Pulverize Druid Endgame Build Guide
Welcome to the Pulverize Druid Endgame Guide! This build combines massive, ranged AoE damage with a simple playstyle that makes it one of the most efficient Speedfarming builds in Diablo 4!
The combination of Pulverize and the Shockwave Aspect deals damage in a large, cone-shaped area in front of you. To improve single target damage, find the sweet spot between its own radius and the created shockwave to hit enemies twice with each cast.
This build takes advantage of as many as 4 guaranteed Overpower sources and multiplies their damage with the Ursine Strength Key Passive and Raging Pulverize. By endgame, the Pulverize Druid boasts capped Critical Strike Chance and amplifies these hits with 4 powerful multipliers: Envenom, Avian Wrath, Earthen Devastation, and Petrify, combining for upwards of 6 times the damage! In addition, you are fully Fortified in almost all situations thanks to Safeguard and have practically on-command Unstoppable with Metamorphosis.
Except for Shockwave, all essential Legendary Aspects for the Starter version of this build can be found in the Codex of Power, meaning it only takes one item drop to get going! The Pulverize Druid scales to the very end through impactful Paragon progression and Unique item acquisition, making it a great choice both early and late game.
In this guide we teach you all you need to know to be successful with the Pulverize Druid in Diablo 4. Let's dive into it!
Requirements for this build
- Shockwave
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
- Grigoire's Lightning Square - In testing, this Main Power's Cooldown synchronizes well with the Stealth from Belial's Eye Beams. It also reliably maintains the damage bonus from Harbinger of Hatred's Volley.
Modifiers
- Harbinger of Hatred's Volley - Besides the welcomed multiplier, this Modifier helps inflict Vulnerable (though we still take a Lucky Hit roll for coverage).
- Belial's Eye Beams - Triggered by both your Main Power and Shroud of False Death, this Modifier's Stealth mechanic mitigates some incoming damage while providing a sizeable multiplier.
- Wandering Death's Chest Beam - The execute drastically improves clear time throughout a Pit but is ineffective against Bosses.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Hatred's Embrace's Haste - Recommended as a Modifier in the early versions of this build to help cap Critical Strike Chance.
- Blackmailer's Sabotage - The Pulverize Druid has extremely high Fortify generation and the additional Barrier from this Modifier makes you practically immortal. However, that defensive capability is overkill for almost every situation.
- Lord Zir's Blood Pool / Ashava's Poison Breath / Lilith's Wind of Hate - Any of these are serviceable as Main Powers to consistently activate your Modifiers.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Claw serves as your backup Spirit generator. This quick-hitting, Werewolf melee attack is preferred because it accelerates Overpowers from Hunter's Zenith while maintaining our Shapeshifting bonuses.
- Pulverize is your damage Skill. It provides a source of guaranteed Overpower and multiplies all Overpowers by 75%! Shockwave greatly amplifies the damage and area of effect of this skill.
- Blood Howl provides a reliable Heal that is frequently available in density thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl. It also recovers a modest amount of Spirit.
- Earthen Bulwark is the build's sole source of Unstoppable and provides a hefty Barrier in a pinch.
- Petrify stuns enemies in a large AoE and provides a massive Critical Strike multiplier.
- Poison Creeper sneaks into the rotation as a means to apply Poison (passively on Bosses) and activate Changeling's Debt, Heightened Malice and Envenom, a trio of multipliers too good to pass up.
Passives
- Ursine Strength is the Key Passive of choice, both for the added toughness and to synergize with the build's many guaranteed Overpowers.
- One of these sources comes from Provocation.
- Envenom provides a massive Critical Strike Damage bonus to Poisoned enemies.
Skill Rotation
- For Speedfarming and Open World content, you should be able to breeze through by using Pulverize at range.
- When the going gets tough, approach the mobs and use Poison Creeper to activate a myriad of Poison-related bonuses. Its cooldown will recover quickly thanks to Pack Leader.
- Make sure to spam Blood Howl on Cooldown to keep your Spirit topped off and maintain the bonuses from Vigilance and Backlash.
- However, our longest cooldown is Petrify. This skill outright wins most contests between its Stun and Critical Strike Multiplier, but you can also leverage its massive Spirit generation to sustain between packs.
- Claw as needed to recover Spirit. Reserve Earthen Bulwark to prevent or remove Crowd Controls.
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: Gift of the Stag
Eagle Spirit: Avian Wrath
Wolf Spirit: Pack Leader
Snake Spirit: Obsidian Slam
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Iron Feather.
Learn more details and how to unlock this system in our full Druid Class Overview.
Paragon & Glyphs
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.
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.
Pulverize Druid Endgame Paragon
Some Glyph position swaps, board changes and other pathing adjustments may occur as you unlock your full potential. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build before spending additional points that do not significantly impact your character's power.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
To Level 15
- Fang and Claw
- Dominate
- Outmatch
- Spirit
- Earth and Sky
To Level 46
- Spirit
- Dominate
- Earth and Sky
- Outmatch
- Fang and Claw
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 Pulverize Druid focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Bac + Xal - The 20% maximum Health is obviously useful for defense, but also translates to a ton of extra Overpower damage.
- Igni + Xan - Xan adds another Overpower source to a build that thrives on that synergy.
Alternative choices
As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Gar - The Crit Chance bonus is great, especially early on.
- Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows an execute at 10% HP. It is combined with Xol in your other Runeword to generate large amounts of offering.
- Yom - This Rune promotes uptime on Petrify and the repeated casts help keep Spirit topped off.
- Ohm - War Cry's damage bonus, though nerfed, is still useful.
- Tam - A reliable Offering generator for Core skill builds.
- Lith - A surprisingly strong Invocation, provided you can afford to stand still.
- Cem - As a Magic Rune, it's a reasonable choice that you're more likely to find.
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
He provides us with passive All Resistance, an area of effect Slow which increases our damage, a 90% damage reduction bubble that also increases damage, and prevents us from getting one shot every 30 seconds thanks to Valiance. Beware that he's not present when playing in groups and make sure you remain resistance capped without him.
- Reinforcement: Varyana
We choose Bloodthirst for a periodic Attack Speed bonus.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Pulverize 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
- 100% Critical Strike Chance, including Earth
- 250% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- 6+ Ranks to Envenom
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- >22,000 Life (in Werebear form)
- 50% Spirit Cost Reduction
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Pulverize 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 Pulverize 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. In this Starter variant, Quicksand can be exchanged for Disobedience if you still need additional Armor.
- After defenses are sorted, capping Movement Speed is another primary goal. To that end, this variant employs Ghostwalker and activates it with Earthen Bulwark and Mending Stone. Wind Shear grants another Movement Speed bonus for 4 seconds at a time.
- Blood Boiling, as is the case for most flat damage aspects, scales beautifully in the early and mid-game. Grab the created Blood Drops to drastically improve clear time.
- Early on, Critical Strike Chance is likely lacking. To improve this stat, employ Scythe Talons and, if necessary, Hatred's Embrace's Haste over Wandering Death's Chest Beam.
- From the time you reach Earthen Devastation in your Paragon Board, be mindful of your Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies bonus. The target for this stat is 250%, and your personal value will depend on the nodes taken on this board, your Offensive Tempers, and the level of your Earth and Sky glyph. Over time, you'll be able to exchange Offensive tempers from Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies to Earth Critical Strike Chance.
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 be sure to stay capped at 1000 Armor and 70%+ Resistances for the difficulty you're currently in. To make room for some of the new Uniques presented in this variant, seek out an Amulet with %Armor.
- Insatiable Fury is a powerhouse Unique for the Pulverize Druid and is nearly on par to its eventual Mythic replacement. The stat line is amazing, but doesn't really warrant any gameplay changes. Acquire this Body Armour from Grigoire, the Galvanic Saint.
- Hunter's Zenith beats out Blood Boiling as an additional source of Overpower in the late game. Switch your Basic Skill to Claw to improve the frequency of these Overpowers.
- Godslayer Crown has a nice stat line and multiplier and will periodically group mobs together for an easier clear.
- Continue employing Hatred's Embrace's Haste over Wandering Death's Chest Beam if you need additional Crit Chance.
- Exchange Ghostwalker for Metamorphosis to maintain Unstoppable uptime after dropping Mending Stone.
- From the time you reach Earthen Devastation in your Paragon Board, be mindful of your Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies bonus. The target for this stat is 250%, and your personal value will depend on the nodes taken on this board, your Offensive Tempers, and the level of your Earth and Sky glyph. Over time, you'll be able to exchange Offensive tempers from Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies to Earth Critical Strike Chance.
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
- Heir of Perdition replaces Godslayer Crown to make that 60% multiplier permanent for solo play and allow you to easily cap Critical Strike Chance and Movement Speed. Harlequin Crest is a strong Defensive option here that will allow you to much more easily cap Armor.
- Ring of Starless Skies is a very popular choice in many builds for its overstatted Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed rolls and insane Unique effect. The Resource Cost Reduction allows you to spam Pulverize more liberally.
- Hunter's Zenith remains a a competitive option over Changeling's Debt if you'd prefer more frequent Overpowers, but these and the ranks to Quickshift don't quite stack up to the alternative multiplier and stats.
- As mentioned in the Ancestral section, Shroud of False Death and Insatiable Fury are about even with each other both Defensively and Offensively, and it's not a big deal if you don't have the Mythic. However, the former's extra rank to Passive Skills (particularly Provocation and Ancestral Fortitude) sets it apart, and the All Stats roll is helpful for capping Critical Strike Chance, Armor, and Resistances, as well as activating Rare Node bonuses in Paragon. Though not nearly as much damage, Tyrael's Might is always worth consideration as you ascend through Torment Tiers to combat the Resistance penalties.
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 variant already reaches Movement Speed cap relatively easily and should have plenty of damage for Open World content. Opt for Hunter's Zenith, as you should kill a majority of mobs without the need for Poisoning.
- Optionally, swap Xal for Yom. The repeated casts of Petrify will improve its uptime and help keep your Spirit topped off.
This setup optimizes the build to push the highest possible Tiers in The Pit after you have finished the Mythic variant and reached a plateau in your progression.
Gear & Skills
- Again, the Mythic variant is already relatively well-rounded and adequately suited for this game mode.
- To eek out a little extra damage, there are a few changes to consider, each of which sacrifice some toughness:
- Defensive Posture for Catastrophe
- Vigilance for Resonance
- When fighting monsters in high tiers of the Pit, remember that after crowd controlling elites for 5 seconds, they become Unstoppable for 8 seconds. This may be the right moment to start kiting them around because your damage done goes way down and they can freely retaliate.
- In high tier boss fights, beware that many of your conditional damage and damage reduction modifiers cannot activate outside of stagger phases. This means they generally deal more damage against you than regular monsters and you have to prioritize dodging the attacks from shadow bosses while you can barely scratch them outside of stagger bursts.
The Bestial Rampage variant is a solid alternative to the Mythic variant that greatly improves "Cap 2" Attack Speed and accelerates Hunter's Zenith procs.
Gear & Skills
- Wildheart Hunger is key to this variant, dramatically boosting the Attack Speed and Damage bonuses of Bestial Rampage.
- Hunter's Zenith takes priority over Changeling's Debt as the increased Attack Speed bolsters its Overpower frequency.
- Shroud of False Death is indisputably Best-in-Slot for this variant, as you cannot leverage the Ursine Strength Bonus affix on Insatiable Fury.
The Grizzly Rage variant is elevated in Season 8 due to the favorable rework of Rampaging Werebeast and more convenient access to Poison through either a rank 5 Grizzly Rage with Poison Creeper or the reworked Sinister Tendrils Paragon Board.
Gear & Skills
- Before entering Grizzly Rage, alternate between Claw and Pulverize to max out Quickshift.
- Cyclone Armor's Passive effect persists through Grizzly Rage, provided it's on your non-Werebear skill bar.
- There's no way to use Blood Howl during our Ultimate, so swap this out with Trample. Hold onto this Cooldown as a means to break or prevent Crowd Controls.
- Grizzly Rage Duration becomes a priority temper but is unfortunately in direct opposition to Earth Critical Strike Chance. If you want to cheat in more duration than presented above, opt for Hatred's Embrace's Haste over Wandering Death's Chest Beam to account for the Crit Chance.
- To inflict Poison, this variant employs the Sinister Tendrils Paragon Board. See below for this adjustment
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.
As the implicit for Staffs has recently been changed from Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies to Damage Over Time, we now opt for a 2-handed Mace for the additional Overpower Damage.
Mechanics
- Shockwave Aspect creates a cone-shaped wave in the direction that you aim.
- The start of the shockwave overlaps with the Pulverize radius, creating a sweet spot that you want to hit when facing single targets.
- Overpower is applied to every monster hit by the shockwave.
Overpower Damage is a conditional damage modifier that turns your damage value cyan for non-critical strikes, and orange for critical strikes. Overpower has a set 3% probability of occurring normally, but certain skills, passives, and aspects can guarantee that a skill Overpowers. The Pulverize Druid utilizes as many as 5 of these procs: Enhanced Pulverize, Provocation, Obsidian Slam, Xan, and Hunter's Zenith. Unlike Critical Strikes, attacks Overpower per cast rather than per hit, meaning that abilities with multiple hits in one cast Overpower for each hit.
As of patch 1.2.0, there is a separate 0%-50%[x] multiplicative damage bonus when you Overpower that scales depending on your current health (with 50% being the max when you are at full health). This multiplier cannot be increased by any means and is applied to the damage calculation as a global multiplier.
In addition, Overpowers grant an additive bonus dependent on Max Life and current amount of Fortified Life. You get +1% Overpower Damage for each 1% of your Current Life that exceeds your Base Life and you get +1% Overpower Damage for each 1% of total Fortified Life.
Find out more details in our In-Depth Damage Guide.
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.
Video Guide
Coming Soon!
Summary
The Pulverize Druid is a ranged powerhouse pairing incredible AoE-damage at range with massive defenses. With this ranged playstyle, you can dive deep into the Pit. However, the single target can feel underwhelming unless you specialize in Overpower and multiple Uniques.
- Shockwave is THE build-enabling Aspect.
- Stay at range and position yourself to hit as many enemies as possible with each cast of Pulverize.
- Use your skills to stack up a ton of Fortified Life for increased survivability and Overpower damage.
Credits
Written by IBoilerup
Reviewed by Danger