Wolf Companion – Druid Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

The Wolf Companion Druid build will focus on using Wolves as the main source of single target damage, with Poison Creeper and Ravens dealing AoE damage and used as clearing skills. This build uses Blood Howl as the main defensive, while utilizing Trample for mobility and 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, all while you are able to stay back and tank any damage that may hit you, then this is the build for you.

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

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

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Storm’s Companion

Mad Wolf’s Glee

Required Legendary Aspects

Aspect of the Alpha

Aspect of the Stampede

Shepherd’s Aspect

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Blood Howl Debilitating Roar Wolves Ravens Maul Shred

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

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.

Paragon Board

The Paragon setup for the Wolf Companion Druid will be updated on this page before the Season 6 launch on October 8th, 2024.

Gear, Gems, Elixirs, and Stats

Make sure to read our Tempering and Masterworking section below for all info regarding Gems, Stats, Elixirs, and Gear.

Legendary Aspects

Each aspect is listed with its matching gear slot. Do your best to keep each aspect in the assigned slot. Additionally, if you are trying to farm a specific item, we recommend using your Obols to target farm them!

Gear Slot	Gems	Aspect / Unique	Legendary Aspect / Unique Power
Helm	Grand Sapphire	Spirit Bond Aspect	10-17.5% of the damage you would take is redirected across your Companions. Your Companions cannot die.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	Mad Wolf’s Glee	Werewolf form is now your true form, and you gain 2-5 ranks in all Werewolf Skills
Gloves	N/A	Moonrage Aspect	Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-35 seconds. This effect is a Lucky Hit against bosses. Maximum 3 additional Wolves. In addition, gain +3 Ranks to Wolves.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Storm’s Companion	Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability.
Boots	N/A	Rakanoth’s Wake	When you cast a Skill with a Cooldown, you explode, dealing [X] Fire damage.
Amulets(50% bonus)	Grand Diamond	Aspect of the Alpha	Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf Companions deal {75 – 100%} additional damage and can spread Rabies.
Ring	Grand Diamond	Aspect of the Stampede	Gain 1 additional Companion. In addition, your Companion Skills deal {X – X%} bonus damage.
Ring	Grand Diamond	Ring of Starless Skies	Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by x10% for 3 seconds, up to x50%.
2 Handed Weapon	Grand Emerald	Shepherd’s Aspect	Companion Skills deal an additional 5-10% damage per companion you have.

Gems and Runewords

See below for a more detailed explanation of the best Gems to socket into your gear for each category.

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald For Increased Critical Strike Damage	Grand Sapphire For increased Willpower.	Grand Diamond Or Whatever Resist you need

Runewords are a flexible power to help strengthen a build or fill its weaknesses. Two Runes combine for the effect:

• A conditional trigger Runeword of Ritual that supplies Offerings when the condition is met
• An effect Runeword of Invocation that costs Offerings.

Once the Runeword of Ritual has supplied enough Offerings, the Runeword of Invocation will trigger its effect. Some Runewords of Invocation will have overflow effects, where excess Offerings will spillover to empower the triggered effect.

Runewords replace Gems in gear. Up to two sets of Runeword pairs can be placed at a time.

Runeword Combination	Effects
Yul Eom	Gain: 50 Offering Cast a Skill with a Cooldown. Requires: 100 Offering Reduce your active Cooldowns by 0.1 seconds.
Feo Yom	Gain: 1000 Offering. Become Injured or Crowd Controlled Requires: 500 Offering Evoke the Druid’s Petrify, Stunning enemies and Granting 100 Primary Resource

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

Visit the Alchemist and craft an Elixir providing any Resistance you need most, the Elixir of Precision II to increase Crit and Crit Damage for bossing. Some Elixirs cannot be crafted and only drop from things like Helltides or Nightmare Dungeons. Additionally, make sure to keep your health potion upgraded!

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Below are the affixes to prioritize on gear. Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Affixes on the same line are considered to be equally important, but their benefits may vary depending on how much is stacked or other character stats. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the second column, and the bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. To masterwork, you will need rare materials that only drop from The Pit. Be sure to check our Tempering guide, our Masterworking guide, as well as our guide about The Pit for more details about these topics.

Additionally, there are several very specific affixes that are required to make the build work.

• Companion Innovation % Wolves Attack Speed
• Companion Efficiency: % Wolves Cooldown Reduction

Slot	Targeted Gear Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Helm	1. Ranks to Wolves 2. Willpower 3.Armor	Companion Innovation % Wolves Attack Speed Worldly Endurance: % Total Armor
Chest	Mad Wolf’s Glee 1.Max Life	Unique
Gloves	1. % Critical Strike Chance 2. % Attack Speed 3. Willpower	Companion Innovation % Wolves Attack Speed Storm Finesse % Storm Critical Strike Chance
Pants	Storm’s Companion 1. Ranks to Wolves 2. Lucky Hit Chance for Pack Leader	Unique
Boots	Rakanoth’s Wake 1.Cooldown Reduction	Unique
Amulet	1. Lucky Hit Chance 2. Attack Speed 3. Quickshift	Companion Innovation %Wolves Attack Speed Companion Efficiency % Wolves Cooldown Reduction
Rings	Ring of Starless Skies 1. % Critical Strike Chance 2. % Attack Speed 3. % Lucky Hit Chance	Storm Finesse % Storm Critical Strike Chance Companion Efficiency % Wolves Cooldown Reduction
2H-Weapons	1. Willpower 2. % Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Life	Companion Augments % Chance for Wolves to Deal Double Damage Natural Finesse % Damage to Close Enemies

Keep in mind that the maximum Resistance is 70% by default for each element and can be increased to 85% by various sources.

Mercenaries

Defensive

Main Mercenary – Raheir, The Shieldbearer

• Core Skill: Shield Charge
• Core Passive: Raheir’s Guard
• Iconic Skill: Provoke
• Iconic Passive: Mocking Lure

Reinforcement – Subo, The Drunken Archer

• Reinforcement Ability – Wire Trap
• Opportunity: TBD

Offensive

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Core Skill: Cleave
• Core Passive: Hysteria
• Iconic Skill: Bloodthirst
• Iconic Passive: Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Subo, The Drunken Archer

• Reinforcement Ability – Wire Trap
• Opportunity: TBD

Rotation and Playstyle

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

1. Use Wolves on Cooldown;
2. Use Ravens for additional damage in a clumped pack;
3. Use Blood Howl on cooldown to manage your Quickshift and Heightened Senses
4. Use Maul to manage Quickshift, Heightened Senses, and Iron Fur buffs;
5. Use Shred for movement and additional damage
6. Use Debilitating Roar To debuff your enemies and keep up Fortify

Make sure to check out the advanced Build Mechanics section for a more in-depth description of how the build works, what synergies exist, and what to look out for.

Uniques and Mythic Uniques

Below, you will find information on Uniques and Mythic Uniques that are useful for this build. Moreover, if you are interested in target farming Mythic Uniques, check out our How to Farm Mythic Uniques guide.

Uniques

Listed below are the recommended and optional Unique Items for this build.

• Storm’s Companion
• Rakanoth’s Wake
• Mad Wolf’s Glee

Mythic Uniques

The information below lists our recommendations for which Mythic Uniques will work best with this build and which Aspects they should replace. Mythic Uniques can start dropping from monsters Level 55 or higher and will always drop at 925 item power. If a Unique or Mythic Unique is not listed here, it is NOT recommended and won’t benefit this specific build in any way.

Ring of Starless Skies – This is highly recommended and a Huge damage increase get it as soon as possible.

Season 6: Vessel of Hatred

The following list details the changes in the Season 6 Update (Patch 2.0.2) that may pertain to Druid.

• Fixed an issue where the Druid Legendary Nodes Devastation and Thunderstruck did not function.
• Fixed an issue where the first attack of Shred didn’t hit the targeted enemy after dashing.
• Fixed an issue where the fourth Shred Strike from Aspect of the Agile would always critically strike.
• Fixed an issue where Pets could despawn when going between zones with the One With Nature Key Passive learned.
• Overload Spirit Boon
  • Damage increased from 25% to 100%.
• Uniques:
  • Mad Wolf’s Glee
    • Ranks of Werewolf Skills increased from 2-5 to 4-7.
• Tempering:
  • Companion Augments
    • +X% Chance for Wolves to Deal Double Damage
    • +X% Chance for Poison Creeper to Deal Double Damage
    • +X% Chance for Raven to Deal Double Damage
• Gem stat updates, starting with Chipped, ending with Grand:
  • Ruby (+ Strength), Emerald (+ Dexterity), Topaz (+ Intelligence), Sapphire (+ Willpower): +25/50/75/100/150.
  • Amethyst (+% Barrier Generation): +2/4/6/8/12.
  • Diamond (+ All Stats): +8/16/24/32/50.
  • Skull (+% Healing Received): +4/6/8/10/15.
• Passives/Skill:
  • Heightened Senses
    • Previous: When Shapeshifting into an animal form, Werebear grants 3/6/9% Damage Reduction and Werewolf grants 2/4/6%[+] Movement Speed for 6 seconds. Bonuses are doubled while both are active.
    • Now: When Shapeshifting, Werebear grants 3/6/9% Damage Reduction and Werewolf grants 2/4/6%[+] Movement Speed. Both bonuses persist as long as you are in either animal form and are doubled while both are active. They are lost after 3 seconds in Human form.
  • Quickshift
    • Previous: When Shapeshifting into a new animal form, you deal 1/2/3%[x] increased damage for 8 seconds, up to 8/16/24%[x].
    • Now: Shapeshifting into a new animal form grants 1/2/3%[x] increased damage, up to 6/12/18%[x]. This bonus is lost after 3 seconds in Human form.
  • Petrify
    • Previous: Encase all Nearby enemies in stone, Stunning them for 3 seconds. You deal 30%[x] increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies affected by Petrify. Against Bosses the Critical Strike Damage bonus is increased to 50%[x] and its duration is increased to 6 seconds.
    • Now: Generates 100 Spirit. Encase all Nearby enemies in stone, Stunning them for 4 seconds.
  • Prime Petrify
    • Previous: Petrify grants 50 Spirit when cast and its effect durations are increased by 1 second.
    • Now: You deal 30%[x] increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies affected by Petrify. Against Bosses the Critical Strike Damage bonus is increased to 50%[x] and its duration is increased to 7 seconds.
    • Bonus Critical Strike Damage now applies to damage done by your Companions.
  • Wolves
    • Wolf Companion’s Attack Speed increased by 15%.
  • Innate Debilitating Roar reworked
    • Previous – Debilitating Roar also slows enemies for 65% for its duration.
    • Now – Debilitating Roar increases your damage by 15%[x] for its duration.
  • One With Nature
    • Key Passive: Your Companion Skills each gain 1 additional companion and deal 60 50%[x] increased damage. Gain the Passive Effect of Ravens, Wolves and Poison Creeper.
  • Humanity
    • You deal 5/10/15%[x] more damage while in Human form.
  • Feral Aptitude
    • You deal 3%[x] increased damage while Healthy and 3%[x] increased damage while above 100% Movement Speed. These bonuses can stack.
  • Backlash
    • You deal 4%[x] increased damage for 5 seconds after casting a Defensive Skill.
• Aspects:
  • Stormcrow’s Aspect – Offensive Aspect
    • Ravens now deal Lightning damage which is increased by 60-100%[x]. Ravens Active deals its full damage in half the time, and enemies inside it are Stunned.
• Paragon:
  • Legendary Node
    • Untamed: Casting a Companion Skill grants 20%[x] increased Companion damage for 5 seconds, stacking up to 80%[x].
  • Ancestral Guidance Board
    • Resolve (replacing Recuperate)
      • Previous: +4% Potion Healing / +10 Life per Second
      • Now: (Resolve) +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life
    • Ancestral Guidance
      • Damage bonus after spending 75 Spirit increased from 30%[x] to 40%[x].
    • Guidance (replacing Resolve)
      • Previous: +3% Resistance to All Elements / +10 Willpower
      • Now: (Guidance) +10% Damage / +10 Willpower
  • Lust for Carnage Board
    • Ripper (replacing Regenerative)
      • Previous: +4% Healing Received / +10 Willpower
      • Now: (Ripper) +15% Critical Strike Damage / +10 Willpower
    • Ferocity
      • Previous: +10% Werewolf Damage / +15% Critical Strike Damage
      • Now: +3% Resistance to All Elements / 4% Maximum Life
    • Lust for Carnage
      • Previous: Critical Strikes with Werewolf Skills restore 2 Spirit.
      • Now: Critical Strikes with Werewolf Skills restore 2 Spirit and deal 50%[x] increased damage.
  • Thunderstruck
    • Concentrated (replacing Hubris)
      • Previous: 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +10 Willpower
      • Now: (Concentrated) +16% Damage to Elites / +10 Willpower
    • Hubris (replacing Restorative)
      • Previous: +4% Potion Healing / 4% Maximum Life
      • Now: (Hubris) 4% Damage Reduction from Vulnerable Enemies / +4% Healing Received
    • Concentrated
      • Elite Damage changed to Damage to Close Enemies.
    • Deluge
      • Critical Strike Damage changed to Damage to Distant Enemies.
    • Tempest
      • Critical Strike Damage changed to Critical Strike Chance.
  • Rare Nodes
    • Apex: +25% Companion Damage, +10 Willpower 6.5% Damage Reduction from Elites
    • Ferocity: +2.5% Companion Cooldown Reduction, +20 Armor
    • Fortune: +25% Companion Damage +5.0% Lucky Hit Chance, +10 Willpower
    • Resolve: +3% Resistance to All Elements, +10 Willpower
    • Lucky Winds: +5% Lucky Hit Chance, +10% Vulnerable Damage
    • Eminence: +6.5% Damage Reduction from Elites, 4% Maximum Life

Advanced Information

Build Mechanics

This is one of the easiest builds you will play! Shred is used to poison packs of mobs, slowing enemies and increasing our Crit damage against them, while our Wolves will run around and kill everything, using the active on elites. To finish things off, Ravens are used as a bit of extra damage for both single-target and AoE. We use Maul and Blood Howl to manage our stacks of Iron Fur, Quickshift, Wildheart, and Heightened Senses. Ravens also provide increased Critical Strike Chance against enemies that have recently been hit by them. Call of the Wild is taken to increase the damage of all Companions.

Defenses

Below, you will find every additional piece of information you need to know for a more in-depth look at this build.

For defensive layering, Blood Howl is taken for a way to provide sustain with a self-heal and comes with a bonus damage increase. When faced with a tough Elite or Boss try to keep Debilitating Roar up as much as possible. When it comes to Talents Vigilance, and Ancestral Fortitude both increase survivability even more by increasing Damage Reduction and Resistances.

Paragon Information

The Paragon Board is a progression system unlocked at Level 60, giving player power through Common stat Nodes, Magic affix Nodes, Rare leveled Glyphs, and Legendary board-exclusive Nodes. For general paragon board information, check the guide here.

The recommended Paragon boards with images for the Wolf Companion Druid Build are listed above. The following section goes over some explanation and descriptions for the pathing process for the Wolf Companion Druid Build.

Broadly speaking, decisions for pathing through the Druid paragon board are divided into three categories:

• Damage – The paragon boards provide a significant amount of Damage Multipliers and Additives. This includes:
  • Socketed Glyphs such as Keeper,Wilds, and Guzzler.
  • Legendary Nodes such as Heightened Malice.
  • Magic and Rare nodes such as Impel, Prime, and Toxic Bane.
• Defense – The paragon boards help reach goals on Damage Reduction, Armor, and Resistances. This includes:
  • Damage Reduction is improved from nodes like Nature-born.
  • Resistances are improved from Magic and Rare Resistance nodes like Poison Resilience.
• Build Functionality – The paragon boards improve our build functionality by including the following nodes:
  • The Legendary Node Constricting Tendrils allows our nature skills to immobilize our enemies and increases our damage.

Obol Gambling

Obol gambling is a great way to potentially find item upgrades or items missing from your build. Check out the new tool from Icy Veins for gambling Obols in the link below:

Changelog

• October 3rd, 2024: Updated for Season 6 (Patch 2.0.2)
• August 3rd, 2024: Updated for Season 5 (Patch 1.5.0)
• June 17th, 2024: Updated for Season 4 Midseason (Patch 1.4.3)
• May 10th, 2024: Updated for Season 4 (Patch 1.4.0)
• January 22nd, 2024: Updated for Season 3 (Patch 1.3.0)
• October 17th, 2023: Updated for Season 2 (Patch 1.2.0)
• 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.