Pulverize – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 9)

Build Introduction

Smash through the enemies of Sanctuary with the Pulverize Druid: Puddle Edition! This is your guide for the balanced and dependable Pulverize Druid. This is a poisonous Grizzly Rage build leveraging the new Rotting Lightbringer, splashing and attacking with a high volume of Overpowered puddles.

Just starting on your druid adventure? Try out the Pulverize Leveling Build and swap to this one at Level 60.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

The following Legendary Aspects are required for build functionality to get started on the Pulverize Druid:

Required Aspects

Shockwave Aspect

Aspect of the Ursine Horror

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 Pulverize Druid including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates. Jump to the secions you’re looking for here:

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Skill Bar Setup for Pulverize (order does not matter)

Debilitating Roar Grizzly Rage Poison Creeper Cyclone Armor Claw Pulverize

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.

After Spirit is managed from high Resource Cost Reduction on your Rotting Lightbringer or you have your Ring of Starless Skies, you when take Calamity over Energize.

Druid’s primary resource is Spirit. See the Spirit Management Section on how to keep casting!

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

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

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.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Power
2 Handed Mace	Igni Que	Unique – Rotting Lightbringer	If no puddle is around you, Pulverize forms a puddle that guarantees its own Overpowers and deals 200-600% of its normal damage as Poisoning over 7 seconds. Pulverize causes all close puddles to splash 20-60% of their total damage within their areas and around them. Pulverize radius increase will affect the size of the puddle and its splashes.
Helm	Cir Thul	Mythic –Heir of Perdition Unique – Godslayer Crown Aspect of Cyclonic Force	Give in to hatred and earn Lilith’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Lilith’s Favor from Nearby allies.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death (recommended Unique) Insatiable Fury Juggernaut’s Aspect	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves	N/A	Shockwave Aspect	Pulverize creates a shockwave that travels forward, dealing 80-120% of its damage to targets in the path.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Aspect of the Ursine Horror	Pulverize is now an Earth Skill. After it Overpowers, your Earth Skill Cooldowns are reduced by 0.5-1.25 seconds.
Boots	N/A	Unique – Wildheart Hunger	Shapeshifting into a new animal form increases the value of your Bestial Rampage bonuses by 2-5%, up to 20-50%. This bonus decays by 0.5% per second.
Amulet	Grand Diamond	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.
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	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	Grand Diamond	Mythic – Ring of Starless Skies Aspect of Retaliation	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
2 Handed Mace – Rotting Lightbringer	Willpower% Poison Damage Chance for Cast Pulverize Twice Resource Cost Reduction
2 Handed Mace	Willpower Max Life Chance on Hit to Restore Spirit Critical Strike Damage	Werebear Augments – Chance to Cast Pulverize Twice Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance
Helm – Heir of Perdition	Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Movement Speed Ranks to Core Skills
Helm – Godslayer Crown	All Stats Maximum Life Damage to Elites Cooldown Reduction
Helm – Legendary Aspect	Cooldown Reduction Max Life Willpower Spirit Per Second	Worldly Endurance – Max Life Werebear Innovation – Pulverize Size
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 Spirit Per Second	Worldly Endurance – Max Life Werebear Innovation – Pulverize Size
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Pulverize Attack Speed Willpower All Resistance Lucky Hit: Chance to make enemies Vulnerable	Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance Werebear Innovation – Pulverize Size
Pants – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Max Life Armor All Resistance	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Werebear Innovation – Pulverize Size
Boots – Wildheart Hunger	Movement Speed Ranks to Heightened Senses Shapeshifting Attack Speed Cold Resistance
Amulet	Willpower% Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Quickshift Ranks to Toxic Claws	Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction
Ring – Ring of Starless Skies	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks to Core Skills
Rings – Legendary Aspect	Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction	Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance 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.

Max Size Temper increases is capped at 100%. After reaching that for Pulverize Size, other utility tempers can be taken, such as Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit Chance.

There are three options for Offensive Tempers:

• Earth Critical Strike Chance is the most valuable, until you have capped your crit. Crit can be capped at higher paragon and after getting your Ring of Starless Skies and Heir of Perdition.
• Once you do not need more Crit Chance, Offensive Temper for Poison Damage. This is the better additive because there appears to be a double dip for Poison/Poisoning sources related to interactions with Corrosive Vapor, Rotting Lightbringer puddles mods, and Aspect of the Rabid Bear.
• For quality of life during content like bossing, or in content where things aren’t dying in a timely manner, Grizzly Rage Duration can be a valid Offensive Temper.

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

The following Unique items are recommended for the Pulverize Druid:

• Rotting Lightbringer places puddles that deal poisoning damage over time, lasting 7 seconds each. Subsequent hits of Pulverize will cause Splashes to resonate from Puddles, dealing high damage.
  • More than one puddle can be active at a time, just not overlapped.
  • Damage over time extensions like Tracker do not extend the duration of puddles.
  • Splashes splash outward from the center of the puddles that are triggered.
  • Shockwave Aspect, when also hitting an active splashable puddle with your main Pulverize hit, will send out extra splashes which means even more volume of splashes from that one puddle.
  • Damage of the base puddle is not significant (Normal Damage), but the Splashes are. Splashes are a direct portion of the total amount of damage of a puddle as if it had Critically Overpowered times the two gear affix modifiers, such as x600% then x60% at max affix range. Splashes will be the highest damage for the build. Splashes always Overpower.
  • Subsequent direct Pulverize hits inside the puddle will be Overpowered always, but are subject to standard Critical Strike Chance.
  • The initial hit that triggers a puddle will have standard Overpower and Critical Strike chance, rather than being guaranteed. So options like Obsidian Slam and Provocation are still taken to help fill these gaps.
  • Buggy Behavior with Rotting Lightbringer:
    • This weapon is often unreliable about whether puddles splash or not depending on terrain. It appears to be related to the type of terrain or tileset, where some are much less likely to have functioning puddles that properly splash out splashes. If a new puddle is not sending out splashes, move and try again with the next puddle.
    • Sometimes puddles can overlap, but it seems to only be when a puddle is broken and not splashing.
    • There seems to sometimes be a lockout cooldown on how often you can place puddles, but this is not on a reliable timer.
    • Sending Shockwaves to distant puddles does not appear to improve splash volume.
    • Splashes always Overpower, but they may not Critically Strike if they land outside an active puddle.
  • General Strategy for using Rotting Lightbringer:
    • In farm, simply keep smashing and moving. Puddles behind will send out splashes as you Pulverize so most things will die as you go.
    • In Push, gather multiple packs, place several puddles nearby, and smash until enemies dead.
    • Vs bosses, overlap one or more puddles nearby with the boss generally centralized around them, maxing number of potential splashes to hit them.

• (Before Mythic) Insatiable Fury gives Skill ranks to all Werebear Skills including Pulverize, and the ranks to Iron Fur are a welcome defensive boost.

• (Before Mythic) Tibault’s Will can be used before acquiring both your Mythic Chest and Helm, and still have room for Aspect of the Ursine Horror. It offers strong gear affixes and an always active multiplier thanks to Grizzly Rage. Mastercraft the Allstats or Damage Reduction while Unstoppable.

• (Before Mythic) Godslayer Crown is an effective grouping tool and strong damage multiplier. Immobilize from Poison Creeper, Freeze from Thul, and other related Crowd Controls can trigger the effect.

• Wildheart Hunger gives additional bonuses to Bestial Rampage damage and attack speed. It is prebuilt before Grizzly Rage and then maintained with forced shifts to human form from Que rune.

Mythic Unique Items

• Heir of Perdition has Strong Gear Affixes and a steady damage multiplier. The multiplier can be stolen occasionally from others that also use this helm for a higher damage multiplier.

• 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. The high category for All Stats is strong for activating paragon rare node bonuses.

• 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 Pulverize Druid:

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Ruby for Overpower Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Diamond for Resistance to all Elements

Horadric Jewels

Seasonal Players can use these Horadric Jewels, placed in jewelry gear slots. Check out the Horadric Spell section for all available options.

Jewel	Description
Scornful Light	You deal 20% more Elemental damage and take 10% more.
Idol From Below	You gain 6% primary stat, 6% maximum life and you are always Unhindered. However, you will be hunted in Sanctuary’s darkest places by Jewel Guardians who were entombed to protect this relic.
Elemental Brand	Your Catalytic Skill deals 33% damage of your Infusion’s element over 3 seconds. Lucky Hit: Dealing damage of your Infusion’s element has up to a 33% chance to trigger its secondary effect.

Runewords

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

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Que	Igni – Gain: 25 Offering. Stores Offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored Offering. Que – Requires: 300 Offering. Overflow: Increased Duration. Cooldown: 1 seconds. Invoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark Skill for 3 seconds, granting yourself a Barrier.
Cir Thul	Cir – Gain: 300 Offering. Cast 5 Skills then become exhausted for 3 seconds. Thul – Requires: 300 Offering. Overflow: Up to 100% Increased Size. Cooldown: 2 seconds. Invoke the Sorcerer’s Mystical Frost Nova Skill, inflicting Freeze and Vulnerable onto enemies.

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.

Que will provide frequent casts of Earthen Bulwark. This plays well with a Wildheart Hunger gameplay because it forces Human Form, maintaining Wildheart Stacks.

Thul applies Vulnerable, a damage taken debuff, and Freezes enemies. It is targeted on cursor with keyboard and mouse, or aimed at enemies in the direction of cast on controller.

Other combinations can also situationally work well; adjust to the content you are running. These can include:

• (Pushing) Qax can be a higher total damage option over Thul, but needs a high Resource Cost Reduction Greater Affix on your Rotting Lightbringer and Ring of Starless Skies, or higher investment into Resource Generation like Reactive Ooze Arcana, and Gift of the Stag or Energize Spirit Boons.
• (Speedfarming) Jah for teleport is useful when farming.
• (Cir alternative) Nagu can trigger more often than Lith. Nagu would require replacing Creeper with Brutal Ravens for enough Summons count.
• (Bossing – Grizzly Rage Cooldown) Zec can be useful when bossing, where Grizzly Rage likes to run out between attempts.
• (Early Gearing) While leveling and gearing before legendary Runes become accessible, many Magic and Rare runewords such as Gar for Critical Strike Chance will be viable.

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Paragon Board

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

For a more defensive setup, Dominate can be exchanged for Undaunted, and Spirit for Territorial.

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Horadric Spell (Season 9)

Season 9: Sins of the Horadrim offers seasonal Powers accessed from a Powers tab on the character Sheet and Horadric Jewels placed into Jewelry slots to augment these Powers.

The Horadric Catalyst is equipped to a Skill on the Skill Bar, triggered on the Skill’s use. One Infusion adds effects and modifies the damage type of the Catalyst, and three Arcana enhance the Catalyst or provide extra effects on Catalyst trigger.

Pushing

Type	Power	Description
Catalyst, Attached to Pulverize	Astral Pillar	Shape an Ethereal Column that Taunts for 3.0 seconds. Piercing waves flow from it and deal damage, until you create another one or move too far away.
Infusion	Corrosive Vapor	Your Spell Catalyst now deals Poison and or Poisoning damage. Bonus: Enemies damaged by it take 150% Poisoning damage over 4 seconds. This effect can only happen on each enemy every 3 seconds. While equipped, your Poison Damage Bonus is equal to that of your highest Damage Type Bonus. Rank 5: Deactivates monster Vampiric effects for 5 seconds.
Arcana	Fractured Core	Denial – Your Catalyst deactivates monster Damage Resistance Aura effects for 2.5 seconds, but you take 10% more stacking damage for the same time (+0.5 each rank).
Arcana	Potent Alloy	Denial – Your Catalyst destroys enemy Barriers and Knocks them Down for 1.0 seconds after the removal (+0.8 each rank).
Arcana	Bloody Charm	Denial – Your Catalyst gains a specialized Execute effect for non-Boss enemies with 10% or less Life. (+2% each rank). Astral Pillar: Will launch additional waves towards Executable non-Boss enemies to Execute them.

Most Catalysts are functional and can be played by preference. Other setups can work outside push content, such as:

• (Speed) Choices like Propulsion, Shifting Powder and Floaty Bobble can speed up your gameplay, especially before Movement Speed cap.
• (Resource) Reactive Ooze is a frankly rediculous 20% Resource per second. Use this any time before Spirit is solved.

Horadric Jewels

Use these Jewels, placed in jewelry gear slots, to enhance the Horadric Spell:

Jewel	Description
Scornful Light	You deal 20% more Elemental damage and take 10% more.
Idol From Below	You gain 6% primary stat, 6% maximum life and you are always Unhindered. However, you will be hunted in Sanctuary’s darkest places by Jewel Guardians who were entombed to protect this relic.
Elemental Brand	Your Catalytic Skill deals 33% damage of your Infusion’s element over 3 seconds. Lucky Hit: Dealing damage of your Infusion’s element has up to a 33% chance to trigger its secondary effect.

There are some situationally useful Jewels to consider:

• (Resource) In Early Gearing, Spark of Creation can be useful Resource generation.
• (High push) Horadric Crest can be used for defense over Brand.

Mercenaries

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability: Crater
• Opportunity: Pulverize

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.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The Pulverize Druid is straightforward gameplay with minor buff maintainence.

1. Prebuild stacks of Quickshift and Wildheart Hunger by casting Claw and Pulverize.
2. Cast Grizzly Rage to activate your Werebeast form.
3. Pulverize your enemies. Place one or more Puddles nearby with your Rotting Lightbringer and Pulverize to resonate splashes from each.

Use Debilitating Roar Defensively as needed, or proactively for the Innate Debilitating Roar damage buff.

Cyclone Armor is for the passive defense, and unavailable during Grizzly Rage.

Poison Creeper is used to passively apply poison, and the Active Use can be used to Immobilize for Godslayer Crown if used.

Claw, and Maul during Grizzly Rage, can be used as filler to gain Spirit as necessary.

Skills, Support and Synergies

Pulverize is our primary, high-damage Skill. Two Legendary Aspects modify the Skill:

• Shockwave Aspect creates a damaging wave along the path of the Pulverize. There is an overlap between the initial Pulverize and its shockwave, so enemies can be double-hit each Pulverize!
• Aspect of the Ursine Horror makes Pulverize an Earth Skill. Earth Skills are also Nature Skills, and this allows Pulverize to benefit from Nature-based modifiers such as Defiance or Crushing Earth.

Pulverize damage type becomes Poison, from Physical, thanks to Aspect of the Rabid Bear.

Rotting Lightbringer places pools of Poisoning damage, which scales off your Overpowered Pulverize damage. More than one puddle can be placed at a time, just not overlapped. Subsequent casts of Pulverize will cause puddles to send out Splashes for high damage.

Overpower

Overpowered attacks will deal extra damage to enemies. We get Overpowers from several sources:

• Rotting Lightbringer guarantees Overpower from hits inside the puddle and from splashes sent out from the puddle.
• Enhanced Pulverize grants an Overpower every 10 seconds.
• Spirit Boon Obsidian Slam causes Earth Skills to Overpower after casting Six Earth Skills.
• Provocation gives Overpowers as you remain in Bear Form. Some uptime is lost while casting any non-Werebear skills. This is a buff to watch, as it can be triggered on any damaging non-defensive Skill like Maul. Try to only use it on Pulverize.
• A natural 3% chance for any non-channeled Skill to Overpower.

There’s several damage multipliers to Overpower, including Survival Instincts, Raging Pulverize and Rotting Lightbringer scales its splashes from Critical Strike and Overpower.

Supporting Skills

Supporting Skills are Claw, Cyclone Armor, Debilitating Roar, and Poison Creeper.

• Use Debilitating Roar Defensively as needed, or proactively for the Innate Debilitating Roar damage buff.
• Cyclone Armor is for the passive defense, and while unavailable during Grizzly Rage, the passive portion is still working.
• Poison Creeper is used to passively apply poison, and the Active Use can be used to Immobilize for Godslayer Crown if used.
• Claw, and Maul during Grizzly Rage, can be used as filler to gain Spirit as necessary.

Ultimate Skill

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. 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.

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.
• 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 Energize Spirit Boon for Calamity or Calm Before the Storm.
• Temper an Offensive Temper for Grizzly Rage Duration.
• Target your Mastercrafts towards Grizzly Rage Duration or Cooldown.
• Use the Zec Rune, replacing Thul.
• Put more Skill Points into Grizzly Rage for cooldown.

Key Passive

Bestial Rampage is our Key Passive. The Damage Multiplier is respectable, and the Attack Speed means faster paced play and more Rotting Lightbringer puddles at once.

Wildheart Hunger gives Wildheart Stacks that boost Bestial Rampage. Stacks are prebuilt before Grizzly Rage by alternating Claw and Pulverize, and maintained during Grizzly Rage through use of Que, which forces form shift to Human.

Spirit Management

Maintaining Spirit is essential to keep smashing out your Pulverizes. Spirit is managed from a variety of sources:

1. Resource Cost Reduction on 2-handed weapon and Ring of Starless Skies.
2. Gift of the Stag Spirit Boon.
3. The Wolf’s Spirit Boon Energize.
4. Intelligence stat for greater Resource Generation.

This is generally sufficient in the Endgame to maintain Spirit. However, if these are insufficient sources while leveling and gearing, consider using one or more of the following options:

• Seasonal players can use Spark of Creation for Spirit refund on casts of Pulverize or Reactive Ooze for high Resource Per Second.
• Use the Spirit Management Runeword Setup Poc Lum.
• Spirit Per Second on Boots, Chest and Helm, or Resource Cost Reduction on Jewelry affix and Tempers.
• Use Aspect of Quicksand with Aspect of the Umbral.
• Remove points from Wild Impulses, placing them in Abundance, and use your Basic Skill as a Spirit Builder.

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 9 Updates

The changes to Pulverize are mostly pawsitive! some are great like more base Pulverize damage and more Overpower availability, but less Overpower scaling. The new Unique Item Rotting Lightbringer is playable and looks strong. We can fortunately afford to use it since Aspect of the Ursine Horror is now a Utility Aspect instead of an Offensive Aspect. Then bug fixes and buffs to Grizzly Rage aspects let us play into the Rabid Dire Werebear flavor.

Tempering for Pulverize Size is back baby \o/

2 July update: Lots of updates based on behavior with Grizzly Rage being able to cooldown while active (unknown if bug but we like it), and how the new Rotting Lightbringer plays. You can read about all the behaviors here. It’s a lot. I’ve changed some skill tree, rune, gearing and tempering considerations, and changed this build to a Bestial Rampage key passive build. Maxing out volume of splashes seems to be the play so we will go for the high Attack Speed option.

The following are important changes in the Season 9 Patch Updates that are specific to the Pulverize Druid. For general Season 9 information, check out our Season 9 Hub.

Itemization:

• New Unique Item – Rotting Lightbringer
  • If no puddle is around you, Pulverize forms a puddle that guarantees its own Overpowers and deals 200-600% of its normal damage as Poisoning over 7 seconds. Pulverize causes all close puddles to splash 20-60% of their total damage within their areas and around them. Pulverize radius increase will affect the size of the puddle and its splashes. 
• Aspect of the Ursine Horror
  • Category changed from Offensive to Utility.
  • Previous: Pulverize is now also an Earth Skill. After Casting Pulverize tectonic spikes continue to deal damage over 2 seconds.
  • Now: Pulverize is now an Earth Skill. After it Overpowers, your Earth Skill Cooldowns are reduced by 0.5-1.25 seconds.
• Shockwave Aspect – Will now trigger the puddle effect of Rotting Lightbringer.
• Aspect of the Rabid Bear
  • Previous: While Grizzy Rage is active, Skills that Critically Strike apply Rabies and your Poison damage is increased by 60-105%.
  • Now: 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.
• Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast – Damage bonus per stack increased from 3% to 5%, up to 100% from 60%.
• New Utility Tempering Manual – Werebear Innovation for Pulverize size.
• Overpower bonus scaling removed.

Skills and Stats:

• Claw Damage increased from 28% to 80%.
• Maul Damage increased from 26% to 80%.
• Pulverize Damage increased from 92% to 150%.
• Enhanced Pulverize
  •  Previously: Your next Pulverize will Overpower every 12 seconds while you remain Healthy.
  • Now: Pulverize deals 30% increased damage to Crowd Controlled enemies and Bosses.
• Raging Pulverize
  • Previous: Pulverize deals 75% increased Overpower damage. Enemies Overpowered by Pulverize are Stunned for 3 seconds.
  • Now: Every 10 seconds, Pulverize is guaranteed to Overpower and make enemies take 20% more damage for 5 seconds.
• Enhanced Debilitating Roar  Fortify amount increased from 22% to 30%.
• Innate Debilitating Roar Damage bonus increased from 15% to 25%.
• Provocation
  • Previous: When you remain in Werebear form for at least 20/16/12 seconds, your next non-Defensive Skill will Overpower.
  • Now: After 10 seconds of Werebear form, your next non-Defensive Skill will Overpower and deal 5/10/15% increased damage.
• Grizzly Rage Damage bonus per second in the form increased from 3% to 4%. Companion Skills are now always usable during Grizzly Rage.
• Grizzly Rage Rank 5 Bonus
  • Previous: Companion Skills can be Cast during Grizzly Rage.
  • Now: You gain 30% increased Armor while Grizzly Rage is active.
• Prime Grizzly Rage
  • Previously: Grizzly Rage makes you Unstoppable for 6 seconds.
  • Now: You are Unstoppable while Grizzly Rage is active.
• Toxic Claws
  • Previously: Shred and Lacerate deals an additional 24/48/72% of their Base damage as Poisoning damage over 4 seconds.
  • Now: You deal 5/10/15% increased Poison damage. This is doubled while in Werewolf form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.
• Vigilance Damage Reduction reduced from 7/14/21% to 5/10/15%.
• Ursine Strength
  • Previously: Gain 30% additional Maximum Life while in Werebear form and for 3 seconds after leaving Werebear form. While Healthy, deal 15% increased damage, and 70% increased Overpower damage.
  • Now: Gain 30% Maximum Life, 20% more damage, and a 100% Overpower bonus while in Werebear form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Aspect of the Rabid Bear would not always work for the entire duration of Grizzly Rage.

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Changelog

• 8 July, 2025: More info on Rotting Lightbringer, and added options for Offensive tempers.
• 6 July, 2025: Further clarified behavior, known bugs and pull strategy for Rotting Lightbringer in the Unique Items section. Added some options for Runes, Unique Items and Horadric Arcanas.
• 2 July, 2025: Based on testing with updated Rotting Lightbringer and unposted changes to Grizzly Rage cooldown, there are some updates updates to skill tree, runes and gearing. See Uniques section for full Rotting Lightbringer behavior and use.
• 27 June, 2025: Significant Updates for Patch 2.3 Season 9. Changes to Skill Tree, Ultimate, Gearing, Boons, Paragon, and new Unique Item Rotting Lightbringer.
• April 24, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 3 March, 2025: Minor updates for 2.1.3.
• 19 Jan, 2025: Updated for on Season 7 and Patch 2.1 updates. Two tab paragon board introduced.
• 15 October, 2024: Updated for new onsite Paragon Tool.
• 27 September, 2024: Updated for Season 6. Changes to Paragon, Skill Tree, Skill Bar, and recommended Uniques.
• 7 August, 2024: Updated for post-launch of season 5. Small changes to weapon type and optional unique item recommendations.
• 5 August, 2024: Updated for Patch 1.5.0 and Season of the Infernal Hordes.
• 17 June, 2024: Updated for mid-season patch 1.4.3.
• May 15, 2024: Small changes in gear affixes to adjust for season launch changes from PTR.
• May 6, 2024: Guide reworked for the significant 1.4.0 changes to gearing and for season 4 speculative changes. Format changed to frontload basic build information and offer extra information and options afterwards. Paragon Board redesigned for better Damage Reduction and output.