Lightning Storm Druid Leveling Guide

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.

Leveling Boss Powers

Alternate Boss Powers

• Ashava's Poison Breath  - This Main Boss Power is a strong second choice, dealing more than adequate damage and prolonging Poison on enemies by inflicting its own.
• Outlaw Sharpshooter's Eye - A solid multiplier that synergizes well with a distant playstyle, but unfortunately loses value when we group up enemies with Kry.

Spirit Boons

At this stage, you gain access to Spirit Boons - the Druid's unique class mechanic. Check out the Spirit Boon Progression below!

Companion Skills & Blood Howl

Unlock Digitigrade Gait, Blood Howl, and Backlash to progress to the Companion Skills.

• Blood Howl is a very versatile Skill, able to refresh its own Cooldown thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl. It offers multiple benefits that empower you upon cast, so ensure you're casting it often:
  • Damage (from Backlash).
  • Fortify (from Skinwalker's).
  • Spirit (from Innate Blood Howl).
  • Damage Reduction (from Vigilance).
  • Movement Speed (from Digitigrade Gait).
  • Critical Strike Chance (from Nighthowler's).

Upon gaining access to the Companion Skills, put a Skill Point into Poison Creeper, Wolves and Ravens respectively.

• Upgrade Poison Creeper with Ferocious Poison Creeper to increase its Poison damage and Poison duration by a considerable amount.
• Likewise, spend 2 points for Enhanced Ravens's bonus Critical Strike Chance and Ferocious Raven's Vulnerable.

Early on, use the active components of Companion Skills for a burst of damage against Elites and Bosses. Poison Creeper deals very potent Poison damage and can single-handedly clear packs. As monsters become increasingly difficult to kill, stack Clarity by casting all your Companion Skills and channel Lightning Storm for as long as possible.

Clarity

With all Companion Skills unlocked, it's time to pick up max Ranks of Clarity, a vitally important Passive for this build.

• It functions on a stack basis, receiving one stack after casting a Companion Skill. Each stack increases your damage and Critical Strike Chance. You can only have a maximum of 3 stacks at a given time, but the stacks do not have a timer and you can freely cast other Non-Core / Non-Wrath skills in-between without consuming them. Because Lightning Storm is a Channeled Skill, when cast with Clarity stacks, the Critical Strike Chance and damage bonuses persist throughout the entire duration of the channel.

• This is known as snapshotting, offering a large amount of Critical Strike Chance and damage to your Lightning Storm. As such, the best way to use Lightning Storm is to tap it when clearing easy content, and to fully channel it with maximum stacks of Clarity snapshotted against Elites and Bosses.

Key Passive

Perfect Storm is our choice of Key Passive. It offers a substantial damage multiplier and a small amount of Spirit when you cast Lightning Storm. Pick up Humanity, Nature's Reach and Feral Aptitude on your way there. What's more, if you have unlocked the Overload Druid Boon, spend your points on Neurotoxin and Envenom to increase your Critical Strike Damage against Poisoned enemies.

Defenses

The Lightning Storm Druid makes use of its ranged capabilities to stay away from danger. However, in certain situations taking damage is unavoidable. As such, invest into Circle of Life to keep your Life topped off. As you near max level, ensure you're using Vigilance and Defensive Posture for some added Damage Reduction and Fortify generation.

Final Journey to Level 60

At this point, most of the key synergies are unlocked and the gameplay loop is almost complete. As you level up, you unlock a lot of extra points that go into various offensive and defensive passives or max out certain skills. Check out the skills progression above to see where to put your points as you go, but feel free to deviate from the order displayed as necessary.

Druid Spirit Boons

Unlocking Specializations

Once you reach level 15, you have to complete a short questline starting in Túr Dúlra, Scosglen. To gain access to the Priority Quest, you first have to defeat the Stronghold of evil forces that has overrun Túr Dúlra. You receive Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock your first Boon when you complete the questline.

Each Spirit has 4 Boons that are unlocked with 15 Druidic Spirit Offerings each. On 3 of the Spirits, they unlock in a specific order (from left to right as displayed above). The outlier is the Snake Spirit - You have to unlock all his Boons simultaneously, meaning you need to collect 60 Druidic Spirit Offerings to gain access to its Boons. Once all Spirits have been completely unlocked, you can choose one to Bond with and select an additional Boon from that Spirit.

To get started as a Lightning Storm Druid, always use your highest DPS weapon available for more damage, preferring 2H Polearms when possible. While you don't have all of the desired temper manuals available, simply try to get anything useful on your gear until you get the right ones. For example, % Damage, Damage to Close, Vulnerable Damage, etc. all work as long as you activate their conditions. Likewise, you can temper multiple defensive options such as Resistances, Life, Armor to fill gaps in your survivability. Tempering low level gear is relatively cheap and the results can be very impactful.

Tip: For the early game, Elemental Surge Weapon Tempers are very powerful due to their high base damage, especially if you are twinking. If you find these, you may want to keep imprinting them on your weapons for an easy time.

The Codex of Power is a collection of Legendary Aspects you can imprint onto Rare or Legendary items at the Occultist. They unlock after completing specific Dungeons located around Sanctuary or salvaging items with these powers. Check out our Map Tool to locate these Dungeons.

For leveling, there are a few powers that can significantly help us if we have the funds to imprint them. In addition, keep an eye out for powerful Unique items you may find for this or other builds.

Must-have Dungeon unlocks

• Retaliation (Seaside Descent - Dry Steppes)
• Skinwalker's (Fading Echo - Kehjistan)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Inner Calm (Raethwind Wilds - Scosglen)
2. Nighthowler's (Forbidden City - Fractured Peaks)
3. Overcharged (Mariner's Refuge - Scosglen)
4. Voracious Rage (Hallowed Ossuary - Fractured Peaks)
5. Might (Dark Ravine - Dry Steppes)
6. Disobedience (Halls of the Damned - Kehjistan)
7. Wind Striker (Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Unsung Ascetic's Wraps
2. Tempest Roar
3. Mjölnic Ryng

Jackpot Drops

As you level up, you may get lucky and find some great random drops. Some of these can massively amplify your power and speed up the leveling by switching to another build. Keep in mind that there are many more Aspects and Uniques that can be useful to multiple builds; this just lists some of the most impactful ones. While we usually recommend starting with Endgame Builds at level 60, you often can make them work earlier with these drops:

Build-defining Aspects

1. Shockwave (enables the Pulverize Druid)
2. Aftershock / Subterranean (enhances the Landslide Druid)
3. Stampede / Alpha (enhances the Companion Druid)
4. Anticline Burst (enhances the Stone Burst Druid)

Build-defining Uniques

1. Dolmen Stone (enables the Boulder Druid)
2. Tempest Roar (enables the Tornado, Hurricane, and Lightning Storm Druids)
3. Earthbreaker (enhances the Landslide Druid)
4. Storm's Companion (enhances the Companion Druid)
5. Stone of Vehemen (enhances the Stone Burst Druid)

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. Xol's high Offering generation allows us to take advantage of these pulls frequently.

Alternative choices

As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Cir + Tec - Equips the Druid with hard hitting Earthquakes after casting a few skills. Earthquakes are particularly strong and a great option for leveling.
• Cem + Qua - Grants a considerable bump of Movement Speed on Evade activation. Use this combination early on when your Movement Speed is low to help you navigate through content more quickly.
• Lith - A less effective but still excellent alternative to Igni.
• Nagu - Is a great choice for Offering generation due to our multiple Companion Skills. However, its slow activation window positions it better for overflowing Runes rather than triggering them often.
• Ohm - War Cry offers a respectable damage bonus for a moderate duration.
• Gar - Provides a large chunk of Critical Strike Chance. Great option early on.
• Mot - Enables the Rogue's Dark Shroud, which is a strong defensive option.

In Diablo 4, you can level by completing the Campaign, collecting Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers, completing Helltide activities, grinding Dungeons, clearing Strongholds, fighting in the Undercity of Kurast or interacting with the Seasonal Mechanics. While there are many ways to level up in Diablo 4, not all of them are equal.

Paragon & Glyphs

Use the slider to see 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

The Lightning Storm Druid excels at obliterating packs of enemies with its large AoE attacks. Unfortunately, toward the middle of the leveling experience it begins to struggle with single target damage against healthier enemies such as Bosses.

• Quick and easy build to get going.
• Invest into Spirit per second affixes on gear to help with resource management.
• SnapshotClarity to greatly improve Lightning Storm's damage. Make sure to look out for Clarity ranks on Amulets to make the most of this mechanic.
• Immobilized enemies for bonus damage and apply Poison to monsters to enable Envenom.

Written by Danger

Reviewed by IBoilerUp