Druid is one of the most versatile characters out of the five classes in Diablo 4, allowing for various leveling and endgame builds. With the game out for a while now, we’ve compiled together two builds for the character that unlocks its full potential. So if you wanted to kickstart your Druid journey in Diablo 4, you are at the correct place.
Toxic Werewolf Druid Build
One of the most popular Druid builds from the two betas Diablo 4 has, the toxic werewolf build utilizes the speed and ferocity of the wolf form of the character and mixes poison into it. The goal of this build is to deal poison damage on the enemy as much as possible, giving them passive poison damage on top of the active damage that Druid will do.
In this Diablo 4 build, Druid utilizes the poison vines to kickstart the toxic build-up while scratching and biting their enemies to deal blood damage. This build is perfect for people that primarily want to fight the enemies in their faces using the Werewolf form. Furthermore, this build also helps crowd-controlling by a slight margin, thanks to two skills.
The strategy to use this build is simple-start the attack using the poison vine and then switch to your physical attacks, doubling the damage in the process. The following skills are required to use this build effectively. Keep in mind that this build was created with reaching level 25 in mind, and it’s an early leveling build. Hence, we have not added the ultimate and key passive in this build.
Basic Skill
- Skill to unlock: Claw
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced Claw and Fierce Claw
To start the Druid’s toxic werewolf build, the first skill we require is Claw. In it, the Druid will transform into a werewolf and will claw at the enemies. This is an essential skill for two reasons. The first reason is that this skill essentially opens up the pathway to future skills. The second is that Claw will help Druid replenish spirit points, which is essential to use the other skills in this build.
Claw helps in generating nine spirit points every hit while outputting 94 damage. One point should be sufficient for this skill. If you are left with additional skill points, throw more points into it to increase the damage output.
Once you select Claw, make sure you pick Enhanced Claw and Fierce Claw under this skill. Enhanced Claw will increase the attack speed by +10%, while Fierce Claw will apply 10% poisoning damage over six seconds.
Core Skills
- Skill to unlock: Shred
- Points to allot: Five
- Supporting skills: Enhanced Shred and Raging Shred
The second essential skill we require for this build is Shred. This skill will help us output the necessary damage. Shred injures exponentially, with the first attack dealing 25% damage, the second dealing 35%, and the third attack dealing 60% damage.
Because of this, the skill will become an indispensable skill for melee-based werewolf builds like this. Ensure that you put five points into this skill, as this multiplies the attack to 35%, 49%, and 84%.
Once maxed out, choose Enhanced Shred, and Raging Shred. Enhanced Shred helps the skill gain +30% attack speed and heals you for 1% of your maximum life if an enemy takes damage from it. Raging Shred increases the intensity of the third attack and applies 51% poisoning damage over five seconds.
Defensive Skills
- Skill to unlock: Debilitating Roar
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced Debilitating Roar
Since this build opens up Druid totally toward the enemies in Diablo 4, we will require a defensive skill. Debilitating Roar helps in achieving that. When overwhelmed by a hoard of enemies poking and hitting at you, Debilitating Roar will make Druid scream a roar.
This roar will reduce the nearby enemy’s damage dealt by 70% for four seconds, giving you enough time to poison and maim them. Put one point into this skill. As an added measure, pick up Enhanced Debilitating Roar, as it fortifies you for 22% base life.
Companion Skills
- Skill to unlock: Vine Creeper
- Points to allot: Two
- Supporting skills: Enhanced Poison Creeper and Ferocious Poison Creeper
One of the features of Druid in Diablo 4 is that they utilize nature as a companion, and we will take advantage of that for this build. The Vine Creeper will help with two things. First, it will immobilize the enemies on the ground, restricting their movement for a set duration and poisoning them for 99% damage. Second, as a passive, a poison creeper will keep poking out from the ground every other second, applying 40% poison damage to an enemy in the area for six seconds.
This skill ensures that we damage the enemies with all our might. Put two points into it. Pick Enhanced Poison Creeper and Ferocious Poison Creeper skills as an added measure. Enhanced Poison Creeper immobilizes the enemy for an extra second, whereas Ferocious Poison Creeper increases the active poisoning duration by three seconds.
Wrath Skills
- Skill to unlock: Rabies
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced Rabies
Another crucial skill for crowd-controlling, Rabies spreads the infection inflicted by the werewolf on the enemies. Every bite of Rabies deals 28% damage and applies 58% poisoning damage over six seconds. Put one skill point into this skill. If you want Rabies to spread quickly across the enemies, dealing damage passively to hoards of enemies, throw in additional points. We suggest upgrading the skill based on the use case.
As an added measure, you can always select Enhanced Rabies, which increases the poison damage over the lifetime of the disease, dealing 30% bonus damage.
Passives
- Skill to unlock: Predatory Instinct under core skills,
- Points to allot: One, but increase if needed
- Supporting skills: Nil
Since we will fight enemies at a close range, we will pick the Predatory Instinct skill. This increases the critical strike chance against enemies close to Druid by 2%. Throw in more points to increase your chances of a critical strike. This passive is found under the core skill section.
Earth Bear Druid Build
This particular build in Diablo 4 is for people that want to enjoy the werebear form of Druid and utilize the power of the Earth to deal damage. The goal here is simple – utilize the landslide ability to its maximum potential.
This build is meant for end-game, and since this is one of the preferred builds for many people on the internet, we thought we should mention it in the list. As usual, this is based on the information made available through the last two betas. Hence, things might change when the game launches on 2nd June. Furthermore, we are assuming that the character has reached level 50 since this is an endgame build.
Basic Skill
- Skill to unlock: Earth Spike
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced and Wild Earth Spike
The first skill we will unlock is the Earth Spike, which allows Druid to sunder the earth and impale enemies. Any enemy that takes the first hit of this skill will take 16% damage in the process. Put one skill point into this.
To make this skill better, grab the Enhanced Earth Spike, which gives Earth Spike a 10% chance to stun, and Wild Earth Spike, which summons an additional spike while hitting a stunned enemy, doubling the damage.
Core Skills
- Skill to unlock: Landslide
- Points to allot: Five
- Supporting skills: Enhanced and Primal Landslide
Quite possibly one of our important skills for this build, Landslide crushes enemies between two pillars, dealing 105% damage in the process. Since we will heavily rely on this skill, ensure that this is completely leveled up.
Grab Enhanced Landslide, which amplifies the damage from Landslide four times while immobilizing enemies for three seconds, and Primal Landslide, which gives Druid a Terramote. This ensures that Druid can cause a guaranteed Critical Strike with x40% Critical Strike damage.
Defensive Skills
- Skill to unlock: Earthen Bulwark
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced and Persevering Earthen Bulwark
For defense, we will go with Earthen Bulwark. This skill will allow us to shield attacks from enemies, by allowing rocks to surround Druid for three seconds, and a barrier that absorbs 45% of our base life in damage. Put one point in it.
To improve the build, we will additionally pick Enhanced Earthen Bulwark, as it makes us unstoppable, and Persevering Earthen Bulwark, which grants us 18% base life as fortify.
Companion Skill
- Skill to unlock: Vine Creeper
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Enhanced and Brutal Vine Creeper
Just like the previous build, we will pick the handy Vine Creeper as our companion skill, as it helps us not only deal passive and active poison damage on the enemy but also helps us to root enemies at their place for a while.
Make sure to pick up Enhanced Poison Creeper, which increases the immobilization duration by 1 second, and Brutal Poison Creeper, which increases the critical strike chance by 20% against enemies stuck in the vines.
Wrath Skills
- Skills to unlock: Hurricane and Trample
- Points to allot: Five Each
- Supporting skills: Enhanced and Natural Hurrican for Hurricanes, and Enhanced and Savage Trample for the Trample
Under this section, we will be going for two Wrath skills in favor of skipping the ultimate skill, simply because Wrath has the skill necessary for crowd-controlling.
The first skill we will pick is Hurricane, which forms a hurricane around the player that deals 136% damage to surrounding enemies for 8 seconds. Pick up the Enhanced Hurricane and Natural Hurricane to improve this skill better.
The second skill we will pick for this Diablo 4 Druid build is Trample, which helps with clearing groups of enemies by knocking them away. The goal is to knock the enemies towards a terrain, which deals additional damage. To make this skill better, we will pick Enhanced Trample and Savage Trample.
Key Passive
- Skill to unlock: Earthen Might
- Points to allot: One
- Supporting skills: Nil
Since primarily we are focusing on making a build that takes advantage of Earth skills, we will choose Earthen Might as our key passive. This is because Earthen Might allows Druid to restore all of their spirit points and gives guaranteed critical strikes for five seconds. Furthermore, the chances increase by 10% if enemies are hit with a critical strike, stunned, immobilized, or knocked back.
Because we will use Trample at numerous points, this key passive will benefit the build a lot, when it comes to critically damaging the enemies.
Passives
- Skills to unlock: Heart of the Wild, Abundance, and Wild Impulses under Core Skills, Crushing Earth, Safeguard, and Stone Guard under Wrath Skills.
- Points to allot: Three each for every single one of them. Two for Safeguard.
- Supporting skills: Nil
The final skills we need to unlock are the key passives to improve respective skills.
Back at the core skills, we will unlock Heart of the Wild, Abundance, and Wild Impulses. Heart of the Wild and Abundance helps in spirit generation, while Wild Impulses increases damage, at the cost of charging more spirit. These three passives offset each other, resulting in a more standardized spirit usage.
Under the Wrath skills, we will unlock Crushing Earth, Safeguard, and Stone Guard. These three passives amplify the earth-based skills exponentially. Furthermore, Safeguard and Stone Guard help in fortifying the Druid, while also increasing the damage output.
