Welcome to the Shred Druid endgame guide! This build is all about Dashing quickly from enemy to enemy, dealing big Critical Strikes that are further enhanced through Stormclaw's Aspect. It boasts exceptional mobility and clear speed that can rival the fastest builds in the game while also being one of the easiest to play. This build benefits from Mad Wolf's Glee but absolutely does not require it to play at a high level, making it new player and Season starter friendly.
The gameplay is straightforward. Use Shred to Dash from enemy to enemy, proccing Stormclaw's every time you land a Critical Strike.
The build also benefits from several other Skills and Passives. Blood Howl provides Spirit and Healing, while Petrify provides burst against bosses and rares or CC when needed. Finally, Wolves, Ravens and Poison Creeper provide us with considerable damage thanks to Shepherd's and the Stampede.
In this guide we teach you all you need to know to be successful with the Shred Druid in Diablo 4. Let's dive into it!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with one of our Druid Leveling Guides. If you are looking for a different Druid playstyle, check out all of our Druid Guides.
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
- Shred is our primary damage skill along with providing tremendous mobility. Each Critical Strike procs Stormclaw's Aspect.
- Blood Howl is a solid Heal and Spirit generator that also generates Fortify thanks to Bolster. If you find that you have sufficient need more Spirit Generation, you can swap to Innate Blood Howl.
- Wolves, Ravens and Poison Creeper provide a ton of damage thanks to Shepherd's and the Stampede. They also provide us with Fortify from Ferocious Wolf Pack and Critical Strike Chance through Brutal Poison Creeper and Enhanced Ravens.
- Lacerate is a huge damage buff, heal, and the immunity is a powerful way to counter large amounts of incoming damage.
Passives
- Toxic Claws is how we apply Poison for the 'While Poisoned' effects throughout the build.
- Envenom is a damage multiplier that's numerically higher than most, making it exceptionally powerful.
- Ursine Strength is our Keystone Passive of choice, giving us a substantial damage boost.
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:
We bond with the Eagle to activate its Scythe Talons and Avian Wrath.
- Wariness provides additional damage reduction against the most dangerous enemies
- Iron Feather provides additional tankiness. If you prefer extra damage, swap this out for Scythe Talons.
- Avian Wrath is now a damage multiplier (previously it was additive), making it an easy choice.
- Bolster provides us with a substantial amount of Fortify thanks to the high usage rate of Blood Howl with Enhanced Blood Howl.
- Masochistic is a sizable portion of our Healing.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Spirit is crucial to maximizing your damage with this build. We gain Spirit on Kill in the Paragon Board that keeps us moving through large packs. We also use Lust for Carnage to generate Spirit whenever we Critically Strike. Spirit Per Second on our gear provides us with a consistent flow of Spirit, even out of combat. If you find that you aren't generating enough Spirit from these sources, take advantage of Blood Howl's high uptime thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl to gain large amounts of Spirit from Innate Blood Howl.
Cooldown Management is centered around two skills. For Blood Howl, we want to spam it as soon as it comes off cooldown, which in large packs or during speedfarming will be very often thanks to the 1 second cooldown reduction on kill from Enhanced Blood Howl. For Lacerate, it's all about using it strategically. There are two use cases for it. First, is to get a big burst of damage. This is best used on tanky enemies like bosses or rares. Second is to gain invincibility during a period where enemies will have high damage output. This can be during a boss's telegraphed attacked or in a large group of enemies. Use it wisely!
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!
This setup prioritizes major Glyphs and Legendary nodes to get the build up and running faster.
We make a later switch to maximize the efficiency of our board. The switch should be made around level 95. Make sure to save up enough gold!
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. For some Glyphs, we max our bonuses by allocating every relevant node in range, while on others we take the minimum required for the Additional Bonus only. Because Glyphs at level 15 increase their radius, we need to prioritize leveling them by completing Nightmare Dungeons. After that, we prioritize leveling our strongest glyphs to level 21.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Outmatch
- Werewolf
- Territorial
- Spirit
- Fang and Claw
- Undaunted
Level 21
- Fang and Claw
- Territorial
- Outmatch
- Werewolf
- Spirit
- Undaunted
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
Many of your Skill 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:
- Vigorous in Steadfast Barracks (Hawezar)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Shepherd's in Bloodsoaked Crag (Dry Steppes)
- Eluding in Caldera Gate (Fractured Peaks)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Stormclaw's in Anica's Claim (Fractured Peaks)
- Aspect of the Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Unsatiated in Tormented Ruins (Fractured Peaks)
- Nighthowler's in Forbidden City (Fractured Peaks)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- the Stampede
- Accelerating
- Metamorphosis
- Juggernaut's
- Undying
- Find the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
- Mad Wolf's Glee
- Godslayer Crown
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
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
Most of our core aspects come from the Codex of Power, so we can start the build with them.
- Shepherd's is the single biggest damage multiplier in the build. Put this on your Weapon for maximum effect.
- Stormclaw's is a substantial DPS gain for the build.
- Use Might in the Body Armor slot until you get Mad Wolf's Glee.
- Retaliation fills in until we find an Accelerating.
- the Umbral provides us with some additional Spirit generation until our Paragon Board sources come online
- Movement Speed on your boots and amulet will significantly increase your leveling and farming speed.
- Try to cap your Resistances quickly to significantly reduce the damage you take.
- Prioritize Resource Cost Reduction on your weapon.
- Upgrade your weapon when you have the resources. Any other gear can wait until you find better items.
Skills
- We don't generate nearly as much Spirit at this point so swap Lacerate with Storm Strike to gain a reliable generator and take Fierce Storm Strike to add a consistent source of Vulnerable.
Gameplay
- Activate Blood Howl for Vigilance just before entering the fight.
- Close the gap and continue spamming Shred. Try to target distant enemies to engage Dash and hit all enemies between you and the target. You can do this on every single use of Shred thanks to Primal Shred.
- During the fight use Blood Howl to keep Vigilance up and generate Spirit.
- Use Poison Creeper on packs or tanky enemies for additional damage from Brutal Poison Creeper and Envenom.
- Use Storm Strike for additional Spirit when needed and for additional Damage Reduction in tough fights.
- Advanced: If an enemy hits hard, use Blood Howl to recover from large hits.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
- Add the Stampede in place of Umbral to get even more damage from Shepherd's. If you find yourself starved for Spirit, hold onto Umbral until your other Spirit generation sources come online.
- Replace Retaliation with Accelerating on your Gloves.
- Add Mad Wolf's Glee to significantly increase your speed, Damage Reduction and damage.
- Start trying to fit as much Life, Critical Strike Chance, and Damage to Close Enemies as you can on your gear.
There are no changes to Skill, Boons, or Gameplay.
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.
Gear
- Now it's time to min/max! Focus on getting all of your gear (including Uniques) to 925 Item level with the right stats and Greater Affixes. Spirit Cost Reduction and Critical Strike Chance are very important for this build. Ironclaw joins them as a priority stat at this point. Use the Occultist to reroll bad affixes or increase the roll of a good affix. Fully upgrade your gear and gems.
Skills
- At this point we should have very good Spirit generation and don't need Storm Strike, so we swap it and two points in Natural Fortitude for Lacerate to increase our damage and gain access to an immunity.
Gameplay
- Activate Blood Howl for Vigilance just before entering the fight.
- Close the gap and continue spamming Shred. Try to target distant enemies to engage Dash and hit all enemies between you and the target. You can do this on every single use of Shred thanks to Primal Shred.
- During the fight use Blood Howl to keep Vigilance up and generate Spirit.
- Use Poison Creeper on packs or tanky enemies for additional damage from Brutal Poison Creeper and Envenom.
- Use Petrify on tanky targets (especially bosses) or as an emergency option to Stun everything near you.
- Advanced: If an enemy hits hard, use Blood Howl to recover from large hits.
The Speedfarming setup makes you more efficient in farming the Open World, Helltide zones, Tree of Whispers, regular Dungeons, and Nightmare Dungeons below Tier 45. Since all Bosses in the game are not dangerous, this high damage variant is perfect for them as well.
Gear
- We add Godslayer Crown for the extra damage it provides. Swap out your All Resistance gem for Lightning Resistance.
There are no changes to Spirit Boons, Gameplay or Paragon Boards in this setup.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfully navigate this build through potentially dangerous situations:
- Consider swapping out Blood Howl with Debilitating Roar for an active source of damage reduction.
- Watch out for explosions! Due to the nature of how this build bounces around from enemy to enemy, it is susceptible to jumping back into an explosion.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
The answer to many questions can be found in the following section.
- Shepherd's combined with the Stampede provides a huge damage multiplier to the build. This is easily your single biggest source of damage.
- Stormclaw's Aspect: This is a powerful multiplier to your Critical Strikes, which should be occuring nearly 100% of the time at late endgame.
- Critical Strikes: Critical Strike Chance is your #1 priority stat. Get as much of this as you can, and try to get above 50% Chance ASAP. Thanks Gear and Passives we have consistently high Critical Strike Chance in this build. Enhanced Ravens and Brutal Poison Creeper allow us to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance much more easily.
- Attack Speed: This build is all about flying around as quickly as possible with Shred and Attack Speed only makes that better. On top of that, it improves our healing through more procs of Masochistic. Our attack speed primarily comes from Gloves, the Paragon Board and Accelerating Aspect.
- Envenom: We're able to take advantage of both of this huge damage multiplier thanks to Toxic Claws, which Poisons enemies whenever we deal Critical Strike Damage to them, and Poison Creeper.
- Healing: Our Healing is primarily generated through Masochistic and Enhanced Shred. The high Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed from this build make this an incredible source of sustain. We also get an on-use heal from Blood Howl.
- Armor: A great deal of defenses comes from your Armor. Gear and Paragon Nodes plus one gem are enough to cap this.
- Defensive Multipliers: Vigorous provides significant damage reduction and has effectively 100% uptime. We also get several sources of Reduction from our Paragon Board.
- Venomwall: We can take advantage of this powerful Defensive Multiplier thanks to Toxic Claws, which Poisons enemies whenever we deal Critical Strike Damage to them.
- Fortify: Provides 15% damage reduction while Fortified which can be increased through gear and gems. We gain Fortify passively from Ferocious Wolf Pack as well as from Bolster when we use Blood Howl.
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.
- >70% Critical Strike Chance (Pre Buffs)
- >45,000 Life
- >700% Damage to Close Enemies
- >75% Attack Speed
- Armor Capped 9,230
- Resistance Capped 70%
- >40% All Damage Reduction (Pre Legendary Powers)
- >45% Spirit Cost reduction
- 3+ Ranks to Envenom
- Helm: Undying
- Maximum Life ↑
- 1 Resistance
- Willpower
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Crowd Control Duration
- Chest Armor: Mad Wolf's Glee
- Damage Reduction From Poisoned ↑
- Maximum Life ↑
- Movement Speed ↑
- Damage
- Gloves: Accelerating
- Shred Ranks ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Maximum Life
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Crowd Control Duration
- Pants: Vigorous
- Maximum Life ↑
- 1 Resistance
- Willpower ↑
- Armor/Dodge Chance
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Poison Creeper Duration
- Boots: Metamorphosis
- Movement Speed ↑
- Armor ↑
- 1 Resistance
- Max Life/Willpower
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Poison Creeper Duration
- Amulet: Stormclaw's
- Ranks to Envenom ↑
- Movement Speed ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- % Total Armor
- ⚒️Damage To Close Enemies↑
- ⚒️Max Life
- Rings: the Stampede & Unsatiated
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- One Chance To Make Vulnerable ↑
- Willpower
- One Maximum Life ↑
- Attack Speed
- ⚒️Damage To Close Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Resource Cost Reduction
- Weapon (Axe): Shepherd's
- Resource Cost Reduction
- Attack Speed ↑
- Willpower ↑
- Max Life/Crit Damage
- ⚒️Shred Critical Strike Chance ↑
- ⚒️Damage To Close Enemies
This build benefits a lot from the following Consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Magic Resist, Assault Elixir,Elixir of Cruelty, Elixir of Fortitude, Heady Precision Elixir
- Incense: Reddamine Buzz, Song of the Mountain (if not capped), Chorus of War, Soothing Spices
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 not Temerity?
Why Ursine Strength over Lupine Ferocity?
Video Guide
Coming Soon!
Summary
The Shred Werewolf is easily one of the fastest builds in the game, flying around the battlefield as it Dashes from enemy pack to pack. It is one of the best Speedfarming builds in the game, but can also push Nightmare Dungeons reasonably well.
Credits
Written by McFluffin
Reviewed by Moxsy