Druid Leveling Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 13)

Introduction

This is the general guide for Druid Leveling. The page offers information on our recommended leveling builds, leveling tips, and explanations for Druid systems, including Spirit, Spirit Boons, and other Druid Mechanics.

Throughout the guide, there will be links to other relevant guides that help explain systems and content within Diablo 4.

These Druid Leveling builds are all viable and competitive, and can be chosen based on playstyle preference.

Lightning Storm Druid Leveling Build

Shred Druid Leveling Build

Pulverize Druid Leveling Build

Companion Druid Leveling Build

The Lightning Storm Druid is a Human Form caster, channeling targeted Lightning Storms in a wide coverage.
- Favorite Unique Item: Unsung Ascetic’s Wraps improve the amount of Lightning Strikes and damage of your Lightning Storm.

The Pulverize Druid is a mid-range build that deals large smashes of damage with Pulverize.
- Favored Unique Item: Purified Lightbringer pulls Distant enemies towards you, to better group them into your smashes.

The Shred Druid is a melee Druid with high mobility, dashing from target to target, cleaving enemies down.
- Favorite Unique Item: Waxing Gibbous gives chances for extra strikes against your enemies with Shred.

The Companion Druid embraces the pet style gameplay to summon your Companions for deadly effect. All Companions are good damage, but your Wolves really shine.
- Favorite Unique Item: Storm’s Companion electrifies your Wolves, granting them a Storm Howl and favorable Storm Tags.

If you are already Level 70, choose an endgame guide from the Druid Builds Page.

Steve’s Season 13 Notes

For the official season blog, check out the post here.

Lord of Hatred

This season has no particular theme and instead introduces the latest DLC content, Lord of Hatred.

New features to unlock and look at include updated Skill Trees, War Plans, Talismans with their Seals and Charms, and the Horadric Cube.

The campaign is excellent and better than Vessel’s. Take your time and enjoy it. Or skip everything and rush through, whatever.

Difficulty is further spread out along even more Torment levels now, with Torment 12 being about equivalent to Pit 100. Each rise in Torment gives stacking bonuses to better loot drops, and also increases experience and gold% drops as you go up. This means world content and its rewards will stay meaningful longer, rather than capping at a T4 level of rewards.

Leveling Route

Grab your favorite Pet from the Wardrobe, and grab your favorite Mercs from the Den, and start that campaign!

I personally recommend the newest Lightning Storm human druid leveling build! The native bonuses to being human give better Spirit Generation and Cooldown reduction, so Lightning Storm has easy upkeep and smooth play. The widescale targeted Skill is great for clearing any content, and the Omnibolt Skill Variation is an excellent boss killer as well.

However, it is a new expansion with lots of content and options to discover! The Skill Tree is reworked with many viable variations, upgrades, and combinations, especially while leveling. Feel free to experiment; it is a lovely time to do so. I have included skill flex options in all my leveling builds to help accommodate that, if you are looking for ideas.

General Leveling Tips

Choosing your World Tier: The fastest experience at the start of a season is Normal or Hard. Each additional step-up in difficulty will increase experience and rewards, but can result in a total speed loss if things are living too long. High-value gear, like heavy multiplier Legendary Aspects, or strong Charm bonuses, can enable you to jump up in world tiers. A Pulverize Druid that finds a Purified Lightbringer could jump straight to Penitent.

For those just starting the game, you will engage with the Main Story Campaign. This slowly unlocks features of the game, such as mounts, which greatly improve exploration speed.

For seasonal players looking for updates, check out our Season Checklist for start times and preparation, our Seasonal Hub for general season theme information, and the official Patch Notes for relevant changes to the game. Engaging with the seasonal reputation is often a significant boost to player power, greatly increasing leveling speed via seasonal powers or reputation caches.

The Vessel of Hatred expansion is the first Diablo 4 DLC. Players who have it can continue the story campaign to unlock features, including systems like Mercenaries and Runewords, and content like Kurast Undercity or the Dark Citadel. The Vessel Campaign is generally a fast way to level.

The Lord of Hatred expansion is the second Diablo 4 DLC. Players who own this also receive all Vessel of Hatred expansion features and content. This unlocks the extra variation options in the Skill Tree. Continue the campaign to unlock features, including systems like the Horadric Cube, Talisman Seals, and Echoing Nightmares.

Druid Forms

Druids are attuned with Nature, often wielding powerful Shapeshifting magics to destroy the enemies of Sanctuary. Skills in the Skill tree will often have a form and related Skill Tags for these forms. After casting a Skill that changes your form, you will stay in that form until casting another skill with a different form.

These forms also grant basic stat bonuses while in that form:

Human: Human form grants 5 Spirit Per Second and 15% Cooldown Reduction.
Werewolf: Werewolf form grants 15% Movement Speed and 15% Attack Speed bonus.
Werebear: Werebear form grants 15% Damage Reduction and 20% Maximum Life.

Many skills have options for Form. For example, Earth Spike can be cast in Werebear, Human, or Werewolf forms after unlocking the level gate to the Form Nodes of the Skill.

Generally, staying with the default form of the skill will grant a minor bonus when selecting that form. For example, Earth Spike, a Human Skill, grants a 5% boost to stay as a Human. Form nodes do not cost a Skill Point to select.

Some skills are Versatile Skills. They have no inherent form, but instead keep you in the form you were already in before casting the Skill.

Spirit, Druid’s Resource

The Druid’s primary resource is called Spirit.

This resource does not recharge passively, but is instead gained from a variety of sources, including:

Basic Attacks that generate Spirit.
Spirit Boons like the Deer’s Gift of the Stag Spirit Regeneration and the Wolf’s Energize for a Lucky Hit Chance to Restore Spirit.
Gearing Affixes like Spirit Generation or Chance to Restore Spirit.
Some Skills like Trample and Petrify, have Side Upgrade options to grant Spirit.

Spirit has a natural cap of 100, but can be increased from Paragon, Spirit Boons, or Gear Affixes.

Spirit Boons, Unique Druid Class Mechanic

Druids unlock powerful Spirit Boon passives, giving offerings to the animal spirits to receive their Blessing. Once fully unlocked, activate the final Boon by Spirit Bonding with one of the four animal spirits to take two passives from that row. To access Spirit Boons:

Reach Level 15, accepting the quest chain beginning with Druid: Spirits of the Lost Grove.
Clear the Túr Dúlra Stronghold scenario in Scosglen.
Complete the quest chain to gain access to the Animal Spirits.

The Quest to unlock the class mechanic only needs to be completed once on the account. Once Spirit Boons have been fully unlocked for the first time, Spirit Offerings will stop dropping for Druid characters on the account, and all interactions can be completed through the Spirit Boons menu on your character sheet after reaching level 15.

Spirit	Boon 1	Boon 2	Boon 3	Boon 4
Deer	Prickleskin Deal 15% increased damage to enemies for 5 seconds after they attack you.	Gift of the Stag Gain 30 Maximum Spirit. You gain 5 Spirit every second.	Wariness Take 15% reduced damage from Elites.	Advantageous Beast 15% Movement Speed and 15% Impairment Reduction
Eagle	Scythe Talons Gain 10% increased Critical Strike Chance and 10% increased Lucky Hit Chance.	Iron Feather Gain 30% Maximum Life.	Swooping Attack Gain 20% Attack Speed.	Avian Wrath Gain 20% Critical Strike Damage.
Wolf	Packleader Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes have up to a 15% chance to reset the Cooldowns of your Companion Skills.	Energize Lucky Hit: Dealing damage has a 15% chance to restore 15 Spirit.	Bolster Defensive Skills gain 40% increased Cooldown Reduction Rate while you are Fortified. This rate is split amongst each equipped Defensive Skill	Calamity Extend the duration of Ultimate Skills by 35%.
Snake	Obsidian Slam Casting an Earth Skill grants 1 stack of Resolve. Gaining or losing Resolve increases the damage Earth Skills deal by 20%x for 4 seconds.	Overload Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a 20% chance to grant 1 stack of Ferocity. Storm Skills gain 15%+ Cast Speed while you have Ferocity.	Masochistic Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes with Shapeshifting Skills have up to a 30% chance to grant Berkserking for 4 seconds. Berkserking increases the damage of Shapeshifting Skills by 10%x.	Calm Before the Storm Lucky Hit: Nature Magic Skills have up to a 10% chance to reduce the Cooldown of your Ultimate Skill by 2 seconds.

Druid Weapons and Restrictions

The Druid may equip a Two-Handed Weapon or a One-Handed Weapon plus a Totem, the Druid-specific Offhand Weapon.

Some weapons are faster than others, such as Daggers for 1-handed weapons, and Staffs for 2-handed weapons. This affects cast speed and top-end damage by a small amount.

Druid Skills and Passive Skills

This section provides an overview of the main skill categories for the Druid. For a detailed list of all Druid skills, upgrades, and variations, refer to the page below.

Druid Skills

Basic Skills

Basic Skills are spammable skills whose primary purpose is to generate Spirit for skills of the Spirit category. They are often used as filler attacks or for buff maintenance, but some endgame builds use them as their primary damage.

The Basic Skills for the Druid are Earth Spike, Claw, Storm Strike, Maul, and Wind Shear.

Core Skills

Core Skills are among the main sources of damage for most Druid builds. Core Skills have no cooldown but are limited by available Spirit.

The Spirit Skills for the Druid are Stone Burst, Pulverize, Landslide, Tornado, Lightning Storm, and Shred.

Defensive Skills

Defensive Skills are Cooldown or Passive effects with a primary function for Defense, with many offering offensive value, buffs, debuffs, or utility as a secondary consideration.

The Defensive Skills for the Druid are Cyclone Armor, Earthen Bulwark, Debilitating Roar, and Blood Howl.

Companion Skills

Companion Skills passively summon permanent creatures that automatically attack the enemies of the Druid. These skills also have an active component, which orders the summoned creatures to perform a special offensive action.

The Companion Skills for the Druid are Poison Creeper, Wolves, and Ravens. They are all good boys.

Wrath Skills

Wrath Skills provide various useful effects, and can be supplementary to a build or the primary focus with the right Unique Items or Legendary Aspects.

The Wrath Skills for the Druid are Hurricane, Trample, Boulder, and Rabies.

Ultimate Skills

Ultimate Skills are powerful and thematic skills with a cooldown to match. Only one Ultimate Skill can be equipped at a time.

The Ultimate Skills for the Druid are Cataclysm, Petrify, Grizzly Rage, and Lacerate.

Druid Dismount Skill

While mounted, the Druid has access to the unique Dismount Skill Pummel. The Druid jumps off their mount, shapeshifts into a Werebear mid-air, and slams into the ground, dealing damage to nearby enemies.

Druid Attributes

The four core attributes benefit each of the five classes in slightly different ways. Here are their effects for the Druid. Willpower is the primary attribute for the Druid, directly scaling damage.

Attribute	Effect 1	Effect 2
Strength	2 Armor per point
Intelligence	40 All Resistances per 100 points	0.5% Resource Generation per 100 points
Willpower*	12.5% Skill Damage per 100 points	3% Healing Received per 100 points
Dexterity	0.25% Critical Strike Chance per 100 points	0.6% Dodge Chance per 100 points

Endgame Druid Builds

The leveling builds listed at the top of this page are designed to take your Druid to Level 70. Afterwards, select an endgame build guide to allocate Paragon points and equip gear with the best stats and Aspects. The following endgame builds will help you optimize your character from Level 70 and beyond.

Level 70 Endgame Druid Builds

Each Skill has a Unique Item or Unique Items that affect the Skill or related Tags, granting it additional power or transforming the Skill into another way to playstyle. Some of these are soft changes, such as Purified Lightbringer helpfully gripping enemies and granting a damage bonus. Pulverize is playable before gaining the Unique Item, and stronger when obtained.

Other unique items hardlock the playstyle from being viable, such as Mad Wolf’s Glee, turning Lacerate into a Core Skill and removing its cooldown, making it spammable and effective as a standalone build.

Endgame Activities

While leveling or after finishing the storyline, various endgame activities in Diablo 4 will become available. Follow the yellow-marked quests to find your way through the Main Story.

After finishing the main storyline or as you wander, engage with the endgame activities of Sanctuary! The following sections provide a quick list of the activities you can do.

War Plans

War Plans are content designed to boost and refine endgame activities. Advance your ranks and earn experience in War Plans to improve rewards and earn War Plan talent points to change and empower endgame activities for greater challenges, quality of life, or rewards in those events. War Plan trees can be refunded and changed at any time, and new plans can be selected at a cost to change the order of activities to progress.

Tree of Whispers

The Tree of Whispers, located in Hawezar, rewards you for completing bounties found all over the game world. These are generally profitable activities that reward you with experience, gear, currencies, and Nightmare Sigils for Nightmare Dungeons. They can be completed while doing other events and activities in a zone.

Renown, Seasonal Rank, and Capstone Dungeons

Eternal players can gain power for their entire account by completing zone Renown. Seasonal players instead engage with the Seasonal Journey to gain Rank for boosts to Skill Points, Paragon Points, and other bonuses. Some Seasonal Journey objectives may require access to Vessel of Hatred DLC features such as runewords.

Players progressing through the Season Journey to gain Season Rank and related rewards can challenge the Capstone Dungeons. These dungeons are fixed difficulty, so they do not scale. Gain rank by clearing these dungeons.

Nightmare Dungeons

Nightmare Dungeons are accessed with Nightmare Sigils. These are crafted from sigil powder, looted from Tree of Whisper caches, or dropped in Nightmare dungeons.

Nightmare dungeons are one of the targeted sources for Masterworking materials.

Helltides

Helltides appear on the map for players who are in Normal Difficulty or higher, taking over large areas of land for one hour. During this time, monsters killed in the affected area drop a special temporary currency, Aberrant Cinders, that can be used to unlock chests found in the Helltide area. These chests are an excellent way to get Legendary Aspects, Unique Items, and Boss Summoning currencies.

Legion Events and World Bosses

Legion events and World Bosses are marked on the map. They are worthwhile activities to engage in, since they reward potentially good items.

Legion events are also good for crafting materials. Watch for timers on the world map, go to the marked area on the map, and join other players in killing the enemies.

The Pit

The Pit is a progression challenge unlocked through the Season Journey. The format is a dungeon mobbing phase to fill a progression bar, and a final Boss fight to clear the Pit level. Use The Pit to level up your Glyphs and to unlock higher Torment difficulties.

Infernal Hordes

The Infernal Hordes is a wave-based endgame activity, first introduced in Season 5. Use an Infernal Compass to enter the Realm of Hatred. These can be acquired through various endgame activities such as defeating endgame bosses, Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons, and so on. Fight through waves to gain Aether, used to unlock currency and loot caches, or to summon greater challenges.

Kurast Undercity

Kurast Undercity, introduced in the Vessel of Hatred expansion, is a time attack dungeon scenario where Tributes are offered, and Bargains struck to target specific rewards like runes, XP, or to semi-deterministically target aspect types, gear types, or affix types. To unlock Undercity, reach Level 20, have the Vessel of Hatred expansion, and summon the Spirit Flame in the Nahantu region.

Seasonal Activities

Seasons come with various events with supplemental power systems, secondary reputation tracks, and world events. Check our updated Seasonal Hub for general season theme information every season.

Good luck on your Druid adventure!