Werewolf Bomber Druid Endgame Build For Diablo 4 (Season 1)

Build Introduction

This is your comprehensive guide for building an explosive Werewolf whose earthen armor shatters in a fury of broken rock shards, impaling all enemies all around them. Welcome to the Were-Bomber build. This build is focuses its damage through Barrier Generation and using the unique Greatstaff of the Crone to harness Claw and Storm Strike keep your Cooldowns low. Our explosions carry a devastating amount of Vulnerable Damage increases and stacked Critical Strike Damage, to obliterate any enemies foolish enough to approach us.

Our guide will cover all basic mechanics and deep dive into the optimal setup for skills, paragon and gear for the build. Below you will find a supporting YouTube video as well to showcase the build in action.

Strengths and Weaknesses

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

Build Requirements

This build utilizes a single Unique and several Legendary Aspects that are required before the build will function properly. As for the Legendary Aspects, you will need the following at a minimum to make the build work at its most basic level. These Aspects are all non-codex, which means you will need to find them on a Legendary Item then imprint them onto specific gear.

Required Uniques

Greatstaff of the Crone

Required Aspects (Non-codex)

Symbiotic Aspect

Aspect of Natural Balance

To even begin this build, we recommend you have these three Aspects ready for imprinting at a minimum. For the build it become fully functional, we recommend you have all the Legendary Aspects listed further in this guide for the build to work optimally.

Season of the Malignant

Season 1 Patch Updates

Below is a list of specific changes from the Season 1 Patch Update that affect this build. If any of these changes create significant issues within the build, they will be discussed in more detail under their relevant sections.

• Enhanced Claw Attack Speed bonus increased from 10% to 15%.
• Symbiotic Aspect Cooldown reduction reduced from 4-8 to 3-5.
• Aspect of Disobedience maximum stacks reduced from 100 to 60, reducing maximum Bonus Armor % from 25-50% to 15-30%.
• Prime Grizzly Rage now grants Unstoppable for 6 seconds instead of while active.
• Masochistic now also requires a Lucky Hit chance of 75%.
• Cooldown Reduction: Reduced by ~30% on gear slots.
• Significant reductions to Vulnerable and Critical Strike Damage values (needs to be tested more).

Patch 1.1.1

The second major update for Season 1, Patch 1.1.1 released on August 8th 2023, brings some positive changes to Basic Generator Skills for Druids. The changes that directly affect this build are listed below.

• Claw – Spirit gain increased from 11 to 12

None of these changes are build-breaking and we still have full confidence in this build.

Malignant Hearts

The theme for Season 1 introduces a new form of legendary gem called Malignant Hearts. There are three types of hearts that need to be socketed into matching colored sockets on all equipped jewelry and one type of heart that can be placed into any socket. For more information about the Malignant Hearts theme for Season 1 check out our Malignant Hearts guide.

Listed below are the Malignant Hearts that are useful for this build, ranked by importance. Stats displayed reflect what a level 20 character would receive as a drop. Note that this list is based on our early opinions on the Malignant Hearts, and we will update it as and when it is necessary.

1. Caged Heart of the Lionheart
2. Caged Heart of Revenge
3. Caged Heart of the Malignant Pact

Video Guide

Please note that since this written build guide is ever-evolving and videos cannot easily be updated, the below video should serve as more of a guideline, where as the written guide will always have the most accurate information.

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Skill Bar Setup for the WereBomber Build (Order does not matter)

Earthen Bulwark Claw Cyclone Armor Debilitating Roar Blood Howl Poison Creeper

Follow the points allocated in the image above for the complete 58 point build. The additional 10 skill points are completed using the Renown system.

Priority Skills	Cluster
Storm Strike Level 1, Enhanced Storm Strike, Fierce Storm Strike, Claw Level 1, Enhanced Claw, Wild Claw	Basic Skill
Predatory Instinct Level 3	Core Skill
Earthen Bulwark Level 5, Enhanced Earthen Bulwark, Innate Earthen Bulwark, Cyclone Armor Level 5, Enhanced Cyclone Armor, Preserving Cyclone Armor, Blood Howl Level 1, Enhanced Blood Howl, Preserving Blood Howl, Debilitating Roar Level 1, Enhanced Debilitating Roar, Ancestral Fortitude Level 1, Vigilance Level 3	Defensive Skill
Poison Creeper Level 1, Enhanced Poison Creeper, Brutal Poison Creeper	Companion Skill
Crushing Earth Level 3, Stone Guard Level 3, Neurotoxin Level 1, Envenom Level 3, Toxic Claws Level 1	Wrath Skill
Defiance Level 1, Natural Disaster Level 3, Resonance Level 3, Quickshift Level 1, Heightened Senses Level 3	Ultimate Skill
Nature’s Fury	Key Passives

Boons – The Druid Specialization

Boons are additional buffs provided to the Druid class as part of their specialization. To unlock your Boons, you will need to complete a simple quest on the west side of the map in the stronghold of “Tur Dulra”. This becomes available at Level 15 and should be completed as soon as possible. The Boon mechanic allows you to pick a single buff from each of the corresponding master animals and the addition of a second Boon buff from a chosen master animal you select.

Once you are in the endgame and have completed the skill tree from the previous section, utilize the following set of Boons for the best results.

The boons for this build focus on keeping our Poison Creeper off Cooldown as much as possible. Poison Creeper works in tandem with our Paragon tree to target Poisoned and Crowd Controlled Enemies with increased damage bonuses when our Earthen Bulwark explodes.

Paragon

We recommend using these Legendary nodes and Rare Glyphs to truly take this build into the endgame. Note that each Rare Glyph’s information listed below is for the Level 21 version.

Rare Node	Effect
Exploit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +[3.85]% increased damage to Vulnerable targets. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 25 Dexterity points are purchased in the glyph’s range: Dealing damage to a Vulnerable enemy increases your damage by x1% for 6 seconds, up to x10%.
Territorial	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +[9.6]% increased damage to Close targets. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 25 Dexterity points are purchased in the glyph’s range: You gain 10% Damage Reduction against Close enemies.
Earth and Sky	– Grants +[150]% bonus to all Magic nodes within range. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 40 Willpower points are purchased in the glyph’s range: Radius Bonus: Nature Magic Skills deal x10% increased damage to Crowd Controlled or Vulnerable enemies.
Protector	– Grants +[125]% bonus to all Rare nodes within range. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 25 Intelligence points are purchased in the glyph’s range: You gain 10% Damage Reduction while you have an active Barrier.
Undaunted	– For every 5 Intelligence purchased within range, you deal +[9.6]% increased damage while Fortified. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 25 Intelligence points are purchased in the glyph’s range: You gain up to 10% Damage Reduction the more Fortify you have.
Spirit	– For every 5 Dexterity purchased within range, you deal +[10.4]% increased Critical Strike Damage. – Additional Bonus unlocked after 25 Dexterity points are purchased in the glyph’s range: Critical Strikes increase the damage an enemy takes from you by x2% for 20 seconds, up to x12%.

Let’s break down each of these beneficial nodes and where our Paragon Points are positioned in each of the Paragon Boards we use. This part of the build is present in an order of importance, so if you do not have enough Paragon Points for use in your Paragon Tree, just slowly work towards each step.

Starting Board

1. Begin the Starting Board by selecting the nodes on the right hand side of the board towards the Rare Node Prime. The the Rare Node and Magic Nodes.
2. Go to the opposite side of the pathway and head up towards the open Glyph slot, picking up the Rare Node Tenacity along the way.
3. Follow the image above selecting the Dexterity nodes as you path towards the Rare Node Resolve for the bonus Maximum Life.
4. Now insert the Glyph Territorial into the open Glyph slot. This will boost both your offense and defense towards Close Enemies.
5. Finally, head towards the top of the paragon board and attach the Thunderstruck paragon board.

Thunderstruck (2nd Board)

1. Path to the left hand side and pick up the Rare Node Tempest, including the Magic Nodes shown above.
2. Return back to the starting point and path upwards through both Rare Nodes, Deluge and Restorative, these will increase our damage output and our healing respectively.
3. Now go to the open Glyph slot and insert Earth and Sky. This will boost the Magic Nodes inside the Glyph radius and increase our Nature Damage.
4. Take both Rare Nodes inside the Glyph radius, Hubris and Stormcaller, while Stormcaller doesn’t directly benefit us – we will use the +10 Willpower to complete our Glyph bonus. As for Hubris, we will gain Damage Reduction to Vulnerable Enemies.
5. Now complete the right hand side of the board to the connection point and attach Inner Beast.

Inner Beast (3rd Board)

1. Head towards the Glyph slot picking up the Rare Node Nimble for the increase in Attack Speed.
2. Now insert the glyph Undaunted, remember to take all the Intelligence nodes needed for the bonus as shown above.
3. Now path towards left hand side of the board and take the Rare Node Tenacity. This will increase your Maximum Life.
4. Continue up along the path and take the next Rare Node Havoc. This cluster of nodes will increase our Critical Strike Damage and Physical Damage.
5. Finally, take the path to the right hand side of the board and attach Earthen Devastation.

Earthen Devastation (4th Board)

1. Take the pathway down to the Rare Node Crushing Earth to increase our Earth Damage.
2. Now follow the image above and put Protector into the open Glyph slot. Complete the bonus by selecting the Rare and Magic Nodes shown above. Earthen Power will boost our Critical Strike Damage with Earth Skills.
3. Finally, head back to the Inner Beast paragon board and path to the top connection point. Attach the paragon board Survival Instincts.

Survival Instincts (5th Board)

1. This is a shorter board, path towards the Rare Node Bulwark. This will increase our Damage Reduction while Fortified and give us a small bonus to Fortification Generation.
2. Now head back to the Thunderstruck board and take the upper connection point and add the paragon board Heightened Malice.

Heightened Malice (6th Board)

1. Head to the open Glyph slot and insert Exploit. Take all the Dexterity nodes shown above for the bonus Damage to Vulnerable Enemies.
2. Now take the two Rare Nodes Nature-born and Sinking Fangs, with their corresponding Magic Nodes. These two nodes amplify our damage towards poison enemies as well as our defenses against them.
3. Finally, head back to the left hand side of the board and and attach our final board, Constricting Tendrils.

Constricting Tendrils (7th Board)

1. Head towards the open Glyph slot and insert the Spirit Glyph. This will increase our Critical Strike Damage. Be sure to take the needed Dexterity points for the bonus as well.
2. Now take the Rare Node Courage for the increase to Maximum Life.
3. This completes the paragon tree for this build.

Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.

Mechanics and Playstyle

Unfortunately, one of the draw backs for this build is the playstyle. The build is focused around the passive Innate Earthen Bulwark for damage, this blast occurs after the shield expires or is renewed. So the build involves the constant rotation of activating Earthen Bulwark and then renewing the skill as soon as the Cooldown is up. You will also have to use all of your support skills as they rapidly go off Cooldown, during the cycling of your Earthen Bulwark. This is very button intensive and the playstyle at high tiers will require a spam of buttons to keep everything going. Let’s review some points about how our Earthen Bulwark works and discuss pros and cons.

Pros

• Having a permanent Barrier combined with a solid amount of Fortified Life makes this build very tanky.
• Earthen Bulwark provides us with Unstoppable – keeping us free from any Crowd Control.
• Our damage is scaled from Barrier Generation, which allows a good chunk of our damage to be raised by socketing Royal Diamonds into our Helm, Chest and Pants.
• The damage can be further enhanced by getting the Barrier Generation affix on our Chest, Helm and Ring slots. Our actual attack power doesn’t directly affect our primary skill so gearing out is a lot easier to start.
• The Symbiotic Aspect is used on the amulet slot and must be at a max roll of 7.5 seconds for cooldown, this is what keeps our Earthen Bulwark available as long as we are attacking with Storm skill which our unique compliments with Claw.

Cons

• This build is not for everyone – it is very intense to play.
• Greatstaff of the Crone is required for the best optimization of this build.
• You must master your timing for Earthen Bulwark. Even missing the activation of this skill for a half second can get you killed in high tier dungeons.
• Your fingers will get tired.
• The Symbiotic Aspect must have a perfect roll and must go in the amulet slot.

Alright, now that we understand the basic idea behind the build, lets review how our skill rotations work.

To start your engagement, activate your Earthen Bulwark so your are now protected by your Barrier. Now that Earthen Bulwark is surrounding you, activate your Poison Creeper and inflict poison on every enemy you can reach. Here we use the paragon nodes to amplify the damage from Earthen Bulwark’s against poisoned enemies. We utilize the same Damage to Poisoned Enemies affix while we are attack with Claw to ensure our targets are poisoned before our Earth Bulwark explodes. Now these two skills will be the most spammed buttons during your play time, but lets not forget our other skills.

Blood Howl, Debilitating Roar and Cyclone Armor are all our defensive layers with each one providing Damage reduction and Fortification for us to stay alive. While these skills can generally just be spammed, you might want to keep Debilitating Roar as a panic button. This ability can be used in Werewolf form and provides us with 70% Damage Reduction for 4 seconds, it will also immobilize all poisoned enemies allowing you some freedom of movement. To quickly sum this up, you will be in close combat at all times with enemies using Claw and Storm Strike to keep your Cooldowns off, we can do this because of the Symbiotic Aspect, our boons and the Nature’s Fury key passive. Keep your Earthen Bulwark cycling for your explosions and your defensive skills to keep you in the fight. That’s the playstyle, its simple but intense.

Now that you understand the skill rotation and benefits from only using four main skills, let’s look at some of the additional benefits our skills provide while using certain Legendary Aspects.  

Defensive Skills

Cyclone Armor uses the Aspect of Cyclonic Force which dramatically enhances the damage reduction from Cyclone Armor to include Physical Damage Reduction. This gives us a huge advantage in a difficult situation; activate your Cyclone Armor and free yourself with the knockback to readjust, all while being covered by a strong defensive layer with reduced Damage Reduction.

All three skills, Debilitating Roar, Earthen Bulwark and Blood Howl benefit from using the Vigilance passive in our skill tree. This passive offers us 15% damage reduction whenever we cast either of these skills. Your best strategy is to balance the use of both skills for the 6 seconds of Damage Reduction at rank 3. Keeping the Vigilance buff active during endgame activities will be essential to you staying alive.

Offensive Skills

Aspect of Natural Balance is a huge bonus to our Critical Strike Chance for Storm skills, but also increase the Critical Strike Damage of our Earthen Bulwark‘s explosion. With this increase in Critical Strike Chance and the Nature’s Fury passive, we will be keeping the majority of our skills out of cooldown.

When this build is complete, you will have a tanky brawler that can dominate packs of enemies with earthen explosions, all while staying in the right position with a strong set of defenses that can handle when things go wrong.

Gear Choice and Stat Priority

As you begin to farm in World Tier 3 and 4, Rare and Legendary item drops will begin to appear with some regularity depending on your luck. We recommend saving the targeted Legendary items that have the needed Legendary aspects listed below. We also recommended to keep multiple copies of the build’s Aspects in your Stash for future upgrades.

As for the Rare items, you will need to inspect each one for targeted affixes for use in each specific slot and do your best to match the recommended rolls. We have listed our targeted affixes in order of importance. Check the chart below and make note of what affixes you are searching for when you see a Rare gear piece drop.

Gear Slot	Targeted Affixes
Helm	1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Basic Attack Speed 3. Maximum Life 4. Barrier Generation 5. Total Armor 6. Willpower
Chest	1. Damage Reduction 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Rank Up Cyclone Armor 4. Barrier Generation 5. Total Armor 6. Damage Reduction 7. Willpower
Gloves	1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Critical Strike Damage with Earth Skills 3. Attack Speed 4. Willpower 5. Lucky Hit Chance
Pants	1. Damage Reduction 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Damage Reduction While Injured 4. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies 5. Total Armor 6. Willpower
Boots	1. Movement Speed 2. Damage Reduction While Injured 3. Willpower 4. All Stats 5. Movement Speed for 4 seconds After Killing an Elite
Amulet	1. Ranks to All Defensive Skills 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Rank Up Envenom 4. Damage Reduction while Fortified 5. Critical Strike Chance Against Injured Enemies 6. Earth Skill Damage
Rings	1. Vulnerable Damage 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Barrier Generation 4. Critical Strike Damage 5. Maximum Life
2-handed Weapon	Greatstaff of the Crone

Please note that these affixes are the recommended picks for the blank, but that is simply our opinion. Other affixes could certainly work instead of the ones listed above, but may not be optimal. Also, there are several very specific affixes that are required to make the build work, they are as follows:

1. Barrier Generation – this is the only way to increase the damage from our Earthen Bulwark explosions.
2. Cooldown Reduction – the recent Season One Balance changes have lowered the amount of Cooldown Reduction found on gear by 30%. This means getting top rolls for Cooldown will be critical.
3. Damage Reduction – This is going to be key to staying alive in the higher nightmare dungeons.

A final point on acquiring the right Affixes and Legendary Aspects, use your Obols to target farm them. Obols are awarded from many different activities in the game, you will always stockpiling them until you hit your maximum. Instead of just randomly spending them on a random pick, use them to target what you might be missing from this build. It is a great way to target a specific slot of loot and find what you need.

If you are interested in checking out a new tool for gambling Obols check out this link below from Icy Veins.

Legendary Aspects

Listed below are all the best-in-slot Aspects found on Legendary items that are important for the Were-Bomber 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. The endgame itemization goal will be to imprint Aspects with the best values Ancestral Rare items with Item Power above or as close to 800, then upgrade them through the Blacksmith. Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the slot it was posted with.

Gear Slot	Legendary Aspect	Legendary Aspect Power
Helm	Vigorous Aspect	Gain [10.0-15.0%] Damage Reduction while Shapeshifted into a Werewolf.
Chest	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for [2.0-6.0] seconds.
Gloves	Edgemaster’s Aspect	Skills deal up to [10-20%] increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource.
Pants	Aspect of Cyclonic Force	Cyclone Armor also provides Physical Damage Reduction. In addition, Cyclone Armor will also be applied to all nearby allies.
Boots	Ghostwalker Aspect	While Unstoppable and for 4 seconds after, you gain [10- 25%] increased Movement Speed and can move freely through enemies.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Symbiotic Aspect	When the Nature’s Fury Key Passive triggers a free Skill, your non Ultimate Cooldowns of the opposite type are reduced by [3-5] seconds.
Ring	Rapid Aspect	Basic Skills gain [15-30%] Attack Speed.
Ring	Aspect of Natural Balance	Casting a Storm Skill grants your Earth Skills [30.0-45.0%] Critical Strike Damage for 4 seconds. Casting an Earth Skill increases the Critical Strike Chance of Storm Skills by [8.0-12.0%] for 4 seconds.
2-handed Staff	Greatstaff of the Crone

Unique Items

This build utilizes Greatstaff of the Crone for the basic Claw and Storm Strike attacks which are the driving force behind keeping our skills off cooldown as much as possible. While the build can function without this unique item, the ability to trigger two skills at once has massive benefits for our Boons to trigger. Let’s take a closer look at the staff now:

Gems

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

• Weapon: Royal Emerald for Critical Strike Damage to Vulnerable.
• Armor: Royal Diamond for Barrier Generation. This is critical for your damage.
• Jewelry: Exclusively using our Malignant Hearts for these slots.

Elixirs and Health Pots

Visit the Alchemist in any main town to craft helpful Elixirs that increase stats, and experience gain for 30 minutes. Make sure to forage plants and pick up the necessary crafting materials during your adventures; they randomly spawn around the world. Use an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, or the Assault Elixir to increase 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 8th 2023: Updated Aspects, Boons and Paragon boards.
• August 8th 2023: Added notes for Patch 1.1.1
• July 19th, 2023: Season of the Malignant section added.
• July 18th, 2023: Reviewed and altered build with Season One Patch Notes.