Lightning Storm Druid Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Lightning Storm Druid Endgame Guide! This build puts forward exceptional AoE attacks and great Movement Speed, comfortably electrocuting anything the game has to offer.
Lightning Storm is a Channeled Core Skill that is fantastic at eliminating weaker foes with its wide AoE attacks. Its biggest weakness, single target damage, is improved with the addition of Unsung Ascetic's Wraps and Tempest Roar. The former grants Lightning Storm massive damage bonuses, while the latter provides Spirit generation and converts it into a Werewolf Skill. By the same token, Wildheart Hunger grants significant improvements to our Attack Speed, damage, and defense.
While Lightning Storm Druid builds are traditionally played at range, this build adds an element of close combat to the experience. When we activate the Kry Rune we pull in nearby monsters. This mechanic helps consolidate Lightning Storm's lightning strikes in one small area, obliterating the enemies underneath. For additional damage, we utilize Mjölnic Ryng's substantial damage multiplier. We ensure Cataclysm is always active by utilizing Calm Before the Storm and additional Cataclysm Cooldown tempers.
This build revolves around the Bestial Rampage Key Passive, as the build naturally synergizes with Shapeshifting. Lightning Storm provides your Werewolf form, while Maul is a cheap and on-demand way to become a Werebear. Blood Howl grants a moderate amount of health and a damage buff, and can be constantly refreshed by killing enemies. Our last two skills are Cyclone Armor and Earthen Bulwark for some additional Damage Reduction and a handy source of Unstoppable.
This guide will teach you all you need to know to be successful with the Lightning Storm Druid. Let's begin!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 60 Character and unlocked Torment 1. To get there, level up with one of our Druid Leveling Guides. See how this Build compares against others with our various Build Tier Lists.
Boss Powers
Season 8 is the Season of Belial's Return. It allows you to tap into Boss Powers obtained from World, Event, and Lair Bosses throughout Sanctuary. The new seasonal mechanic, Apparition Incursions, is available at any difficulty level and gives you the opportunity to unlock a subset of these powers very early on. Various Apparition Monsters appear in these special timed events throughout Sanctuary. Defeating these monsters spawns 1 of 10 Apparition Bosses to hunt you down and defeating them grants you their Boss Power. After defeating the first Boss, continue the event for a chance to fight a second Apparition Boss, after which Belial himself joins the fray.
There are 24 Boss Powers available and the first time you defeat one of these Bosses, you claim their power for yourself. Boss Powers each have Main and Modifier effects to boost your build. 13 are available in all difficulties (from Apparition Incursions and World Bosses), while 11 can only be acquired in Torment 1 difficulty or higher from Lair Bosses and Lilith. You can equip 1 Main Power and 3 Modifiers, and all powers can be upgraded up to Rank 20, increasing the potency of both the Main and Modifier effect. You use Spectral Ash to upgrade these powers, dropped from Apparition Incursions and by defeating any Bosses. Boss Powers also scale with your Paragon Level, growing stronger as you progress.
Best-in-Slot Boss Powers
Main Power
- Wandering Death's Chest Beam - This power is always active while channeling Lightning Storm. It is able to easily trigger our Modifiers and supplies us with a gargantuan damage multiplier, what's not to like.
Modifiers
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - Is specifically preferred for its damage multiplier, as the Lightning Storm Druid has practically infinite Vulnerable uptime via Cataclysm.
- Blackmailer's Sabotage - This Modifier helps mitigate damage by providing a portion of our Fortify as Barrier. Skinwalker's gives a very generous amount of Fortify, resulting in big and frequent Barriers.
- Sinerat's Flames - A sizeable, straightforward damage multiplier that scales with our Lightning Resistance.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Hatred's Embrace's Haste - Is recommended early on in your progression to help you reach 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Flesh Reaper's Disruption / Outlaw Sharpshooter's Eye - Both of these Modifiers offer good multipliers, however each has its drawback. The former requires Crowd Control Duration Tempers to make the most out of its buff, while the latter loses multiplier value when you pull enemies close with Kry.
- Lord Zir's Blood Pool / Ashava's Poison Breath / Lilith's Wind of Hate / Grigoire's Lightning Square - Any of these Main Boss Powers are serviceable as to consistently activate your Modifiers.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Maul is our Basic Skill of choice. It doesn't serve much purpose besides Shapeshifting us into Werebear form. Ensure you are Shapeshifting back into Werebear form every few (5-10) seconds to maintain the Wildheart Hunger bonuses, as well as generate Fortify using Skinwalker's. Alternate between Maul and Lightning Storm at the beginning of a Dungeon or Boss to preemptively stack all your Shapeshifting bonuses.
- Lightning Storm is your main damage dealer. Unlock Raging Lightning Storm for additional damage. Channeling Lightning Storm restricts movement; however, Enhanced Lightning Storm preserves your Lightning Storm size and allows you to reposition if you're in a dangerous situation.
- Earthen Bulwark is used to grant you Unstoppable when Crowd Controlled. Featuring a long Cooldown, it is not recommended to use it for its Barrier capabilities unless absolutely necessary.
- Cyclone Armor is a cost-effective source of passive Damage Reduction and can be activated to trigger Backlash.
- Blood Howl is an additional source of healing and a damage multiplier. Its value shines when you cast it before channeling Lightning Storm, as you retain your Werewolf form thanks to Tempest Roar. Enhanced Blood Howl ensures you can cast this skill frequently to also trigger Vigilance and Backlash.
- Cataclysm is our Ultimate Skill. It makes enemies Vulnerable and grants us a big damage multiplier from Mjölnic Ryng. Against packs, Calm Before the Storm resets its Cooldown almost immediately, and additional Cataclysm Cooldown Tempers are used to ensure it's permanently active against Bosses.
Skill Passives
- Bestial Rampage is a two-part Key Passive, requiring both Shapeshifting forms to receive the full benefit. Werewolf form is attained when using Tempest Roar and Lightning Storm, and Maul rounds out our Werebear needs.
- Envenom is our largest Passive multiplier. It boosts Critical Strike Damage against Poisoned enemies. Poisoning is achieved rather easily with Overload, enabling our Lightning Storm to Poison enemies and benefit from the increased Critical Strike Damage.
- Quickshift, Electric Shock and Nature's Reach provide considerable damage bonuses that synergize with our build. Vigilance, Circle of Life and Heightened Senses help keep us alive.
Skill Rotation
- Begin by stacking your Shapeshifting bonuses (Wildheart Hunger, Quickshift, Heightened Senses, etc.) by alternating between Lightning Storm and Maul.
- Once fully stacked, cast Cataclysm for bonus damage and recast it as it comes off Cooldown.
- Cast Maul frequently in-between Lightning Storm casts to maintain your Shapeshifting buffs. Exactly how often depends on your buffs, but aim for once every 5-10 seconds.
- Cast Blood Howl as often as possible to receive the bonuses from Vigilance and Backlash, ensuring you cast it before Lightning Storm to make use of Innate Blood Howl's damage buff. Note that when you have Innate Blood Howl active it is best to keep channeling Lightning Storm and delay your Maul a few seconds to maximize the damage buff. Weave in Cyclone Armor to trigger Backlash if Blood Howl is on Cooldown.
- Use Earthen Bulwark if you predict a big hit or for Unstoppable.
If you're having trouble surviving while channeling Lightning Storm, make sure to engage fights using Earthen Bulwark and disengage when monsters become Unstoppable. Ideally, you want to move from pack to pack casting Lightning Storm and pulling monsters towards you with Kry. Against Bosses deal damage from a distance. In situations where you run out of Spirit and cannot cast Lightning Storm, use Maul for a few hits to recover Spirit.
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: Calamity
Snake Spirit: Calm Before the Storm
Bond with the Snake Spirit and activate Overload
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Druid Class Overview.
Paragon & Glyphs
Follow the appropriate Paragon setup based on whether or not you have access to Tempest Roar.
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 at level 15 and from 4 to 5 at level 46. Some of them cannot be activated before reaching these thresholds! Progress through The Pit to rank up your Glyphs.
Lightning Storm Druid Starter Paragon
Lightning Storm Druid Endgame Paragon
Use the slider to see the progression steps. At around Paragon 200, leveling slows down significantly and all important Rare clusters, Legendary nodes and Glyph sockets should be unlocked. Afterwards, you can min/max your build with minor tweaks and by picking up additional smaller nodes.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Spirit
- Keeper
- Earth and Sky
- Fulminate
- Electrocution
To Level 46
- Earth and Sky
- Spirit
- Keeper
- Fulminate
- Electrocution
Learn more details about the Paragon System in our in-depth Paragon Boards and Glyphs guide.
Runes
You can have up to two Runewords in your setup, each consisting of one Ritual and one Invocation Rune. Socket them in Two-Handed Weapons if your build calls for them, otherwise place them into your Armor pieces to replace normal gems. The Lightning Storm Druid focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Igni + Wat - Decrepify helps stagger Bosses, provides Damage Reduction and Executes enemies at 10% HP. When combined with Xol in your other Runeword it also generates large amounts of Offering.
- Xol + Kry - Vortex is used to group up enemies. Lightning Storm deals considerably more damage when enemies are grouped up, as our lightning strikes miss less often and each strike can hit multiple enemies if they are close enough together. In addition, Xol's high Offering generation permits us to take advantage of Kry often.
Alternative choices
If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Jah - Teleport is a fantastic Mobility Skill when paired with Bac, helping you traverse content quicker. It is possible to pair this Rune with other Offering Runes, though your uptime will vary from Rune to Rune.
- Ohm - War Cry offers a respectable damage bonus for a moderate duration.
- Ahu / Lith - Both are good Offering alternatives to Igni, especially Lith.
- Xal - Aids with survivability.
- Mot - Enables the Rogue's Dark Shroud which is a strong defensive option.
Learn more about Runes and how they work in our dedicated Runewords Overview and Runewords Tier List.
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are unlocked during the Vessel of Hatred campaign and assist you in battle. There are 4 separate Mercenaries to choose from, each with their own skill trees and abilities. You can have one Hired (permanent) mercenary during solo play and a Reinforcement who assists you from time to time in certain situations.
- Hired: Raheir
Raheir provides us with additional Resistance to All Elements and a method of surviving big hits in Valiance. His upgrades Ground Slam and Bastion round out our defenses nicely, while Inspiration allows us to leverage his Mercenary Skills for damage.
- Reinforcement: Aldkin
The Lightning Storm Druid uses Field of Languish when casting Lightning Storm for extra Slows and Damage Reduction while standing still.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Lightning Storm Druid to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. The green arrow ↑ indicates which affix is most impactful to Masterwork Crit, and it does not indicate how many Masterwork Crits you need on that particular affix. Keep in mind that certain stats, such as Armor, Resistances, Extra Size Tempers, Attack Speed, and more, have caps that may affect your priorities according to the items and Paragon points available at that moment.
Recommended Endgame Stat Thresholds
- 5+ Envenom Ranks
- 90%+ Critical Strike Chance (including Werewolf)
- 40%+ Attack Speed
- A total of 300% from Damage vs. Close/Distant
- 2600+ Willpower
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%+
- 7,000+ Life
- 170%+ Movement Speed
- 7+ Heightened Senses Ranks
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the endgame with the Lightning Storm Druid, take a look at this overview of the items used in the build. See below for further details about the different progression steps and variants. Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. Keep in mind that while we can guarantee that everyone has access to the same Codex of Power Aspects, the exact progression is different for everyone.
Learn more details and how to farm Legendary Aspects and Uniques in our General Farming Guide.
Build Variants
This section is designed to guide your Lightning Storm Druid from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.
If you are fresh in Torment 1 coming from a leveling guide, this is where you begin. Since only some Aspects can be guaranteed from Dungeon unlocks for the Codex of Power, focus on acquiring the additional aspects via gambling with Murmuring Obols.
Gear & Skills
Early on in your progression, focus on Armor & Resistances to survive. Each Torment difficulty adds a penalty of -250 Armor and -25% all Res and it's recommended to keep both capped (1000 Armor, 70+ Res) at all times. As you unlock higher power gear, Masterworking levels and more Paragon points, you naturally scale your character into the higher difficulties and can start replacing some of these rolls with offensive or utility stats.
- As we move up in Torment difficulty, we are going to remove Wind Shear in favor of an Ultimate Skill. Petrify provides us with a very strong Critical Strike Damage multiplier, especially if our Critical Strike Chance is near the cap.
- Between the Petrify Cooldown Reduction Tempers, Petrify Duration Tempers and Calm Before the Storm, we are able to leverage this powerful multiplier often enough, until it gets replaced by Cataclysm altogether.
- Early on, make sure to prioritize your resources. Imprint sparingly, don't exhaust your resources on rerolling perfect gear as it is very likely to get replaced later on. Focus on the major power increases from Paragons and Glyphs until you begin collecting Uniques.
- Upon reaching Thunderstruck in your Paragon Board, be mindful of your Damage to Close and Damage to Distant bonus.
- The target for this stat is 300%, and your personal value will depend on the nodes taken on this board and your socketed Earth and Sky Glyph level.
- As you obtain more and more Uniques, your Starter build is going to shift away from utilizing Companion Skills. This is primarily due to the inconsistencies of standing still in endgame content, where the Starter variant begins to struggle with damage and survivability.
- Eventually this build will drop all Companion Skills in favor of Defensive Skills and Shapeshifting bonuses.
The goal here is to progress through the Torment difficulties as you unlock Ancestrals, Paragon points, all Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and the most important Uniques to pilot this build. Some Legendary Aspects are used temporarily to fill slots that may be replaced with more Unique items later on.
Gear & Skills
As you upgrade your gear to Ancestrals with more masterworking levels and reach higher paragon, you can focus more and more on replacing Armor & Resistance rolls with better stats, but ensure to stay capped at 1000 Armor and 70%+ Resistances for the difficulty you're currently in.
- During this phase of your journey, it is important to work your way up the Boss ladder to unlock powerful Uniques. Begin with The Beast in the Ice as it drops Unsung Ascetic's Wraps, a powerful and crucial tool to improving Lightning Storm's single target damage.
- Next, set your eyes on claiming Tempest Roar. This Unique can be found after defeating Duriel, King of Maggots or Andariel. While this version of the build can still function without Tempest Roar, it is recommended to enable the Werewolf Shapeshifting synergies as soon as possible.
- Upon acquiring this item, your Spirit concerns are a thing of the past. Between Lust for Carnage and Tempest Roar, Spirit per Second is no longer needed on your gear.
- Visit Lord Zir for Wildheart Hunger. This pair of Boots boosts Bestial Rampage's bonuses by a considerable amount. Moreover, Mjölnic Ryng also drops from this Boss, which grants a powerful damage multiplier.
- Upon reaching Thunderstruck in your Paragon Board, be mindful of your Damage to Close and Damage to Distant bonus.
- The target for this stat is 300%, and your personal value will depend on the nodes taken on this board and your socketed Earth and Sky Glyph level.
This is the final version of the build's progression, including all regular Unique items, Mythic Uniques, Legendary Aspects, Temper mods and Masterworking, leaving you with a great all-rounder build for all content in the game. Additional variants use this as a baseline to optimize around certain activities.
Gear & Skills
Multiple Uniques from the Ancestral variant remain as they are best in slot options.
- The addition of Shroud of False Death is a massive damage bump thanks to its +1 passive ranks. It also comes with Invisibility and Movement Speed (if you haven't attacked in the last 2 seconds).
- Ring of Starless Skies is the best option for our second ring slot. Between the high Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance, Core Skill Ranks, and an extremely potent effect, there's little more the Lightning Storm Druid could wish from a ring. Prioritize crafting this Mythic first.
- Tyrael's Might is a solid consideration if you're looking to solve resistances early and boast a very defensive setup. In this case, make sure to swap the Resistance Tempers on your gear to Maximum Life or Armor.
This Speedfarming variant optimizes the build for easy activities like Helltides, Whispers, Nightmare Dungeons and lower Pit Tiers after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
- The Mythic version of the Lightning Storm Druid is more than capable of handling the Open World content in a timely manner. However, in order to maximize Speed a few changes have to be made:
- Firstly, change your Runes to Igni + Kry and Bac + Jah to utilize the Sorcerer's Teleport, while also being able to group monsters.
- Replace Earthen Bulwark with Trample and use it as a Mobility tool that also provides Unstoppable.
- Drop Cyclone Armor in favor of Shred for even more Mobility.
- Lastly, focus on tapping a max-size Lightning Storm instead of fully channeling to reduce the amount of time spent standing still.
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.
Retaliation is a gigantic damage multiplier for this build. As such, we get the most damage out of using a Two-Handed Weapon over a One-Handed Weapon + Totem and the added benefit of slotting Runes into our weapon, freeing up our armor slots for more Willpower.
Use a 2H Polearm early on when you lack additive damage for its intrinsic Vulnerable damage. As you acquire more sources of additive damage from your gear and Paragon, swap to a 2H Staff as it is a faster casting weapon.
Maximum Life is essential to any build's survival. In the case of this build, it uses a large amount of Uniques, which negatively impact your total Maximum Life. Since Maximum Life nodes in your Paragon are % based, it is important to ensure that the Life value on your gear is as high as possible for the highest payoff.
Additionally, builds revolving around the Druid's Werewolf form are notorious for having weak defenses and contrary to the Werebear, have difficulty surviving against enemies that don't die instantly. While more Willpower is always welcome, in this case, the marginal damage increases do not outweigh the loss of Life and survivability that come thereafter.
Druids have only two non-Ultimate sources of Unstoppable. Trample and Earthen Bulwark. If you're not subscribed to their long Cooldown, Metamorphosis is a great alternative to those skills.
In the early game you may occasionally starve on resources before you get Shapeshifting synergies online. It is recommended you invest in Spirit per second while you look for a Tempest Roar. Alternatively, utilize Gift of the Stag or Energize, or you can replace a support skill like Earthen Bulwark with Savage Trample/Innate Blood Howl for nice bursts of Spirit.
Generally hardcore and softcore share the same builds. Outside of being more prudent in your gameplay, you can also tweak the setup slightly to raise your survivability:
- Focus more on Armor & Resists, making sure that they are always capped especially as you transition into higher torment difficulties.
- Focus more on maximum life rolls, for example replacing DPS stats like main attributes, attack speed, critical strike chance and additive increased damage rolls. Also masterwork life more than normal if no other crucial stats have priority.
- Focus on adding defensive skills, passives and paragon nodes first as you level up.
- Play on a slightly lower difficulty than normal, don't push into difficult territory. As long as you can deal with all enemies swiftly, they can't retaliate.
- Include a source of Unstoppable if possible to get out of crowd controls.
- Use defensive elixirs and incenses instead of offensive ones.
Mechanics
With these unique boots equipped, Shapeshifting adds a stack of Wildheart. Each stack of Wildheart increases the bonuses of your Bestial Rampage by 5%[+]. These stacks are additive, resulting in up to 50[x] damage and 50% Attack Speed bonuses. However, the stacks decrease at 0.5%[+] per second, essentially requiring a new Shapeshift form every 10 seconds in order to maintain the maximum stacks.
- While all the exact mechanics are much more nuanced, there are two separate Attack Speed Bonus caps of +100% that apply to all builds for a total potential of +200%. For Druids, these two caps are distributed in the following way:
Cap 1
- Gear rolls
- Paragon nodes
- Elixirs
- Artillery Shrine
- Swooping Attacks
Cap 2
- Werewolf Attack Speed Affix
- Preserving Blood Howl
- Bestial Rampage
- Wildheart Hunger
- Accelerating
For a more detailed explanation, read up more on Attack Speed in our dedicated guide by Ava.
Bosses are immune to Crowd Control (CC) effects and instead take Stagger Damage when hit by one. The amount of stagger damage dealt depends on the type of CC and is proportional to its duration. After being hit by a CC effect, the Boss will temporarily take less Stagger Damage from a CC of the same type.
Effectively, this means that when you're just spamming one type of CC you don't need to spam any more of it than what you need to keep a normal enemy permanently CC-d. To stagger the Boss quickly you need to use as many different types of CC as possible. After the Boss is staggered it gains a certain amount of stacking Stagger Damage Reduction for the rest of the fight:
- After 1st Stagger: 20%
- After 2nd Stagger: 40%
- After 3rd Stagger: 60%
- After 4th Stagger: 90%
Bosses naturally regain 1% of their Stagger HP every second and when that regen is combined with 90% Stagger Damage Reduction it becomes borderline impossible to Stagger the Boss again unless you bring a serious amount of crowd controls.
Summary
The Lightning Storm Druid is an excellent build with incredible speed and clear. It can dive deep into Nightmare Dungeons and the Pit. Late endgame, the build can be played smoothly without the use of a generator making it a highly efficient and enjoyable farming build.
- Maul plays a major role in maintaining this build's damage multipliers, ensure you are casting it often to activate your Shapeshifting/Werebear bonuses.
- Utilize Kry for big pulls when attacking packs.
- Acquire Tempest Roar as early as possible to enable all the Shapeshifting synergies.
Credits
Written by Danger
Reviewed by IBoilerUp