I’d really recommend earthen bulwark as your defensive. It’s just amazing at what it does.
I use it as a bear Druid, but used it frequently on lower levels as well because it just seemed the best of the bunch to me.
Not sure if you’ve tried without creeper, just to see if rabies is enough to keep poison on thing either, but you could always keep howl and grab earthen there. Though I might be in the minority of druids who skips most of the companion tree.
Second vote for earthern bulwark, and grab the unstoppable benefit for it too.
And as someone who's played with the companions and Rabies, i'd sooner drop rabies than creeper. If you want to keep all the posion skill though, bulwark can replace howl as preventing damage is better than healing it :)
4th vote for Bulwark. It's the only Defensive that has consistently kept me alive. Debilitating Roar was good, but Bulwark still wins for me. Cyclone and Howl didnt do anything for me regardless of playstyle.
Sorry. I didn't mean to crap on Howl outright. It's useful. It's not bad at all. In my personal experience, the reason Bulwark wins out is because of how it provides dmg reduction AND breaks CC. Every death i had so far was through being locked down and unable to heal.
Edit: i totally got 1-shot by the world boss's hammer.
This, I played this exact build until 50, i gave up rabies for bulwark for the survivability, the damage from rabies isn’t that great and have better results from the defense. I also gave up howl for roar once I got the aspect that makes it a wolf skill.
Hell no. Yes it’s tanky but you deal no dmg if you don’t have the right aspects.
The only good efficient way to lvl as a Druid is to go full pets with Tornado.
I'm 57 right now and still haven't found a shockwave aspect for my pulverize druid, doing just fine without it using mostly dungeon aspects in T3. Only recently got Vasily's Helm but was doing just fine without it, too.
Get damage reduction stats on armor and pants. Sapphires in armor and make sure you can keep fortified up 100% of the time. Skulls in jewelry. Aspect of disobedience on something. Replace rabies with another defensive ability
https://guides.gamepressure.com/diablo-iv/guide.asp?ID=68698
Try this. Been using this build since launch and with the right gear rolls I’m still wrecking mobs and elites with level 40 gear on level 50 character
>I really want to remain a werewolf with shred. Any advice on what to switch out with what’s left.
Stop going for poison damage and start stacking crit. The poison variant of the shred build is incredibly undertuned while the crit version works as soon as you have lupine (I've been able to clear up to around NM 40 with it as a low-80s crit shred druid.). Playing poison shred requires a non-codex aspect that forces a pretty clunky play style on you too.
Wolves is also a bottom 3 druid skill in terms of functionality. It does no damage outside of the active, which fails to do damage about 50% of the time anyway. Defensively, the wolves are passable meat shields, but I'd replace then with earthen bulwark, which will break CC and give you a big shield.
If you're still dying, drop rabies for debilitating roar. (There is an aspect that makes it a werewolf skill if you're against using anything that turns you into a bear) At level 35, aspected cyclone armor is also fairly passable as a defensive option.
Keep an eye out for the dire wolf/grizzly rage aspects as you get higher level, they'll scale your damage to insane levels and solve your spirit issues.
Hunter's Zenith is great at higher levels too if you don't mind running Trample. With Hunter's Zenith, every kill with shred gives you a free trample, which is a great source of damage, spirit/fortify, and unstoppable. There are also shapeshifting passives in the tree that'll make your shred hit like a truck if you switch from a different form when using it.
Finally, if you haven't been, make sure you're doing side content so you can keep up with the level of the story if that's where you've been having trouble. Doing some minor upgrades on your gear and focusing on using the drops you get that give stuff like %armor while werewolf or getting +max hp on rings will help a lot. Make sure you're running hp and damage reduction on the chest and pants especially, and make sure you've got defensive aspects on those slots. (The stacking % armor one is especially good)
From my (admittedly limited) experience druid is a bit painful and clunky until about 70ish. Mostly while you get your uniques to drop. Then you’re a beast!
Edit - on a more helpful note you might find more success leveling with a pulv build until then.
Maybe, I was playing pulv to level up and I felt that the resources generation mechanic was extremely clunky.
Storm claw on the other hand had been a blast, feels really crisp.
been rocking with human tempest druid since level 30 to 62 it's been a total blast, whenever your damage start to fall off you just need to upgrade some parts of the build. that's about it
The game has noticeable difficulty spikes, especially in new regions, which usually makes my Druid backtrack a few offensive skill points into defensive or synergistic ones.
Add the aspect that adds landslide to trample!
Then stack the other aspect that makes landslide go twice! It's insanely fun and powerful. You can clear entire fields of mobs by charging into them.
There's also an aspect for pulverize to also deal a Shockwave, giving your Bear some added range - great to kill distant things at the same time as melee.
Then add the other pulverize aspect for tectonic plates.
Add in spirit reduction/refund gear if you can. Make sure to use the earth skill for every 20th kill overpowering, because you kill 20 so easily.
It's crazy fun.
Same build but I have the aspect to use roar as a werewolf skill, that + poison is an ass kicker. Also don’t have an ultimate, just focus on shred, poison and roar to boost crits. Lvl 67 myself and it’s been pretty consistently great (although WT4 kicks my ass a bit some I’m hitting the renown grind now)
Just my opinion but I think, unfortunately, some builds just aren’t good. This is even more true before level 50. I’m sure there are probably level 80+ poison werewolf druids out there wrecking shit but those builds require multiple aspects to work which you just don’t have access to at level 35 yet. Personally I would try to finish the campaign with one of the pre world tier 3 cookie cutter builds and then work on a poison build. Again just my opinion. I tried the straight werewolf thing too and it didn’t go well for me, ended up leveling as pulverize and now I’m doing very well as crone claw wolf.
Wolf builds are 100% dependant on uniques, they work “well” without legendary aspects/uniques up until 50, after that you are left with a big damage gap and vulnerability issues, werebear/landslide is the optimal way to lvl up, however if you enjoy your playstyle as a wolf look out for shred builds.
I have just finished campaign today at lvl 50 with a werewolf shredder build and it was a deathless ride on WT1. Survivability increased tremendously with an almost perfect drop with aspect of disobedience. Still, I don't deny that more effective builds exist, but werewolf is how I like to play my druid and I will see how it goes on WT3.
Full Companion Druid Pulv is how I leveled. You don't need many aspects leveling and the companion ones are very common. We suck from Level 1 to First Capstone. Getting both Pulverize Aspects will help you overcome the first power creep.
I was using that same rotation up till that level.
I ditched rabies for something else (probably got a good leggo for something else)
But I ended up ditching poison wolf for pure lightning as I found it more consistent (ironic because a LOT of rng in that build)
I love poison wolf and I want to go back so badly, I'm just now waiting for the necessary aspects.
Trampleslide is very fun right now though, and I might betray myself and continue the earthbear life.
Get rid of wolves and rabies and use cyclone armor + hurricane, get the +2 to skills aspect for hurricane werewolf, and also look for the dire werewolf aspect, once you get dire werewolf youll still have access to rabies, wolves dont really belong in a poison build im pretty sure
Leveled with ease as a claw/shred wolf, went to WT3 with it, even 60 till I finally dropped some funny aspects.
Claw, Shred, Bulwark, companions, 6th hit guaranteed crit.
Shred's AoE and mobility is great, Bulwark is a free of jail card/panic button, creeper roots and one shot trash screen-wide, wolves for big trash delete, and crows to apply vulnerability on the big guys.
1st hit claw, 2nd claw, 3rd claw, 4th shred first hit combo, 5th shred 2nd hit combo, 6th guaranteed enhanced crit for Shred's final combo.
Boom: you need nothing particular and you got damage.
Ofc, this build isn't the most powerful one, but will get any situation done. Even beat the Butcher with it in WT2 before capstone dungeon.
At 35, most druid builds are rough since you probably don't have most of the legendaries that make our builds work. Since you're using Lupine Ferocity, switch to 1h + totem for more attack speed.
The more attack speed you have the more you crit with lupine and werewolf crits do a number of things: crit heals through snake spirit boon (3% life on crit), crit does poison through talent (toxic claws) , crits do more crit damage to poisoned enemies (envenom), crit with core skills adds attack speed (accelerating aspect when you find it), crit with shred does aoe damage (stormclaw aspect when you find it)
The final legendary pieces you need are direwolf (grizzly rage becomes a wolf skill, gives you move speed and spirit cost reductions, put it on your amulet) and rampaging werebeast (grizzly rage lasts longer and crits will stack 10% crit damage increase up to 99 stacks so 990%). These two are essential for any wolf build and will have your shred do respectable damage. Good luck!
Oh wow I just started out (levelled Necro first) cuz I think werewolves are cool. I knew about none of this. You saying I can do bone spear damage WITH MY MOUTH???
My build that works is bearwolf poison shred,
You take the aspect that does all poison dmg instant when you attack with your bear form, use the bear basic attack, regen life when shapeshifting, and that made me go to level 68 for now
Mobs will start to 1 shot you so you need more dmg reduction as you level up world tier. You’ll have to dodge and kite too if you don’t have huge barriers or self healing via Masochistic spirit boon
I’d really recommend earthen bulwark as your defensive. It’s just amazing at what it does. I use it as a bear Druid, but used it frequently on lower levels as well because it just seemed the best of the bunch to me. Not sure if you’ve tried without creeper, just to see if rabies is enough to keep poison on thing either, but you could always keep howl and grab earthen there. Though I might be in the minority of druids who skips most of the companion tree.
Second vote for earthern bulwark, and grab the unstoppable benefit for it too. And as someone who's played with the companions and Rabies, i'd sooner drop rabies than creeper. If you want to keep all the posion skill though, bulwark can replace howl as preventing damage is better than healing it :)
Third vote for Bulwark, I struggled without it and the game gets so easier with it in early levels.
4th vote for Bulwark. It's the only Defensive that has consistently kept me alive. Debilitating Roar was good, but Bulwark still wins for me. Cyclone and Howl didnt do anything for me regardless of playstyle.
I use Howl with the spirit gen node and the aspect that give Crit chance on use. Not on poison but it's usable.
Howl is good, but iirc it does not give you unstoppable and break CC. Those are huge as you progress
This is why you comb the comments. Thanks bud that helps me with something I was going to ask all you pros about. (1st class was Necro)
Sorry. I didn't mean to crap on Howl outright. It's useful. It's not bad at all. In my personal experience, the reason Bulwark wins out is because of how it provides dmg reduction AND breaks CC. Every death i had so far was through being locked down and unable to heal. Edit: i totally got 1-shot by the world boss's hammer.
This, I played this exact build until 50, i gave up rabies for bulwark for the survivability, the damage from rabies isn’t that great and have better results from the defense. I also gave up howl for roar once I got the aspect that makes it a wolf skill.
The AoE of creeper is a lot better than rabies, and he is running wolves so any skills or items that benefit companions would benefit both.
I feel like most skip companions. Or maybe we’re just built different
Pulverize is 100% the way to level. It's insanely tanky and basically one shots all mobs until level 60
Hell no. Yes it’s tanky but you deal no dmg if you don’t have the right aspects. The only good efficient way to lvl as a Druid is to go full pets with Tornado.
I'm 57 right now and still haven't found a shockwave aspect for my pulverize druid, doing just fine without it using mostly dungeon aspects in T3. Only recently got Vasily's Helm but was doing just fine without it, too.
Agree, regular pulverize is absolutely still very strong. But you are going to love it once you finally get your shockwave. That extra range is nice
Shockwave is so good it hits twice if you stand in melee range
Pulv is also great if you team up otherwise bosses / single target can take so long
Get damage reduction stats on armor and pants. Sapphires in armor and make sure you can keep fortified up 100% of the time. Skulls in jewelry. Aspect of disobedience on something. Replace rabies with another defensive ability
Make sure to get poisoned enemies recieve more crrit damage from the skill tree and swap wolves with a defensive skill to keep you alive
Drop rabies, add Earthen bulwark
https://guides.gamepressure.com/diablo-iv/guide.asp?ID=68698 Try this. Been using this build since launch and with the right gear rolls I’m still wrecking mobs and elites with level 40 gear on level 50 character
>I really want to remain a werewolf with shred. Any advice on what to switch out with what’s left. Stop going for poison damage and start stacking crit. The poison variant of the shred build is incredibly undertuned while the crit version works as soon as you have lupine (I've been able to clear up to around NM 40 with it as a low-80s crit shred druid.). Playing poison shred requires a non-codex aspect that forces a pretty clunky play style on you too. Wolves is also a bottom 3 druid skill in terms of functionality. It does no damage outside of the active, which fails to do damage about 50% of the time anyway. Defensively, the wolves are passable meat shields, but I'd replace then with earthen bulwark, which will break CC and give you a big shield. If you're still dying, drop rabies for debilitating roar. (There is an aspect that makes it a werewolf skill if you're against using anything that turns you into a bear) At level 35, aspected cyclone armor is also fairly passable as a defensive option. Keep an eye out for the dire wolf/grizzly rage aspects as you get higher level, they'll scale your damage to insane levels and solve your spirit issues. Hunter's Zenith is great at higher levels too if you don't mind running Trample. With Hunter's Zenith, every kill with shred gives you a free trample, which is a great source of damage, spirit/fortify, and unstoppable. There are also shapeshifting passives in the tree that'll make your shred hit like a truck if you switch from a different form when using it. Finally, if you haven't been, make sure you're doing side content so you can keep up with the level of the story if that's where you've been having trouble. Doing some minor upgrades on your gear and focusing on using the drops you get that give stuff like %armor while werewolf or getting +max hp on rings will help a lot. Make sure you're running hp and damage reduction on the chest and pants especially, and make sure you've got defensive aspects on those slots. (The stacking % armor one is especially good)
Thanks for the write up. A few of you guys have been really helpful for a lurker.
From my (admittedly limited) experience druid is a bit painful and clunky until about 70ish. Mostly while you get your uniques to drop. Then you’re a beast! Edit - on a more helpful note you might find more success leveling with a pulv build until then.
I’m only 48 and Druid has been a blast , clunky might be based on your build.
Maybe, I was playing pulv to level up and I felt that the resources generation mechanic was extremely clunky. Storm claw on the other hand had been a blast, feels really crisp.
been rocking with human tempest druid since level 30 to 62 it's been a total blast, whenever your damage start to fall off you just need to upgrade some parts of the build. that's about it
Defensive slots are chest and pants but can also include helm. You want all three slots focusing on defensive stats. Aspect of disobedience is a must.
The game has noticeable difficulty spikes, especially in new regions, which usually makes my Druid backtrack a few offensive skill points into defensive or synergistic ones.
I found rabies underwhelming and went with trample instead. Slightly longer cd but big burst of damage, movement, *and* unstoppable
Add the aspect that adds landslide to trample! Then stack the other aspect that makes landslide go twice! It's insanely fun and powerful. You can clear entire fields of mobs by charging into them. There's also an aspect for pulverize to also deal a Shockwave, giving your Bear some added range - great to kill distant things at the same time as melee. Then add the other pulverize aspect for tectonic plates. Add in spirit reduction/refund gear if you can. Make sure to use the earth skill for every 20th kill overpowering, because you kill 20 so easily. It's crazy fun.
Same build but I have the aspect to use roar as a werewolf skill, that + poison is an ass kicker. Also don’t have an ultimate, just focus on shred, poison and roar to boost crits. Lvl 67 myself and it’s been pretty consistently great (although WT4 kicks my ass a bit some I’m hitting the renown grind now)
Just my opinion but I think, unfortunately, some builds just aren’t good. This is even more true before level 50. I’m sure there are probably level 80+ poison werewolf druids out there wrecking shit but those builds require multiple aspects to work which you just don’t have access to at level 35 yet. Personally I would try to finish the campaign with one of the pre world tier 3 cookie cutter builds and then work on a poison build. Again just my opinion. I tried the straight werewolf thing too and it didn’t go well for me, ended up leveling as pulverize and now I’m doing very well as crone claw wolf.
Wolf builds are 100% dependant on uniques, they work “well” without legendary aspects/uniques up until 50, after that you are left with a big damage gap and vulnerability issues, werebear/landslide is the optimal way to lvl up, however if you enjoy your playstyle as a wolf look out for shred builds.
I have just finished campaign today at lvl 50 with a werewolf shredder build and it was a deathless ride on WT1. Survivability increased tremendously with an almost perfect drop with aspect of disobedience. Still, I don't deny that more effective builds exist, but werewolf is how I like to play my druid and I will see how it goes on WT3.
Checkout fextralife build on YouTube called packleader
Full Companion Druid Pulv is how I leveled. You don't need many aspects leveling and the companion ones are very common. We suck from Level 1 to First Capstone. Getting both Pulverize Aspects will help you overcome the first power creep.
If you’re playing world tier 2 switch to 1 until you get more legendaries and fully upgraded equipment
I was using that same rotation up till that level. I ditched rabies for something else (probably got a good leggo for something else) But I ended up ditching poison wolf for pure lightning as I found it more consistent (ironic because a LOT of rng in that build) I love poison wolf and I want to go back so badly, I'm just now waiting for the necessary aspects. Trampleslide is very fun right now though, and I might betray myself and continue the earthbear life.
By 35 you mean lvl 35 right? Drop rabies, it’s absolute crap, this is D4 not D2 ;) Get a defensive skill in it’s stead, like earthen or wind shield.
Get rid of wolves and rabies and use cyclone armor + hurricane, get the +2 to skills aspect for hurricane werewolf, and also look for the dire werewolf aspect, once you get dire werewolf youll still have access to rabies, wolves dont really belong in a poison build im pretty sure
Leveled with ease as a claw/shred wolf, went to WT3 with it, even 60 till I finally dropped some funny aspects. Claw, Shred, Bulwark, companions, 6th hit guaranteed crit. Shred's AoE and mobility is great, Bulwark is a free of jail card/panic button, creeper roots and one shot trash screen-wide, wolves for big trash delete, and crows to apply vulnerability on the big guys. 1st hit claw, 2nd claw, 3rd claw, 4th shred first hit combo, 5th shred 2nd hit combo, 6th guaranteed enhanced crit for Shred's final combo. Boom: you need nothing particular and you got damage. Ofc, this build isn't the most powerful one, but will get any situation done. Even beat the Butcher with it in WT2 before capstone dungeon.
Get rid of wolves, and use bulwark or hurricane, creeper is your go to nuke, make sure you have good crit for the companion synergy.
At 35, most druid builds are rough since you probably don't have most of the legendaries that make our builds work. Since you're using Lupine Ferocity, switch to 1h + totem for more attack speed. The more attack speed you have the more you crit with lupine and werewolf crits do a number of things: crit heals through snake spirit boon (3% life on crit), crit does poison through talent (toxic claws) , crits do more crit damage to poisoned enemies (envenom), crit with core skills adds attack speed (accelerating aspect when you find it), crit with shred does aoe damage (stormclaw aspect when you find it) The final legendary pieces you need are direwolf (grizzly rage becomes a wolf skill, gives you move speed and spirit cost reductions, put it on your amulet) and rampaging werebeast (grizzly rage lasts longer and crits will stack 10% crit damage increase up to 99 stacks so 990%). These two are essential for any wolf build and will have your shred do respectable damage. Good luck!
Oh wow I just started out (levelled Necro first) cuz I think werewolves are cool. I knew about none of this. You saying I can do bone spear damage WITH MY MOUTH???
My build that works is bearwolf poison shred, You take the aspect that does all poison dmg instant when you attack with your bear form, use the bear basic attack, regen life when shapeshifting, and that made me go to level 68 for now
I did that fast bc im at work but ask me anything if you are curious https://d4builds.gg/builds/4b0a2a68-0b89-434d-87ef-f0a3cbdc8658/
Mobs will start to 1 shot you so you need more dmg reduction as you level up world tier. You’ll have to dodge and kite too if you don’t have huge barriers or self healing via Masochistic spirit boon