Druid Class Overview
Last Updated:February 22, 2025|Changelog
The Druid is a staple class in the Diablo franchise and returns for glory in Diablo 4. They use the forces of nature to lay waste to the spawns of hell. This overview covers their Strengths & Weaknesses, Skills, Passives, Legendaries and much more. Let's jump in and learn about the true god of nature!
Class Identity
The Druid calls up nature to destroy evil with wild storms, surrounding rocks or shapeshifting into a Werewolf or Werebear. With help from Sanctuaries' wildlife, the spawns of hell crumble before you! While defensively strong in either shapeshifting form, the Druid becomes rather squishy when casting nature spells in human form. With few mobility options, the Druid has to be positioned wisely during fights. They have a well-rounded set of skills for both melee and ranged combat, mainly dealing Physical, Lightning, and Poison damage. Their abilities are fueled by Spirit which is generated by using Basic Skills.
Attributes
The four core attributes provide the following to the Druid:
- Strength: Armor (+.2 per point)
- Intelligence: All Resistances (2% per 100), Resource Generation (3% per 100)
- Willpower: Skill Damage (12.5% per 100), Healing Received (7.5% per 100), Overpower Damage (25% per 100)
- Dexterity: Critical Strike Chance (2% per 100), Dodge Chance (.6% per 100)
Willpower is considered the main attribute as it multiplies all your damage done. Dexterity and Intelligence are also useful for their offensive and defensive bonuses, while Strength does next to nothing. Some items can roll bonuses to attributes and later on Paragon boards allow stacking the right stats for your character. In addition, you may find hidden Altars of Lilith in the open world that unlock a permanent bonus for all of your characters.
Check out our Stat Overview to learn more.
Equipment
The Druid either uses a Two-Handed Weapon (Staff, Axe, Mace, Polearm) or a combination of a Totem (Off-Hand) and a One-Handed Weapon (Axe, Mace, 1-H Sword, Dagger).
While only using a Two-Handed Weapon, the Druid does pack quite the punch on each individual hit. Legendary Aspects are much more powerful, which often offsets the downside of a slower attack speed. Using a Totem allows you to use two Legendary Aspects and increases the utility of your Druid by reducing cooldowns, reducing Spirit costs, and more.
Druid Item Slots:
Armor
Helm
Chest Armor
Gloves
Pants
Boots
Jewelry
Amulet
Ring (x2)
Weapons
Two-Handed Axe, Mace, Polearm, or Staff
- OR -
One-Handed Axe, Sword, Mace, or Dagger + Totem
Check out our Legendary Aspects and Codex of Power Overview or our Uniques Overview to learn more about which items the Druid has access to.
Skills & Passives
Skill points are unlocked by level-ups and the Renown system. As you spend more points, you unlock more and more categories of skills. Each active skill can be leveled up to 5 times or more with items, increasing their power (usually +10% of the base value) or reducing their cooldown by 5% with each additional rank. After unlocking a skill, you can enhance it with another point and then choose one out of two upgrades to specialize it further.
In addition, there are passives found all over the tree, attached as optional choices to certain skill clusters. They grant small bonuses to damage, defense or utility under certain conditions and help to round out your build by shifting it further in the direction you want to take. All passives have 3 ranks and usually scale linearly.
Check out our Skill Tree Overview to learn more details.
Basic Skills
These skills are weaker at baseline and are used to generate Spirit. Depending on your build, your Basic Skills apply a number of different buffs to your Druid or debuffs to your enemies. When you run out of Spirit, they can be used to deal the final blow to small or already weakened enemies.
Maul
Enhanced Maul
Wild Maul
Fierce Maul
Notes:
- Maul is the Werebear Basic Skill and the only one that innately generates Fortify. It can be augmented with Fevered Mauling.
Core Skills
These skills are primary damage dealers of most Druid builds. They spend a lot of Spirit but deal much higher damage and typically hit more targets than Basic Skills. In addition, Core Skills can be amplified by multiple Legendary effects.
Pulverize
Enhanced Pulverize
Primal Pulverize
Raging Pulverize
Notes:
- The regular hit overlaps with the effect of Shockwave.
- Can be turned into an Earth Skill with Ursine Horror, allowing it to interact with a ton of Passives and Paragon Nodes.
Defensive Skills
These skills significantly boost your defensive capabilities. Each is accompanied by a unique Utility function.
Debilitating Roar
Enhanced Debilitating Roar
Preserving Debilitating Roar
Innate Debilitating Roar
Notes:
- Hits a more than screen-wide area.
- As a Shout skill, its Cooldown is reduced by Bold Chieftain's.
- When used with the Aspect of the Dark Howl, it Immobilizes Poisoned enemies and becomes a Werewolf Skill.
Companion Skills
Companions are an alternative source of damage and pair best with the likes of Shepherd's, Stampede, Spirit Bond, and One With Nature. They have to be on your skill bar to use their active.
Wolves
Enhanced Wolf Pack
Brutal Wolf Pack
Ferocious Wolf Pack
Notes:
- Great single target damage but lacking in area of effect.
- Augmented and significantly enhanced by Alpha and Storm's Companion.
Wrath Skills
These skills are medium cooldown skills that deal damage in a large area. Except for Trample, use them whenever they are ready to cast to increase your overall damage output. Activate Trample to get out of any Crowd Control effect!
Trample
Enhanced Trample
Natural Trample
Savage Trample
Notes:
- A true mobility Skill, its most often used for its innate Unstoppable effect.
Ultimate Skills
These skills have extremely high cooldowns, which can be decreased by additional point investment, Calm Before the Storm, or items such as Airidah's Inexorable Will. Use them wisely!
Grizzly Rage
Prime Grizzly Rage
Supreme Grizzly Rage
Notes:
- While in Grizzly form you can only use the Werebear Skills on your Skill bar. This includes any Skills that are converted to Werebear Skills.
- When used with the Dire Wolf's Aspect, the above is true for all Skills that are Werewolf Skills by nature or transformed into a Werewolf Skill.
- Rampaging Werebeast increases the maximum duration and improves Critical Strike Damage over that duration to a maximum.
Key Passives
These passives are located at the very bottom of the Skill Tree. They are extremely powerful and define the overall playstyle of your build. Similar to Ultimate Skills, only one of them can be chosen!
Ursine Strength
Notes:
- Any Skill can benefit from the damage increase.
Unique Class Mechanic - Spirit Boons
Every class in Diablo 4 has a powerful, unique mechanic that contributes to its identity and the build-making process. For the Druid, it's called Spirit Boons, allowing you to choose one out of four passive bonuses from four different Spirits. Completely unlocking all Spirit Boons allows you to bond with a Spirit, allowing you to select two Boons from it. There are the four Spirits: Deer, Eagle, Snake, and Wolf.
Deer Spirit
The Deer Spirit focuses on utility, granting Thorns, additional maximum Spirit, Damage Reduction against Elites, or Movement Speed and Impairment Reduction.
Prickleskin
Gift of the Stag
Wariness
Advantageous Beast
Eagle Spirit
The Eagle Spirit adds a ton of offensive capability to your Druid by adding Critical Strike Chance and Lucky Hit Chance, Attack Speed, or Critical Strike Damage. With additional Life as the final option, it can be hard to choose here.
Scythe Talons
Iron Feather
Swooping Attacks
Avian Wrath
Wolf Spirit
The Wolf Spirit starts with 2 Lucky Hit abilities that either reset Companion Cooldowns or grant Spirit when procced. The Fortify boost and extension of Ultimate Skills are situationally viable, as well.
Packleader
Energize
Bolster
Calamity
Snake Spirit
The Snake Spirit doesn't trust humans. You have to unlock all its Boons at once. They add strong bonuses to specific build types, adding a guaranteed Overpower proc to Earth Skills, a static discharge procced by Lightning Skills, a Heal when Shapeshifting Skills Critical Strike, or a chance to reduce Ultimate Cooldowns when using a Nature Magic Skill.
Obsidian Slam
Overload
Masochistic
Calm Before the Storm
Druidic Spirit Offerings
Once you reach level 15, monsters start dropping Druidic Spirit Offerings. They are used to unlock Boons at each of the Spirits in Túr Dúlra.
When you unlock the system you get 25 Druidic Spirit Offerings as a reward. There are 16 Boons to unlock which each cost 25 Offerings. In total, you need 400 to unlock all of them.
Note: You have to unlock all 4 Boons of the Snake Spirit at once, so you need to collect 100 Druidic Spirit Offerings to gain access to its Boons.
Unlocking the Spirit Boons
Once you reach level 15, you automatically start the Priority Quest "Spirits of the Lost Grove". This short questline is required to unlock the Spirit Boon feature. You have to clear out the Stronghold Túr Dúlra before you can start it.
- Travel to the Shrine of the Spirit Lord
- Honor the Spirit Lord
- Commune with the Spirit Lord
- Investigate Fainne, the Abandoned Grove
- Slay the Goatmen
- Free the Spirit Lord
- Commune with the Freed Spirit Lord
- Pick up the Skill of the Spirit Lord
- Speak with Druid Ardreth in Túr Dúlra
- Honor Gathlen and mount the Skull of the Stag Lord on the Altar
Summary
- The Druid class is well-rounded, tanky class that relies on good positioning.
- Forces of Nature will be your friend in all battles ahead.
- They deal mostly Physical damage, but also have Lightning and Poison at their disposal.
- Spirit is the Druid's primary resource. Once you manage to reduce your skills resource costs, this becomes negligible.
- Make sure to compare the benefits of a Two-Handed Weapon vs a One-Handed Weapon and a Totem. The best choice is not always obvious!
- Choose the Spirit Boon that work best with your build. They are fairly generic, so the choice should not be difficult.
- Once all Boons are unlocked, you can bond with one of the Spirits, allowing you to select 2 Boons from it. Interact with the Spirit of choice in Túr Dúlra to bond with it. You can always come back and bond with another Spirit.
- The other 3 Spirits allow you to select one Boon each.
- Boons can be swapped at any time, even mid-combat.
Credits
Written by IBoilerUp, Jymnasium
Reviewed by Echohack, ehtoka