Stone Burst Druid Leveling Guide

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

Alternate Witchcraft Powers

• Hex of Flames - This is a good alternative to Aura Specialization and allows use to have a Eldritch effect that boost Attack Speed with Breath of the Coven. This also applies Hex which gives us +2% damage with Dust Stone.
• Aura of Misfortune - A defensive Aura that gives Stumble Chance, Slows enemies and +15% Movement Speed. This also gives us +2% damage with Dust Stone.

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

• Dust Stone - This Gem gives us a slight increase of damage with 1 Aura from Aura of Siphoning and up to 2 with Aura of Lament. This should gives us a total of 6% more damage when all Auras are applied to the enemies.
• Hungering Void - A great way to pull mobs together because we cannot fit in Kry or Airidah's Inexorable Will in this build.
• Friend of the Bog - Great overall providing Willpower boost, Life, and the ability move Unhindered through enemies.

Alternate Occult Gems

• Toadling's Wish - Gives Growth & Decay effect 35% more effectiveness.

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

As you progress, prioritize placing points into Feral Aptitude for increased Damage, then follow up with Ancestral Fortitude for added non-physical resistances. Add 1 point into Crushing Earth to boost your Earth skills’ damage and Safeguard to increase your Fortify generation, ensuring you stay fortified. Continue filling out Stone Guard to enhance your Earth damage.

Once you’ve built a strong defensive foundation, invest 3 points into Envenom to capitalize on Critical Strikes against Poisoned enemies for increased damage. When you reach the enough skill points, swap Trample for Petrify, an excellent crowd control Ultimate that also significantly boosts your Critical Strike damage. Finally, unlock the Earthen Might Key Passive, which grants a chance to fully restore your Spirit and guarantees Critical Strikes on Earth abilities, giving your build a massive power spike for both damage and resource management.

Damage Passives

This is where your build really starts to shine and ramp up damage output. Invest in Nature's Reach for increased damage against distant enemies, followed by Humanity to boost damage in Human form.

Afterward, pick up Wild Impulses to significantly increase your Core Skill’s damage, though it will cost more Spirit. Then, grab Defiance to enhance your damage against elites. Finally, invest in Natural Disaster for increased Earth damage against Vulnerable enemies and Catastrophe to maximize damage after Ultimate.

Final Journey to Level 60

Continue by adding 3 points into Circle of Life for healing when you cast Stone Burst. Next, max out Safeguard first to ensure you're generating Fortify consistently from your Earth skills, bolstering your overall survivability. After that, invest fully in Vigilance to gain a substantial damage reduction after using a Defensive skill, helping you withstand heavy hits. Finally, max out Defensive Posture to increase the effectiveness of your damage reduction while fortified, making it even harder for enemies to break through your defenses.

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 Stone Burst Druid, always equip your highest DPS melee weapon for maximum damage, preferring One Handed Dagger and Totem when possible for increased Attack Speed. 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, Crit Damage, 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.

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. Retaliation (Seaside Descent - Dry Steppes)

Nice-to-have Dungeon unlocks

1. Quicksand (Ferals' Den - Scosglen) - Needed to make Umbral and Crashstone effective
2. Umbral (Champion's Demise - Dry Steppes)
3. Crashstone (Stockades - Scosglen)
4. Disobedience (Halls of the Damned - Kehjistan)
5. Might (Dark Ravine - Dry Steppes)
6. Nighthowler's (Forbidden City - Fractured Peaks)
7. Ballistic (Whispering Pines - Scogslen)

Great Uniques for this build

1. Stone of Vehemen
2. Vasily's Prayer
3. Mjölnic Ryng
4. Wildheart Hunger

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)

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)

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 Stone Burst Druid focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Igni+ ‍Wat - ‍Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows you to execute at 10% HP. When combined with ‍Xol in your other runeword, it also generates large amounts of offering.
• Xol + Yom - Petrify provides Crowd Control and Spirit every time it activates.

Alternative choices

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

• Lith - Strong Ritual, provided you can afford to stand still.
• Bac - Another good Ritual, especially for speed farming.
• Lum - Good Invocation to use if your are having Spirit problems.
• Gar - The Crit Chance bonus is great, especially early on.
• Mot - Dark Shroud is a strong and affordable defensive option.
• Yul - Another good rune to generate offering by using skills with cooldowns.

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 Massacre stacks reset if you have not killed any enemies after 7 seconds. She also provides 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.

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

Coming soon.

• With massive, ranged AoE damage, Stone Burst Druid easily destroys mobs of monsters. Bossing is slower.
• Unlock key Codex powers, focusing on Spirit generation and damage aspects to maximize damage potential.
• Scale general damage modifiers, prioritizing Core skill damage, Critical Strike damage, and Earth skill damage.
• Utilize Crowd Control with skills like Petrify and Poison Creeper to stay safe and boost damage.
• Focus on key gear stats like Critical Strike Chance, Attack Speed, and Willpower to optimize the build.
• Blast through your enemies with Stone Burst, clearing groups and bosses with ease.

Written by thomasdatrain

Reviewed by IBoilerUp