Welcome to the Lightning 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. This build benefits from Uniques but absolutely does not require them to play at a high level, making it new player and Season starter friendly.
The gameplay is straightforward. Pop into Grizzly Rage, then use Shred to Dash from enemy to enemy, proccing Stormclaw's every time you land a Critical Strike and building damage the longer you're in Grizzly Rage thanks to Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast.
The build also benefits from several other Skills and Passives. On top of damage, Grizzly Rage also provides a reliable source of Unstoppable, Fortify, and substantially reduces our Spirit costs thanks to Dire Wolf's Aspect. This allows us to rely primarily on Lust for Carnage to regain Spirit through Shred and Hurricane. Blood Howl provides Spirit and Healing, while Storm Strike works as a generator when needed and also serves as a reliable source of Vulnerable and Damage Reduction. Cyclone Armor offers substantial Passive damage reduction and Knockback/Slow that can be used to get out of tough spots.
In this guide we teach you all you need to know to be successful with the Lightning 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.
High Mobility ✔
Strong Healing ✔
Relatively Tanky ✔
Incredible Clear Speed ✔
❌ Spirit Management
❌ Grizzly Rage Dependent
❌ Melee Playstyle Is Dangerous
❌ Struggles At High Nightmare Tiers
Season 2 - Season of Blood
Diablo 4 Season 2 introduces a new questline to hunt down the Shadow Vampire forces of Lord Zir across Sanctuary. With Lilith's blood still residing within our bodies, the infliction put upon us is harnessed throughout our leveling, granting access to new Vampiric Powers. Completing the seasonal questline, partaking in the seasonal Blood Harvest event and collecting Potent Blood are the main ways of obtaining and empowering these abilities. Check out the full Season 2 Guide from Chewingnom to learn more!
How it works
- There are 22 Vampiric Powers, separated into 2 different types:
- 15 Minor Vampiric Powers - Require 1 to 3 Pacts to be activated.
- 7 Major Vampiric Powers - Require 6 Pacts to be activated.
- There are 3 different types of Pacts:
- Ferocity Pact
have a Crown icon. - Divinity Pacts
have a Chalice icon. - Eternity Pacts
have a Skull icon.
- Ferocity Pact
- Pacts can roll only on Armor pieces (Helm, Chest Armor, Gloves, Pants, Boots).
- Helms & Boots can have up to 3 Pacts, Pants can have up to 4, Chests & Gloves can have up to 5. This gives you 20 Pacts max!
- You can use Cleansing Acid - All to remove all Pacts from a piece of Armor and place new Standalone Pacts to meet your Powers requirements to activate. Cleansing Acid can be altered at the Alchemists to target 1 of the 3 Pacts only.
- Once you have equipped the right Pact Armor pieces, you can activate Vampiric Powers in the Sanguine Circle through the character screen. Powers require varying amounts of different types of Pacts, pay attention.
- You can use Potent Blood acquired from Blood Seekers to upgrade your Vampiric Powers from Level 1 to Level 3.
With this in mind, let's look at the top 5 best Vampiric Powers and how they impact this build:
Best-in-Slot Vampiric Powers
- Anticipation (Minor) - This is a huge boost to our Grizzly Rage uptime.
- Metamorphosis (Major) - A guaranteed Unstoppable is great. In the Speedfarming/Bossing Variant we combine it with Tibault's Will for a big damage boost.
- Ravenous (Minor) - This is a massive Attack Speed boost, which is especially helpful on Bosses.
- Resilience (Minor) - A big boost to our defenses that gets stronger when we're in more danger.
- Sanguine Brace (Minor) - The Fortify is nice, the additional Critical Strike Chance is great and synergizes well with Envenom.
- Prey on the Weak (Minor) - A small, but consistent damage boost.
Alternative Vampiric Powers
- Prey on the Weak (Minor) - A small, but consistent damage boost.
- Terror (Minor) - It has a low proc chance, but the strong CC combined with the guaranteed crits when it does proc gives it value. Consider as an alternative to Prey on the Weak.
- Hemomancy (Minor) - A bit of AoE damage combined with a Health means there's value here, but not enough to be top 5.
- Undying (Minor) - It's a ton of Healing, but we typically don't need Healing for this build.
Skill Tree
Active Skills
- Shred is our primary damage skill along with providing tremendous mobility. Each Critical Strike procs Stormclaw's Aspect.
- Storm Strike is a Spirit generator when needed, but also provides Damage Reduction and a reliable source of Vulnerability.
- Grizzly Rage, combined with Dire Wolf's Aspect provides Unstoppable, Movement Speed, Spirit Cost Reduction, and a massive amount of Critical Strike Damage from Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast.
- Blood Howl is a solid Heal that also provides Attack Speed through Preserving Blood Howl.
- Cyclone Armor provides multiple sources of Damage Reduction plus a Knockback.
- Hurricane gives substantial Healing from Masochistic and speeds up the damage ramp up from Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast
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.
- Lupine Ferocity is our Keystone Passive of choice, giving us both Damage and additional Critical Strike Chance.
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 Swooping Attacks.
- Wariness for additional Bossing Damage Reduction.
- Scythe Talons provides additional Critical Strike chance that improves healing, damage and increases the speed that Critical Strike Damage from Rampaging Werebeast scales.
- Swooping Attacks provides a strong source of attack speed that improves our damage, as well as healing through more Critical Strikes per second. Iron Feather is also an option here for more survivability.
- Calamity allows us to maximize our uptime of Grizzly Rage.
- Masochistic is our primary source of sustain. It's a massive amount of healing.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Paragon Board
This setup prioritizes major Glyphs and Legendary nodes to get the build up and running faster.
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
- Exploit
- Werewolf
- Territorial
- Spirit
- Fang and Claw
- Undaunted
Level 21
- Fang and Claw
- Territorial
- Exploit
- Werewolf
- Spirit
- Undaunted
There are a total of 225 Paragon Points. Starting with level 50 you gain 4 Paragon Points per level, plus 20 from Renown, and 4 from Altars of Lilith.
Gameplay
- Activate Blood Howl or Cyclone Armor (to proc Vigilance), Hurricane and Grizzly Rage just before entering the fight.
- Close the gap and spam 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, rotate between using Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor to keep Vigilance up. Prioritize Blood Howl to keep your Attack Speed buff. Cyclone Armor can also be used to create some distance between enemies, making it easier to Dash.
- Use Hurricane on Cooldown in a fight or right before engaging high density packs.
- Use Storm Strike for additional Spirit when needed and for additional Damage Reduction in tough fights.
- If you aren't in the first 6 seconds of Grizzly Rage, be careful when engaging enemies as you won't have Unstoppable. Enemies with CC can be dangerous, so plan your approach to them carefully, and try not to stay in Melee range against them for extended periods of time.
- If you find yourself in a tough situation with too many enemies nearby and you can't Evade or Shred your way out, use Cyclone Armor to Knockback and Slow the enemies, buying yourself an escape route.
- Advanced: If an enemy hits hard, use Blood Howl to recover from large hits.
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, making Waxing Gibbous a very appealing option for Speedfarming that smoothes out the rotation considerably. However, the guaranteed Critical Strikes from Waxing Gibbous become far less reliable in challenging content, making it a poor choice. If you aren't using Waxing Gibbous and find that you aren't generating enough Spirit from these two sources, take advantage of Blood Howl's high uptime thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl to gain large amounts of Spirit from Innate Blood Howl. If you'd rather stick with the attack speed from Preserving Blood Howl, you can opt to use Storm Strike instead. Hurricane is also a huge source of Spirit since it can Critically Strike. Maximize the value of this skill by using it in packs so that it can hit more enemies, resulting in more Critical Strikes. Regardless of your setup, remember that Storm Strike is always a reliable fall back to generate Spirit when you run out.
Cooldown Management is lower than most builds that use Grizzly Rage because Shred isn't a Nature skill, meaning we can't benefit from the Calm Before the Storm Boon. So, cooldown management for Grizzly Rage is a matter of making sure you aren't in danger of being CC'd when you don't have Unstoppable. Our other concern is with Blood Howl. Keeping track of the cooldown reduction from Enhanced Blood Howl as you kill enemies will allow you to maximize the value of either Innate Blood Howl or Preserving Blood Howl.
Endgame Gear & Skill Progression
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. While we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the progression might be different for everyone!
- Unlock the following Aspects in your Codex of Power:
- Rapid in Buried Halls (Dry Steppes)
- Vigorous in Steadfast Barracks (Hawezar)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Rampaging Werebeast in Endless Gates (Hawezar)
- Stormshifter's in Crusader's Cathedral (Kehjistan)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Stormclaw's in Anica's Claim (Fractured Peaks)
- Aspect of the Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Nighthowler's in Forbidden City (Fractured Peaks)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, through the Tree of Whispers, or gambling with Obols:
- Dire Wolf's
- Accelerating
- Find the following Unique items by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Tempest Roar
- Waxing Gibbous
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.
- Stormclaw's is a substantial DPS gain for the build. Place this in the Amulet slot to get extra value.
- Use Might in the Helmet slot until you get Tempest Roar.
- We can't use Grizzly Rage until we have Dire Wolf's, so we use Rapid in the gloves slot and Umbral on one of our rings to improve our Spirit Generation.
- Nighthowler's fills in until we find an Accelerating and helps make up for some of our low Critical Strike chance at this stage.
- 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.
- Upgrade your weapon when you have the resources. Any other gear can wait until you find better items.
Skills
- Without Dire Wolf's we cannot use Grizzly Rage so we take Earthen Bulwark for the Unstoppable, Barrier and Fortify. Max it out by taking points from Nature's Resolve and one from Cyclone Armor.
- We don't generate nearly as much Spirit at this point so swap Preserving Blood Howl with Innate Blood Howl to gain access to a steady source.
Gameplay
- Activate Blood Howl or Cyclone Armor (for Vigilance), Hurricane and Earthen Bulwark 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, rotate between using Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor to keep Vigilance up. Prioritize Blood Howl when your Spirit isn't capped. Cyclone Armor can also be used to create some distance between enemies, making it easier to Dash.
- Use Hurricane on Cooldown in a fight or right before engaging high density packs.
- Use Storm Strike for additional Spirit when needed and for additional Damage Reduction in tough fights.
- If you find yourself in a tough situation with too many enemies nearby and you can't Evade or Shred your way out, use Cyclone Armor to Knockback and Slow the enemies, buying yourself an escape route.
- Advanced: If an enemy hits hard, use Blood Howl to recover from large hits.
Spirit Boons
At this point we aren't using an ultimate, so use Energize instead of Calamity to improve our Spirit generation.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
The answer to many questions can be found in the following section.
Build Scaling
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
- Stormclaw's Aspect: This is a sneaky powerful aspect due to double dipping damage scalers. This means it benefits from increasing Shred damage, but can also have its own damage increased through stats like additive and multiplicative damage. With the right gear you hit much harder with this sub skill than from Shred.
- Critical Strikes: Critical Strike Chance is your #1 priority stat. Get as much of this as you can, and try to get above 40% Chance ASAP. Thanks to Lupine Ferocity, Gear and Passives we have consistently high Critical Strike Chance in this build. If you're using Waxing Gibbous, you have almost permanent 100% Critical Strike Chance on Speedfarming content.
- Critical Strike Damage: We get an large amount of this stat from Grizzly Rage thanks to Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast. We use Calamity and sources of Cooldown Reduction to maximize our uptime of Grizzly Rage. We also require Dire Wolf's Aspect to utilize Grizzly Rage in Werewolf form.
- Vulnerable: Storm Strike allows us to consistently apply Vulnerable to targets thanks to Fierce Storm Strike. We are also guaranteed to apply it the first time we damage an enemy from Exploit. To further smooth things out we apply the debuff through Natural Hurricane. This status effect is a damage multiplier, so we want to scale it as much as possible on our Weapon, Rings and Paragon Board.
- 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/Festering: We're able to take advantage of both of these large sources of damage thanks to Toxic Claws, which Poisons enemies whenever we deal Critical Strike Damage to them.
Stat Priorities & Gear Options
There are many stats and status effects that generate on gear, but many are not important for your build. Some stats may block others from rolling or only appear on certain gear slots. See below for a general breakdown as well as a per slot priority list in the list.
- Critical Strike Chance is a damage scaler as well as our primary source of healing through Masochistic, so this stat is vital for both Offense and Defense. Stack this on your Rings, Offhand and Gloves. This is your #1 priority stat so get as much as you can!
- Anything that applies while enemies are Poisoned (Damage/Damage Reduction) is excellent. With high Crit Chance this will have virtually permanent uptime thanks to Toxic Claws.
- Cooldown Reduction is an excellent stat that benefits Grizzly Rage, Hurricane, Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor. Unfortunately, we can only get this on Amulets and Offhand, so prioritize it.
- Attack Speed increases our DPS and improves our healing through more procs of Masochistic. Put this on your gloves and take Accelerating Aspect.
- Armor: Our goal is to cap with enough Aspect of Disobedience procs. Use Ironclaw / of the Ironclaw on your Boots and Amulet and pick up as many Armor nodes as you can in the Paragon Board.
- Damage Reduction: Our sources of Damage Reduction are vital to the playstyle. For Legendary Aspects, we use Vigorous Aspect. We also fill our gear with Guarding, Sheltering, Venomwall and Secure to make us very tanky on even mid tier Nightmare Dungeons.
- Life: This stat is usually secondary to Damage Reduction due to the way it scales. Place it on your rings and gem slots, but prioritize Damage Reduction over Life on your Chest Armor and Pants
Put in the following Gems into your gear:
- Helmet / Body Armor / Pants: Royal Ruby
- Weapon / Off-Hand: Royal Emerald
- Jewelry: Fill with whatever Resistance you haven't capped with your gear affixes.
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
Refer to the table below to see the best rolls for every slot ranked in order of importance:
| SLOT | ASPECT | STAT PRIORITY |
| Weapon (1-Handed-Axe) | Edgemaster’s | Implicit: Damage To Healthy 1. High Damage per Second 2. Willpower 3. All Stats 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Core Skill Damage 6. Damage to Poisoned 7. Vulnerable Damage 8. Damage to Crowd Controlled 9. Damage to Slowed Socket Royal Emerald |
| Weapon (1-Handed-Axe) (Optional) | Waxing Gibbous | 1. High Damage per Second 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Damage to Close Enemies 4. Damage to Injured Enemies 5. Life On Kill Socket Royal Emerald |
| Off-hand (Totem) | Accelerating Aspect or Dire Wolf's or Rampaging Werebeast or Aspect of Retaliation | 1. High Damage per Second 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Damage Reduction While Fortified 5. Damage Reduction from Poisoned 6. Spirit Cost Reduction 7. Willpower 8. Fortify Generation Socket Royal Emerald |
| Helm (Best in Slot) | Tempest Roar | 1. Damage While Shapeshifted 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Spirit 4. Poison Resistance Socket Royal Ruby |
| Helm (Optional) | Dark Howl | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. % Total Armor 3. Maximum Life 4. Willpower 5. Basic Attack Speed Socket Royal Ruby |
| Chest | Vigorous or Disobedience | 1. Damage Reduction While Fortified 2.Damage Reduction From Poisoned 3. Damage Reduction From Close 4.Damage Reduction From Distant 5. Damage Reduction 6. Willpower 7. Maximum Life Sockets Royal Ruby |
| Gloves | Accelerating Aspect or Dire Wolf's or Rampaging Werebeast or Aspect of Retaliation | 1. Ranks of Shred 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Attack Speed 4. Willpower 5. Storm Skill Cooldown Reduction 6. Critical Damage with Werewolf Skills 7. Dexterity |
| Pants | Vigorous or Disobedience | 1. Damage Reduction While Fortified 2. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 3. Damage Reduction From Close 4. Damage Reduction From Distant 5. Damage Reduction 6. Maximum Life 7. Damage Reduction While Injured Sockets Royal Ruby |
| Boots | Stormshifter's or Ghostwalker | Implicit: Max Evade Charges 1. Movement Speed 2/3. Two of: Fire, Cold, Shadow, Poison Resistance 4. Total Armor while in Werewolf Form 5. Fortify Generation 6. Willpower 7. Dodge Chance |
| Amulet | Stormclaw's Aspect | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Ranks of the Envenom Passive 3. Spirit Cost Reduction 4. Damage Reduction while Fortified 5. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 6. Damage Reduction From Close 7. Total Armor In Werewolf Form 8. Damage Reduction 9. Damage Reduction from Distant Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 1 | Accelerating Aspect or Dire Wolf's or Rampaging Werebeast or Aspect of Retaliation | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Maximum Life 3. Resource Generation 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Damage to Poisoned Enemies 6. Critical Strike Damage With Werewolf Skills 7. Critical Strike Damage 8. Vulnerable Damage Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 2 | Accelerating Aspect or Dire Wolf's or Rampaging Werebeast or Aspect of Retaliation | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Maximum Life 3. Resource Generation 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Damage to Poisoned Enemies 6. Critical Strike Damage With Werewolf Skills 7. Critical Strike Damage 8. Vulnerable Damage Socket Single Resistance |
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successfully navigate this build through potentially dangerous situations:
- Swap Spirit Cost Reduction on your Amulet with Damage Reduction from Poisoned
- Replace Willpower on Boots with either Dodge Chance (best) or Dodge Chance Against Enemies.
- Switch out Stormshifter's for Ghostwalker Aspect on your boots.
- Keep the Damage Reduction from Storm Strike up as much as possible. You need to hit a target with it every 3 seconds for 100% uptime.
- Be exceptionally careful around enemies with hard Crowd Control when Grizzly Rage is on cooldown and you lose access to Unstoppable. Enemies are capable of chain stunning/freezing for 10 seconds or longer, which is almost always a death sentence.
- 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.
Check out our dedicated in-depth guide to learn more survival tricks in Hardcore.
Level 100 Endgame Variants
You can optimize your build further for certain endgame activities, such as Speedfarming, Nightmare Dungeon Pushing, etc. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to achieve the best results in them.
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 Tibault's Will and Mad Wolf's Glee for the extra Movement Speed and damage they provide. If you find that you're taking too much damage, replace Mad Wolf's Glee with your standard Chest Armor.
- Waxing Gibbous is our best option here due to the quick kill time of lower tier enemies allowing us to maintain the Critical Strike Chance bonus, which smoothes out our Spirit Generation, letting us Shred even more.
- Ghostwalker is an option over Stormshifter's if you find your damage is overkill but want to add additional move speed.
Skill Tree
The only change here is in our Keystone Passive, where we change from Lupine Ferocity to Ursine Strength. The use of Waxing Gibbous negates most of the Critical Strike Chance benefit from Lupine Ferocity, making the multiplicative damage of Ursine Strength superior.
There are no changes to Spirit Boons, Gameplay or Paragon Boards in this setup.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
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 Mad Wolf's Glee?
Why not Temerity?
Why Tempest Roar? Isn't a Legendary better?
Why Lupine Ferocity over Ursine Strength?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
Damage Reduction Vs. Life
Stormclaw's Aspect
Video Guide
Hungry for more Guides?
Druid Guides
General Guides
Summary
The Lightning Shred Werewolf is easily one of the fastest builds in the game, flying around the battlefield as it Dashes from enemy pack to pack. Stormclaw's Aspect provides the Lightning Damage the build is named after and also gives it very high damage. 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 IBoilerUp
