Best Druid builds in Diablo 4 Season 4 for levelling & endgame

Best Druid builds in Diablo 4 Season 4 for levelling & endgame
Images via Blizzard

Written by 

Dave McAdam & Jack Roberts

Last updated 

21st May 2024 11:07

Contents

The Druids of Diablo 4 take the wild elements and beasts of Sanctuary as their inspiration and power, drawing on them to create powerful magic - so knowing some of the best builds to use on them is bound to be beneficial for your playthroughs.

Whether for levelling or for the endgame, we have builds that incorporate all the best skills, alongside the Vampiric Powers added to the game in Season 2 that will get the most out of your Druid.

Best Druid levelling build in Season 4

Our recommendation for a levelling build is  Nature's Fury, one of the strongest and most fun-to-use abilities in Diablo 4. With Nature's Fury, when you cast a Storm or Earth skill, a random skill from the other element in the same category has a 30% chance to also cast for free. With this, Druids can be constantly pumping out attacks and doing massive damage.

The skills we recommend for this Nature's Fury levelling build are:

Skill Skill Tree
Storm Strike Basic
Tornado Core
Earthen Bulwark Defensive
Cyclone Armour Defensive
Trample Wrath
Cataclysm Ultimate
Nature's Fury Passive

Nature's Fury has changed, and now the free skills it casts will count as both Earth and Storm skills. So for example, if you cast Boulder and you get a free cast of Hurricane, that Hurricane will gain any passive bonuses you have for both Storm and Earth skills.

This change alone might be enough to make Nature's Fury the best levelling build in the game and is ideal for farming XP to help you level up.

While Nature's Fury isn't available until you are around level 33, it will be a force to be reckoned with when it reaches its full potential.

This is true for many builds so it isn't a huge problem, but be aware that this build comes together later in the campaign, but still more than early enough to get you through the mid to higher levels of the Season of Loot

A Druid holding his hands together in Diablo 4
Click to enlarge

For this build, you will want to focus on Uniques that buff your Storm and Earth skills. An item with the Symbiotic Aspect would be ideal, as its ability reduces the cooldown of Earth's non-ultimate skills when Nature's Fury procs a Storm skill, and vice versa.

Another excellent aspect of this build is the Aspect of Natural Balance, as this increases the critical chance for Storm and Earth skills when the opposite is cast.

Use Earthen Bulwark with the Aspect of Mending Stone to not only grant increased duration but also reduce the cooldown of EB every time you cast an Earth skill, which will be often with Nature's Fury.

This build pairs nicely with crowd-control effects, as the Season 2 update also changed some Druid Paragon effects to increase the damage dealt to crowd-controlled enemies. The Aspect of Quicksand causes all of your Earth skills to slow your enemies by 25% at first, increasing to 50% with further hits.

A druid casting boulder against some vampire enemies in Diablo 4 Season 2
Click to enlarge

Now we get a little interesting with the build, as we are going to incorporate Trample, a Werebear skill, into the build as we want to use the Aspects of Trampled Earth and Aftershock.

Trampled Earth turns Trample into an Earth nature magic skill, and creates several rows of Landslide to appear and hit nearby enemies. Aftershock causes a Landslide to hit twice, which applies to each instance of a Landslide created by Trampled Earth.

So to break that down, you use Trample, it creates several rows of Landslides each hitting twice, and those attacks have a 30% chance to cast a Storm skill (in this case, Lightning Storm or Tornado), thanks to Nature's Fury.

Nature's Fury rotation

As such, we recommend you use the following rotation:

  • Activate Earthen Bulwark to protect yourself and become immune to CC
  • Trample into a group of enemies to proc the Landslides, and at least a few Storm skills thanks to Nature's Fury
  • Clean up with Storm Strike and Tornado to reduce the cooldown of Trample
  • Reapply Earthen Bulwark as needed

With this Season 2 version of Nature's Fury, we then want to pile on as many items and Aspects as we can find to buff the damage of either Earth or Storm skills, as the many Storm skills we produce through the passive will be affected by both.

Finally, if you want to incorporate one of the Vampiric Powers added back in Season 2, you'll want to spend your Pacts on Hectic for with this build. It reduces all your cooldowns by 2 seconds on every fifth cast of your basic skills, great for keeping the Trample train rolling.

Nature's Fury build gear recommendations

As regards to gear stats, here is what we recommend focusing on:

Weapons

  • Two-handed weapons with:
    • Core Skill Damage
    • Sockets

Armour

  • Life
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Skill Ranks
  • Willpower
  • Armour
  • Overpower Damage
  • Attack Speed
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Damage Reduction
  • Spirit Cost Reduction

Jewellery

  • Spirit Cost Reduction
  • Damage
  • Nature Skill Damage
  • Movement Speed
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Damage to Slowed Enemies
  • Physical Damage

Best endgame Druid build for Season 4

The Pulverize Werebear build has consistently been top-tier for Druids in the endgame.

As this is an endgame build, it will require a fair amount of rare Uniques that may take some time to gather, but once you do this build comes together into something special, ideal for moving into the higher World Tiers. The skills we recommend for this build are:

Skill Skill Tree
Maul Basic
Pulverize Core
Earthen Bulwark Defensive
Trample Wrath
Boulder Wrath
Petrify Ultimate
Earthen Might Passive

You might notice a fair amount of Earth skills in that list, and for excellent reason. For this, we need the Vasily's Prayer Unique helmet, which makes it so your Earth skills count as Werebear skills, and also grant Fortify for good measure. This way, we can utilise useful Earth skills and they will flow nicely with our build.

You might have also noticed that the skills listed lack the crucial ingredient of transforming you into a Werebear, which is where the Insatiable Fury Unique chest armour comes into play. This Unique keeps you permanently in Werebear form (unless you use a skill that transforms you into another form), it also grants +2 to all Werebear skills, which thanks to Vasily's Prayer, also includes our Earth skills.

Aspects that we want for this build include Ursine Horror, Shockwave, Quicksand, Trampled Earth, and Ballistic. The big one from that list is Shockwave, so focus on that one first and foremost. It adds a shockwave effect to Pulverize which fires forward in a straight line, essentially turning it into a ranged attack that also hits twice at close range.

Ursine Horror also transforms Pulverize, by turning it into an Earth skill and adding tectonic spikes that damage nearby enemies for a couple of seconds. Why this is important for the Earth skill change, as this paired with Insatiable Fury gives Pulverize the many benefits granted to both Earth and Werebear skills.

These Aspects and abilities are really important for Diablo 4's many dungeons, as they will decimate groups of enemies in tight corridors.

A Druid using lightning on a monster in Diablo 4 Season 2
Click to enlarge

Pulverize is going to be doing massive amounts of damage, bolstered by the other skills and buffs we have equipped, and this is before we even get to the Overpower damage. Overpower has been buffed pretty much across the board in Season 2, for example, the Overpower damage granted by Insatiable Fury has been doubled, and there are even more ways to proc the effect.

The new Banished Lord's Talisman amulet grants guaranteed Overpower to your Core skill (which is Pulverize) every time you spend 300 Spirit, and increases Overpower critical damage. The Obsidian Slam Spirit Boon grants your next Earth skill Overpower (which Pulverize counts as) after your 20th kill.

Provocation grants Overpower to your next skill after 24 seconds in Werebear form (which is now permanent). Upgrading Pulverize to Enhanced Pulverize gives it innate Overpower every 12 seconds so long as you stay above 80% health, which should be easy with the amount of Fortify we are generating.

There are so many ways to take advantage of Overpower with this build. One of the new Vampiric Powers fits very nicely with this, which is Blood Boil. When you proc Overpower with a Core skill (which will happen a lot), you will spawn 3 Volatile Blood Drops. Collecting them causes them to explode and deal damage to all nearby enemies. For good measure, this power passively makes your next skill Overpower every 20 seconds.

Before Season 2 and the changes that came with it, this build was really strong, but it lacked single-target damage. Now it has five different ways to proc Overpower, all of which can be directed at a single target for maximum damage.

This build will tear through Nightmare Dungeons as a Werebear should, and with the recent buffs, it also has the damage to take on Uber endgame bosses.

Gear recommendations for the Pulverize Werebear build

As regards to gear stats, here is what we recommend focusing on:

Weapons

  • Two-handed weapons with:
    • Core Skill Damage
    • Overpower Damage
    • Sockets

Armour

  • Life
  • Cooldown Reduction
  • Skill Ranks
  • Willpower
  • Armour
  • Overpower Damage
  • Attack Speed
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Damage Reduction
  • Spirit Cost Reduction

Jewellery

  • Spirit Cost Reduction
  • Damage
  • Werebear Skill Damage
  • Movement Speed
  • Critical Strike Chance
  • Damage to Slowed Enemies
  • Physical Damage

How good is the Druid in Diablo 4?

While there are certainly no bad classes in Diablo 4, the Druid is currently sat in the D-tier of our tier list. However, with every update they do seem to improve.

Two of the most improved builds for the Druid in Season 4 centre around Nature's Fury and using Overpower with Werebear transformations as we've mentioned above.

Overpower is much stronger in Druid builds now as it scales off of your health and Fortify, which has been massively buffed. Fortify is now based on your maximum life rather than base life, meaning an overall increase in Fortify and, and turn, an increase in Overpower damage.

A druid with wolves in Diablo 4
Click to enlarge

With several abilities and items that guarantee regular Overpower hits, building for Overpower as a Werebear is a serious contender for top-tier damage output.

While I very much enjoyed the Druid I made for Season 3, the lower overall strength of the character has led me to try out some other options in Season of the Loot. Who knows what the future holds for this shapeshifter though, and hopefully it'll grow stronger as time goes on.

Not quite gelling with the Druid as much as you hoped? Why not try one of the other build guides that we've crafted for Diablo 4's other classes:

Dave McAdam
About the author
Dave McAdam
Dave is a Senior Guides Writer at GGRecon, after several years of freelancing across the industry. He covers a wide range of games, with particular focus on shooters like Destiny 2, RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, and fighting games like Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8.
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