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 the game!
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 3 guaranteed Overpower sources and multiplies their damage with the Ursine Strength Key Passive. By endgame, the Pulverize Druid boasts capped Critical Strike Chance, and amplifies these hits with 5 multipliers combining for over 10 times the damage! In addition, you are fully Fortified in almost all situations thanks to Safeguard.
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!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 50 Character and finished the Campaign. Level up with our Pulverize Druid Leveling Guide. If you are looking for a different Druid playstyle, check out all of our Druid Guides.
Season 5 - Infernal Hordes
In Season 5, the Season Theme brings your hero back into the bowels of Hell, in the Infernal Hordes endgame activity. You're first introduced to Hellbreach Dungeons, miniature Horde-like micro-dungeons that teach you the new mechanics and rewards systems. As you slay more powerful Demons and Bosses, you're rewarded with the new Reputation progression that comes with amazing rewards. These include Crafting Materials, unlocking Season's Journey tiers and even the coveted Resplendent Spark, needed to craft a mythic unique.
Follow the seasonal questline until you unlock the Reputation system, check which rewards suit you most and then follow your regular leveling path. To learn more, check out our full Season 5 guide for more information.
Skill Tree & Gameplay
Active Skills
- Wind Shear serves as a ranged Spirit generator that provides Movement Speed for each enemy hit. It additionally procs Natural Balance, Shapeshifter, and Inner Beast when cast.
- Pulverize is your damage Skill. In the early game, we use the combination of Umbral, Ursine Horror, and Quicksand to have it generate Spirit. Try to hit as many targets with it as possible!
- 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 and procs our numerous Shapeshifting synergies.
- Cast Earthen Bulwark on Cooldown to gain a massive Barrier and prevent or break Crowd Controls. We utilize Mending Stone to drastically improve our Unstoppable uptime and maintain Ghostwalker.
- Petrify stuns enemies in a large AoE and provides a massive Critical Strike multiplier. We reduce its cooldown via the Inner Beast Legendary Node.
- 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.
- Two of these sources come from our Skill Tree in the forms of Provocation and Enhanced Pulverize.
- Envenom provides a massive Critical Strike Damage bonus to Poisoned enemies.
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: Packleader
Snake Spirit: Obsidian Slam
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Iron Feather
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Resource & Cooldown Management
Managing your Resources and Cooldowns is crucial to the success of this build.
-Starter versions of the build use Umbral to generate tons of Spirit. Any freshly applied Crowd Control activates it, but this build primarily does this with:
- Pulverize through the combination of Ursine Horror and Quicksand.
- Poison Creeper's Immobilize.
- Trample knocks back enemies in its path to generate Spirit.
-The newly introduced Spirit Per Second affix available on Helmet, Chest, and Boots provides considerable Spirit generation and is highly prioritized at all stages of this build.
-We take advantage of the Reclamation Node on the Ancestral Guidance board to generate up to 4 Spirit on kill. While we prioritize this Node early into the Paragon Board progression, it is moved to a later board on the level 100 respec to improve efficiency.
-Inner Beast provides massive Spirit Cost reduction when shapeshifting, including shifts to Human form. This Legendary node doubles down as a means to reduce the Cooldown of Petrify when it reaches maximum stacks.
-Blood Howl is used to provide a modest amount of Spirit regen with a cooldown that can be recovered quickly through kills thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl. The shift into Werewolf also helps stack Inner Beast.
-Both Petrify and Trample can be activated for a large burst of Spirit in a pinch.
Paragon Board
Carefully check your Paragon Boards to ensure correct board rotation. Glyphs go from a radius of 3 to 4 when they reach level 15!
The Heightened Malice board trades the Inner Beast Legendary node for 8% maximum life and its namesake Legendary Node. Use this to push high Pits.
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
Glyphs
We need to level up our Glyphs to increase their power and activate their Additional Bonus with surrounding nodes. Glyphs have a radius of 3 by default; this increases to 4 at Glyph level 15. Complete Nightmare Dungeons to obtain Glyph experience.
Note: There are some Glyph position swaps and a few adjustments to surrounding Paragon nodes once they reach level 15. See the last steps in the Paragon progression above. The setup displayed by default is the final version of the build.
Undaunted is a placeholder glyph in our leveling board and will be replaced as soon as possible. Don't waste your XP on it!
Level 15
- Exploit
- Outmatch
- Dominate
- Earth and Sky
- Shapeshifter
- Fang and Claw
Level 21
- Outmatch
- Shapeshifter
- Dominate
- Earth and Sky
- Fang and Claw
- Exploit
By ultra-late game, we can cap our Critical Strike Chance and Resistances through gear and paragon alone and replace Shapeshifter with Spirit. Along those lines, as we approach 100% critical strike chance and gain the prerequisite roll of Chance to Inflict Vulnerable, we drop Exploit for Tectonic.
Also check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.
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
Some of your Skill Tree choices depend on what Legendary Aspects and Unique items are available to you. These are listed in priority order:
- Unlock the following Aspects from Dungeons:
- Calm Breeze in Grinning Labyrinth (Dry Steppes)
- Changeling's Debt in Conclave (Kehjistan)
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Ursine Horror in Belfry Zakara (Hawezar)
- Quicksand in Ferals' Den (Scosglen)
- Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Disobedience in Halls of the Damned (Kehjistan)
- Mending Stone in Sealed Archives (Dry Steppes)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects either as a random drop or by gambling with Obols:
- Shockwave: Gamble Totems.
- Until you reach World Tier 4, put this Aspect on your Amulet. Your ultimate goal it to slot this on your 2H weapon, but you will be upgrading your weapons constantly until then.
- Juggernaut's: Gamble Pants.
- Natural Balance: Gamble Totems.
- Shockwave: Gamble Totems.
- Acquire the following Unique items either as a random drop or by farming specific Boss drops:
- Insatiable Fury
- Godslayer Crown (used for Bossing / an alternative to Harlequin Crest)
- Tibault's Will (Speedfarming)
- If you're lucky enough to obtain the following Mythic Uniques, they're useful for the build. See the attached Planner to find out how to incorporate them.
- Harlequin Crest
- Ring of Starless Skies
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.
In this section, we are still attempting to acquire the all-important, drop-only Shockwave Aspect, as it massively improves our AoE and damage. As soon as you acquire this aspect (or if you already have it), proceed to the next tab.
Gear
- Put your Defensive Aspects on your Helmet (Mending Stone) and Pants (Disobedience).
- Place Quicksand on your Chest. This massively improves our Spirit generation when paired with Umbral and Ursine Horror.
- Umbral can only be placed on a Ring.
- Put Ursine Horror and Retaliation interchangeably on your second Ring and Gloves.
- Place Ghostwalker on your Boots.
- Changeling's Debt goes on your Weapon for maximum damage increase.
- Use Calm Breeze on your Amulet and utilize Wind Shear to inflict Poison and deal decent single target damage.
Skills
We'll make a few small changes from the leveling guide to set us up for World Tier 3 and beyond:
- As your Spirit per Second rolls improve and you gain access to the Reclamation Spirit node, remove Abundance for Iron Fur.
- When your clear speed and attack speed are up to snuff, swap Resonance for Quickshift.
Gameplay
- For now, Pulverize is a melee ability with a small AoE, so make sure to group up and hit as many enemies as you can with each use!
- Use Wind Shear frequently to generate Spirit, inflict Poison, bolster your Movement Speed and activate Shapeshifting bonuses as your return to Werebear form.
In this setup, you have access to all Legendary Aspects, allowing you to pilot a much stronger version of this build. Additional Legendary Aspects are used to fill slots that may be replaced with Unique items later on.
Gear
- Finding Shockwave increases the power of this build dramatically. Your end goal is to slot this on your 2H weapon, but if you are still upgrading your weapon often, instead put this Aspect on your Amulet for the time being to conserve materials.
- Juggernaut's takes the place of Disobedience as soon as you find it. This powerful Aspect solves Armor concerns unconditionally at all stages of the game.
- When Changeling's Debt is improved in the Codex, its wider range allows it to outscale Retaliation. As this happens, move the former to your Amulet and the latter down to a Ring in place of Umbral.
- Without Umbral and as Tempering becomes available, Quicksand loses most of its value. We'll replace it with Might.
- When you find Natural Balance, use it over Calm Breeze. This Aspect can be activated by using Wind Shear and is effective against bosses.
- As we introduce tempering, our Critical Strike Chance will drastically improve. This prompts us to newly prioritize Envenom on our Amulet and swap Scythe Talons for Iron Feather.
Tempering
- Weapon: Pulverize Size. Unfortunately, the Pulverize Size Tempering doesn't apply to Shockwave's range and only increases the area where Pulverize and Shockwave overlap, but it's still the best option.
- Offensive (Weapon, Gloves, Rings, Amulet): For now, we need 2-3 rolls of Damage to Crowd Controlled enemies, along with Oppress, to cap Earthen Devastation. Take Earth Critical Strike Chance in the remaining slots.
- Movement (Boots, Amulet): Movement Speed. Note that this is easier to roll using the Druid Motion Tempering Manual.
- Resource (Rings): Resource Generation is ideal, but Resource Cost Reduction on the same Manual works, too.
- Defensive (Helmet, Chest, Pants): Maximum Life
- Utility (Helmet, Chest, Pants, Boots): Preferably a variety of Lucky Hit Crowd Controls. These will become Petrify Duration in the Best-in-Slot version.
Gameplay
- Shockwave allows you to use Pulverize at range, drastically improving damage and clear speed.
- The Shockwave effect and Pulverize have a small area in which their damage overlaps. Use this sweet spot when you are facing single targets!
In this setup, you have access to all Unique items and Legendary Aspects. This allows you to pilot this build at its peak efficiency. Let's take a look at the changes you need to make to implement them.
Gear
- For the Helmet, we ideally want to wear Harlequin Crest for its Damage Reduction, Ranks to Skills, and outstanding stat line.
- If you don't have this Mythic Unique or while bossing, opt for Godslayer Crown for its high burst damage potential.
- If you have neither Unique, a Legendary Helmet with Cooldown Reduction and Ballistic should do the trick.
- Insatiable Fury is an absolutely monster Chest Armor for this build after its Season 5 rework. Best-in-Slot even over its Mythic Unique counterpart.
- In the Ring slot opposite Natural Balance, place Retaliation.
- If you are lucky enough to acquire Ring of Starless Skies, it's certainly best in Slot and replaces Natural Balance.
- As we incorporate our Ultimate, Petrify Duration becomes a priority temper in our Utility slots.
- As you reach level 100, you may need to temper %Armor along with the roll on gear to reach cap. The ultimate goal is to have a fully masterworked, greater affix roll of flat Armor with a single Masterwork crit. This allows us to drop Juggernaut's entirely.
- While leveling, Resistances are better solved by using a single element roll on Pants and Chest along with "Rainbow" gems in Jewelry. However, when you reach the level 100 Paragon board and max your Outmatch and Fang and Claw glyphs, you can utilize Diamonds in your Jewelry to reach cap.
Tempering & Masterworking Min-max
- Critical Strikes: You may need to obtain a couple Greater Affixes or Masterwork Crits to achieve perfect Critical Strike Chance, but it's possible! This also means that, at a point, you can replace Shapeshifter with Spirit on your Paragon Board.
- Damage vs. Crowd Controlled: You can reduce the tempers necessary to cap Earthen Devastation to 2 rolls by late game with proper Masterworking.
Skills
As we round out our Critical Strike Chance, mobility rolls, and Resistances, we remove points from Ancestral Fortitude, Trample and Predatory Instinct to make way for some more damaging Passives and our ultimate, Petrify.
The Speedfarming setup compiles a series of adjustments to reach Movement Speed cap, improve Attack Speed, and drastically improves Spirit generation at the cost of Damage and Defense. This setup is best suited for all Open World content, Nightmare Dungeons, and low-level Pits.
Gear
- We drop Insatiable Fury entirely for Tibault's Will. Note that Tibault's grants Resource only when you newly gain Unstoppable, so Trample is more effective at generating Spirit when Earthen Bulwark has fallen off.
- We move out of Poison in this setup, so Envenom can be replaced by Nature's Reach on your Amulet. Natural Balance is moved to the amulet in place of Changeling's Debt and we utilize both Retaliation and Raw Might on our Rings (or Ring of Starless Skies if you have it).
Skills
- Here we sprinkle in some points in Digitigrade Gait and Heightened Senses to ensure we can reach Movement Speed cap.
Hardcore Adjustments
Hardcore requires you to build into more defenses. Here are some tips to successful in this game mode:
- Wherever Maximum Life is available in place of Willpower (Rings, Weapons), opt for the Life. This goes for your secondary Amulet temper as well.
- In place of Petrify, take Preserving Debilitating Roar. The Damage Reduction is amazing in a pinch!
- You may want to go for a pair of Legendary Boots with Metamorphosis, as the Unstoppable in this build is limited.
- Slot Werebear over Fang and Claw.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
Learn about the important build scaling mechanics and stat weights.
- Overpower: This build boasts 3 different ways to guarantee an Overpower: Enhanced Pulverize, Provocation, and Obsidian Slam. When we do, the damage dealt is bolstered by Dominate, Ursine Strength, and our massive health pool. The build revolves largely around these procs so, when possible, try to avoid consuming them with your generator.
- Critical Strikes: Our Critical Strikes provide a multiplier by themselves, which is further amplified by the Earthen Devastation Legendary node. This node prompts us to optimize our damage bonus to Crowd Control enemies to 250% or more on gear, which is covered by Oppress and its adjacent Magic Nodes and 2-3 tempers on our Rings. We add additional Critical Strike Multipliers in Natural Balance, Avian Wrath, Envenom, and Petrify.
- Vulnerable: You have a 3-second damage window with Vulnerable thanks to Exploit, which should be more than enough time to clear non-boss enemies. By late game, we'll be relying on a small chance from Enhanced Wind Shear and an Affix on our Ring.
- Crowd Controls: The Skills in this build inflict Crowd Controls regularly. Damage Affixes that deal extra damage against Crowd Controlled enemies are a great way to make use of this, both on your gear and on your Paragon Boards.
- Positioning / Monster stacking: Being in the "sweet spot" where Pulverize and Shockwave Aspect overlap is the goal when facing a single target.
- Don't Get Hit: Make use of your range advantage and hit enemies from afar. By stutter stepping on the edge of your range, you can avoid most projectiles that come your way.
- Fortify: This build has a multitude of ways to generate Fortify, getting you to the Fortified status in a short time. Increase this status' effectiveness by adding Damage Reduction while Fortified to your Skills and Paragon Boards.
- Armor: Armor has become somewhat trivial to cap with the new, lower limit and Juggernaut's. Still, we can ensure that we'll be reducing incoming Physical damage by the maximum 85%.
- Unstoppable: This build has limited ways to become Unstoppable, relying on the relatively long cooldown of Earthen Bulwark. Use wisely!
- Resistances: Capping these will prove to be a balancing act through the leveling process between your gear and jewelry sockets and everyone's situation will be different. This problem is eventually solved by the Late Game Paragon Board. With a high level Outmatch Glyph and high item power Jewelry, you will be able to cap your resistances using Royal Diamonds, Ancestral Fortitude, and passive bonuses from Intelligence.
Our Damage Explained article explains how to scale your Offense.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Stat Priorities
To enable your build to perform optimally, you need to reach certain Stat "Breakpoints". Some examples are reaching 100% to Critically Strike, or 20 Resource per second. Since there are many values of these stats on different pieces of gear, read the checklist below and refer to the recommended Tempered Affixes and Masterwork Crits ↑. Desirable Greater Affixes will always be the top three recommended Affixes.
Damage Scaling
- 100% Critical Strike Chance, including Earth
- 250% Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies
- >8 Spirit Per Second
- 6+ Ranks to Envenom
Defense and Utility
- Armor Capped 9,230
- Resistance Capped 70%
- >60,000 Life (in Werebear form)
- >30% Resource Generation
- >15% Spirit Cost Reduction
- Helm: Godslayer Crown
- Max Life ↑
- Cooldown Reduction ↑
- All Stats
- Damage to Elites
- Otherwise Look For: Ballistic
- Max Life ↑
- Spirit Per Second ↑
- Willpower
- Cooldown Reduction
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Petrify Duration
- Chest: Insatiable Fury
- +% To Ursine Strength Bonuses ↑
- % Maximum Life ↑
- Ranks to Iron Fur ↑
- Werebear Overpower Damage
- Otherwise Look For: Might
- Max Life ↑
- Spirit Per Second ↑
- Willpower
- Armor
- ⚒️Max Life ↑
- ⚒️Petrify Duration
- Gloves: Ursine Horror
- Ranks to Pulverize ↑
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Max Life
- Willpower
- Attack Speed
- ⚒️Earth Critical Strike Chance
- ⚒️Petrify Duration
- Pants: Mending Stone
- Armor ↑
- Max Life ↑
- Willpower
- Dodge Chance
- ⚒️Max Life ↑ (or %Armor if needed)
- ⚒️Petrify Duration
- Boots: Ghostwalker
- Movement Speed ↑
- Spirit Per Second ↑
- Maximum Life
- Willpower
- ⚒️Movement Speed ↑
- ⚒️Petrify Duration
- 2H Mace: Shockwave
- Willpower ↑
- Resource Cost Reduction ↑
- Max Life
- Overpower / Critical Strike Damage
- ⚒️Earth Critical Strike Chance
- ⚒️Pulverize Size
- Amulet: Changeling's Debt
- Ranks to Envenom ↑
- Ranks to Quickshift ↑
- Critical Strike Chance
- Movement Speed
- Attack Speed
- %Willpower
- ⚒️ Earth Critical Strike Chance
- ⚒️ Movement Speed
- Ring 1: Natural Balance
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Max Life
- Willpower
- Attack Speed
- ⚒️Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Resource Generation ↑
- Ring 2: Retaliation
- Critical Strike Chance ↑
- Lucky Hit: Vulnerable
- Willpower / Max Life
- Attack Speed
- ⚒️Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies ↑
- ⚒️Resource Generation ↑
This build benefits a lot from the following Consumables:
- Elixirs: Elixir of Fortitude II
- Incense: Song of the Mountain or Reddamine Buzz, Soothing Spices
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.
What is the best weapon choice?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
Shockwave Aspect
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 Nightmare Dungeons. However, the single target can feel underwhelming unless you specialize in Overpower and multiple rare 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 Evade and Trample to reposition yourself in combat.
Credits
Written by IBoilerUp
Reviewed by Pandaglassjaw