and many more. This guide has been in the making for now over 3 years.

This guide picks out the strategies and playstyles that have worked for nearly a decade. Many of the strategies you could so call the "fundamentals" of playing Balance Druid in arena. Many of which can start to feel obscure when LFG or SOLOQ teammates demand you do this and that because X balance druid does it at high rating. This is the clarity, what I tell you in this guide is what I believe in my heart to be the best general way to play for ultimate control over the outcome of each arena. At the time of writing my first draft of this guide, I ended the season as the highest ever rated SOLOQ player in the world with frequent top 20 and sometimes 1 3v3 ladder placements: Check-PvP

This guide weighs the pros and the cons of many playstyles, displays general optimal strategies into specific comp archetypes. Many of which can only truly be discovered from iterating game after game at end of season rank 1 rating. This guide displays how to play the game with the grain using strong fundamental strategies learned from over 30,000 arenas like prioritizing damage, kiting, and positioning. This guide opens the flood gates to opportunities within arena and equips you with the tools to both recognize and take advantage of them.

Best Practices

This guide is best used sequentially as earlier chapters build on later ones. As you get higher and higher rating the later chapters matter more and more. This guide is meant to be used over about a 4 week span and to be referenced afterwards when you find plateaus or need quick Addon/UI imports.

How I use this Guide

Personally when I take break for more than 3-6 months, I like to re-read this guide to ensure I play properly. There is no reason to rediscover how to play when its already written down. I find the closer I adhere to the rules in this guide the better I play. However, nobody is perfect I know that I can only play with 70-75% accuracy, and when very practiced maybe 80%. Given this, I believe the skill ceiling to boomy is far higher than people know. Players like Dipi and Prev I believe when very practiced adhere to 80-90% of the guide in any given arena.

If there were more players and more competition, I'm sure there would be players reaching the 95% threshold on a consistent basis. At that point you can solo carry your team with pure fundamentals, making games hard to lose.

Philosophy

I like to think my understanding of win conditions, positioning, and kiting fundamentals is what has always given me my edge, rather than iq, raw talent, fake casting, or interrupting. The ability to utilize the strengths that Balance Druid has over other casters, like high armor, and high mobility lends serious advantages against any team with a melee DPS. While almost always being the kill target, you get to position yourself, the enemy melee, and the enemy healer. In a way, you can control every players' positioning, then exploit it. And if they decide not to go you, massive damage and cyclones give your team an overall momentum advantage. It's a lose lose for the enemy team. That is the key baseline to how I play.

You can only build a playstyle on precog and pure fake casting if you have 5+ years experience at the rank 1 level on any caster. Situational awareness is everything when it comes to fake casting. Your current rating, hp bars, matchup, map, positioning, and drs all impact when to fake cast or if you want to call their bluff for not interrupting. I see far too many boomys attempting and failing to imitate players like Samiyam or Asbur winning games through cyclones, only to be hardstuck for multiple seasons.

Playing the same talents/gear and threading a needle into the darkness with 30 cyclones and hoping in 4 minutes there is an offensive cd up and the enemy has not cycled back trinkets/cds is a poor way to play. That only works with an op comp and or an immense experience advantage over the opponent. Just think how easy it is to fake cast a 1500 player. It gets far harder and riskier of a playstyle as you attempt to climb new rating heights. It generally only works from the top down when boosting or in an op comp, not as a means to climb.

This guide teaches you how to win on all fronts. How to plan and playout a game where you win on, mana, cds, damage, positioning, and lastly trinkets. I like winning from slow unstoppable momentum and ending the game in an unrecoverable landslide, often resulting in double kills. Fake-casting is just the cherry on top.

If I were to give one thing to my younger self before I started PvP back in 2015. It would be this guide.