Hurricane Druid Build Guide

Welcome to the Hurricane Druid Specialized Build Guide! This build projects as one of Druid's more effective Pit Pushers and Bossers, but is reliant on an endgame Temper (and possibly some Masterworking) to properly function. Once the prerequisite setup is acquired, though, your Hurricane is guaranteed to both Critically Strike AND Overpower and can last as long as 34 seconds with a single cast! This takes the damage from 17 per tick to well over 17 million! And with a minimal reliance on Critical Strike Chance and no reliance on Attack Speed or Resource Generation, you can focus on maximizing Life and Willpower to extreme levels.

Requirements for this build to function:

• Hurricane Duration temper of at least 65% for a total Duration of at least 15 seconds.
• Enough Cooldown Reduction to make the Cooldown of Hurricane match its Duration (None needed with sufficient Hurricane Duration)
• Critical Strike Chance that combines to at least 100% between Gear and Paragon, Predatory Instinct, and Clarity Ranks.
• Tempest and Tempest Roar

Gear, Skill Tree, and Paragon

• As you acquire sufficient ranks of Clarity to cap your Critical Strike Chance, you can remove this stat from your Rings (Overpower Damage is preferred).
• If you're missing Tibault's Will, replace it with a Defensive pair of pants and incorporate Might.
• If you don't have MjÖlnic Ryng, opt for Petrify as an Ultimate. There aren't a lot of other great Offensive aspects, but you can try either Conceited or Elements.
• Ranks to Provocation may need to be dialed up or down depending on your current Hurricane Duration for a smoother experience.

Paragon

See below for the selected Paragon Boards, Paragon point allocation, and the correct Glyphs you should use for the Hurricane Druid. Note: The Paragon Boards below are the final setup with no steps.

Level 15 Glyphs required: Spirit, Fang and Claw, Territorial, Outmatch, Dominate, Earth and Sky

Take Shapeshifter over Outmatch if your Critical Strike Chance is lacking.

Season 5 - Infernal Hordes

In Season 5, the Season Theme brings your hero back into the bowels of Hell, in the Infernal Hordes endgame activity. You're first introduced to Hellbreach Dungeons, miniature Horde-like micro-dungeons that teach you the new mechanics and rewards systems. As you slay more powerful Demons and Bosses, you're rewarded with the new Reputation progression that comes with amazing rewards. These include Crafting Materials, unlocking Season's Journey tiers and even the coveted Resplendent Spark, needed to craft a mythic unique.

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 5 guide for more information.

Gameplay

The Hurricane Druid is admittedly clunky to play, but the payoff for properly executing is tremendous. At its core, it revolves around snapshotting guaranteed Critical Strikes through Clarity and guaranteed Overpowers through Provocation, then around scaling Duration as much as possible to ramp damage with Tempest.

For the snapshots, we need to spend time to fully stack these Passives both when we enter a new zone and between each cast of Hurricane. This requires at least 3 casts of Companion Skills before each Hurricane, as well as 12-20 seconds spent in Werebear form, depending on your ranks to Provocation. Be sure to use Maul immediately after any other skill cast to return to Werebear form and continue stacking Provocation. Be very mindful of as you near max Provocation stacks, as any damaging Skill can consume the proc and severely disrupt your rotation. Earthen Bulwark is safe to cast, and in fact you're encouraged to do so immediately before casting Hurricane to snapshot the tripled bonus of Resonance and damage bonus from Tibault's Will.

Once Hurricane is active, try to deal damage using the edges of its radius when possible. With Hurricane Size becoming a utility temper in Season 5, we're able to double Hurricane's radius and leverage both the higher-scaling Damage to Distant enemies temper and Nature's Reach. Use Cataclysm at the tail end of each Hurricane when Tempest is at its strongest to inflict Vulnerable and double your damage with MjÖlnic Ryng. Exactly when you should use your Ultimate will depend on both your Hurricane and Cataclysm durations, but aim to have it active just through the end of Hurricane's Duration.

Gear and Stat Requirements

These builds require specific Aspects, Uniques, Uber Uniques, and Affixes on your gear to perform their primary function. Only deviate from the list below after you have fully learned the intended gameplay style and strategies.

1. Legendary Aspects:
   • Tempest
   • Changeling's Debt
   • Unsatiated
   • Metamorphosis on Boots with +Evade Charges
2. Uniques:
   • Tempest Roar
   • MjÖlnic Ryng
   • Insatiable Fury
3. Key Stat Requirements
   • Hurricane Duration temper of at least 65% for a total Duration of at least 15 seconds, to allow Provocation to stack while casting 3 Companion skills between casts - the longer, the better for quality of life and Tempest.
   • Enough Cooldown Reduction to make the Cooldown of Hurricane match its Duration - with high enough Duration, no Cooldown on gear is necessary at all.
   • Critical Strike Chance that combines to at least 100% between Gear and Paragon, Predatory Instinct, Clarity Ranks, and Shapeshifter if necessary.
   • At least 300% combined Damage to Close / Distant Enemies to maximize Thunderstruck

FAQ & Mechanics

Because the Hurricane Druid is a Specialized build, the obvious Mechanics or build interactions may not be clear to most first time players. Search below for the answers you need or come check me out live via the link at the top of the article for more information!

FAQ

Why Tempest Roar?

• With Tempest Roar, Hurricane becomes a Werewolf Skill and is able to inflict Poison via Toxic Claws. In addition to some Damage Reduction, this interaction enables several multipliers in the build, including Changeling's Debt, Envenom, and Heightened Malice.
• The act of Shapeshifting into Werewolf activates Quickshift and Heightened Senses, and snapshots the Critical Strike Chance bonus from Shapeshifter if you need it.

Mechanics

Learn about the mechanical details that make the build tick.

Clarity

• We utilize Clarity to snapshot guaranteed Critical Strikes and significantly improve damage for the duration of Hurricane. It requires 3 casts of Companion skills per Hurricane to gain the full benefit.
• You don't necessarily need to cast each type of Companion to reach max stacks - multiple casts of the same Companion Skill (i.e. those reset by Packleader) still contribute.

Provocation

• We utilize Provocation to snapshot guaranteed Overpowers for the duration of Hurricane.
• At max ranks, it takes 12 seconds to fully stack, prompting us to make Hurricane last at least that long. Note that the counter for Provocation pauses but does not reset when you leave Werebear Form.
• Be careful casting your abilities as you reach max Stacks, as any damaging Skill can consume the proc and disrupt your main damage rotation! When you have top-end Hurricane duration, it may actually be beneficial to remove points from Provocation to avoid this scenario.

Thunderstruck

• Thunderstruck provides a sizeable multiplier to Storm Skills based on our Damage to Close and Distant enemies, stats available to us through Tempering and Territorial.

Video Guide

Credits

Written by IBoilerUp

Reviewed by Pandaglassjaw