Welcome to the Tornado Druid Endgame Guide for Diablo 4! If you've played Tornado Druid in Diablo 2, you may recall the skill's random pathing making it difficult to hit targets. Fortunately, in this installment, this problem is largely solved by Stormchaser's Aspect. It makes things easy as Tornados rip apart Open World Content, The Pit, and even Ultra ladder Bosses!
Without Tempest Roar, the final build is not functional. We strongly encourage you to acquire this and other pieces before transitioning to this build.
Once acquired, the gameplay is very beginner-friendly. Between Spirit per Second on your gear, Spirit Generation on Critical Strikes and on Kill from your Paragon Board, and the Lucky Hit procs from Tempest Roar, you should be able to spam the hell out of your Core skill.
With Tempest Roar and Hunter's Zenith, kills with Tornado 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.
The Tornado Druid also takes advantage of Shepherd's and Stampede Aspect to generate a ton of extra damage, but aside from taking advantage of Enhanced Ravens' Critical Strike chance or to force a shift to Human form, there's little need to call on your Companions.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Tornado Druid Leveling Guide. 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
- Tornado is your main damage Skill. It can be spammed relentlessly with the prerequisite sources of Spirit Cost Reduction and Sprit Generation.
- 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, and Wildheart Hunger.
- The Companions primarily act as Shepherd's fuel, but the Wolves can soak some damage and Ravens provide a modest Critical Strike Chance bonus against single targets. You can use them in case of emergency if your Werebear skills are on Cooldown to transform to Human. Transforming back to Werewolf just after will maintain bonuses from Quickshift and Wildheart Hunger.
Passives
- With Tempest Roar, a single point in Toxic Claws enables your Storm Skills to consistently Crowd Control mobs with Neurotoxin and activate Envenom's massive Critical Strike Damage bonus, while enabling us to benefit from both Damage to and Damage Reduction from Poisoned enemies.
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 for additional defense where we need it most.
- Eagle Spirit: Iron Feather grants a healthy chunk of Maximum Life.
- Wolf Spirit: Bolster stacks a ton of Fortify on top of the amount already granted by Debilitating Roar. Energize is an option here for more Spirit generation.
- Snake Spirit: The proc rate of Masochistic's Healing is relatively low, but this is the only Boon from this Spirit that does anything.
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Avian Wrath for a hefty Critical Strike Damage bonus.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Resource Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build.
Resource Aspect of the Umbral
Used exclusively in the early endgame, Primal Tornado triggers this Aspect on every hit. When you have access to Tempest Roar and Lust for Carnage, this Aspect and Skill Upgrade are no longer necessary.
Reclamation
We take advantage of the Reclamation Node on the Ancestral Guidance board to generate up to 4 Spirit on kill. While we prioritize this Node early into the Paragon Board progression, it is moved to a later board on the level 100 respec to improve efficiency.
Lust for Carnage
Since you are constantly hitting enemies with Tornado and have a high Critical Strike Chance, this Legendary Node provides a massive and fairly reliable source of Spirit sustain.
Savage Trample
This upgrade provides a large burst of Spirit when Trample is cast. Thanks to Hunter's Zenith, we have this tool in our back pocket at virtually all times.
Gear
In season 4, a new Spirit per Second affix was introduced for Helms, Chests, and Boots, giving Druids their first opportunity to passively regenerate Spirit. We'll prioritize this affix as often as gearing allows.
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! There are a few boards here, so let's go over when to use them:
- If you've yet to acquire Tempest Roar, follow the "Human Form" paragon board throughout your leveling progression. This build is considerably weaker in the mid game without these items, so you may want to consider a different build until you acquire them. Use the slider to level with this board!
- Once you have Tempest Roar, use the "Werewolf Form" board for leveling. Use the slider to level with this board!
- The level 100 paragon board pushes key Spirit-generating sources such as Lust for Carnage and Reclamation to later boards in order to prioritize more valuable Rare node bonuses. As such, we don't recommend using this board prior to level 100. This board assumes you have found Tempest Roar.
The switch to Werewolf requires a bit of a respec on the Paragon Board. Stick with the Human-Form Board until you reach level 74 (or level 69 with all Renown completed).
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: There are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last steps in the Paragon progression above. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Undaunted
- Exploit
- Werewolf
- Territorial
- Earth and Sky
Level 21
- Territorial
- Exploit
- Werewolf
- Earth and Sky
- Undaunted
Outmatch will replace Exploit when you transition to Raging Tornado. By level 100, we additionally want to have leveled Fang and Claw to at least level 15. This Glyph will replace Undaunted in our final board. Finally, Spirit is added as a 6th Glyph to our final board.
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:
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Steppes)
- Expectant in Underroot (Scosglen)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Disobedience in Halls of The Damned (Kehjistan)
- Mending Stone in Sealed Archives (Dry Steppes)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Changeling's Debt in Conclave (Kehjistan)
- Vigorous in Steadfast Barracks (Hawezar)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Stormchaser's: Gamble Totems.
- Juggernaut's: Gamble Pants.
- Accelerating: Gamble Totems.
- Shepherd's: Gamble Totems
- Stampede: Gamble Totems
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops.
- Tempest Roar
- Wildheart Hunger
- Mad Wolf's Glee (Speedfarming/Bossing)
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Uber Uniques, they're useful for the build.
- Ring of Starless Skies
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Progression Setups
Once you have completed the leveling process to 50, 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
- Put Retaliation on your Two-hander for maximum damage output.
- Rapid increases the attack speed of Wind Shear, which increases your Spirit generation. Put it on your Amulet.
- Expectant and Edgemaster’s can be placed interchangeably on Rings or Gloves.
- Umbral on a Ring provides massive Spirit generation, especially when upgraded in the Codex.
- Put Mending Stone, Might, and Disobedience onto your defensive items.
- Ghostwalker provides a nice Movement Speed boost. You have more than 50% uptime on Unstoppable through Earthen Bulwark and Trample.
Skills
- For now, we use Primal Tornado as our main damage Skill. It provides a slow on every damage tick, allowing you to generate a ton of Spirit through Umbral. Make sure to be in close range of enemies you want to hit!
- Wind Shear is used to generate Spirit and stack Expectant before we start spamming Tornado. It also provides bonus Movement Speed, a chance to apply Vulnerable, and damage reduction via Might.
- Earthen Bulwark provides a massive Barrier, makes you Unstoppable for its duration, and grants Movement Speed through Ghostwalker. With Mending Stone, you have more than 50% uptime.
- Innate Blood Howl is used to both regenerate Spirit and to Heal. You're able to spam it in heavy density thanks to the cooldown recovery from Enhanced Blood Howl.
- Trample is handy for its mobility and also to regenerate a healthy amount of Spirit in a pinch.
- As Poison Creeper's damage falls off in the mid-game, we'll utilize Petrify for some Crowd Control, Spirit, and bonus damage (both from the skill and spare skill points).
Spirit Boons
While in Human Form, we make use of different Spirit Boons to improve our Spirit Generation and Ultimate Skill uptime.
- Deer Spirit: Wariness
- Eagle Spirit: Avian Wrath
- Wolf Spirit: Energize
- Snake Spirit: Calm Before the Storm
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Scythe Talons.
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
- Replace Edgemaster’s with Stormchaser's as soon as you gain access to it.
- Juggernaut's takes the place of Disobedience as soon as you find it. This powerful Aspect solves Armor concerns unconditionally at all stages of the game.
- Replace Expectant with Accelerating to increase your damage output and Spirit generation.
Tempering
- Weapon: Chance for Tornado Projectiles to Cast Twice
- Offensive (Weapon, Gloves, Rings, Amulet): Damage to Close greatly increases the multiplicative bonus from our Thunderstruck Legendary node. For this reason, Damage to Distant 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): Resource Generation is ideal, but Resource Cost Reduction on the same Manual works, too.
- 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.
No Changes
There are no changes to the Skill Tree, Gameplay and Spirit Boons from the Starter section.
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 Attack speed.
- Hunter's Zenith is a major addition to the build, allowing you to cast Debilitating Roar and Trample without cooldown after each kill with Tornado. 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.
- Now that we're constantly Shapeshifted (and inflict the prerequisite debuffs), go for Changeling's Debt on your Amulet. Note that the Werewolf component is relatively ineffective against bosses, so you may opt for the lesser, but more consistent multiplier of Retaliation in this slot.
- Slot Vigorous in place of Mending Stone.
- Since our Spirit generation and Unstoppable uptime are drastically improved, we're opting for the full suite of Companions and swapping to a Two-Handed Axe with Shepherd's. Place Stampede on your off-ring to boost this multiplier even further.
- The Poison Resist on Tempest Roar allows you to remove the Resistance roll from your chest and pick up Willpower. Instead get All Resistance on your pants (and a res temper) and you should easily cap.
- Use Emeralds instead of Sapphires in your Weapon. Thanks to the addition of Raging Tornado, you have more uptime on Vulnerable than Crowd Control, especially when facing bosses.
- If you are lucky enough to find Ring of Starless Skies, it's certainly best-in-slot and replaces Stampede.
- Note that, depending your rolls, you may need an additional Greater Affix or Masterwork Crit on Attack Speed across your gear to reach the 100% bonus from gear (ranges from 90.5% to 102.1% as presented here).
Skills
- Remember, with the combination of Tempest Roar and Hunter's Zenith, each kill with Tornado 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
You need to switch your Spirit Boons for this setup:
- Deer Spirit: Wariness for additional defense where we need it most.
- Eagle Spirit: Iron Feather grants a healthy chunk of Maximum Life.
- Wolf Spirit: Bolster stacks a ton of Fortify on top of the amount already granted by Debilitating Roar. Energize is an option here for more Spirit generation.
- Snake Spirit: The proc rate of Masochistic's Healing is relatively low, but this is the only Boon from this Spirit that does anything.
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Avian Wrath for a hefty Critical Strike Damage bonus.
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.
- It's probably not necessary, but you can swap Debilitating Roar for Petrify if you're looking for some extra burst damage.
This build slots as one of the best Bossers not just for Druid, but in the entire game! See below to optimize around Bossing and start taking down those Uber Ladder Bosses.
Gear
- Equip Mad Wolf's Glee over a Defensive Chest.
- In place of Hunter's Zenith, use a ring with Inner Calm. This prompts us to stand still as much as possible once we've engaged the Boss.
- Changeling's Debt is only effective against staggered bosses, so we swap this out for Elements. Try to begin fights as your Fire/Physical/Lightning cycle is approaching.
- 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.
- 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 Elements and Inner Calm, you can opt for Ursine Strength instead at the cost of some damage.
- Many of the passives related to Shapeshifting and Crowd Control have been removed in favor of some more applicable bonuses.
Paragon Board & Glyphs
Heightened Malice has absolutely no use against bosses, so we make some small adjustments. See below:
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
The answer to many questions can be found in the following section.
- Critical Strikes: Stacking Critical Strike Chance on Rings, Gloves, and Amulet is valuable to restore Spirit via Lust for Carnage and Poison enemies with Toxic Claws (which, in turn, activates the Damage bonus from Envenom). We have additional Critical Strike Multipliers in Avian Wrath and Spirit.
- Vulnerable: We get Vulnerable procs rapidly from Raging Tornado. Though not as powerful as it once was, this multiplier is still fairly convenient to activate.
- Thunderstruck: Every temper of Damage to Close/Distant (as well as Territorial) stacks this massive multiplier, so be sure to prioritize them! We prescribe Damage to Close in this guide, but in practice, you're often hitting enemies that are both Close and Distant, so either roll from the same Tempering Manual is fine.
- Crowd Controls: With the combination of Toxic Claws and Neurotoxin, every Critical Strike with Tornado Slows enemies for 4 seconds. This is great for activating Changeling's Debt as well as bonuses against Crowd Controlled and Poisoned enemies.
- 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.
- Fortify: You receive a sizeable chunk of Fortify from your spammable casts of Debilitating Roar, both from its "Enhanced" upgrade and through Bolster.
- 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%.
- Unstoppable: Provided your clearing mobs consistently with Tornado, you have an on-demand way to break Crowd Controls in Trample.
- Damage Reduction: Damage Reduction has become 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.
- Resistances: We cap our Resistances through a combination of Intelligence from Paragon, Ring and Amulet implicits, Ancestral Fortitude, Poison Resilience, 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.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
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
- 100% Increased Attack Speed
- >50% Critical Strike Chance
- 120%+ Thunderstruck Bonus
- >10 Spirit Per Second
- 6+ Ranks to Envenom
Defense and Utility
- Armor Capped 9,230
- Resistance Capped 70%
- >35,000 Life
- >35% Resource Generation
- >35% Spirit Cost Reduction
- Helm: Tempest Roar
- Damage While Shapeshifted ↑
- Critical Strike Damage ↑
- Poison Resistance
- Maximum Spirit
- Chest: Vigorous
- Spirit per Second ↑
- Max Life ↑
- Willpower
- Resistance to All Elements
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Lucky Hit: Chance to Stun / Freeze / Immobilize
- Gloves: Stormchaser's
- Ranks to Tornado ↑
- Attack Speed
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Willpower
- ⚒️Damage to Close 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 ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Willpower
- Max Life
- ⚒️Chance for Tornado Projectiles to Cast Twice ↑
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies
- Amulet: Changeling's Debt
- Ranks to Envenom ↑
- Movement Speed
- Critical Strike Chance
- %Willpower
- ⚒️ Damage to Close Enemies ↑
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- Ring 1: Hunter's Zenith
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Ranks to Quickshift
- Damage While Shapeshifted
- Ranks to Heightened Senses ↑
- Otherwise Look For: Retaliation
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Maximum Life
- Willpower
- Attack Speed*
- Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Resource Generation / Spirit Cost Reduction
- Ring 2: Stampede
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Attack Speed ↑
- Maximum Life
- Willpower
- Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Damage to Close Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Resource Generation / Spirit Cost Reduction
*Assuming well-rolled, fully Masterworked gear, and the prescribed Greater Affix on Weapon, only one Ring needs Attack Speed to reach the 100% cap.
This build benefits the most from the following consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Combatant Fortune, Elixir of Cruelty, Elixir of Fortitude, Elixir of Savagery, Heady Precision Elixir, Elixir of Magic Resist
- 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.
Where can I find Tempest Roar?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
Stormchaser's Aspect
Hunter's Zenith
Bestial Rampage
Summary
The Tornado Druid is a semi-ranged powerhouse, pairing incredible AoE-damage with consistent single target damage. The build features extremely high defenses through multiple Legendary Aspects, as well as a ton of stackable Damage Reductions on gear and from Paragon.
Credits
Written by IBoilerUp
Reviewed by Moxsy