Support Druid Endgame Guide
Welcome to the Support Druid Endgame Guide, the first dedicated support guide for Diablo 4! This build is overflowing with offensive, defensive, and utility options for group play.
First and foremost, this build revolves around the Aspect of Shattered Defenses which does, in fact, improve allies' damage unlike many other skills and Aspects with similar wording. It's unintuitive that this works, but it's the main reason to justify the slot in party play. Besides this key Aspect, the Support Druid offers additional offensive benefits from Blood Howl, which is paired with Nighthowler's to give allies additional Critical Strike Chance and Attack Speed. It grants the party War Cry with Ohm, and, in Season 8, offloads additional tools from its carry by taking the Lilith's Wind of Hate and Wandering Death's Chest Beam Modifiers.
As good as those offensive bonuses might sound, the Support Druid is actually more prolific at providing its party with additional defenses. Between Cyclone Armor (paired with Cyclonic Force), Debilitating Roar, Blood Howl's Heal, Savage Hurricane, and a heavily supported Field of Languish, you're always safe around a Support Druid!
Finally, the Support Druid is capable of quickly and repeatedly grouping mobs together without building their immunity to Crowd Controls. It achieves this primarily with Airidah's Inexorable Will but also employs Preserving Cyclone Armor as a secondary measure.
This guide shows you how to leverage all of the Support Druid's many tools and more. Let's get into it!
Offensive Buffs
- x100% Damage (Shattered Defenses)
- x15% Damage (War Cry)
- +27% Critical Strike Chance (Blood Howl)
- +15% increased Attack Speed (Blood Howl)
Defensive Buffs
- x40% less enemy damage dealt (Debilitating Roar)
- x20% less enemy damage dealt (Hurricane)
- 35%+ damage reduction (Cyclone Armor)
- 35%+ Max Life Heal (Blood Howl)
Utility
- Grouping with Airidah's
- Vulnerable (Cataclysm)
- 70% Slow (Cataclysm)
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
- Urivar's Lobbed Bombs - The Cooldown Reduction from this power is welcomed and it allows you to periodically execute mobs with Wandering Death's Chest Beam.
Modifiers
- Lilith's Wind of Hate - The created Blisters increase nearby mob "count" and are used as a proxy to deal additional damage to Elites and Bosses.
- Wandering Death's Chest Beam - The execute drastically improves clear time throughout a Pit but is ineffective against Bosses.
- Blackmailer's Sabotage - The Support Druid generates absurd amounts of Fortify, so this Power makes you practically immortal.
Alternate Boss Powers
- Lord Zir's Blood Pool / Ashava's Poison Breath / Lilith's Wind of Hate - Any of these are serviceable as Main Powers to more consistently activate your execute.
Learn more details about the season theme in our full Season Guide.
Skills & Gameplay
- Stone Burst inflicts the build's most important debuff. Cast it liberally on incoming mobs. Note that you need to release the channel to activate Shattered Defenses.
- Debilitating Roar greatly reduces enemy damage and is spammable in part thanks to Bold Chieftain's.
- Likewise, Blood Howl provides a reliable Heal that is frequently available in density thanks to Enhanced Blood Howl. When paired with Nighthowler's, the Attack Speed and additional Critical Strike Chance bonuses are shared with Allies.
- Cyclone Armor provides passive damage reduction, which is granted to allies when using Cyclonic Force.
- Cataclysm applies Slows and applies Vulnerable to enemies in a wide area. More importantly, casting it pulls enemies toward you when wearing Airidah's Inexorable Will. Flickerstep gives you an avenue to quickly recover Cataclysm's Cooldown with your Evade.
- Hurricane grants a little extra Damage Reduction but is certainly the most flexible Skill slot. It's perfectly fine to take a Spirit generator skill here, if necessary, or a Mobility Skill like Shred.
- Earthen Bulwark, granted periodically by Que, inherits the Unstoppable effect and Fortify generation from the upgrades in your skill tree when triggered.
Skill Rotation
- As you approach enemies, throw up Hurricane in preparation for battle. Keep it up throughout the fight.
- When you reach an intersection or other open area you wish to fight in, cast Debilitating Roar to reduce enemy damage followed by Cataclysm to start pulling mobs on top of you. As necessary, evade through mobs to refresh Cataclysm's Cooldown with Flickerstep.
- As the mobs start to group, channel Stone Burst to an appropriate size on top of the enemies, then release it to activate Shattered Defenses. Repeat this every 5 seconds or as fresh hordes of mobs encroach.
- Spam Debilitating Roar and Blood Howl off Cooldown to maintain their buffs. Note that Nighthowler's has a slightly shorter duration than Preserving Blood Howl, so you ideally want to recast it before the buff expires on your skillbar.
- If you're between procs of Airidah's but would prefer to group nearby enemies sooner, cast Cyclone Armor for a secondary pull.
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: Iron Feather
Wolf Spirit: Bolster
Snake Spirit: Calm Before the Storm
Bond with the Eagle Spirit and activate Swooping Attacks. Overload is a viable option if you wish to promote Poison synergies.
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.
Support 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
- Poise
- Undaunted
- Outmatch
- Territorial
- Human
To Level 46
- Protector
- Negligible
With the exception of the Inner Beast Legendary Node, this Paragon Board is geared entirely toward personal defenses. All glyphs aside from Protector provide only damage and additional glyph radius when leveled beyond rank 15. It's worth mentioning, though, that the Support Druid has a tough time obtaining Rare Node bonuses in later boards, so Paragon points beyond the example above can be spent on Core Stats to attempt to meet those requirements.
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 Support Druid focuses on the following combos:
Best in Slot
- Igni + Que - Casting non-Basic skills grants and rapidly refreshes Earthen Bulwark, which grants you a hefty Barrier, as well as Unstoppable and a sizeable amount of Fortify thanks to upgrades assigned in your Skill Tree.
- Neo + Ohm - Between Earthen Bulwark and Blackmailer's Sabotage, it's rare that you ever take health damage, ensuring maximum uptime of War Cry for your allies.
Alternative choices
As long as you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top Runes, you can also benefit from these options:
- Thul - The freeze is situationally useful but unfortunately the associated damage multiplier does not improve allies' damage.
- Eom - Good, especially early on, to help you spam your cooldowns.
- Zec - Similar to Eom but only applies to Cataclysm.
- Kry - If, for some reason, you feel you need a third way to group mobs, this Rune fills that role.
- Jah - Great for additional mobility in Speedfarming scenarios.
- Lac - This taunt helps take the pressure off squishier carries.
- Bac - A preferred Ritual Rune for speedfarming scenarios.
- 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: Any
As this build is intended for group play, your Hired mercenary is never present. Feel free to use Raheir for additional Armor or Resistances to roam on your own a little more safely.
- Reinforcement: Aldkin
Field of Languish is a high-uptime, AoE damage reduction. It is supported by Assistance for even higher uptime.
Learn more about Mercenaries and how they work in our dedicated Mercenaries Overview.
Stat Priorities & Item Progression
To enable the Support 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
- 45%+ Cooldown Reduction
- 50%+ Attack Speed
- 10+ Ranks to Defensive Skills (esp. Debilitating Roar)
- Armor Capped 1,000
- Resistance Capped 70%
- 25,000+ Life
- 200% Movement Speed
Item Progression Goals
Before you dive into the Endgame with the Support 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.
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.
We need to use a 2-Hander to make the most of Shattered Defenses' shared bonus. A staff is preferred, as it has the highest base Attack Speed of any 2-Hander.
Mechanics
After being subjected to 10 consecutive seconds of "Hard" Crowd Control (freeze, immobilize, stun, etc.), regular monsters become Unstoppable for 10 seconds. For Elites, it only takes 5 seconds of "Hard" Crowd Control to activate this effect, decaying after about 8 seconds. "Soft" Crowd Controls, such as Innate Debilitating Roar's Slow, build up this immunity at about 1/5 the rate. Before provoking Unstoppable, you can leave the monsters to rest for a short time to let this buildup toward CC immunity decay.
As a result, it's important to assess and manage the Crowd Controls available across your party. Note that the Damage Reduction from Debilitating Roar still applies to Unstoppable monsters.
- Cooldown Reduction is the #1 priority stat across this build. It's paramount to maintaining your Buffs and Debuffs.
- To supplement your Gear Affixes, you have a number of conditional Cooldown Reductions from Bold Chieftain's, Stormshifter's, Inner Beast, and Enhanced Blood Howl.
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
Summary
The Support Druid offers its party a plethora of Offensive, Defensive, and Utility-based bonuses, not least of which is the 100% multiplicative bonus from Shattered Defenses. It groups mobs effectively and repeatedly by employing Airidah's Inexorable Will and recovering its Ultimate Cooldown with Flickerstep. As tanky as they come, the Support Druid can take the heat, and ensures his allies can as well with as much as 76% overall Damage Reduction!
Credits
Written by IBoilerUp
Reviewed by Danger