Earth Spike – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 10)

Build Introduction

The Earth Spike Druid is a Basic Skill brawler, sending out lines of of Earth Spike with Seismic-shift Aspect. This is a Grizzly Rage Dire Werebear build that tanks as well as it kills.

Just starting on your Druid adventure? Try out any of our Druid Leveling Guide and swap to this one at Level 60.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

The following Legendary Aspects and Unique Items are required for build functionality to get started on the Earth Spike Druid.

Required Uniques

Shard of Verathiel

Vasily’s Prayer

Required Aspects

Seismic-shift Aspect

Several Unique Items enhance the gameplay for the build but are not required for function. Check out the Uniques section for more information.

This is a Grizzly Rage build! Read up on managing your Ultimate Skill here.

Quick Navigation

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on the Earth Spike Druid including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates. Jump to the sections you’re looking for here.

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Grizzly RageDebilitating RoarCyclone ArmorPoison CreeperClawEarth Spike

If you are missing skill points, complete Renown events in each zone. See how these Skills play in the Rotation and Gameplay section.

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Druid Class Mechanic – Spirit Boons

Druids unlock powerful Spirit Boon passives, giving offerings to the animal spirits to receive their blessing. Once fully unlocked, you can activate the final boon by Spirit Bonding with one of the four animal spirits to take two passives from that row.

Druid’s primary resource is Spirit. Check the Spirit Management Section on how to keep casting even with Shard of Verathiel!

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

Check these sections for all important Earth Spike gearing considerations to improve the power of your character in the endgame.

Seasonal Players, please check out our Season 10 Mechanics Section for information on Chaos Armors and ideal Chaos Armor setups.

Legendary Aspects

Gear Slots with multiple options are listed in recommended priority. Any slot with an Optional Mythic Unique or Unique Item will include a valid alternative legendary power to use while still leveling and gearing. Combine these with the right stat priorities.

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Slot	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Power
1 Handed Sword	Shard of Verathiel	Basic Skills deal 50-200% increased damage but additionally cost 25 Primary Resource.
Totem	Seismic-shift Aspect	Earth Spike deals 50-70% increased damage and launches 2 rows of spikes in a line.
Helm	Vasily’s Prayer	Your Earth Skills are now also Werebear Skills and Fortify you for 2-5% of your Maximum Health.
Chest	Mythic-Shroud of False Death Unique – Insatiable Fury Juggernaut’s Aspect	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves	Aspect of the Rabid Bear	While Grizzy Rage is active, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage, you deal 40-80% more Poison damage, and you passively spread Rabies.
Pants	Unique – Tibault’s Will Skinwalker’s Aspect	You deal 10-20% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource.
Boots	Defensive/Push – Hectic Aspect Offensive/Farm – Ballistic Aspect	After casting 5 Basic Skills, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by 1-2.5 seconds.
Amulet	Aspect of Adaptability	Basic Skills generate 5 additional Primary Resource, once per Skill. Basic Skills deal 0.4-0.6% increased damage for each point of Primary Resource you have.
Ring 1	Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast	The duration of Grizzly Rage is increased by 3-10 seconds. In addition, Critical Strikes while Grizzly Rage is active increase your Critical Strike Damage by 5% for the duration, up to a maximum of 100%.
Ring 2	Mythic – Ring of Starless SkiesAspect of the Changeling’s Debt	Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by 10% for 3 seconds, up to 50%.

See how this build compares to the rest at our Endgame Build Tier List.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance, and some alternatives are given. The bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Unique Items cannot be Tempered, but can be Masterworked.  Check the Tempering guide and Masterworking guide for more details about these topics.

Slot	Gearing Affixes	Tempering Affixes
1 Handed Sword – Shard of Verathiel	All Stats Ranks to Basic Skills Basic Attack Speed Maximum Resource
Totem – Legendary Aspect	Cooldown Reduction Willpower Critical Strike Chance Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction	Earth Augments – Chance for Earth Spike Projectiles to Cast Twice Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration OR Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance
Helm – Vasily’s Prayer	Max Life Willpower% Ranks to Defensive Posture Armor
Chest – Shroud of False Death	All Stats Maximum Life Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Resource Generation
Chest – Insatiable Fury	Max Life Werebear Overpower Damage Ursine Strength’s Bonuses Ranks to Iron Fur
Chest – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Max Life Armor All Resistances Spirit Per Second	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit Chance or Crowd Control Duration
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Max Life All Resistances	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit Chance or Crowd Control Duration
Pants – Tibault’s Will	All Stats Maximum Life Maximum Resource Damage Reduction While Unstoppable
Pants – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Ranks in Earth Spike Ranks in Basic Skills All Resistances Max Life	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit Chance or Crowd Control Duration
Boots – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Maximum Life Movement Speed Armor All Resistances
Amulet – Legendary Aspect	Willpower% Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Toxic Claws Ranks to Quickshift	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction
Ring – Ring of Starless Skies	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks to Core Skills
Ring – Legendary Aspect	Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Chance to Apply Vulnerable Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction

Armor cap is 1000 for up to 85% Physical Damage Reduction. This is generally reached with either one Armor Gear Affix and one Total Armor% Temper or using a Juggernaut’s Aspect.

For information on Legendary Aspects and the updated Codex of Power, see here.

After gearing, look at progression systems like Paragon next.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

These Unique Items are useful for the Earth Spike Druid:

• Shard of Verathiel is a hefty multiplier for Basic Skills, including Earth Spike. This Unique Item adds a 25 Spirit cost to Earth Spirit but this is mitigated with Spirit Generators or Cost Reductions.

• Vasily’s Prayer gives Earth Skills the Werebear Tag, which gives it favorable multipliers and allows Earth Spike to be cast during Grizzly Rage.

• (Before Mythic) Insatiable Fury, thanks to Vasily’s Prayer gives Skill Ranks in Earth Spike.

• Tibault’s Will has favorable gear affixes and a permanent damage buff during Grizzly Rage thanks to Prime Grizzly Rage always providing Unstoppable.

Mythic Unique Items

• Shroud of False Death gives +1 rank to all Skill Passives which means several bonuses to Damage Multipliers, Damage Reductions, Resistances, Fortify, Healing and Critical Strike Chance.

• Ring of Starless Skies is a powerful Resource Cost Reduction tool and damage multiplier, with strong Gear Affixes.

Check our Unique Item Target-farming guide for information on where to find everything you need.

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Gems and Runewords

The following are the recommended Gem and Runeword setups for the Earth Spike Druid.

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for Critical Strike Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Diamond for Resistance to all Elements

Runewords

Use these Runeword combinations, placed in 2-Handed Weapon and one Armor slot:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Xan	Igni – Gain: 25 Offering. Stores Offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored Offering. Xan – 300 Offering. Overflow: Increased duration. Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds.
Lith Gar	Lith – Gain: 25 Offering. Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds. Gar – Requires: 25 Offering. Overflow: Gain Multiple Stacks. Cooldown: 1 seconds. Gain 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%.

Runewords use a conditional Rune of Ritual to generate Offering. The Offering is consumed by the Rune of Invocation to trigger its effect. Runes replace Gems in gear with two sockets. Up to two sets of Runeword Pairs can be placed at a time.

Xan will provide a high volume of periodic Critical Overpowers. Gar is an easy way to access Critical Strike Chance.

Other options are available depending on level of gearing and content:

• Push – Qax can be slightly more damage than Xan once well geared. However, make sure your Spirit Generation is sufficient, as the drain can disrupt casting with Shard of Verathiel cost, or keeping you from capping Spirit to benefit Aspect of Adaptability.
• Farm – Kry would be helpful for gathering.
• Early Gearing – Lum could help with Spirit Management in early gearing, as necessary.

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Paragon Board

The following are the preferred Glyphs, Boards, and pathing recommended for making the most of the Earth Spike Druid.

The road to max Paragon level is long. The above Paragon tabs show the following:

• The BASE SETUP tab spends 50 fewer points than the max 328 points, taking stricter pathing to take all most all Legendary, Rare and Magic Nodes, and activates all Glyph Nodes with their secondary effects.
• The FULL SETUP tab completes the Paragon Board in its final form, filling in the rest of the board to give additional additive bonuses especially within the Glyph areas.

Glyphs have two significant breakpoint increases. At level 15, the glyph grows in radius and gains a special effect. At level 46, the glyph grows to its max radius and gains a strong conditional damage multiplier.

Glyphs are placed as if they are at least level 15+ in radius. Total Boards placed are now limited to a max of 5; the Starter Board and four Class Boards. Rotate boards as necessary.

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Season 10 Mechanics

Chaos Perks

Chaos Perks are the latest flavor of seasonal power, offering a selection of one Unique and 3 other powers of any combination. Perks are acquired from Seasonal Reputation or from Bartuc in Infernal Hordes. Here is the recommended setup for the Earth Spike Druid:

Power	Description
Brawn Over Brains	Gain the following: 100-200% Maximum Life +50-100% Healing Received 75-125% Overpower Damage However, your Maximum Resistances are reduced by 25%, and your damage reduction from Armor is capped at 60%.
Purge the Infected	Your Core Skills also apply 100-200% of their Base damage as Poisoning over 4 seconds. Dealing direct damage to a Poisoned enemy spends 5 Spirit to be a guaranteed Critical Strike that deals 30-60% increase damage.
Overabundance	Every 100 Spirit you generate above your Maximum increases your damage by 50-100% for 5 seconds. This bonus stacks up to 3 times, but does not refresh.
Crazy Brew	Your Healing Potion is infused with the power of Chaos, granting you 100% Resource Cost Reduction, 40-80% increased Attack Speed and 40-80 increased Movement Speed for 5 seconds. Your Healing Potion has a 15 second Cooldown and you can drink it at full Life. Cooldown is now affects by Cooldown Reduction.

Purge the Infected Poisoning is Core only, but the guaranteed Critical Strike is for all Skills including Earth Spike. This lets us change Gar to Yom, which will help with the Resource Generation for Overabundance stacks.

Chaos Armors

Chaos Armors are a selection of generic and class Unique Items that can drop as empowered versions in any Armor Slot besides their native slot. For example, a ChaoticFists of Fate could drop as helm, chest, pants and boots. These items open many possibilities but have a very large pool of items with low drop rates and are untradable, meaning a perfect setup may take a while and many combinations will be effective in the meantime.

The following is a recommended Chaotic setup for the Earth Spike Druid. Recommended Masterworks will be in Bold:

Slot	Aspect/Unique	Gearing Affixes	Tempering Affixes
1-Handed Sword	Shard of Verathiel	All Stats Ranks to Basic Skills Basic Attack Speed Maximum Resource
Totem	Seismic-shift Aspect	Cooldown Reduction Willpower Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction	Earth Augments – Chance for Earth Spike Projectiles to Cast Twice Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration OR Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance
Helm	Fists of Fate (Helm) IgniXan	Lucky Hit Chance Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Lucky Hit: Chance to make enemies Vulnerable
Chest	Insatiable Fury (Replaced with Shroud of False Death)	Max Life Werebear Overpower Damage Ursine Strength’s Bonuses Ranks to Iron Fur
Gloves	Aspect of the Rabid Bear	Willpower Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Max Life All Resistances	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit Chance or Crowd Control Duration
Pants	Tibault’s Will AhuYom	All Stats Maximum Life Maximum Resource Damage Reduction While Unstoppable
Boots	Vasily’s Prayer (Boots)	Max Life Willpower% Ranks to Defensive Posture Armor
Amulet	Aspect of Adaptability	Willpower% Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Toxic Claws Ranks to Quickshift	Druid Motion – Movement Speed Ultimate Efficiency — Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction
Ring	Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt (Replaced with Ring of Starless Skies)	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks to Core Skills
Ring	Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast	Willpower Attack Speed Chance to Apply Vulnerable Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction

Other Chaotic Considerations

• Use Song of the Mountain for extra armor as needed.
• Farm – Chaotic Airidah’s Inexorable Will can be used during farm. With the Yom rune, grips will happen frequently.
• Paingorger’s Gauntlets may be a valid Chaotic item to use on a slot like pants, as long as you do not need the extra defense from Tibault’s Will.

Mercenaries

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability: Crater
• Opportunity: Earth Spike

Once unlocked, Mercenaries are followers that aid the Player in combat. A main mercenary is chosen to fight alongside you, granting strong buffs or perks, and a secondary Mercenary is chosen to periodically Reinforce you under a chosen Opportunity condition.

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give strong Attack Speed bonuses. Crater will help group enemies.

Other Mercenary Setups are viable, such as Subo’s Cover Fire and minimap tracking, or Rahier if you still need Armor or Resistance.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The Earth Spike Druid is a simple Basic Skill build with minor buff maintenance

1. Prebuild stacks of Quickshift with Claw and Earth Spike.
2. Enter Grizzly Rage and become the Dire Werebear.
3. Debilitating Roar for a damage gain and to apply a damage taken debuff on enemies.
4. Line up your enemies and immobilize them with Poison Creeper.
5. Send waves of Earth Spikes to kill your foes.

Cyclone Armor‘s Active use will not be available during Grizzly Rage, but you will still recieve its passive defense.

Skills, Support, and Synergies

The primary damage for this build is Earth Spike.

With Seismic-shift Aspect, two waves of Earth Spike will be sent out in a medium range from the player. There’s a few modifiers to this:

• Enhanced Earth Spike gives a small chance to Stun enemies.
• Wild Earth Spike summons another Spike when hitting Stunned or Immobilized Enemies.
  • Other sources of Immobilize or Stun can include Skills like Poison Creeper.
• Earth Augments Gives a chance for Earth Spike to Cast Twice. With the two waves from Seismic already, that can be 4 lines per cast!

Shard of Verathiel adds a 25 Spirit Cost to Earth Spike. Not hitting a target can mean no Spirit Generation but still costing. Try not to get into an Out of Spirit situation. Read more on Spirit Management below.

Thanks to Hectic Aspect, we have strong uptime on Debilitating Roar for the defense and damage boost.

Lining Up The Shot

The line of Earth Spikes sent out can be narrow. In push, you will often find the easiest way to hit lots of enemies is Orbwalking; moving ahead of enemies and then moving or aiming back to attack behind as they trail you. This also leverages being slightly Distant from enemies for the Nature’s Reach extra multiplier.

Grizzly Rage

This build uses Grizzly Rage as its Ultimate Skill. Grizzly Rage grants Unstoppable for its duration, grants Damage Reduction, and a large Damage multiplier that grows over time. With Aspect of the Rabid Bear, our damage type for all attacks becomes Poison, which helps unify several multipliers.

Grizzly Rage’s cooldown can be reduced while Grizzly Rage is active, and full Grizzly Rage uptime is maintainable. Any Skill not tuned to Grizzly Rage, such as Storm or Wolf Skills will be unavailable while Grizzly Rage is active. Certain Skills like Cyclone Armor with a passive effect will still be up, but the Skill will be unavailable for Active Use. Companion Skills are always available.

Only one point is invested into Grizzly Rage because further points only reduce the cooldown, and we do not need the Rank 5 effect since we should always be already Armor capped without the effect.

Grizzly Rage has a capped duration, but we gain or extend Grizzly Rage duration with:

• Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast gives up to 10 seconds extra duration
• Kills extend the duration by 1 second.
• Overpowering Bosses extends duration by 5 seconds. With Xan and other sources of Overpower like Obsidian Slam Spirit Boon and Provocation, this is easily handled.
• Offensive Tempers on gear give more duration.

If this is not sufficient to maintain Grizzly Rage for most of the time or your downtime becomes too disruptive, consider one or more of the following options:

• Exchange the Swooping Attacks Spirit Boon for Calamity or Calm Before the Storm.
• Target your Mastercrafts towards Grizzly Rage Duration or Cooldown.
• Put more Skill Points into Grizzly Rage for cooldown.

Key Passive

Our Key Passive is Ursine Strength. This is a consistent multiplier and boost to max life. Between all our sources of Overpower, the additional Overpower bonus will be active often.

Earthen Might is a valid alternative for Key Passive, giving a lucky hit chance for guaranteed Critical Strikes, Critical Strike Damage and restoring Spirit. It could be used in earlier gearing to help with Spirit Generation.

Spirit Management

With Shard of Verathiel, Basic Skills cost 25 Spirit to cast, including Earth Spike.

We gain Spirit from a number of sources:

• Gift of the Stag gives 10 Spirit Per Second
• Casting Earth Spike generates Spirit, natively and +5 from Aspect of Adaptability.
• Intelligence stat scales Resource Generation.
• Gear Affixes with Resource Cost Reduction, Resource Generation or Chance to Restore Spirit.
• Tibault’s Will gives Spirit on gaining Unstoppable. Since we are perma-Unstoppable with Grizzly Rage this will not be that useful.

If this is not sufficient while leveling and gearing, consider one or more of the following:

• Use Energize Spirit Boon, replacing Swooping Attacks
• Use Key Passive Earthen Might for triggers that fully refresh Spirit.
• Place Skill Points in Abundance, removing them from Provocation.
• Use Aspect of the Umbral for Spirit against Crowd-controlled enemies.

Elixirs, Incense and Health Potions

The Alchemist offers helpful consumables at the cost of foraged materials found throughout Sanctuary.

• Craft your Elixir:
  • (Offensive) Elixir of Advantage II For Attack Speed and Lucky Hit bonuses.
  • (Defensive) Elixir of Fortitude II For Max Life.
• One of each Incense Category can be used, for a total of three active Incenses at a time. In priority:
  • Defensive – Reddamine Buzz for Max Life, or Song of the Mountain if you need the Armor, up to 1000 armor cap.
  • Core Stat – Blessed Guide for Willpower.
  • Resistance – Soothing Spices for All Resist, All Resist Maximum, and Armor.
• Upgrade your Potion as you level, increasing the instant healing of the potion!

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Season 10 Updates

There’s no major shakeups to Earth Spike this season so gameplay should feel similar to previous. Grizzly Rage is slightly nerfed but still a valid Ultimate for the permanant Unstoppable and strong Aspect multipliers.

The following are important changes in the Season 10 Patch Updates that are specific to the Earth Spike Druid. For general Season 10 information, check out our Season 10 Hub.

Itemization:

• Earth and Sky – Damage bonus increased from 10% to 18%.

Skills and Stats:

• Grizzly Rage
  • Base damage reduced from 60% to 40%.
  • Damage bonus per second reduced from 4% to 1% (capping at 25% rather than 100%).
  • Now begins its cooldown when it’s activated rather than after it ends.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Grizzly Rage was granting Unstoppable without learning its upgrades.
• Fixed an issue where Grizzly Rage was not removed from the available Skills on your Skill bar while it’s activated.
• Fixed an issue where skills were not properly replaced on the Skill bar when using Tempest Roar, Mad Wolf’s Glee, and Dire Wolf’s Aspect.
• Fixed an issue where Grizzly Rage did not periodically increase the player’s damage as expected.

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Changelog

• 21 September, 2025: Updated for Patch 2.4 and Season 10. Seasonal Players please note that the Season 10 Mechanics section has setups that include the seasonal Chaos Armors.
• 15 July, 2025: Minor updates to Legendary Aspect recommendations for boot slot. Added options for Key Passives.
• 6 July, 2025: Updated recommendations for optional Arcana, optional Runes, and updated information based on change to how Grizzly Rage can now progress cooldown while active.
• 27 June, 2025: Build created for Season 9 and Patch 2.3.