This Poison Shred Druid build is all about applying as much Poisoning as possible to the target and then dashing from enemy to enemy with Shred, instantly applying all the Poison damage and then some thanks to the Aspect of the Blurred Beast. The build requires no Uniques to play, making it a good choice for beginners.
The gameplay is fairly straightforward, but with a twist. Apply Poisoning through Poison Creeper, then hold down Shred until all of the enemies have had their Poison instantly applied. The twist is, we use Legendaries to cause Poison Creeper and Trample to proc Landslide! Between these procs and Shred we have a high chance of resetting the Cooldown of Poison Creeper with Packleader.
The build also benefits from several other Skills and Passives. Our Spirit generation comes from Storm Strike, Innate Blood Howl, Savage Trample, the Legendary Paragon node Lust for Carnage, and Spirit on Kill nodes. Blood Howl also provides Healing while Trample and Earthen Bulwark allow us to use Unstoppable in a rotation that is necessary for the playstyle in Nightmare Dungeons.
In this guide we teach you all you need to know to be successful with the Poison Shred 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 one of our Druid Leveling Guides. If you are looking for a different Druid playstyle, check out all of our Druid Guides.
High Mobility ✔
Strong Healing ✔
No Reliance On Uniques ✔
Great Area of Effect Damage ✔
❌ Requires a Generator
❌ Cooldown Dependent
❌ Melee Playstyle Is Dangerous
❌ Poison Creeper Procs are RNG
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
- Domination (Minor) - Poison Creeper immobilizes enemies, making this a perfect fit for the build.
- Accursed Touch (Major) - This is required to get the benefit from the next next power.
- Flowing Veins (Minor) - This is a huge multiplier, but will likely only apply to tanky enemies that can survive the first rotation of Poison Creeper and Blurred Beast, making it good for Boss killing.
- Resilience (Minor) - An excellent Defensive option that becomes stronger the more danger we're in.
- Hectic (Minor) - Our options are pretty limited here, so we take a Power that helps us have a bit more uptime on Poison Creeper.
Alternative Vampiric Powers
- Metamorphosis (Major) - If you need a source of Unstoppable, this is a great option. With all of the changes to Crowd Control, we're generally better off with other options.
- 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 good uptime. However, the damage is weaker than other Vampiric Powers, so it doesn't make the cut.
- Infection (Minor) - On first glance this seems best in slot. However, needing to hit the same enemy 8 times means most enemies will be dead before this ever procs. It may have some value on bosses and especially tanky enemies.
- Terror (Minor) - The chance for this to proc is low, but when it does we get a huge bonus to Critical Strike Chance.
Skill Tree
Active Skills
- Shred is our primary damage skill. We use it to apply large bursts of damage from Blurred Beast.
- Storm Strike is our Spirit Generator while also providing Damage Reduction and a reliable source of Vulnerable.
- Poison Creeper is our primary method of applying Poisoning on the target for Blurred Beast.
- Earthen Bulwark is our primary source of Unstoppable and also provides a Barrier and Fortify.
- Blood Howl is a solid Heal that also provides additional Spirit on use.
- Trample provides a movement ability that can get us out of confined spaces as well as another source of Unstoppable.
- Landslide is procced by Poison Creeper and Trample thanks to Subterranean and Trampled Earth. It provides additional procs of Packleader.
Passives
- Toxic Claws is how we reliably apply Poison for the 'While Poisoned' effects throughout the build. It also builds up additional Poisoning for Blurred Beast.
- Envenom is a damage multiplier that's numerically higher than most, making it exceptionally powerful. Blurred Beast can Critically Strike, taking advantage of this multiplier.
- Call of the Wild is a damage multiplier for Poison Creeper.
- 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:
We bond with the Eagle to activate its Iron Feather and Scythe Talons.
- Iron Feather provides a big boost to our Health pool which also improves our healing.
- Packleader provides a chance to reset the cooldown of Poison Creeper on Critical Strikes
- Masochistic is one of our primary sources of sustain. It's a massive amount of healing.
- Take Scythe Talons for the Critical Strike chance which increases our damage, healing and Packleader proc chances.
- Wariness for additional Bossing Damage Reduction.
Learn more details and how to unlock this class specification in our full Druid Spirit Boons Guide.
Paragon Board
This setup prioritizes major Glyphs and Legendary nodes to get the build up and running faster.
Level the Paragon Board by scrolling. Each step optimizes progression.
We take advantage of a late game respec that allows us to prioritize high value nodes, like Lust for Carnage and Spirit on Kill, in the early game without sacrificing late game optimizations.
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.
Glyph Leveling Priorities
Level 15
- Werewolf
- Exploit
- Fang and Claw
- Tracker
- Territorial
- Bane
Level 21
- Fang and Claw
- Exploit
- Werewolf
- Tracker
- Territorial
- Bane
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
- Before engaging enemies, use Blood Howl to activate Vigilance.
- Shred into the enemy(s) once to get in position and apply Vulnerable from the Exploit Glyph.
- Use Poison Creeper to hit as many enemies in the area as possible.
- Use Shred to instantly deal Poison damage with the Aspect of the Blurred Beast. You need to Dash into them for this to work. That means you need to be at a distance.
- Use Trample to gain distance from enemies while also spreading them out, making it easier to Dash. Doing so will also provide Spirit and proc Landslide, which has a chance to to remove the cooldown on Poison Creeper through Packleader.
- Dash back and forth between spaced out enemies, or in single target, run a few steps away from the target before using Shred. Continue to Shred targets at a distance until all enemies with Poisoning have been hit.
- Use Storm Strike to gain Spirit, Damage Reduction and reapply Vulnerable as needed.
- Continue with the rotation, using Blood Howl on cooldown to regain Spirit and keep up Vigilance.
- Use Earthen Bulwark and Trample as needed to gain Unstoppable and get out of Crowd Control effects.
- Advanced: If an enemy hits hard, use Blood Howl to recover from large hits.
Resource & Cooldown Management
In order to maintain Shred, we need to generate Spirit. Fortunately, we can get most of it from Lust for Carnage and Spirit on Kill nodes from our Paragon Board. Together these nodes significantly smooth out the build. Using Blood Howl and Trample consistently in our rotation provide other major sources of Spirit. When we do run out of Spirit or the other sources aren't enough to maintain it, we can use Storm Strike for a quick burst.
Cooldown Management is predominantly around Poison Creeper. Thanks to Packleader, we're able to reset the cooldown of Creeper, which provides us with another damage burst window each time we use it. We substantially improve our ability to proc Packleader thanks to Subterranean, Trampled Earth, and Aftershock, which gives us a very large number of additional hits. Using Poison Creeper and Trample in large packs will maximize the chance that Poison Creeper resets. To get the most out of these resets, you need to keep an eye on Creeper to see when it comes off cooldown. In large packs this will be fairly reliable, while in single target/low density situations it will be much less likely.
We also benefit from Cooldown Reduction on Blood Howl every time we kill an enemy. This skill is a source of Spirit, Healing, and Damage Reduction through Vigilance. Use this skill liberally in large density areas to obtain its benefits as needed.
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)
- Might in Dark Ravine (Dry Steppes)
- Ghostwalker in Broken Bulwark (Scosglen)
- Eluding in Caldera Gate (Fractured Peaks)
- Aspect of the Protector in Lost Archives (Fractured Peaks)
- Stormclaw's in Anica's Claim (Fractured Peaks)
- Edgemaster’s in Oldstones (Scosglen)
- Umbral in Champion's Demise (Dry Steppes)
- Retaliation in Seaside Descent (Dry Steppes)
- Find the following Legendary Aspects by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides, through the Tree of Whispers, or gambling with Obols:
- Blurred Beast
- Accelerating
- Craven
- Trampled Earth
- Aftershock
- Find the following Unique items by farming in Dungeons, Nightmare Dungeons, Helltides. Note: You cannot gamble Unique items with obols!
- Waxing Gibbous
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
Most of our core aspects come from the Codex of Power, so we can start the build with them.
- Since we can't fully scale our Poison without Blurred Beast, we focus on Stormclaw's for now by placing it on our Weapon.
- Retaliation is a solid damage boost in our gloves until we find Subterranean
- Umbral helps with our Spirit Generation until we have our Paragon Board set up to take over.
- Protector is a nice defensive boost against tough enemies.
- Edgemaster's is a nice damage multiplier.
- Movement Speed on your boots will significantly increase your leveling and farming speed.
- Try to cap your Resistances quickly 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.
Gameplay
Since we don't have Blurred Beast it is not as important that we Dash through enemies. Dashing is still preferred since it hits more enemies, but running away from enemies to get distance is not necessary at this stage.
There are no changes to Skills or Boons.
Build Scaling & Stat Priorities
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.
- Poisoning: Is applied through Poison Creeper and Toxic Claws, then we deal instant damage through Shred with Aspect of the Blurred Beast. Scaling our Poisoning is vital for maximizing our damage output.
- Critical Strikes: Crits apply Poisoning thanks to Toxic Claws. A higher Crit Chance means we apply more Poisoning. Even more importantly, they have a chance to reset the Cooldown of Poison Creeper thanks to Packleader. The more times we Crit, the more often this is reset.
- Vulnerable: Storm Strike allows us to consistently apply Vulnerable to targets. This status effect is a damage multiplier, but any further Vulnerable damage on gear is additive and therefore not as valuable.
Stat Priorities & Gear Options
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 Cruelty, Elixir of Fortitude, Heady Precision Elixir, Elixir of Combatant Fortune
- Incense: Reddamine Buzz, Song of the Mountain (if not capped), Chorus of War
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) | Aftershock | Implicit: Damage To Healthy Enemies 1. High Damage per Second 2. Willpower 3. All Stats 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Damage To Poisoned Enemies 6. Vulnerable Damage 7. Damage over Time 8. Critical Strike Damage 9. Critical Strike Damage With Werewolf Skills Sockets Royal Emerald |
| Totem | Subterranean or Trampled Earth or Blurred Beast or Accelerating | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Cooldown Reduction 3. Damage Reduction From Poisoned Enemies 4. Lucky Hit Chance 5. Spirit Cost Reduction 6. Resource Generation 7. Damage Reduction While Fortified Sockets Royal Emerald |
| Helm | Might | 1. +Ranks To Poison Creeper 2. Single Resistance 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Maximum Life 5. Total Armor 6. Willpower Socket Royal Ruby |
| Chest | Vigorous Aspect or Disobedience | 1. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Damage Reduction From Close 4. Damage Reduction From Distant 5. Damage Reduction 6. Max Life Sockets Royal Ruby |
| Gloves | Subterranean or Trampled Earth or Blurred Beast or Accelerating | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Lucky Hit 3. Attack Speed 4. Ranks of Shred 5. Willpower 6. Dexterity 7. Intelligence |
| Pants | Vigorous Aspect or Disobedience | 1. Damage Reduction From Poisoned 2. Damage Reduction While Fortified 3. Damage Reduction From Close 4. Damage Reduction From Distant 5. Damage Reduction 6. Maximum Life 7. Total Armor Sockets Royal Ruby |
| Boots | Craven | Implicit: Max Evade Charges 1. Movement Speed 2. 2/3: Two of: Fire, Cold, Shadow, Poison 4. Total Armor while in Werewolf Form 5. Dodge Chance 6. Willpower 7. Dodge Chance Against Distant Enemies 8. Fortify Generation |
| Amulet | Stormclaw's | 1. Ranks to Call of the Wild 2. Ranks of All Companion Skills 3. Cooldown Reduction 4. Damage Reduction From Poisoned Enemies 5. Ranks to Toxic Claws 6. Ranks to Envenom 7. Damage Reduction While Fortified Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 1 | Subterranean or Trampled Earth or Blurred Beast or Accelerating | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Lucky Hit Chance 3. Maximum Life 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Damage to Poisoned Enemies 6. Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies 7. Damage to Slowed Enemies Socket Single Resistance |
| Ring 2 | Subterranean or Trampled Earth or Blurred Beast or Accelerating | 1. Critical Strike Chance 2. Lucky Hit Chance 3. Maximum Life 4. Damage to Close Enemies 5. Damage to Poisoned Enemies 6. Damage to Crowd Controlled Enemies 7. Damage to Slowed Enemies 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:
Due to its Melee playstyle, limited access to Unstoppable, and Cooldown reliance this build is not currently well suited to Hardcore. If you wish to play it, here are some recommendations:
- Replace Ranks of All Companion Skills on your Amulet with Damage Reduction While Fortified
- Replace Craven on your boots with Audacity
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
- Waxing Gibbous is a viable option here. It provides smoother Spirit Generation and higher chance to proc Packleader every hit. However, we do have to give up Aftershock, which reduces some of its value. Ultimately, it largely comes down to whether you prefer smoother Spirit Generation or better single target.
- 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.
- We also add Movement Speed to our Amulet in place of Cooldown Reduction.
Skill Tree
- We take two points out of Earthen Bulwark and 2 out of Natural Fortitude to get Abundance, which improves our Spirit Regeneration.
- If you choose Waxing Gibbous, swap Lupine Ferocity for Ursine Strength
There are no changes to Spirit Boons, Gameplay or Paragon Boards in this setup.
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 Lupine Ferocity over Ursine Strength?
Why not Temerity?
Mechanics
Learn all you need to know about how to scale this build in the endgame.
Damage Reduction Vs. Life
Poisoning and The Blurred Beast
Video Guide
Hungry for more Guides?
Druid Guides
General Guides
Summary
The Poison Shred Druid is a Melee build with considerable mobility and Clear potential, while also bringing a unique playstyle and low gear dependence. However, the true Melee playstyle and reliance on a high Cooldown skill for damage caps its potential on the very hardest content.
Credits
Written by McFluffin
Reviewed by IBoilerUp
