Diablo 4: best Druid build guide

Use these skills to make the most of the Druid's versatile skill set

Author:
Oliver Brandt
Updated:
Jun 14, 2023 11:37 AM EDT
Original:
Jun 5, 2023

The Druid is a class that previously only appeared in Diablo 2’s DLC, and while it looks fairly familiar on its face in Diablo 4, it’s had a big makeover with some fantastic new abilities. Shapeshifting is still an option, and can very much be viable, but there are also new storm- and earth-based abilities to spec into, which makes for a very interesting kind of mage.

In this guide, we’ll take you through what we think is the best general build for Druids in Diablo 4, including which skills to pick when leveling up, which Spirit Boons to pick, and more.

Be sure to check out our Diablo 4 tips and tricks for more handy pointers to make your time in Sanctuary a little bit easier, and read our Diablo 4 review if you’re still on the fence about jumping in. If you haven’t settled on a class yet, you can also check out or guide for the best starting class in Diablo 4.

Other build guides:

Diablo 4: best Druid skills

The Druid is one of the most versatile classes in the game, with four major paths to go down — earth, storm, werewolf, and werebear, with the latter two having a decent amount of crossover. While all of these have their strengths and weaknesses, we think the storm skill path is the way to go, as it offers the most utility throughout the game.

Basic skill - Wind Shear

Storm Strike and Wind Shear are both very capable basic skills, but Wind Shear just gets the edge here due to its longer range and more predictable attack pattern. Wind Shear can be quickly upgraded to Enhanced Wind Shear too, which adds a 20% chance of making the enemy vulnerable, allowing you to deal huge follow-up damage with subsequent attacks. It doesn’t build up Spirit quite as fast as Storm Strike, but being able to attack from a much greater distance helps with boss fights, most of which will punish you for standing too close.

Core skill - Lightning Storm

Lightning Storm is by far the best option as a core skill, dealing huge damage at a relatively small Spirit cost. Lightning Storm gets more powerful the longer you use it in a fight, but channeling it will drain your Spirit pretty quickly if you’re not careful. The best way to use Lightning Storm is to upgrade it to Enhanced Lightning Storm as soon as possible, which preserves the storm size for a few seconds after using it. This means you can expend your Spirit, get a few hits in with your Wind Shear, then finish up with some more lightning for a satisfying combo.

Defensive skill - Cyclone Armor

Cyclone Armor, to put it lightly, is cracked. It’s by far the best skill in the Druid’s set, not only because of its passive, which reduces incoming non-physical damage by 10%, but also because of its active ability. Popping Cyclone Armor’s active skill will push enemies away, which is an absolute necessity in some of the more hectic fights with dozens of enemies. If you’re ever in a tight bind, Cyclone Armor will give you a bit of breathing room, and it cannot be overstated just how crucial that is.

Enhanced Cyclone Armor will also slow enemies that get pushed away, giving you even more time to act in a sticky situation, while Innate Cyclone Armor will make enemies pushed away vulnerable, letting you combo some big damage into them. If you’ve got all four skills on your hotbar, you should be putting points into Cyclone Armor as soon as possible.

Companion skill - Poison Creeper

There’s no wrong choice when it comes to companions as a Druid, as all of them are massively helpful in one way or another. That said, the Poison Creeper has two main uses: its passive form does a decent chunk of poison damage over time, while its active skill ensnares and further poisons enemies, giving it a fantastic 1-2 punch combo of Poison Creeper into Cyclone Armor. You can add onto that combo with Lightning Storm and even Wind Shear too, and when it all comes together with the right amount of cooldown reduction, the Druid and their trusty poison snake become almost untouchable in most fights.

Wrath skill - Hurricane

Hurricane and its upgrades take basically all of the storm path’s strengths and puts them all together in one helpful button press. Its main draw is damaging enemies that are nearby, once again adding to the Cyclone Armor to Poison Creeper combo, but its upgrades also slow enemies, make them vulnerable, and reduce their damage, all of which are welcome in this utility-heavy set. Boulder is a viable alternative too, since it pushes enemies away and deals a big chunk of damage, but we’ll get to that a little further down.

Ultimate skill - Cataclysm

Cataclysm is the obvious choice for this set, once again knocking back enemies, making them vulnerable, and dealing huge damage. It’s very much designed to go at the end of your skill combo, and like most skills in this set, offers a lot of utility and gives plenty of opportunity for follow-up skills.

Key passive skill - Perfect Storm

You can only choose one key passive skill, and it’s a tough choice. Nature’s Fury is a tantalizing option, giving you free earth skills every now and then while using storm skills (and vice versa) but we’ve doubled down on storm skills so far, so we may as well complete the set. Perfect Storm gives you a small amount of Spirit back and deals extra damage to enemies that are vulnerable, slowed, or snared, all of which are key parts of our set. By the time you’re locking into a key passive, your skill combos should be fine-tuned to ensure your enemies are always affected by at least one of these effects, so Perfect Storm is almost always in effect.

Diablo 4: best Druid passive skills

Throughout the skill tree, there are a number of passive skills that are worth picking up, and if you’re waiting to unlock the next branch of the tree, it’s worth picking up some of them to round out your skills a bit.

Here are the passives we suggest picking up when you can, along with brief descriptions:

Abundance - basic attacks give more Spirit, which helps keep combos alive longer
Heart of the Wild - increases your Spirit pool
Ancestral Fortitude - decreases the damage you take from non-physical attacks
Elemental Exposure - storm skills have a chance of making enemies vulnerable
Electric Shock - lightning damage can snare enemies, or deal extra damage to snared enemies
Endless Tempest - increases the duration of Hurricane and Cataclysm
Circle of Life - gives health back for expending Spirit
Defiance - Nature magic skills deal more damage to elite enemies
Natural Disaster - storm skills deal more damage to stunned, snared, or knocked back enemies

Diablo 4: alternative Druid skills

You can, of course, choose different skills while leveling up, if you’re finding that some of these aren’t feeling quite right. We’d suggest taking a peek into the earth skills available if you’re still keen on the ranged magic path, as there’s a decent amount of synergy between earth and storm skills. Boulder is an excellent choice, knocking back enemies and dealing a bunch of damage, while also slowing enemies with its first upgrade. Landslide is a decent enough core skill too, and mixing these in with storm skills gives a good reason to use Nature’s Fury too, which is a lot of fun to mess around with.

Diablo 4: best Spirit Boons

Spirit Boons are the unique perk of the Druid, offering up to five additional passives that maximize the damage and utility of the player character. Each animal spirit offers one boon out of four, and each of the boons are usually geared towards a specific branch of the skill tree. By bonding with one of the animal spirits, you can pick up two boons from within their set, and we strongly recommend bonding with the Snake Spirit. You can swap between your boons at any time, even mid-combat, but the key boons you’ll want to be using are as follows:

Eagle Spirit - Swooping Attacks (+10% attack speed)
Deer Spirit - Gift of the Stag (+10 max Spirit)
Wolf Spirit - Energize (15% chance to restore spirit when dealing damage)
Snake Spirit - Overload (lightning skills can spread to surrounding enemies) and Calm Before the Storm (magic skills can reduce Ultimate cooldown)