Welcome to the Lightning Storm Druid endgame guide! This build has exceptional clear thanks to very high range and area of effect. It also boasts great movement speed and solid defenses. The build is capable of very high Pit clears and the Unsung Ascetic's Wraps improve Lightning Storm's biggest weakness, single target.
Channel Lightning Storm to increase the number of strikes and improve its area of effect. Once at full stacks, tap it to attack - at least once every 6 seconds - to preserve the size of the storm and cast even faster. Since it can target anywhere on your screen, Lightning Storm proves one of the most effective farming builds for Druids.
With Tempest Roar and Hunter's Zenith, kills with Lightning Storm grant practically infinite casts of both your Mobility (Trample) and primary Defensive skill (Debilitating Roar). These free casts enable a wealth of Shapeshifting synergies throughout the build. Among these synergies is Bestial Rampage, our Key Passive of choice. This is the highest damage Key Passive available to Druids, provided you can afford to stay in each form regularly.
On top of that, this build achieves up to 180% (x) more damage with Lightning Storm by having 9 Companions when using the combination of Shepherd's and Stampede.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50+ Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Lightning Storm Leveling Guide.
Season 4 - Loot Reborn
In Season 4, the Season Theme revolves around helping out the Iron Wolves. Compared to past themes, this one does not offer any borrowed power as the entire game has been redesigned with new itemization and crafting options, increasing player power substantially across the board. Instead, you can gather reputation similar to the Vampire Bounty Board from Season 2 to unlock rewards that supercharge your leveling journey to 100 with extra items, crafting materials and eventually even a Resplendent Spark to craft an Uber Unique.
We recommend to follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 4 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
Active Skills
- Lightning Storm is our primary damage skill. Hold down Lightning Storm to build up the size of the storm. Once at max stacks, tap it while clearing to cast even faster. One exception to this rule is when you are facing a tough target and can afford to stand still and channel, as you can snapshot a number of offensive bonuses for the channel's duration (see the Passives section below).
- Wolves, Ravens, and Poison Creeper provide a bit of utility but are primarily used in this build alongside the Shepherd's and Stampede to give us 9 total companions and up to 180% additional core skill damage.
- Trample is not just our main mobility Skill, but it's also our sole source of Unstoppable and can provide a huge burst of Spirit in a pinch. Using long-distance casts between packs is a convenient way to activate Bestial Rampage's Werebear damage bonus.
- Debilitating Roar greatly reduces enemy damage in a screen-wide range, Fortifies by itself and through Bolster, and provides a steady stream of Healing. We leverage the free casts from Hunter's Zenith regularly in density to keep enemies debuffed and enable a ton of Shapeshifting synergies, including Quickshift, Heightened Senses, Iron Fur, Shapeshifter, and Wildheart Hunger.
Passives
- With Tempest Roar, we Poison mobs when we Critically Strike with a single point in Toxic Claws, which is useful for both Offense and Defense.
- Envenom is a damage multiplier that's numerically higher than most, making it exceptionally powerful.
- The damage bonuses from Clarity and Quickshift (as well as the Critical Strike Chance from Shapeshifter) can be snapshotted for entire channels of Lightning Storm.
Spirit Boons
Druids can choose 5 out of 16 Passive bonuses (Boons) from 4 different spirits. You have to bond with one of the Spirits in Túr Dúlra to activate two of its Boons. The remaining Spirits can only have one Boon each. Use the following Boons:
- Deer Spirit: Wariness
- Eagle Spirit: Avian Wrath
- Wolf Spirit: Bolster
- Snake Spirit: Masochistic (Overload is an option here for more damage)
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Iron Feather for additional maximum life.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build. In the endgame, we have a myriad of ways to regenerate Spirit:
- On Critical Strikes with Lust for Carnage
- On Kill with Reclamation
- On Lucky Hit with Tempest Roar
- Passively from Spirit per Second Rolls on our Gear
Starter (Low rolled Umbral) - Early on, we need to utilize Wind Shear and Trample for spirit generation. On top of that, we add Umbral from the Codex and pair it with Poison Creeper's AoE Immobilizing effect for a large burst of Spirit. For a more consistent stream of Spirit, we opt for Primal Lightning Storm.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default, this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note that there are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last two steps in the Paragon progression above for details. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Placeholder Glyphs
These Glyphs are only used temporarily. Don't level these Glyphs up because you will replace them later.
- Human - Only use this Glyph (and associated paragon board) if you want to play this build before acquiring Tempest Roar.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Exploit
- Earth and Sky
- Territorial
- Keeper
- Spirit
- Electrocution
Level 21
- Keeper
- Earth and Sky
- Territorial
- Spirit
- Electrocution
- Exploit
By endgame, you'll want to have additionally leveled Shapeshifter. We add this as a 7th Glyph to our final board.
If you'd prefer to use another aspect over Lightning Dancer's, swap Electrocution with Werewolf.
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
Endgame Progression & Variants
When you start diving into the Endgame, you don't have all the tools available to achieve the final build versions. Let us guide you through different progression points to give you a smooth transition from our Leveling Guides to the final build version.
Progression Goals
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. These are listed in priority order:
- Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
- Shepherd's in Bloodsoaked Crag (Dry Steppes)
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Inner Calm in Raethwind Wilds (Scosglen)
- Overcharged in Mariner's Refuge (Scosglen)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Wind Striker in Shivta Ruins (Kehjistan)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Lightning Dancer's: Gamble Totems.
- Stampede: Gamble Totems.
- Juggernaut's: Gamble Pants.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Tempest Roar
- Unsung Ascetic's Wraps
- Mad Wolf's Glee (for Bossing)
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Uber Uniques, they're useful for the build.
- Ring of Starless Skies - See the attached Planner to see how to incorporate this Unique
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Follow the build's gearing progression from level 50 to 100, including the changes that need to be made as you obtain Legendary Aspects and Uniques.
Once you have completed the leveling guide, only the Codex of Power Aspects are guaranteed. With this setup you can farm the Legendary Aspects and Unique items you need for the next progression point.
Gear
We don't get many of our core aspects from the Codex of Power, so we need replacements until we find them.
- We use Shepherd's on a two hander weapon for maximum % damage to our core skills.
- Use Disobedience as a big damage reduction thanks to the high number of hits from this build.
- Movement Speed on your boots will significantly increase your leveling and farming speed.
- Try to cap your resistances early to significantly reduce the damage you take.
- Upgrade your weapon when you have the resources. Any other gear can wait until you find better items.
Skills
- We don't have enough Spirit generation yet to avoid a generator, so we use Wind Shear and pair it with Abundance to give us a lot of Spirit while also allowing us to stay in the ranged playstyle that keeps us safe.
- We use Wolves, Ravens, and Poison Creeper to fuel the damage of our Shepherd's.
Gameplay
- Hold down Lightning Storm while targeting enemies to build up the size of the storm. Once it's sufficiently large, quickly tap it to increase the speed at which you cast.
- When you run out of Spirit, use Wind Shear and Trample to regenerate it.
- It is important to keep our distance on this particular setup due to the fact that we lack Defensive skills. We are using a lot of Defensive Aspects to make up for this lack of defense. The amount of damage we have from our companion boost should allow us to kill enemies very quickly.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build.
Gear
- When you find it, put Lightning Dancer's on your Amulet and move Retaliation to a ring in place of Overcharged. This new Aspect improves AoE dramatically and gives us an additional multiplier from Electrocution. However, it's relatively ineffective against Bosses, so you may opt to kick this aspect and use either Human/Werewolf in your Paragon Board.
- Stampede is another great addition, granting us another 3 Companions to boost Shepherd's. Use it in place of Edgemaster’s.
- We replace Disobedience for Juggernaut's for more consistent uptime of Armor.
Tempering
- Weapon: Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Lightning Damage (any Elemental damage is fine, but Lightning is marginally better)
- Offensive (Weapon, Gloves, Rings, Amulet): Damage to Distant greatly increases the multiplicative bonus from our Thunderstruck Legendary node. For this reason, Damage to Close from the same manual is a decent 2nd choice.
- Movement (Boots, Amulet): Movement Speed. Note that this is easier to roll using the Druid Motion Tempering Manual.
- Resource (Rings): Ranks to Clarity are amazing, as you can snapshot its bonus for the duration of a channel.
- Defensive (Helmet, Chest, Pants): Maximum Life - Dodge Chance is OK
- Utility (Helmet, Chest, Pants, Boots): Preferably Chance to Stun, but any Lucky Hit CC besides Slow is fine.
Spirit Boons
As Poison Creeper's damage starts to fall off, switch from Packleader to Energize for even more spirit sustain.
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them. Our setup turns upside-down when you acquire Tempest Roar.
Gear
- Tempest Roar is your forever helmet now. Since it allows you to consistently inflict Poison on enemies, go for Envenom on your Amulet over Nature's Reach.
- Add Unsung Ascetic's Wraps and kick out Inner Calm to significantly increase your Damage.
- Hunter's Zenith is a major addition to the build, allowing you to cast Debilitating Roar and Trample without cooldown after each kill with Lightning Storm. This simultaneously procs a number of new Shapeshifting bonuses. If you don't have this Ring, use a legendary with Retaliation instead.
- Wildheart Hunger are your best-in-slot Boots for its outstanding stat line and ramping damage bonus. If you don't have these, opt for legendary Boots with Wind Striker instead.
- Slot Vigorous in place of Might, as we no longer use a generator.
- The Poison Resist on Tempest Roar allows you to remove the Resistance roll from your chest and pickup Willpower. Instead get All Resistance on your pants (and a res temper) and you should easily cap.
- We're spec'ing out of Wind Shear and Elemental Exposure here, so drop Life for a Chance to inflict Vulnerable on your Ring. When you get this, swap the Sapphires in your Weapon for Emeralds.
- Changeling's Debt is an appealing option here for many types of content. However, it's only effective against Staggered Bosses, so we're continuing to opt for the consistent damage from Stampede.
- If you care less about Mobility and really want to maximize damage, use Ranks to Clarity over Movement Speed as a temper on your Amulet.
Skills
- Remember, with the combination of Tempest Roar and Hunter's Zenith, each kill with Lightning Storm grants a Cooldown-free cast of either Debilitating Roar or Trample. Use this fact to alternate between forms and maintain bonuses from Digitigrade Gait, Iron Fur, Quickshift, Heightened Senses and Wildheart Hunger.
- Between packs or whenever possible, be sure to use these new Skills to stay in Werebear for at least 2 out of every 15 seconds and gain the 50% damage bonus from our new Key Passive, Bestial Rampage.
Spirit Boons
Swap:
- Scythe Talons for Iron Feather
- Energize for Bolster
- Overload for Masochistic (this one's optional)
Gameplay
- Hold down Lightning Storm while targeting enemies to build up the size of the storm. Once it's sufficiently large, quickly tap it to increase the speed at which you cast. Against tough enemies, channel after casting your Companion skills to snapshot the bonuses from Clarity, Quickshift, and Shapeshifter.
- Cast Ravens on Bosses and tough Elites for additional Critical Strike Chance.
The Speedfarming setup makes you more efficient in farming the Open World, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and low level Nightmare Dungeons and Pits.
Gear
- Grab a pair of Legendary Boots with Wind Striker and a Mad Wolf's Glee to cap your Movement Speed more consistently. The Spirit per Second Boots frees up a roll on our weapon for Critical Strike Damage.
- It's probably not necessary, but you can swap Debilitating Roar for Petrify if you're looking for some extra burst damage.
Single target isn't exactly Lightning Storm's specialty, but here are a few priority adjustments to make to improve your chances.
Gear
- Equip Mad Wolf's Glee over a Defensive Chest.
- In place of Hunter's Zenith, use a ring with Overcharged.
- Lightning Dancer's is relatively ineffective against Bosses, so go for Inner Calm instead. This prompts us to stand still as much as possible once we've engaged the Boss.
- Tibault's Will is an option for a little extra damage, but be mindful - this will uncap your Resistances and Armor.
- Equip boots with +3 to Maximum Evade charges if you have them. Unfortunately, there's no good damage aspect to put here (aside from spending an inordinate amount of time pre-fight to stack Wildheart Hunger), but the Willpower roll alone is worthwhile. The Spirit per Second on Boots also frees up a roll on our weapon for Critical Strike Damage.
- Willpower is newly prioritized on all of your jewelry pieces and boots. Stack as much as you can!
- Use an Elixir of Precision II if possible.
Skill Tree
- Swap out Debilitating Roar for Petrify to get a massive Critical Strike Damage bonus.
- As you approach the boss, be sure to use Trample and stay in Werebear for 2 seconds to gain the damage bonus from Bestial Rampage. If this feels like too much to manage on top of Inner Calm and Clarity snapshotting, you can opt for Ursine Strength instead (or Lupine Ferocity if you just want to see bigger damage numbers and have less DPS).
- Many of the passives related to Shapeshifting and Crowd Control have been removed in favor of some more applicable bonuses.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfully navigate this build through potentially dangerous situations:
- Trade Willpower for Maximum Life (or even Movement Speed) where possible.
- Avoid using Mad Wolf's Glee and always slot Vigorous.
- You can sacrifice Fulminate on the Survival Instincts, rotate the Board and Prioritize Bulwark instead.
- Elixirs of Fortitude are your best friend!
Check out our dedicated in-depth guide to learn more survival tricks in Hardcore.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
- Critical Strikes: Thanks to our Gear, Skills, and Passives we have consistently high Critical Strike Chance in this build. Our Critical Strike Damage is bolstered by Envenom, Spirit, and Avian Wrath.
- Clarity: The rework to this passive in Season 4 grants us an INSANE bonus to Critical Strike Chance and Damage, and newly incentivizes us to plant our feet and channel in certain situations.
- Damage to Close/Distant: After accessing Thunderstruck, these damage types scale as a huge damage multiplier. It also doesn't matter if we're close or distant from enemies for the purpose of this Legendary Node, so we take either wherever we can (prioritizing Distant when we have a choice).
- Vulnerable: We rely on Exploit to initially inflict this status on all targets. After that, we use a roll on Rings to attempt to maintain it.
- Attack Speed: Manually clicking Lightning Storm is by default faster than holding it down, but the skill has no perceptible difference in scaling with increases to Attack Speed.
- Envenom: We're able to take advantage of this massive multiplier thanks to Toxic Claws, which Poisons enemies whenever we deal Critical Strike Damage to them. Get as many ranks into this as you can!
- Shapeshifting: Alternating between Werebear and Werewolf is useful for both Offense and Defense thanks to a myriad of associated Passives and Aspects. Offensively, we can point to Wildheart Hunger, Quickshift, and our Key Passive, Bestial Rampage.
- Healing: Our Healing is generated through Circle of Life and Masochistic.
- Armor: Armor has become somewhat trivial to cap with the new, lower limit and Juggernaut's. Still, we can ensure that we'll be reducing incoming Physical damage by the maximum 85%.
- Damage Reduction: Damage Reduction is a lot more scarce in Loot Reborn, but we still have a ton of sources in this build: Wildheart Hunger rolls it explicitly, and we boost Magic/Rare nodes for Damage Reduction against Poisoned/Vulnerable enemies in our Paragon board, both of which are enabled by our Core Skill. We additionally add Vigorous on our Pants, Vigilance, Heightened Senses, Iron Fur, and Debilitating Roar to our Skill tree, and Territorial.
- Fortify: Provides 15% damage reduction while Fortified which can be increased through Paragon nodes. We gain Fortify in large bursts from Bolster and Debilitating Roar.
- Resistances: We cap our Resistances through a combination of Intelligence from Paragon, Ring and Amulet implicits, Ancestral Fortitude, Lightning Resilience, Resolve on our Starter and Ancestral Guidance boards, Tempest Roar's Poison Resistance, a roll of All Resistance and a Tempered single Resistance on our Pants, and gems in jewelry that correspond to the other 3 Resistances.
Stat Priorities
To enable your build to perform optimally, you need to reach certain Stat "Breakpoints". Some examples are reaching 100% to Critically Strike, or 20 Resource per second. Since there are many values of these stats on different pieces of gear, read the checklist below and refer to the recommended Tempered Affixes and Masterwork Crits ↑. Desirable Greater Affixes will always be the top three recommended Affixes.
Damage Scaling
- >50% Critical Strike Chance
- 120%+ Thunderstruck Bonus
- 6+ Ranks to Envenom / Clarity
Defense and Utility
- Armor Capped 9,230
- Resistance Capped 70%
- >35,000 Life
- >5 Spirit per Second
- >35% Spirit Cost Reduction
- Helm: Tempest Roar
- Damage While Shapeshifted ↑
- Critical Strike Damage ↑
- Poison Resistance
- Maximum Spirit
- Chest: Vigorous
- Max Life ↑
- Willpower ↑
- Spirit per Second
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun / Freeze / Immobilize
- Gloves: Unsung Ascetic's Wraps
- Ranks to Lightning Storm ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Ranks to Defiance
- Lucky Hit Chance
- Otherwise Look For: Overcharged
- Ranks to Lightning Storm ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Willpower
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️Damage to Distant Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun / Freeze / Immobilize
- Pants: Juggernaut's
- Resistance to All Elements
- Max Life ↑
- Willpower ↑
- Dodge Chance
- ⚒️Single Elemental Resist (other than Poison)
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun / Freeze / Immobilize
- Boots: Wildheart Hunger
- Movement Speed ↑
- Damage Reduction ↑
- Critical Strike Damage
- Overpower Damage
- Otherwise Look For: Wind Striker
- Movement Speed ↑
- Spirit per Second
- Willpower ↑
- Max Life
- ⚒️Movement Speed ↑
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun / Freeze / Immobilize
- Axe: Shepherd's
- Spirit Cost Reduction
- Willpower ↑
- Max Life ↑
- Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Damage to Distant Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Deal Elemental Damage (Lightning)
- Amulet: Lightning Dancer's / Retaliation
- Ranks to Envenom ↑
- Movement Speed
- Critical Strike Chance
- %Willpower
- ⚒️ Damage to Distant Enemies Enemies ↑
- ⚒️ Movement Speed X / Ranks to Clarity ↑
- Ring 1: Hunter's Zenith
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Ranks to Quickshift
- Damage While Shapeshifted
- Ranks to Heightened Senses ↑
- Otherwise Look For: Inner Calm
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Inflict Vulnerable
- Willpower
- Maximum Life
- Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Damage to Distant Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Ranks to Clarity ↑
- Ring 2: Stampede
- Critical Strike Chance
- Lucky Hit: Chance to Inflict Vulnerable
- Willpower
- Maximum Life
- Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Damage to Distant Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Ranks to Clarity ↑
This build benefits a lot from the following Consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Cruelty, Elixir of Combatant Fortune, Elixir of Fortitude, Elixir of Magic Resist, Elixir of Savagery, Heady Precision Elixir
- Incense: Song of the Mountain or Reddamine Buzz
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
Why both Damage to Close and Distant enemies?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
The Use of Sub Skills
Hunter's Zenith
Bestial Rampage
Snapshotting Bonuses
Summary
The Lightning Storm Druid is an excellent ranged build with incredible speed and clear. With this ranged playstyle you can dive deep into Nightmare Dungeons and the Pit. At the late endgame the build can be played smoothly without the use of a generator, making it a highly efficient and enjoyable farming build.
Credits
Written by IBoilerUp
Reviewed by Moxsy