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Shred Druid Leveling Guide

Season 7 - Season of WitchcraftLeveling

Last Updated:January 21, 2025|Changelog

Welcome to the Shred Druid Leveling Guide! If you're eager to tear through enemies with ferocious, fast-paced attacks, this guide is your key to success. While the build requires proper setup to truly shine, ‍Shred quickly becomes a powerhouse capable of melting mobs and bosses with precision and speed. If you enjoy aggressive, up-close combat, this build is for you!

In Diablo 4, Shred benefits directly from your Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, and Ranks in Core/Shred. Multipliers that affect Shred, Physical, Shapeshifting, Werewolf, Core/Skill damage will also significantly enhance ‍Shred's effectiveness. It's crucial to optimize your build around these stats, making sure to include gear and paragon points that further boost your Shred Damage potential.

Fortunately, many of the key aspects like Stormclaw's and Retaliation can be obtained from dungeons. Calm Breeze and Unsatiated will help you maintain Spirit to continue shredding through monsters.

This guide will teach you all about how to reach the endgame in Diablo 4 using the Shred Leveling Druid. Let's get started!

Shred Druid Leveling Setup
Note

This build guide takes you up to level 60 and gets you started for the early Endgame on Torment 1 difficulty. If you're looking for Endgame guides, check out our Druid Guides section!

Pros
  • Super Fast
  • Easy to Play
  • Smooth Progression
Cons
  • Low AoE Coverage
  • High Effort Playstyle
  • Slightly Squishy

Check out our Leveling Builds Tier List to see how this build compares to others.

Witchcraft Powers

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

Season 7 is the Season of Witchcraft. It features two separate borrowed power mechanics in the forms of Witchcraft Powers and Occult Gems. Both Seasonal mechanics are unlocked and improved by new NPCs found at the Tree of Whispers after collecting resources from Headhunt Zones, Seasonal areas similar to Helltide that appear across Sanctuary.

There are 25 Witchcraft Powers, 6 of which can be equipped at a time. Each Power belongs to one of three Schools (Eldritch, Growth & Decay, and Psyche), tags that promote synergies within themselves and with Occult Gems. Each School has a single Unique Witchcraft Power, only one of which can be equipped at a time. These Unique Powers max out and gain an additional effect at rank 5, while the other Powers max at rank 20 and gain their bonus effects at various levels. To unlock and improve Witchcraft Powers, defeat Headrotten or complete Whispers within the Headhunt Zones to collect Restless Rot. Lost Powers are an exception, requiring you to randomly encounter a Forgotten Altar in Dungeons to unlock them.

Best-in-Slot Witchcraft Powers

  • Soul Harvest - This Power dramatically increases Core Stats based on monster density and is a reliably strong choice, especially for builds which can group mobs together as with Kry.
  • Decay Augmentation - Shred becomes a Witchcraft "Effect" when converted by Witching Hour, turning this Power into a direct Multiplier! The added damage from this Power for Druids is Poison.
  • Purging Touch - Similarly, Shred becomes an Eldritch effect every second thanks to Witching Hour. So, this Power starts off strong against Headrotten then becomes a multiplier against all enemies once leveled.
  • Hex of Flames - This curse is a bit of a filler, as we require a Hex to activate Phantom String and 3 Eldritch Powers to activate Witching Hour.
  • Force of Will - This power stacks a multiplier between Overpowers to be released with devastating destruction!
  • Doom Orb - This Unique is mostly there to round out our Eldritch Powers for Witching Hour.
Shred Druid Witchcraft Powers

Alternate Witchcraft Powers

  • Breath of the Coven - Breath is a solid alternative to Force of Will for those Shred Druids seeking to boost their Attack Speed. We use a ton of powers that synergize with it!
  • Shaken Soul - It's not too much trouble to apply Vulnerable with a Lucky Hit roll, but this Power does provide consistency in that department while adding to the Eldritch Power count.
  • Aura Specialization - The bonus Critical Strike Multiplier is highly desirable, but you need to give up 2 Witchcraft Powers to incorporate this and an Aura.

Occult Gems

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Cataclysm Druid

Rarely, Headrotten Bosses appear with a still-attached Fugitive Head stolen from the Tree of Whispers. Slay these enemies and return the Heads to Gelena to unlock and upgrade Occult Gems. These Gems are socketable in Jewelry and each provide +160 Armor and +8% Resistance to All Elements. More importantly, each Occult Gem grants a unique effect that synergizes with your equipped Witchcraft Powers to provide a variety of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses.

Best-in-Slot Occult Gems

  • Witching Hour - This Gem enables multiple powerful synergies from our Witchcraft Powers by granting Shred the Eldritch tag. This means that, every second, it benefits from Purging Touch and Decay Augmentation!
  • Toadling's Wish - Bolstering the effects of Soul Harvest and Decay Augmentation is extremely powerful.
  • Phantom String - A straightforward damage multiplier for this build. Note that you need a Hex to activate it.

Alternate Occult Gems

  • Friend of the Bog - The set of bonuses this Gem provides are excellent, but fitting in a third Growth & Decay Power and maintaining Witching Hour is harder than it sounds. You essentially trade this Gem and a Growth & Decay Power with Breath of the Coven and another Gem.
  • Hungering Void - Another way to pull mobs together. It's less effective than Kry or Airidah's, though, and requires you to fit an Aura.

Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.

Skills & Gameplay

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

Shred & Prerequisites

To start off, put 3 points into Basic Skills to unlock the Core Skill section. ‍Wind Shear is our choice for the early game. It offers ranged Spirit generation that also provides much needed movement speed in the early game. Next, take Shred, your main damage-dealing skill, which provides mobility and high burst damage, especially with ‍Primal Shred for critical hit bonuses and additional dashes. Shred also enables us to take advantage of Shapeshifting mechanics, allowing smooth transitions into other forms for added survivability and damage output.

Aspects & Skills

Unlock Stormclaw's from its dungeon, which adds Lightning damage and area of effect to each of Shred's Critical Strikes, transforming you into a burst-damage machine. Also, be sure to grab Retaliation from its respective dungeon for additional damage when Fortified.

Max out your Shred skill points as soon as possible and proceed in the order below:

  • Unlock Enhanced Earthen Bulwark for added Barrier and Unstoppable. When we gain enough Skill Points, we will swap Enhanced Earthen Bulwark for Petrify.
  • Blood Howl for healing and Spirit/Damage or Attack Speed.
  • Poison Creeper for Crowd Control, AoE damage and Poison synergy, and Critical Chance.
  • Trample for Mobility, Unstoppable and Spirit.
Shred Druid Skills

Spirit Boons

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

Ultimate and Key Passive

Fully allocate a few important passives in Ancestral Fortitude, Vigilance, and Envenom, as well as a single point in Toxic Claws. From here, invest in Petrify and drop Earthen Bulwark for amplified Critical Strike Damage, Stun, and Spirit. Use it as a reliable way to set up big hits and tear down Elites and Bosses alike.

After your Ultimate, take the Lupine Ferocity Key Passive, which is a good choice early on for Werewolf builds, providing a guaranteed Critical Strike every 3 attacks and Increased Damage. This synergizes perfectly with Shred, turning it into a high-damage finisher.

Damage Reduction

Focus on survivability by picking up key damage reduction passives. Start with Quickshift to gain a brief but powerful damage boost when shapeshifting, followed by Heightened Senses for further movement while in Werewolf form. Once these are maxed, grab Natural Fortitude to boost your Fortify while Shapeshifting, and round out your defenses with Defensive Posture to increase the effectiveness of your Fortify, ensuring you're more resilient in tough encounters.

Damage Passives

This is where your build really starts to shine and ramp up your damage output. First, take Wild Impulses to boost your Core skill's damage at the cost of more Spirit. Next, grab Backlash to increase your Damage, followed with Feral Aptitude . After that, pick up Clarity and finally, invest in Catastrophe to round out your damage passives, giving you a strong boost to overall damage.

Final Journey to 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.

Check out our Renown Guide to unlock all your additional Skill Points efficiently. 

Druid Spirit Boons

  • First, collect 15 Offerings to unlock Scythe Talons from the Eagle Spirit, which enhances your Critical Strikes - crucial for a Shred build.
  • Next, collect another 15 Offerings prioritize unlocking Pack Leader from the Wolf Spirit, allowing your Poison Creeper to reset on Critical Strikes.
  • Next, save 60 Offerings to unlock Masochistic from the Snake Spirit, allowing you to heal with Shred.
  • Gather 150 Offerings to finish unlocking the remaining boons, and bond with the Eagle Spirit to add Avian Wrath, boosting your Critical Strike Damage.
Shred 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.

Learn more details in our full Druid Specialization Guide.

Gear & Stat Priorities

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

To get started as a Shred Druid, always equip your highest DPS melee weapon for maximum damage, preferring Two Handers when possible for their high damage range. Follow the priority list below to optimize your gear as you progress. While you may not have access to all the ideal affixes early on, focus on any useful stats that boost your damage output. Prioritize modifiers like Attack Speed, Willpower, and Critical Strike Chance.

Additionally, don’t overlook defensive stats to improve your survivability. Consider tempering your gear with Resistances, Maximum Life, and Armor to fill any defensive gaps. Upgrading and tempering low-level gear is relatively cheap, and the improvements can be highly effective early on.

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.

1-60 Leveling
T1 Starter
Shred Druid 1-60 Stat Priorities
Shred Druid T1 Starter Stat Priorities

Read more about itemization in our Beginner Articles about Damage, Defense and Stats.

Legendaries & Uniques

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

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

  1. Calm Breeze (Grinning Labyrinth - Dry Steppes)
  2. Stormclaw's (Anica's Claim - Fractured Peaks)
  3. Retaliation (Sea Descent - Dry Steppes)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

  1. Unsatiated (Tormented Ruins - Fractured Peak)
  2. Changeling's Debt (Conclave - Kehjistan)
  3. Might (Dark Ravine - Dry Steppes)
  4. Vigorous (Steadfast Barracks - Hawezar)
  5. Disobedience (Halls of the Damned - Kehjistan)
  6. Wind Striker (Shivta Ruins - Kehjistan)

Other useful Aspects (drop/gamble)

  1. Blurred Beast
  2. Agile Wolf
  3. Metamorphosis

What to Gamble

Offensive1h Weapon, Offhand
DefensiveHelm, Chest, Pants
Utility, MobilityBoots
ResourceRings

Great Uniques for this build

  1. Mad Wolf's Glee
  2. Wildheart Hunger
  3. Waxing Gibbous

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 (enables the Landslide Druid)
  3. Stampede (enables the Companion Druid)
  4. Moonrise / Adaptability (enables the Wind Shear Druid)
  5. 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 Lighting Storm Druids)
  3. Unsung Ascetic's Wraps (enables the Lightning Storm Druid)
  4. Earthbreaker (enables the Landslide Druid)
  5. Storm's Companion (enables the Companion Druid)
  6. Stone of Vehemen (enhances the Stone Burst Druid)

Learn more details in our articles covering the Codex of Power and Unique Items.

Runes

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred 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 Shred Druid focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

  • Moni + Kry - The pull effect of Vortex is amazing for grouping mobs and improving clear with Stormclaw's!
  • Xol + Xan - Overpowers are, well, overpowered, and getting an extra source of them is very potent.

Alternative choices

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

  • Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows an execute at 10% HP. If combined with Xol in your other Runeword to generate large amounts of offering.
  • Ohm - Though heavily nerfed, War Cry remains a popular choice.
  • Gar - The Crit Chance bonus is great, especially early on.
  • Mot - Dark Shroud is a strong and affordable defensive option.
  • Tam - This generates the same offering as Xol in the above setup, but Xol periodically Overflows Xan.
  • Bac - Since this is one of the most mobile builds in the game, Bac is great for generating Offering.
  • Lith - A surprisingly strong Invocation, provided you can afford to stand still. Note that dashing with Shred does not count as moving!
  • 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.

Mercenaries

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

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: Varyana

She provides us with increased Movement Speed as you gain Massacre Stacks. Remember that these stacks reset if you have not killed any enemies after 7 seconds. She also provides passive Attack Speed and even more Attack Speed when she activates Bloodthirst and Bloodlust.

  • Reinforcement: Raheir

Bastion is a great reinforcement ability that gives you brief periods of virtual immunity.

Shred Druid Mercenaries

Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.

How To Level

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

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.

Campaign Leveling
Seasonal / Alt Leveling
Tips & Tricks
Speedrun Route

Campaign Leveling

  • For your first character in Diablo 4, completing the Campaign provides all the background lore information but is not necessary.
    • The Campaign is the slowest way to level, but it's worth experiencing the Campaign and Diablo 4's storyline at least once.
    • To play Seasonal Content you need to have completed or skipped the Campaign.
    • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
      • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
    • After finishing the campaign, you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
    • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.

Seasonal / Alt Leveling

  • Complete the Seasonal Questline in order to progress your Seasonal Journey to unlock additional Legendary Aspects and work on your Seasonal Powers.
  • If your account is below Rank 4 Renown in each zone, focus on completing your Renown.
    • This only needs to be done once per realm (Softcore / Hardcore).
  • Complete the Dungeons needed for any Legendary Aspects from your Codex of Power.
  • From level 1-60 you should focus on earning experience in Helltides by combining Helltide activities with Grim Favors for the Tree of Whispers or completing Gathering Legion Events.
  • Strongholds provide a big boost of experience for little time investment. Make sure to clear all of them after around level 40.
  • If you're playing an Alt, make sure to use Tempers and Leveling Caches crafted from the Alchemist to speed up your progression.
  • Find the most efficient way of leveling your character in detail with our Speed Leveling Guide.

Tips and Tricks

  • Don't Imprint Your Weapon
    • It is a better idea to put your best Offensive Aspect on your Amulet, which will usually not be replaced as often as your Weapon.
  • Compare Your Items
    • Press Shift to activate item comparison. Use this build guide's Stat Priorities section to identify potential upgrades.
  • Choose an Easy Difficulty
    • Ideally, start on Hard difficulty for the extra XP modifier, then try to go higher when it's way too easy. If that slows you down noticeably, it's better to stay on a lower difficulty.
  • Use Your Materials
    • There's no point in holding on to your gold or materials for later. Use everything to speed up your journey to 60. If you're twinking, make sure to craft the Allowance Caches from the Alchemist at level 20 and if available, equip your Mythic Uniques at level 35 to make the leveling a breeze.

Speedrun Route

  • If you're looking to min/max your time spent on the way to 60 instead of following a generic guideline, you need to use a specific strategy.
  • This usually includes farming certain activities up to a specified level and then switching to other tasks while gathering XP in high density areas and pushing the difficulty as high as you can.
  • We update this strategy seasonally in our Speed Leveling Guide.

Endgame Transition

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

As you approach level 60 with the Shred Druid, you unlock higher item power gear that represents a massive jump in character power. This is a good time to refresh your setup with new tempers and imprints.

At level 60, Paragon Levels and The Pit unlock. Work towards Tier 20 to enter Torment 1, where the Endgame begins. Focus on overcapping your Armor (1000+) and Resistances (70%+) as you receive some penalties to your character's stats:

  • -250 Armor per Torment difficulty
  • -25% All Resistances per Torment difficulty

At this point, your setup should look roughly like this before you dive into min/maxing with Uniques, Mythics & Masterworking. With better gear, more levels and Glyphs, you can push further and eventually unlock higher difficulties for increased rewards.

This step marks the end of the leveling guide. Below is the Paragon setup to get you started in Torment difficulty, but ideally, you should now transition towards the endgame version of this build or choose another of your liking.

Shred Druid Starter Setup

Paragon & Glyphs

!
Important

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 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.

Shred Druid Paragon
Tip

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

  1. Outmatch
  2. Headhunter
  3. Spirit
  4. Fang and Claw
  5. Werewolf

To Level 46

  1. Spirit
  2. Fang and Claw
  3. Outmatch
  4. Headhunter
  5. Werewolf

There are a total of 328 Paragon Points. After reaching level 60, you gain up to 300 Paragon Levels, 24 from Renown and 4 from Altars of Lilith. Check out our dedicated in-depth guides to learn more about Paragon Boards and Glyphs.

Video Guide

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

Coming soon.

Summary

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid
  • The Shred Druid is a super fast, fun to play leveling build that scales well into the late game.
  • Unlock the three must have Codex Powers and start blasting!
  • Focus on scaling generic damage modifiers and Shapeshifting/Werewolf-specific effects to boost your damage.
  • Poison Creeper enemies to Crowd Control and increase you Damage with Poison synergies.
  • Gather Critical Strike Chance, Attack speed & Willpower on your gear.
  • Shred through your enemies like paper!

Credits

Season 7 - Season of Witchcraft
Shred Druid

Written by thomasdatrain

Reviewed by IBoilerUp

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