Welcome to the Lightning Storm Druid endgame guide! This build has exceptional clear thanks to very high range and area of effect. It also boasts great movement speed and solid defenses. At the late endgame it can be played without a Spirit Generator for a fast and smooth experience. The build is capable of high Nightmare Dungeon pushes but may be somewhat limited on the top end due to inconsistent Single Target Damage.
Lightning Storm can be charged up to strike in a huge area. On top of that, it can target anywhere on screen. The combination of these two features, along with high movement speed, makes it one of the best farming builds in the game. Adding Grizzly Rage and Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast supercharges the build by dramatically reducing the resource cost. To use these, we also need Tempest Roar.
For defense, Grizzly Rage also provides us with a reliable form of Unstoppable that keeps CC at bay. The Masochistic Boon pairs with Lightning Storm to give us an excellent source of Healing that is further supplemented by Blood Howl. Hurricane and Cyclone Armor provide us with additional Damage Reduction beyond our Gear, Passives, and Paragon.
This build is very Legendary Aspect and Unique dependent. While it can be played without Grizzly Rage, the Resource Cost Reduction the skill provides takes it to the next level. We recommend waiting until you have Dire Wolf's Aspect, Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast and Tempest Roar to play this build.
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with one of our Leveling Guides. If you are looking for a different Druid playstyle, check out all of our Druid Guides.
Easy to Play ✔
Relatively Tanky ✔
Massive Area of Effect ✔
Incredible Clear Speed ✔
❌ High Gear Investment
❌ Reliant On Grizzly Rage
❌Must Stand Still To Charge
❌ Inconsistent Single Target
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
- Bathe in Blood (Major) - An excellent fit for this build with major offensive and defensive buffs. The only drawback is the 8 second cooldown.
- Anticipation (Minor) - This is a huge boost to our Grizzly Rage uptime, allowing us to spam Grizzly Rage even more.
- Metamorphosis (Major) - An incredible source of Unstoppable that also powers Tibault's Will in the Speedfarming Variant.
- Ravenous (Minor) - The amount of Attack Speed we get from this is incredible. This build is capable of reaching the Movement Speed cap, so the value here is maximized.
- Sanguine Brace (Minor) - The Fortify from this is nice, the Critical Strike Chance is better. We get extra value from Critical Strikes thanks to Envenom.
Alternative Vampiric Powers
- Resilience (Minor) - An excellent Defensive option that becomes stronger the more danger we're in.
- Undying (Minor) - This provides a ton of healing. Fortunately, we already have excellent healing, but if you find yourself lacking due to low Critical Strike Chance this can fill in the gap.
- Prey on the Weak (Minor) - A solid damage buff with almost 100% uptime. However, the damage is weaker than other Vampiric Powers, so it doesn't make the cut.
- Terror (Minor) - The chance for this to proc is low, but when it does we get a huge bonus to Critical Strike Chance.
- Rampart (Minor) - On bosses where we normally want to move as little as possible, this provides a nice Defensive buff.
Skill Tree
Active Skills
- Lightning Storm is our primary damage skill.
- Wind Shear is our Spirit generator, which is replaced with Ravens at the late endgame.
- Grizzly Rage, combined with Dire Wolf's Aspect provides Unstoppable, Movement Speed, and a massive amount of Critical Strike Damage from Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast.
- Blood Howl is a solid Heal that also provides a burst of Spirit through Innate Blood Howl
- Cyclone Armor provides multiple sources of Damage Reduction plus a Knockback.
- Hurricane gives substantial Healing from Masochistic, Calm Before the Storm procs 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 Legendary Aspect flexibility over Earthen Might.
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: Scythe Talons
- Wolf Spirit: Calamity
- Snake Spirit: Masochistic
Bond with the Snake Spirit and activate Calm Before the Storm. This, along with Calamity, reduces the amount of time Grizzly Rage is on cooldown.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Paragon Board
This setup assumes you already have everything to run Lightning Storm in Werewolf form. If you don't but still want to play the build in Human form, switch Werewolf for Human and ignore nodes for Werewolf/Shapeshifting until you've acquired the necessary gear.
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.
Placeholder Glyphs
These Glyphs are only used temporarily. Don't level these Glyphs up because you will replace them later.
- Human - Only use this if you want to play this build before having all of the necessary Werewolf gear.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Keeper
- Fulminate
- Earth and Sky
- Electrocution
- Werewolf
- Territorial
Level 21
- Keeper
- Earth and Sky
- Electrocution
- Werewolf
- Fulminate
- Territorial
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 Hurricane and Grizzly Rage just before entering the fight.
- Hold down Lightning Storm while targeting enemies to build up the size of the storm. Once it's sufficiently large, manually click quickly to increase the speed at which you cast (Manual clicking has a higher cast speed than holding down).
- During the fight, rotate between using Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor to keep Vigilance up. When possible, use Cyclone Armor when you're at nearly full Spirit and Blood Howl when you're lower to keep you topped off.
- Use Hurricane on Cooldown in a fight or right before engaging high density packs. Maintain maximum uptime on Grizzly Rage by staying close when possible to get more procs of Calm Before the Storm. If Grizzly Rage falls off and the Cooldown is not reset, continue to engage enemies when possible, using Wind Shear and Blood Howl to regen Spirit, but avoid getting close to enemies with hard CC. You won't have Unstoppable when you're out of Grizzly Rage!
- If you find yourself in a tough situation with too many enemies nearby and you can't Evade 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 Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build. Thanks to Dire Wolf's Aspect on our Amulet and Lust for Carnage, we can spam Lightning Storm whenever we're in Grizzly Rage and are hitting more than one enemy. However, when we're fighting a single target or out of Grizzly Rage Spirit will be harder to maintain. There are two different strategies depending on whether you have a well rolled Aspect of the Umbral:
Early Endgame (Low rolled Umbral) - We need to utilize Wind Shear, Blood Howl and Hurricane to generate spirit. Blood Howl is a quick burst with a cooldown. Hurricane provides a small Spirit boost every time it Critically Strikes or CCs and is more powerful at higher density. Wind Shear is a Basic skill generator that provides a bonus if it hits more than one enemy. Prioritize Blood Howl and Hurricane for more DPS uptime. Use Wind Shear when the other two skills are on cooldown or the Spirit they provide is insufficient.
Late Endgame (High rolled Umbral) - At this stage we generate enough Spirit from hits through both CC with Umbral and Critical Strikes with Lust for Carnage that we don't need to use a Generator, so Wind Shear gets replaced. When Grizzly Rage is down, cycle through Blood Howl and Hurricane to keep your Spirit high. There may be short periods of a few seconds where you need to wait on a Cooldown, but these should be rare. The vast majority of time you should have plenty of Spirit to maintain your rotation even when Grizzly Rage is down.
Cooldown Management - Primarily revolves around Grizzly Rage. Maintaining maximum uptime of this skill is paramount to getting the most out of the build. To push the cooldown of this skill lower, we need to proc Calm Before the Storm as much as possible. The best way to do this is to stay in fights as much as possible and fight enemies in larger packs instead of individually. Spam Lightning Storm as much as possible and hit enemies with Hurricane when it's safe to do so. When Grizzly Rage falls off and there is still a cooldown, be careful to not get too close to enemies with hard CC like Cold Enchanted or enemies that have a Stun which can't be easily avoided.
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:
- Vigorous in Steadfast Barracks (Hawezar)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Rampaging Werebeast in Endless Gates (Hawezar)
- Stormshifter's in Crusader's Cathedral (Kehjistan)
- Overcharged in Mariner's Refuge (Scosglen)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Eluding in Caldera Gate (Fractured Peaks)
- Nighthowler's in Forbidden City (Fractured Peaks)
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Mending Stone in Sealed Archives (Dry Steppes)
- Aspect of the Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, through the Tree of Whispers, or gambling with Obols:
- Dire Wolf's
- Lightning Dancer's
- Find the following Unique items by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Tempest Roar
- Mad Wolf's Glee (For Speedfarming variant)
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
We don't get many of our core aspects from the Codex of Power, so we need replacements until we find them.
- We can't use Grizzly Rage without Tempest Roar so Mending Stone will allow Earthen Bulwark to provide us with a reasonably consistent source of Unstoppable early on. Eluding helps to fill in any gaps when we get into trouble.
- Use Disobedience as a big damage reduction thanks to the high number of hits from this build.
- Even a minimum rolled Umbral lowers our reliance on Wind Shear to generate Spirit, especially in large packs.
- Movement Speed on your boots will significantly increase your leveling and farming speed.
- Try to cap your resistances early 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 and extra Defense.
- We don't have enough Spirit generation to avoid a generator, so we use Wind Shear which gives us a lot of Spirit while also allowing us to stay in the ranged playstyle that keeps us safe.
- Without Tempest Roar we can't make Lightning Storm a Werewolf skill so we need to avoid Toxic Claws for now, which also means we can't benefit from Poisoned effects like Envenom and Neurotoxin. We put points into Resonance and Defensive Posture instead.
- Not being in Werewolf form means we also can't take advantage of Lupine Ferocity, so we use Perfect Storm instead, which also helps a bit with Spirit, pre Grizzly Rage.
Gameplay
- Activate Hurricane and Earthen Bulwark just before entering the fight.
- Hold down Lightning Storm while targeting enemies to build up the size of the storm. Once it's sufficiently large, manually click quickly to increase the speed at which you cast.
- During the fight, rotate between using Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor to keep Vigilance up. When possible, use Cyclone Armor when you're at nearly full Spirit and Blood Howl when you're lower to keep you topped off.
- When you run out of Spirit, use Wind Shear to regenerate it.
- Use Hurricane on Cooldown in a fight or right before engaging high density packs. When Earthen Bulwark is up, stand close enough to hit enemies with Hurricane to substantially increase your Spirit generation and Healing. When Bulwark is down, avoid getting too close to enemies with Crowd Control effects as you won't have Unstoppable!
- If you find yourself in a tough situation with too many enemies nearby and you can't Evade 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 Overload instead of Calm Before the Storm to improve our damage. We also replace Calamity with Energize for the same reason. We don't have a Shapeshifting damage skill yet to heal from, so Bond with Eagle Spirit and take Avian Wrath for even more damage.
Build Scaling & Stat Priority
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.
- Critical Strikes: Thanks to Lupine Ferocity, Gear and Passives we have consistently high Critical Strike Chance in this build.
- Damage to Close/Distant: Thanks to Thunderstruck this damage type scales as a huge damage multiplier. It also doesn't matter if we're close or distant from enemies to get the multiplier, so we take both wherever we can.
- Vulnerable: Natural Hurricane and Elemental Exposure give us high Vulnerable uptime on targets. We are also guaranteed to apply it the first time we damage an enemy from Exploit.
- Attack Speed: Manually clicking Lightning Storm is by default faster than holding it down, but also has no perceptible difference in scaling with increases to Attack Speed. However, we get a lot of Attack Speed from Ravenous, so which is ultimately faster will depend on how much Attack Speed you have.
- 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.
- Cooldown Reduction: We can get a lot from this setup, which maximizes the uptime of Grizzly Rage. Prioritize this stat on your Totem and Amulet.
Stat Priorities
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.
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, Elixir of Combatant Fortune, Elixir of Cruelty, Elixir of Fortitude, Elixir of Savagery, Heady Precision Elixir
- Incense: Song of the Mountain or Reddamine Buzz
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) | One of: Retaliation Overcharged Rampaging Werebeast Lightning Dancer's | Weapon Type: Axe 1. High Damage per Second 2. Damage To Distant Enemies 3. Damage To Close Enemies 4. Willpower 5. All Stats 6. Core Skill Damage 7. Critical Strike Damage 8. Critical Strike Damage with Werewolf Skills |
| Off-Hand | One of: Retaliation Overcharged Rampaging Werebeast Lightning Dancer's | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 4. Damage Reduction While Fortified 5. Lucky Hit Chance 6. Willpower |
| Helm | Tempest Roar | 1. Damage while Shapeshifted 2. Critical Strike Damage 3. Maximum Spirit 4. Poison Resistance |
| Helm (optional) | Mending Stone | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Maximum Life 3. Willpower 4. Single Resistance 5. Total Armor 6. Basic Attack Speed |
| Chest | Vigorous or Disobedience | 1. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Damage Reduction against Distant Enemies 4. Damage Reduction against Close Enemies 5. Damage Reduction 6. % Total Armor 7. Maximum Life 8. Willpower |
| Gloves | One of: Retaliation Overcharged Rampaging Werebeast Lightning Dancer's | 1. Ranks to Lightning Storm 2. Critical Strike Chance 3. Lucky Hit Chance 4. Willpower 5. Critical Strike Damage with Werewolf Skills 6. Lightning Critical Strike Damage |
| Pants | Disobedience or Vigorous | Implicit: Potion Grants Barrier 1. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Damage Reduction against Distant Enemies 4. Damage Reduction against Close Enemies 5. Damage Reduction 6. % Total Armor 7. Maximum Life 8. Willpower |
| Boots | Stormshifter's or Ghostwalker | Implicit: Attacks Reduce Evade's CD 1. Movement Speed 2/3. Two of: Fire, Cold, Shadow, Poison Resistance 4. Total Armor while in Werewolf Form 5. Fortify Generation 6. Dodge Chance From Distant Enemeis 7. Dodge Chance 6. Willpower |
| Amulet | Dire Wolf's | 1. Cooldown Reduction 2. Movement Speed 3. Ranks to Envenom 4. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 5. Damage Reduction While Fortified 6. Damage Reduction from Close Enemies 7. Damage Reduction from Distant Enemies Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 1 | Umbral | 1. Damage to Distant Enemies 2. Damage to Close Enemies 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Lucky Hit Chance 5. Maximum Life 6. Critical Strike Damage With Werewolf Skills 7. Lightning Critical Strike Damage Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 2 | One of: Retaliation Overcharged Rampaging Werebeast Lightning Dancer's | 1. Damage to Distant Enemies 2. Damage to Close Enemies 3. Critical Strike Chance 4. Lucky Hit Chance 5. Maximum Life 6. Critical Strike Damage With Werewolf Skills 7. Lightning Critical Strike 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:
- Instead of using Ravens in the Late Endgame, take Earthen Bulwark for the emergency Unstoppable when Grizzly Rage is down.
- Consider taking an additional source of Damage Reduction on your Amulet over Ranks to Envenom.
- Take Ghostwalker over Stormshifter's Aspect on boots.
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
Our speedfarming variant is very similar to our standard setup. There are only one difference for gear:
- Mad Wolf's Glee and Tibault's Will are a nice damage and speed boost. If you're taking too much damage, replace Tibault's Will with your standard pants.
Spirit Boons
If you want to push even more damage, you can swap Masochistic for Overload. This is a sizable reduction in Healing so make sure you're getting enough from Circle of Life to handle the change.
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 Lupine Ferocity over Earthen Might?
Why both Damage to Close and Distant enemies?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
The Use of Sub Skills
Video Guide
Hungry for more Guides?
Druid Guides
General Guides
Summary
The Lightning Storm Druid is an excellent ranged build with incredible speed and clear. With this ranged playstyle you can dive deep into Nightmare Dungeons. At the late endgame the build can be played smoothly without the use of a generator, making it a highly efficient and enjoyable farming build.
Credits
Written by McFluffin
Reviewed by IBoilerUp
