Build Introduction
The Wolf Companion Druid build is the best version of a Druid Companion build we have been able to make so far. We focus on using 
Wolves as our main single target damage with 
Poison Creeper and 
Ravens as our AoE clearing skills. We use 
Earthen Bulwark as our main defensive, and to be able to become Unstoppable to be able to get out of sticky situations.
If you are looking for a build that lets you focus on your companions and have them do the killing, then this is the build for you. With our Spirit Bonds and stacking Lucky Hit and Critical Strike Chance, we will have the cooldown on our Companion abilities resetting more than you can use them.
This endgame build guide assumes your character is at least Level 50. Check the Druid Leveling Guide if you need help getting there.
Strengths and Weaknesses
- Don’t have to worry about Spirit
- Minions will kill everything while you are at range
- Multiple Defensive skills and layers of defense
- No Core Skill So you are dependent on Cooldowns
- Has Some downtime if your minions die
- AoE clear is not the highest
To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.
Build Requirements
Aspect of the AlphaAspect of the StampedeThis build requires Aspect of the Alpha and Aspect of the Stampede for the build to fully function; without them your companions will not do enough damage to be able to kill consistently.
Stats-wise, you want as much Lucky Hit and Cooldown Reduction as possible to reset and reduce the cooldowns of your companion skills.
Variants
We have one Variant Playstyle that utilizes Shepherd’s Aspect and Stormclaw’s Aspect to go with our pants 
Storm’s Companion and add a spirit spender into the build via 
Shred.
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
- Fixed an issue where the bonus effect on
Blood Howl from Nighthowler’s Aspect would apply twice to Wolf companions but not at all for Ravens. - Aspect of the Stampede damage bonus increased from 10-20 to 16-26%.
Storm Strike Damage Reduction reduced from 25% to 15%
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
- Storm Strike
- Spirit gain increased from 14 to 15.
- Wolves
- Passive damage increased from 7.8% to 11%.
- Active damage increased from 110% to 135%.
- Enhanced Wolf Pack
- Damage bonus increased from 20% to 25%.
- Brutal Wolf Pack
- Attack Speed bonus increased from 20% to 25%.
- Ravens
- Passive damage increased from 13% to 20%.
- Brutal Ravens
- Additional functionality:
- Increase the passive damage of Ravens by 40%.
- Additional functionality:
- Aspect of the Alpha
- Damage increased from 75-100% to 90-115%.
Malignant Heart
Our best-in-slot Malignant Hearts for season 1 will be:
Caged Heart of the Moonrage (Vicious, Offensive): Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-30 seconds. In addition, gain +3 to Wolves.
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.- Caged Heart of the Agitated Winds (Brutal, Defensive):When 8-13 Close enemies, automatically cast Cyclone Armor. This cannot occur more than once every 10-20 seconds.
Many of the other Malignant hearts will provide some benefit but these are the 3 you should aim to have in your jewelry to have the greatest increase in power.
For more info on Malignant hearts check out our guide on them here:
Malignant Hearts GuideOr check out our Season 1 guide here:
Season 1 GuideSkill Tree Points and Skill Bar
Blood Howl Poison Creeper Wolves Ravens Storm Strike Earthen Bulwark The following tables show the full allocation of Skill Points for the Wolf Companion 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.
| Remaining Renown Points | Cluster |
|---|---|
 Defensive Posture Level 3,  Thick Hide Level 3,  Nature’s Resolve Level 3,  Unrestrained Level 2 |  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 four listed Boons and then fully unlock the rest to activate the final Boon with Spirit Bonding.
| Boon Name | Animal | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Packleader | Wolf | Lucky Hit: Critical Strikes have up to a 20% chance to reset the Cooldowns of your Companion Skills. |
| Scythe Talons | Eagle | Gain 5% increased Critical Strike Chance. |
| Wariness | Stag | Take 10% reduced damage from Elites. |
| Overload | Snake | Lucky Hit: Dealing Lightning damage has up to a 20% chance to cause the target to emit a static discharge, dealing 20% Lightning damage to surrounding enemies. |
| Swooping Attacks | Eagle | Gain 10% Attack Speed. |
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 Starting board.
For our Starting board, we head to the right and grab the Rare and Magic Nodes on our way to the glyph slot where we socket the 
Keeper glyph, making sure to grab all of the Intelligence inside the radius, we then head up the left side and grab the Rare and Magic nodes.
The next Paragon Board we take is Lust For Carnage, as it has the best glyph slot and Rare/Magic Nodes even though we don’t want the Legendary Node itself. We are going to head up the right side grabbing the Rare and Magic Nodes, as seen in the picture then head over to the glyph slot and socket Wilds into it, making sure to grab all of the Intelligence nodes inside of the radius before heading back to the right side of the board and out the exit.
Our next Paragon Board is Heightened Malice. First, we head left and then down to pickup the Glyph slot and socket a 
Human Rare Glyph into it being sure to pickup all of the Rare and Magic Nodes in the image above along with all of the Willpower Nodes. After that, we head back north following the path in the image above, grabbing the Rare and Magic Nodes as we head to pick up the Legendary Node, Heightened Malice before heading back down and exiting this board to the right.
Our next Paragon Board is Inner Beast; we zoom straight right to get to the Glyph slot and socket Guzzler, grabbing all of the Intelligence Nodes and the Rare and Magic Nodes in the image above.
Our final Paragon Board is Thunderstruck to get quick access to the glyph slot and some additional Damage Reduction, this is where we slot in the Exploit Glyph.
Paragon board images courtesy of d4builds.gg.
Mechanics and Playstyle
This is one of the easiest builds you will play! We use Poison Creeper to clear out packs of mobs with the insane AoE damage that it provides, while our Wolves will be used as our main single target ability.
Storm Strike is taken as our Basic skill, due to being able to apply Vulnerable to up to three mobs at a time, as well as giving us damage reduction.
We use Ravens as a bit of extra damage for both single target and AoE, as well as increasing our Critical Strike Chance against enemies that the Ravens have recently hit.
We take Earthen Bulwark with Enhanced Earthen Bulwark as an extra defensive layer and an emergency Unstoppable, just in case we start to get overrun by enemies, and Blood Howl as a self-heal and damage increase. We use 
Predatory Instinct to increase our Critical Strike Chance and the chance of activating our Packleader Spirit Bond, and 
Call of the Wild to increase the damage of our Companions.
Heightened Senses, 
Vigilance, and 
Ancestral Fortitude all help us survive even more by increasing our damage reduction and resistance.
One of the biggest mechanics of the build is the Spirit Bond Packleader, which gives us a Lucky Hit Chance on our critical strikes to reset all of our Companion Skill cooldowns. Due to this, we will be stacking our Critical Strike Chance and our Lucky Hit Chance as high as possible.
Malignant Heart Changes: When you get the suggested Malignant Hearts then your 2 defensive skills, Blood Howl and Earthen Bulwark also deal damage so you can weave them in more liberally when doing the AoE Rotation or even the single target rotation.
Single Target Rotation
- Blood Howl if Wolves is off cooldown (Stay in Wolf form for 2.5 seconds);
- Wolves if off cooldown;
- Earthen Bulwark if you need to escape from being surrounded;
- Blood Howl if you need life and Wolves is on cooldown;
- Poison Creeper and Ravens on cooldown, or to deal with adds;
- Storm Strike to proc our Spirit Bond.
AoE Rotation
- Poison Creeper to Immobilize and inflict Poison;
- Ravens when off cooldown on the largest concentration of enemies;
- Wolves on particularly tanky enemies;
- Earthen Bulwark if you need to escape from being surrounded;
- Blood Howl is you need the life or everything is on cooldown;
- Storm Strike to proc our Spirit Bond.
Variants
Lightning Shred
We swap Shepherd’s Aspect and Stormclaw’s Aspect in for Aspect of the Wildrage and Rapid Aspect along with swapping in 
Lupine Ferocity for 
Bestial Rampage. We then remove 3 points in Thick Hide, and 2 points Unrestrained and Nature’s Resolve to place 5 points into Shred and 1 point into Enhanced Shred and Primal Shred.
After we do that we weave Shred into our rotation making sure to keep up our buff from Storm Strike. This will give us more consistent Single target damage and a greater chance to proc our Overcharged Aspect.
Best in Slot Aspects, Powers & Uniques
These are the best-in-slot items and locations for the Legendary Aspects and our Uniques.
| Slot | Item/Aspect Name | Aspect Power | Rarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Head | Harlequin Crest If no Unique  Earthguard Aspect | Gain [10 – 20]% Damage Reduction. In addition, gain +4 Ranks to all Skills. If No Unique Gain [15 – 25%] bonus amount to your next Earthen Bulwark for each enemy you Crowd Control up to a maximum of 100%. | Unique |
| Amulet | Nighthowler’s Aspect | Blood Howl increases Critical Strike Chance by +[5 – 10]%. In addition, Blood Howl also affects Nearby Companions and Players for 3 seconds. | Legendary |
| Ring 1 | Aspect of the Stampede or Aspect of the Alpha | Gain 1 additional Companion. In addition, your Companion Skills deal {X – X%} bonus damage. Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf Companions deal {75 – 100%} additional damage and can spread  Rabies. | Legendary |
| Ring 2 | Aspect of the Wildrage | Your Companions gain the bonuses from Bestial Rampage Key Passive. | Legendary |
| Chest | Skinwalker’s Aspect | When you use a Shapeshifting Skill that changes your form, gain {#} Life. If you are at full Life, gain the same amount as Fortify. | Legendary |
| Gloves | Rapid Aspect | Basic Skills gain {15 – 30%} Attack Speed. | Legendary |
| Legs | Storm’s Companion | Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability. | Unique |
| Boots |  Exploiter’s Aspect | You have 20% increased Crowd Control Duration. While enemies are Unstoppable, you deal {20 – 50%} increased damage to them. | Legendary |
| 1 Handed Weapon | Aspect of the Stampede or Aspect of the Alpha | Gain 1 additional Companion. In addition, your Companion Skills deal {X – X%} bonus damage. Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf Companions deal {75 – 100%} additional damage and can spread Rabies. | Legendary |
| Totem | Overcharged Aspect | Lucky Hit: Up to a X% chance when dealing Lightning damage to overload the target for 3 seconds, causing any direct damage you deal to them to pulse X additional damage to surrounding enemies. | Legendary |
Stat Priority List
Listed below are the affixes to prioritize on gear for the Wolf Companion 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.
| Gear Slot | Important Affixes |
|---|---|
| Helm | Unique ( Harlequin Crest)If Rare/Legendary used then: Ranks of Wolves Ranks of Poison Creeper Cooldown Reduction Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier |
| Chest | Companion Skill Damage Damage Reduction Willpower Maximum Life |
| Weapon 1-Hander | Weapon DPS Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies Vulnerable Damage Damage to Poisoned Enemies |
| Totem | Weapon DPS Cooldown Reduction Lucky Hit Chance Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier Willpower |
| Amulet | Ranks of All Companion Skills Companion Skill Damage Ranks of the Call of the Wild Passive Cooldown Reduction Lucky Hit Chance while You Have a Barrier |
| Gloves | Lucky Hit Chance Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Damage Willpower |
| Pants | Unique (Storm’s Companion) |
| Boots | Damage Reduction while Injured Fortify Generation Spirit Cost Reduction Movement Speed Willpower All Stats |
| Rings | Lucky Hit Chance Vulnerable Damage Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Damage Maximum Life |
Gems
Listed below are the best Gems to socket into gear for each slot type.
- Weapon:
Royal Topaz for Basic Skill Damage - Armor:
Royal Ruby for +#% Maximum Life. - Jewelry: Use the Malignant Hearts recommended at the start of this guide, for the special effects 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.
- If playing on the Eternal Realm, use
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 27th, 2023: Clarified the Aspects required to transition to this build, in the Build Requirements section.
- July 23rd, 2023: Updated Gems section to reflect the presence of Malignant Hearts.
- July 18th, 2023: Updated for Season 1, adding Malignant Hearts to the guide. Added Active Skill Bar.
