While the Druid was initially one of Diablo 4's weaker classes during the game's beta tests, some big buffs to its talents have propelled the shapeshifter to the top of the game's meta. With its extremely diverse skill tree and excellent ability to both tank and dish out damage, the Druid is an exceptionally versatile and effective class.
If you're playing through Diablo 4 as a Druid but aren't sure which skills to take and what gear to look for, don't worry — we're here to help with a thorough guide on the full Druid leveling process. Covered topics include the class' important stats and mechanics, the best overall Druid leveling skills and build, leveling tips, and recommendations for Legendary Aspects, Gems, and gear affixes that will synergize well with our suggested setup.
Diablo 4 Druid: Attributes and stat priority
Every class has four core stats — Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Willpower — and each one provides both universal and class-specific bonuses. For example, Strength gives all classes +1 Armor per point, but also grants x0.1% skill damage per point for Barbarians and x0.1% resource generation per point of for the Rogues.
The attributes that provide Druids with additional benefits are Intelligence, Willpower, and Dexterity, with Willpower being the most important since it raises Skill damage and also buffs Overpower damage (you'll be Overpowering a lot with the build we're recommending in this guide). You can see how all four of Diablo 4's stats affect the Druid in the table below.
In addition to using gear that improves your Willpower, you should also be on the lookout for Intelligence and Dexterity-boosting items. The former improves your Resource Generation, which is valuable since you'll need lots of Spirit for your best skills (we'll go over Spirit in the section below). The latter, on the other hand, raises your Critical Hit Chance. This isn't super important for the setup we're suggesting here, but extra crits are helpful nonetheless.
Diablo 4: How to play the Druid and Spirit Boons explained
Understanding Spirit: Each class has a resource they need to generate and then use as a "battery" for their main combat skills. The Druid's resource is Spirit, and like the Barbarian's Fury, it doesn't regenerate passively and must be built up and replenished by using Basic skills. However, unlike Fury, Spirit is not lost between fights. Once you have some Spirit, it will remain until you use it.
Since Spirit generation requires active use of your Basic skills, you'll need to be fairly aggressive while playing as a Druid. With that said, you shouldn't be overly aggressive, as you don't have resource degradation to worry about like Barbarians do. As tanky as Druids can be with the right setup, they're also the second slowest class after the Necromancer. This lack of mobility can make it very difficult to escape a sticky situation.
Spirit Boons: The Druid's unique class mechanic in Diablo 4 is the Spirit Boon system. At Level 15, you'll get a Priority Quest called Spirits of the Lost Grove that directs you to visit the Druid Ardreth in Túr Dúlra, Scolsgen. After finishing it, you'll be able to activate one Boon from each of the four different Animal Spirits — Deer, Eagle, Snake, and Wolf — with each Boon giving you a special bonus.
You can unlock more Boon options from each Animal Spirit by spending Druidic Spirit Offerings that drop from slain monsters, and can switch between these Boons at any time (the Snake doesn't trust humans, so you'll need to unlock all four of its Boons at once with 100 offerings). Also, once you've unlocked every Boon, you'll gain the ability to Spirit Bond with one of the Animal Spirits and choose an extra fifth Boon from them. Note that unlike your regular four Boons, the Boon you receive from Spirit Bonding can't be changed on the fly. Instead, you'll need to go back to Túr Dúlra if you want to swap it for a different one.
Diablo 4: Best way to level Druid
While you'll level up just fine by rushing through Diablo 4's campaign, we recommend taking things a bit slower. In addition to giving you more opportunities to enjoy the game's story and bask in its immaculate worldbuilding, exploring different areas, completing various types of side content, and playing on a higher World Tier will help you level up faster, too.
Below, we've listed all the best leveling tips and strategies that we've had great success with during our adventures through Sanctuary. Keep in mind that these apply to all Druid playstyles, so you don't have to use the build we've suggested in the section below to take advantage of them. Additionally, many of the general tips listed here are worth keeping in mind regardless of which class you're using.
- Play on World Tier 2: Veteran. Between World Tier 1 and 2, we recommend leveling on World Tier 2: Veteran for the 20% XP boost. The game will definitely be a little harder than it'd be if you were on World Tier 1, but with the skills and build we're suggesting below, you'll be able to get through it confidently.
- Don't forget to co-op. By participating in Diablo 4 multiplayer co-op, everyone in your party will get a 10% XP buff that stacks with the buff from playing on World Tier 2. Take advantage of it and you'll level up much faster than you would otherwise.
- Prioritize gear with Willpower and Intelligence and/or Core skill buffs. Willpower and Intelligence significantly raise your damage and Spirit generation respectively, while Core skill buffs will improve the strength of your main damage-dealing talents.
- Level up your healing potion as much as you can. Druids are generally on the front lines and will inevitably take plenty of hits, but upgrading your health potion gives you an effective and reliable way to heal. The process of doing this is easy, so make sure to pay Alchemists a visit.
- Complete every side quest in sight. Available side quests can be identified by the blue exclamation marks on your map and UI, and completing them will give you a healthy chunk of both XP and Gold.
- Explore the open world and complete world events, dungeons, and strongholds. All of these activities reward you with lots of XP and Gold, and will also raise your Renown rank (which will, in turn, give you even more XP). Completing dungeons also unlocks Legendary Aspect bonuses you can imprint on your gear at the Occultist NPCs in major towns and cities.
- Avoid fast traveling. Sure, fast traveling is convenient, but you're also missing out on a lot of XP (and Gold) from monsters slain and World Events completed while trekking through Sanctuary. All that XP adds up over time!
- Steadily play through main story quests. While you shouldn't rush through the game, main quests do provide lots of XP when you finish them. If you feel like your leveling progress has slowed, try progressing the story a bit. In addition to the main quest XP itself, you'll also get access to fresh areas to explore, new side quests to complete, and more.
Best Diablo 4 Druid leveling skills: Werebear Pulverize build
Thanks to the incredible talent diversity within the Diablo 4 Druid skill tree, there are a huge number of different builds that you can put together. During the betas we had a ton of fun using a Rabies and companion-focused Werewolf setup, and you can dish out plenty of pain with Earth and Storm Magic as well. At launch, though, we've seen the greatest success with a tanky Werebear build that takes advantage of the incredible area-of-effect power of the Pulverize Core skill.
The Druid are a bit squishy in the very early game, so to start, you'll want to take Storm Strike as your Basic skill because it provides a significant 25% damage resistance when you do damage with it. Once you've unlocked and maxed out Rampaging Pulverize to Overpower and Stun enemies along with the excellent defensive talent Earthen Bulwark, you can respec Storm Strike into the shapeshifting Basic skill Maul so that you're almost always in Werebear form.
From here, you'll get Trample to use for mobility and combat initiation, along with a point of Mending to bolster potion healing and fully upgraded Provocation for extra Overpower damage every 20 seconds. Then, you want the Grizzly Rage Ultimate that temporarily buffs you up with significant extra damage and damage resistance. Between it and passives like Wild Impulses, Predatory Instinct, and Iron Fur, you'll be incredibly resilient and can flatten monsters foolish enough to fight you with Pulverize. Make sure you take Ursine Strength as your Key Passive for a massive extra 20% health when you're in Werebear form (which will basically be all the time).
Before continuing, you'll want to get some gear with the Offensive Aspect of the Ursine Horror and Utility Aspect of Quicksand on it (you can use the Codex of Power if you don't find Legendaries with these Aspects naturally). The former turns Pulverize into an Earth skill and adds tectonic spikes that deal damage-over-time after you cast it, while the latter Slows enemies hit by Earth skills by a whopping 25-50%.
Once you have these Legendary Aspects at your disposal, max out Crushing Earth and Defiance to enjoy tons of bonus Pulverize damage against Elite enemies and the foes you Slow with it (respec Raging Pulverize to Primal Pulverize since the Stuns won't be very useful if you're already Slowing everything). Stone Guard will boost your damage even more whenever you're Fortified by Preserving Earthen Bulwark. Use your final few levels to max out Iron Fur and add Defensive Posture, a skill that increases the Fortify you gain from all sources, to your repertoire.
With the extra 10 skill points you can get from Renown levels, we recommend maxing out Earthen Bulwark and taking Safeguard for extra Fortify whenever you land crits. Upgrading to Natural Trample will turn the ability into another Fortify source, and Circle of Life allows Pulverize — now considered to be a Nature Magic skill thanks to our gear — to improve your sustainability with Mending-boosted healing.
Which Spirit Boons should I use?
Once you have the ability to choose Spirit Boon buffs from the Animal Spirits in Túr Dúlra, you'll want to unlock all of them as quickly as possible so that they're available for you to use. You can see what each Spirit Boon does by looking through the table below.
Many of the Spirit Boons synergize well with the above Pulverize build, but our favorites are Wariness, Swooping Attacks, Calm Before the Storm, and Bolster. Wariness reduces the damage you take from Elites, while Swooping Attacks will allow you to Maul foes between Pulverize casts considerably faster. Calm Before the Storm will make Pulverize lower your Grizzly Rage cooldown once you've got the aforementioned Legendary Aspects, and Bolster gives you a massive 10% max HP Fortify when you cast Earthen Bulwark.
After you unlock every Boon, you'll be able to Spirit Bond with one of the Animal Spirits and select an additional Boon from them to use. The Eagle's Iron Feather is a great choice for this "capstone" Boon, as is the Snake's Masochistic and the Deer's Gift of the Stag.
Diablo 4: Best Druid Aspects, gear, and gems
While gear is relatively unimportant early on — for a while, you should mostly just use items with the highest Armor and Attack Power — finding some kit that gives you valuable stat and skill bonuses becomes very important as you progress through the campaign. Unfortunately, whether you get something good or not is entirely dependent on RNG, but since Diablo 4 loot drops are plentiful, we doubt you'll have trouble finding items that synergize with your build.
As a Druid, you should look for gear that increases your Willpower, Intelligence, and/or Dexterity, buffs your Core skill's effectiveness, and/or improves your survivability in some way. Generally, buffs to sustain skills and effects like Fortify are better for melee-focused Werewolf or Werebear setups, as magic-wielding Druids that can kite and have more ranged options won't get hit as much.
In addition to regular Blacksmith upgrades, you can also bolster the stats of your items with Gems that you can find or craft once you reach level 20 and complete the Priority Quest to speak with the Jeweler in Kyovashad. Here are the best Gems to use with pieces of Druid gear, along with the bonuses that they give:
Best Diablo 4 Druid Aspects and where to find them
Throughout your Diablo 4 playthrough, you'll get access to several Legendary Aspects, either as bonuses you can earn by completing specific dungeons and then add to gear with the Codex of Power, or as effects on pieces of Legendary gear that drop in the wild. These Aspects radically alter what certain skills do or buff them immensely, and will no doubt take your build to the next level if you can get your hands on some that work with the talents you've chosen.
In addition to the two important Legendary Aspects for our Pulverize build we discussed in the section above, we've listed eight additional Aspects in the table below that you should consider using as you rip and tear your way through the campaign and head into the endgame. Note that some Aspects can only be obtained by extracting them from pieces of Legendary gear that drop with them.
To extract Legendary Aspects from drops and/or imprint them onto Rare gear pieces to turn them into Legendaries, you'll need to visit the Occultist vendors found in Sanctuary's major cities. It's worth noting that extracted Aspects can only be used once and can't be extracted again afterwards, so don't waste them on an item you'll likely need to replace soon. Generally, you should prioritize imprinting your amulet and rings until you reach the end of the campaign since they don't drop often and don't need to be swapped out as often as weapons and armor pieces do.
Experiment, have fun, and revel in the carnage
While our resilient and deadly Werebear Pulverize build is one of the best ways to play Druid, it's far from the only viable option. If you find that you're not having a good time with that playstyle, consider trying out a Werewolf setup or assailing Lilith's armies with vicious Earth and Storm Magic. Diablo 4 respecs aren't very expensive, so experimentation is strongly encouraged.
As Team Windows Central continues digging into Blizzard's massive new ARPG, we'll be sure to put together additional builds and guides for Diablo 4's other classes and the game's post-campaign activities. Stay tuned!
Diablo 4 is out now and is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, Windows PC, PS5, and PS4. It's one of the best Xbox games for fans of dungeon crawlers and hack-and-slash combat, and we've been having an absolute blast with it.
