Earth Bear Landslide Caster Druid Endgame Build for Diablo 4 (Season 1)

Build Introduction

The Earth Bear Landslide Druid is a build based around using Legendary aspects to increase our Landslide damage and cause them to be cast when we use the Werebear skill Trample. This is your guide to building a character for endgame activities in Diablo 4, with the optimal setup for skills, gear and Paragon points.

Landslide is the highest base damage Core Skill that Druid has access to and we do everything we can to not only make it stronger, but also through the use of Trample make it a true screen-wide clear.

Aspect of The Aftershock makes our Landslide not only recast again for free, but it also increases the damage for each time it hits. Aspect of the Trampled Earth is what causes our Trample to cast six waves of Landslides along the path you travel with it. When you combine these two Aspects, you get a total of 12 waves of Landslide which fills up your entire screen with earth-shattering AoE damage.

These Aspects, combined with the Skill Tree, Paragon Boards and some optional Uniques as shown below, will make you a rampaging Bear of Destruction capable of clearing full packs with the press of one button, taking you into the endgame, and on your way to Level 100 and beyond.

This endgame build guide assumes your character is at least Level 50. Check the Druid Leveling Guide if you need help getting there.

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Vasily’s Prayer

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Aspect of the Trampled Earth

Aspect of The Aftershock

The only required Aspects for this build are Aspect of the Trampled Earth, Aspect of The Aftershock, and Subteranean Apsect. You want to have as much DR and Lucky Hit on your gear as possible in order to increase the chance of Earthen Might activating as well.

You will want to get a Vasily’s Prayer as soon as possible so your Earth Spike can be used while in Bear form, but it is not required to start the build you will just use Maul until you get it.

Strengths and Weaknesses

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

Season of the Malignant

Season 1 Patch Notes

The following list details the changes in the Season 1 Patch Update that are specific to this build. Check the Changelog for all the other guide updates.

Patch 1.1

• Prime Grizzly Rage
  • now grants Unstoppable for 6 seconds instead of while active.
• Savage Trample
  • Spirit gain increased from 20 to 40.
• Subterranean (Offensive Aspect): Poison Creeper’s active also casts Landslide in a circle around you. Earth Skills deal 10-20% increased damage to Poisoned enemies.

In addition to the build specific changes, multiple sources of Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage were reduced globally for all classes. In addition, the Malignant Hearts also give you armor based on their Item Power Level.

Patch 1.1.1

• Earth Spike
  • Spirit gain increased from 11 to 13.

Malignant Hearts

Our Best in slot Malignant Hearts are:

• Caged Heart of the Malignant Pact (Wrathful, Super): Cycle through a Malignant bonus every 20 kills:
  • Vicious: Gain 20% Attack Speed.
  • Devious: Core and Basic Skills have a 15% chance to fully restore your Primary Resource.
  • Brutal: Every 21 seconds, gain a Barrier absorbing 85-102 damage.
• Caged Heart of Revenge (Brutal, Defensive): 10-20% of incoming damage is instead suppressed. When you use a Defensive, Subterfuge or a Macabre skill, all suppressed damage is amplified by 250% and explodes, dealing up to 1360-2040 Fire damage to Nearby enemies.
• (For faster Clear) Caged Heart of Inexorable Force (Devious, Utility): Up to 30-50 Distant enemies are pulled toward you while you have an Ultimate Skill active.
• (For Pushing) Caged Heart of Tempting Fate (Vicious, Offensive): You gain 40-60% Critical Strike Damage but your Non-Critical Strikes deal 20-15% less damage.

The other Malignant Hearts can be used but to get the most power out of your sockets we recommend using the first 2 always and situationally choose one of the last 2 for the content you are doing.

For more info on Malignant hearts check out our guide on them here:

Or check out our Season 1 guide here:

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Poison Creeper Earthen Bulwark Trample Grizzly Rage Earth Spike Landslide

The following tables show the full allocation of Skill Points for the Earth Bear Landslide Druid build. The first table has the most important 48 points to start the build. The second table has the remaining 10 points that are allocated once you obtain all Skill Points from Renown.

Priority Skills	Cluster
Earth Spike, Enhanced Earth Spike, Wild Earth Spike	Basic Skill
Landslide Level 5, Enhanced Landslide, Primal Landslide, Heart of the Wild , Abundance Level 3, Wild Impulses Level 3,Predatory Instinct Level 3, Iron Fur Level 3	Core Skill
Earthen Bulwark, Enhanced Earthen Bulwark, Preserving Earthen Bulwark	Defensive Skill
Poison Creeper, Enhanced Poison Creeper, Brutal Poison Creeper	Companion Skill
Trample , Enhanced Trample, Savage Trample, Crushing Earth Level 3, Safeguard Level 3, Stone Guard Level 3	Wrath Skill
Grizzly Rage, Prime Grizzly Rage,Supreme Grizzly Rage, Defiance Level 3	Ultimate Skill
Earthen Might	Key Passives

Remaining Renown Points	Cluster
Ancestral Fortitude, Vigilance Level 3	Defensive Skill
Defensive Posture Level 3, Natural Disaster Level 3	Ultimate Skill

Spirit Boons – The Druid Specialization

Below is the order in which you should unlock your Spirit Boons. Only offer enough Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock the first 4 listed Boons and then fully unlock the rest to activate the final Boon with Spirit Bonding.

Paragon

The Paragon progression system unlocks at Level 50 and provides a vast amount of character power. On the Paragon Board, bonuses range from minor stats on Magic Nodes to more powerful Rare Glyphs and Legendary Nodes.

As you path towards Glyph Sockets and Legendary Nodes, you should prioritize Damage, Willpower, Resistance, and Life for Normal and Magic Nodes. Glyph radius increases as you level them up. Therefore, if you cannot fulfill Additional Bonus requirements early on, skip allocating extra Nodes for now.

Listed Below are images of the pathing you should take along with the locations of the glyphs and order you should choose your Paragon Boards past the initial starter board.

For the starter board, we path along the right side then up through the glyph slot placing a WerebearGlyph and allocating all the Willpower Nodes within the radius. Then we grab most of the Magic Nodes and both Rare Nodes before exiting to the north.

Our next board will be the Survival Instincts Paragon Board. Make sure you rotate the board until it is oriented the same as in the image above. We first head left and grab the Rare and Magic Nodes, then path up and to the right to grab the Survival Instincts Legendary Node. After that, head back to the start and grab the Rare and Magic Nodes on the right before taking the left side path up and placing Spirit in the glyph slot. Grab all the Rare and Magic Nodes within the radius selected in the image above. Then, we will head to the left and grab the Rare and Magic Nodes along the way before exiting on the left side.

Our next board is the Earthen Devastation Paragon Board, make sure to rotate it until it’s oriented the same as in the image above. We head left then down to grab the Rare and Magic Nodes, then left and up to grab the Earthen Devastation Legendary Node. After that, head towards the glyph slot and place Undaunted in the slot, and allocate all the Intelligence and all the Magic and Rare Nodes shown in the image above. Finally, we head back to the Survival instincts Paragon Board and head out the right side of it, this time grabbing the Rare and Magic nodes along the way.

Our final board is the Constricting Tendrils Paragon Board. Make sure to rotate it until it is oriented the same as in the image above. First, we head down and to the right to grab the Rare and Magic Nodes, then continue as shown to get the Constricting Tendrils Legendary Node. We then head north and grab the Rare and Magic Nodes as we path to the glyph slot to place Territorial into the glyph slot and allocate all the Dexterity and all the Magic and Rare Nodes shown in the image above.

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Mechanics and Playstyle

The Earth Bear Landslide Druid build utilizes multiple Legendary Aspects that work together to allow us to quickly and safely destroy any enemies in our way. If you can get them, the Vasily’s Prayer and Insatiable Fury Uniques will increase our damage and defensiveness immensely.

The build is centered around making our Landslide as strong as possible; to do this we try and get as many ranks of it as possible to increase its base damage then use talents like Primal Landslide and Earthen Might to guarantee Crits, and talents like Crushing Earth to increase our damage against Slowed, Stunned, Immobilized, and Knocked Back enemies.

We have one other way we scale all of our Earth skills, and that is by making sure we have the Fortified status active. Due to our Legendary Aspects, Uniques, and some of our skill choices, we should almost always have the Fortified status active.

Fortify

Once Fortify amount is greater than or equal to current life, you become Fortified and gain a starting default of 10% Damage Reduction. Obtain additional Damage Reduction while Fortified on gear affixes and Sapphire socketed into armor for more effectiveness.

Malignant Heart Changes: With the Malignant Hearts suggested above, if you are using the Caged Heart of Inexorable Force, then your Grizzly Rage will pull enemies into you. You should aim to use it before using your Poison Creeper comes off cooldown, with the goal of your Grizzly Rage ending right as your Poison Creeper will come off cooldown, to hit the largest amount of enemies with the Landslide that your Subterranean Aspect will cast.

Rotation

Our damage rotation is actually a priority system and it is the same for AoE and Single Target situations:

1. Poison Creeper if off cooldown and enemies aren’t Immobilized;
2. Grizzly Rage if it is not active and you are about to fight an elite pack;
3. Earthen Bulwark if you are overwhelmed and surrounded by too many enemies;
4. Trample if off cooldown;
5. Landslide if you have Spirit;
6. Earth Spike if out of Spirit and everything else is on cooldown.

Best in Slot Aspects, Powers & Uniques

Listed below are all the best-in-slot Aspects found on Unique and  Legendary Items that are important for the Earth Bear Landslide Druid build. Aspects from the Codex of Power can be used if you cannot find the proper Legendary drops, but they have weaker effects. Extract Aspects from lower level Legendary Items and imprint them onto better Rare Items with preferred stats.

Slot	Unique/Aspect Name	Unique/Legendary Aspect Power	Rarity
Head	Vasily’s Prayer	Your Earth Skills are now also Werebear Skills and Fortify you for X.	Unique
Amulet	Aspect of The Aftershock	Landslide’s earth pillars each strike a second time and deal an additional [6 – 12]% bonus damage per hit.	Legendary
Ring 1	Subterranean	Poison Creeper’s active also casts Landslide in a circle around you. Earth Skills deal 10-20% increased damage to Poisoned enemies.	Legendary
Ring 2	Aspect of Retaliation	Your Core Skills deal up to x[20 – 40]% increased damage based on your amount of Fortify.	Legendary
Chest	Insatiable Fury	Werebear form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werebear Skills.	Unique
Gloves	Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast	The duration of Grizzly Rage is increased by X seconds. In addition, Critical Strikes while Grizzly Rage is active increase your Critical Strike Damage by x10% for the duration.	Legendary
Legs	Aspect of Mending Stone	The duration of Earthen Bulwark is increased by 6 seconds. In addition, killing an enemy with Earth Skills replenishes X of your active Earthen Bulwark’s Barrier.	Legendary
Boots	Ballistic Aspect	When you have Fortify your Earth Skills gain +2 Ranks.	Legendary
2-Handed Weapon	Aspect of the Trampled Earth	Trample now summons 6 Landslide pillars of earth during its duration that deal [70 – 80]% normal damage. Trample is now also a Nature Magic and Earth Skill.	Legendary

Gear Choice and Stat Priority

Make sure to pick up all Rare Item drops that may be upgrades while you are farming with Earth Bear Landslide Druid. Save Legendary Items with useful aspects in your stash to be used later for extraction and imprinting onto well rolled Rare Items.

Stat Priority List

Listed below are the affixes to prioritize on gear for Earth Bear Landslide Druid. Affixes for each gear slot are listed in order of importance. Bolded stats are the most important and sometimes vital for the build to function properly.

Note: We have given the optimal stats for an Off-Hand in case you find a 1-Handed Weapon and an Off-Hand give more DPS when combined than your best 2-Handed Weapon would. This will mainly occur when you are going from World Tier 2 to 3 and 3 to 4.

Gear Slot	Important Affixes
Head	Unique (Vasily’s Prayer)
Chest	Unique (Insatiable Fury)
Main hand (Mace)	Weapon DPS Core Skill Damage Critical Strike Damage Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies Damage to Close Enemies Overpower Damage Willpower
Off Hand	Weapon DPS Cooldown Reduction Lucky Hit Chance Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier Willpower
Gloves	Lucky Hit Chance Attack Speed Ranks of Landslide Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Damage Willpower
Pants	Life Damage Reduction Damage Reduction from Close Enemies Damage to Elites Willpower
Boots	Damage Reduction while Injured Fortify Generation Spirit Cost Reduction Movement Speed Willpower All Stats
Amulet	Cooldown Reduction Damage Reduction Damage Reduction from Close Enemies Werebear Skill Damage Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier
Rings	Lucky Hit Chance Maximum Spirit Resource Generation Vulnerable Damage Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Damage

Gems

Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.

• Weapon: Royal Sapphire for + Critical Strike Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
• Armor: Royal Sapphire for Damage Reduction While Fortified
• Jewelry: Use the Malignant Hearts recommended at the start of this guide, for the special effect as well as the armor bonus.
  • If playing on the Eternal Realm, use Royal Diamond for all Resistance or any gem that provides you with the resistance type you lack the most.

Elixirs and Health Potions

To gain an edge in your adventures, head to the Alchemist in any major town, and craft Elixirs that enhance your stats and experience gain for 30 minutes. Remember to gather the necessary crafting materials by foraging plants. Select an Elixir that provides the resistance you need most, or try the Assault Elixir to boost your Attack Speed.

Return to the Alchemist again when you reach Level 20, 30, 45, 60, 70, 80 and 90, to upgrade your potion. The extra healing is essential to survival.

Changelog

• August 7th, 2023: Updated for patch 1.1.1.
• July 23rd, 2023: Updated Gems section to reflect the presence of Malignant Hearts
• July 18th, 2023: Updated for Season 1 added Malignant Hearts, changed Aspects, updated Skill Tree and Skill Bar.