Diablo 4 Lightning Druid Leveling Build Season 6 – Endless Cataclysm
Oct. 7, 2024Diablo 4 Lightning Druid Leveling Build Season 6 – Endless Cataclysm
In thisDiablo 4LightningDruidLevelingBuild(for Vessel of Hatred or 2.0 works with both!), I’ll teach you how to make an easy to play and powerful Lightning DruidBuildwith few gear requirements, good damage, and excellent growth to carry you all the way to Torment I. This is a solid Lightning DruidBuildthat isn’t 100% min/maxed because you will continue to change your gear from this point onward, but it will get you to Torment I and through Torment I without issues.
The StormcrowBuildis a Diablo 4 DruidBuildthat takes advantage of the buff toCataclysm’sdamage, makes use of its 5 skill point investment for even more damage and cooldown, a long with a couple of new Legendary Aspects that absolutely crank it to the next level, and Druid passives that make reducing your Ultimate’s cooldown rather easy.
The idea is to keepCataclysmup 100% of the time, or to maintain 100% uptime onCataclysmso that every time it is off cooldown you just pop it again and continue to decimate enemies and bosses on the screen. Cooldown reduction is of course crucial for this, as it makes it possible, so you’ll want this on every piece of gear that you can have it on: Head, Amulet, Totem, andCataclysmCooldown Tempered onto both Rings if possible.
Additionally, you’ll want to take Calamity, which increases the duration of your Ultimate Skills by 25%, and Calm Before The Storm which helps reduce Ultimate Cooldown by 2 seconds through Lucky Hit with Nature Skills. These make this much easier to accomplish, and allows you to reduce Cataclysm’s cooldown with your other Skills while it is active.
Lastly, the new Blood Boiling Aspect guarantees you an Overpower every 20 Seconds. This allows us to OverpowerCataclysmonce every 20 seconds, which means every hit dealt by it will be Overpowered, which is incredible! Cataclysm lasts 17.5 seconds with this setup, and as you get your cooldown closer to 25 seconds you can pretty much cast Cataclysm Overpowered each time you cast it, which is devastating. 100% uptime on Overpowered Cataclysm? Yes Please!
The Skills we’ll be taking for this Diablo 4 Lightning DruidBuildwill mostly be Storm Skills, but we will also pick up 2 other Skills,Earthen Bulwarkand Ravens in order to round out our Build.Earthen Bulwarkis a staple Barrier in many DruidBuilds, and Ravens is used with a new Aspect in order to deal Lightning Damage and to stun enemies.
We use Wind Shear for our Basic Skill and we don’t use it often, but it’s a good way to build up Spirit if we need it, which we do need sometimes at this point in the game. This will likely be swapped out in a more End Game focused Build, but we combine it with the Hectic Aspect, which reduces Cooldowns with every 5 basic attacks in order to help getCataclysm’scooldown lower when needed, though this Aspect will not be needed once you have its cooldown low enough. Make sure you take the Wild Wind Shear upgrade for more Spiritbuildup per hit.
Lightning Storm is our go to Core Skill for when we have enemies grouped up or we just have Spirit to burn. You won’t need it all that often, but it will help burn down packs of elites and Bosses whileCataclysmis running, so get used to using it. Alternate with Wind Sheer when you need resources so you can keep casting. Which upgrade you choose is not super important at this point.
Earthen Bulwark
Earthen Bulwark is our Barrier against damage and also works to get us out of Crowd Control since it grants Unstoppable when taking the Enhanced Earthen Bulwark upgrade. You can use Aspect of Mending Stone to increase its duration if you wish, or use Earthguard Aspect to increase its potency, or both if you need them. Either upgrade is fine to take.
Ravens
Next we have Ravens which we use for Lightning Damage with the new Stormcrow’s Aspect, and also and more importantly for the Stun. This allows us some Crowd Control that we can cast at range, rather than having to be up close like with Poison Creeper, keeping us out of harm’s way. Often you’ll use this to CC enemies trying to kill you while waiting forCataclysmto come off of Cooldown when your Cooldown Reduction isn’t high enough, and it can save your life. Which upgrade you take isn’t super important.
Hurricane
Hurricane is another Storm Skill we use to try to trigger Calm Before The Storm whileCataclysmis running, it deals a bit of Physical Damage, and it reduces the damage enemies deal that are hit by it by 20% when taking the Savage Hurricane upgrade, helping to keep us alive. Use this pretty much every time it’s off cooldown as long as there is something near by to hit.
Cataclysm
This is our Ultimate Skill, and you should know the drill by this point with this skill. It throws out Lightning Bolts and Tornados all over the screen for 17.5 seconds when full upgraded and using Calamity, and its damage was buffed with the Vessel of Hatred update. This is the main source of damage for thisBuild, and we lean into it as much as we can.
Full Stormcrow Lightning Druid Skill Distribution:
I have Wariness, for less damage from Elites, which almost becomes mandatory as you get to harder difficulties.Scythe Talonsfor Critical Chance,Calamityfor Ultimate Duration and I’ve bonded with the Snake in order to get bothCalm Before The Stormand Overload, which helps to improve our damage.Cataclysmhas a very high Lucky Hit Chance, so this can be triggered often by it.
Equipmentis the most important part of anybuild, but because it is random it should not stop your leveling build from being able to progress through content. With this specific build, the skill distribution is powerful and you can be very unoptimized and progress, but you can look at the gear recommendations to see what you should be looking for. Try to useLegendary Aspectsto adjust to your needs while you farm levels and better gear. In general you should not bother tempering items until after level 60, when you will get Item Power 750 items that will be your default for a while.
My current Lightning DruidBuildis making use of two unique items that I got really early, but thisBuildwill work just fine without them, and I mainly use them for their Cooldown Reduction. These areGodslayer CrownandAiridah’s Inexorable Will. You can replace these with a Helmet with Cooldown Reduction and any Ring with a TemperedCataclysmCooldown Reduction and it will come out the same, however, they do pull enemies together which allows for all your Dancing Bolts to hit everything easily, and it pulls enemies automatically so you don’t even have to do anything which is great.
As a general note, try to prioritize Cooldown Reduction, Willpower, Lucky Hit Chance, and Critical Strike Chance. Cooldown is needed forCataclysm, Willpower for damage, Lucky Hit to help trigger Cooldown Reduction from Calm Before the Storm, as well as extra damage from Overload and Overcharged Aspect. Critical Strike Chance boosts damage, and also helps to trigger the Runeworker’s Aspect.
Helm
Godslayer Crown(Unique) orEarthguard Aspect: Gain [10 – 30]% bonus amount to your next Earthen Bulwark for each enemy you Crowd Control up to a maximum of 100%
Affixes to look for:
Gloves
Unsung Ascetic’s WrapsorStormcrow’s Aspect: Ravens now deal Lightning Damage which is increased by [60-100]%. Active deals its full damage in half the time, and enemies inside are stunned.
Chest
Hectic Aspect: After casting 5 Basic Skills, one of your active Cooldowns is reduced by [1.0-2.5] seconds.
Legs
Aspect of the Protector: Damaging an Elite enemy grants you aBarrierabsorbing up to [X] damage for 10 seconds. This effect can only happen once every 30 seconds.
Boots
Windbolt Aspect: Every [3.5-2.0] seconds, Distant enemies are Pulled In to you an take 10% increased damage for 3 seconds.
Weapon
One-Handed Sword or One-Handed Mace –Blood Boiling Aspect: When your Core Skills Overpower an enemy, you spawn 3 Volatile Blood Drops. Collecting a Volatile Blood Drop causes it to explode dealing [x] Physical damage around you. Every 20 seconds, your next skill is guaranteed to Overpower.
Totem
Runeworker’s Aspect:
Critical Strikes withStormSkills that you cast charge the air around you for 3 seconds causing aLightning Boltto periodically hit an enemy in the area for [x] Lightning damage. Your Lightning Bolts deal [20 – 50]%[x] increased damage.
Neck
Lightning Dancer’s Aspect:Lightning StormCritical Strikes spawn 3 Dancing Bolts that seek enemies in the area dealing [x] Lightning damage.
Ring 1
Mjolnic RingorOvercharged Aspect: Lucky Hit: Up to a [15-31%] chance when dealing Lightning damage to overload the target for 3 seconds, causing any direct damage you deal to them to pulse [x] additional damage to surrounding enemies.
Ring 2
Airidah’s Inexorable WillorAspect of Calm Breeze: Wind Shear now deals [x] Poison damage over 4 seconds. Lucky Hit:Wind Shearhas up to a [6-14]% chance to fully restore your Spirit
I played around a lot with Runewords trying to find something that worked, and so far they have been a thoroughly disappointing experience, at least for levellingbuilds. The Runeword casts do not count towards your Key Passive for the stat boost, and the skills that I found where overall lame. So I decided to simply focus on gems. For gems, you’ll want to slot:
This is a Diablo 4 Lightning Druid levelingbuildintended to get your feet wet with the class and allow you to have fun exploring the areas of the game and starting activities. However, this is also a powerful and engagingbuildthat can make content exciting and you will probably want to stick to this gamestyle as you continue.
I will be releasing a higher levelbuildwith actually optimized gear, aspects and progression aimed at completing the new activity, the Dark Citadel, that is a new and unique mode with full on raid mechanics that you are probably unprepared for. Your Torment progression will be heavily based on finding Ancestral gear with Greater Affixes that matches the right bonuses and gives you the right amount of resistances while not nerfing your damage, while you hunt for the legendary manuals so you can temper the best stuff in.
If you want to continue thisbuildand begin your paragon progression, you will want to work toward these boards and glyphs:
Paragon Boards:
Glyphs:
So that wraps up our Stormcrow Lightning DruidBuildGuide that focuses on endlessCataclysm, which absolutely decimates content and is rather easy to put together because there are not a ton of necessary Aspects to make it work and because there are some great Uniques that support its gameplay style. Be sure to check out the Diablo IV Wiki for any help you might need, and stay tuned for our other ClassBuildLeveling and End Game Guides!
Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
