Lightning Storm Druid Endgame Build Guide

Season 6 is the Season of Hatred Rising. It features the Zakarum Remnants faction which hunts Realmwalkers, massive behemoths that roam outdoor zones and beckon Mephisto's hellspawn. Participate in these zone events and take down the Realmwalkers to spawn a portal to a Seething Realm. There you can acquire Seething Opals, new consumables that stack with Elixirs for a XP buff and the chance to gather extra rewards when defeating enemies. The types of Opals are:

Use these Opals at all times to earn reputation with the Zakarum Remnants faction and unlock further rewards.

Skill Passives

• Bestial Rampage is a two-part passive, requiring both Shapeshifting forms to receive the full benefit. Werewolf form is attained when using Tempest Roar andLightning Storm, and Maul rounds out our Werebear needs.
• Envenom is our largest passive multiplier. It boosts Critical Strike damage as long as enemies are Poisoned. This is achieved rather easily with Tempest Roar and Toxic Claws, enabling our Lightning Storm to Poison on Critical Strikes.
• Quickshift and Nature's Reach provide considerable damage bonuses that synergize with our build. Vigilance and Circle of Life help keep us alive.

Skill Rotation

• Begin by stacking your Shapeshifting bonuses (Wildheart Hunger, Quickshift, Heightened Senses, etc.) by alternating between Lightning Storm and Maul.
• Once fully stacked, cast Lacerate and pull enemies in melee range. Upon exiting Lacerate, immediately cast Lightning Storm to deal damage. Cast Maul every 2-3 seconds in-between Lightning Storm casts to maintain your Shapeshifting buffs.
• Cast Blood Howl as often as possible to receive the bonuses from Vigilance and Backlash. Weave in Cyclone Armor if Blood Howl is on Cooldown. Use Earthen Bulwark if you predict a big hit or for Unstoppable.
• Ideally you want to move from pack to pack by casting Lacerate and pulling monsters towards you. Against Bosses, only cast Lacerate once every 10 seconds to refresh the damage buff.
• If you're having trouble surviving while channeling Lightning Storm, engage fights using Yom or replace Lacerate with Petrify. Petrify Stuns and pulls enemies allowing you to safely damage them.
• In situations where you run out of Spirit and cannot cast Lightning Storm, use Maul for a few hits to recover Spirit.

Spirit Boons

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.

Glyph Leveling Priorities

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 Lightning Storm Druid focuses on the following combos:

Best in Slot

• Lith + Wat - Decrepify helps with stagger, defense and allows execute at 10% HP. When combined with Xol in your other runeword it also generates large amounts of offering.
• Xol + Yom - Petrify functions with Airidah's Inexorable Will when triggered. While we don't receive the damage bonus, the increased Stuns and pulls from Airidah's Inexorable Will are good utility, helping Crowd Control monsters and Stagger Bosses.

Alternative choices

If you haven't unlocked the final setup or found the top runes, you can also benefit from these options:

• Ohm- War Cry offers a respectable damage bonus for a moderate duration.
• Bac - An alternative to Lith that requires a more mobile playstyle.
• Xal - Aids with survivability.
• Gar - Provides a large chunk of Critical Strike Chance. Great option early on.
• Mot - Enables the Rogue's Dark Shroud, which is a strong defensive option.
• Cir - A decent option that can be used with Maul.

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: Raheir

Raheir provides us with additional Resistance to All Elements and a means to surviving big hits in Valiance. His upgrades Ground Slam and Bastion round out our defenses nicely, while Inspiration allows us to leverage his Mercenary Skills for offensive bonuses.

Reinforcement: Aldkin

The Lightning Storm Druid uses Field of Languish when casting Lightning Storm for extra Damage Reduction while standing still.

To enable the Lightning Storm Druid to perform optimally, hunt for these stats on your gear with good rolls and aim to Temper ⚒️ & Masterwork Crit ↑ them accordingly. 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

Item Progression Goals

Before you dive into the endgame with the Lightning Storm 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.

This section is designed to guide your Lightning Storm Druid from a fresh level 60 into the very late endgame using the three variants Starter, Ancestral and Mythic. At the final step, you should be fully decked out with a great all-rounder build. From there, follow the other min/max variants if you want to optimize around certain activities such as Pit Pushing, Speedfarming and more.

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.

What can I do to improve survivability?

The build works really well when you decimate everything in seconds, but may get overwhelmed if fights are long against high level monsters. There are several adjustments you can make when you have trouble with more difficult content:

• Check if your Armor & Resists are capped.
• Use defensive consumables.
• Roll Maximum Life instead of offensive stats on as many pieces as possible.
• Kite enemies when they become Unstoppable.

How can I trigger Unstoppable?

Druids have only two non-Ultimate sources of Unstoppable. Trample and Earthen Bulwark. If you're not subscribed to their long Cooldown, Metamorphosis is a great alternative to those skills.

What can I do for better Spirit recovery?

In the early game you may occasionally starve on resources before you get Shapeshifting synergies online. It is recommended you invest in Spirit per Second while you look for a Tempest Roar. Alternatively, you can replace a support skill like Earthen Bulwark with Savage Trample or Innate Blood Howl for some nice bursts of Spirit.

Which adjustments should I make on Hardcore?

Generally hardcore and softcore share the same builds. Outside of being more prudent in your gameplay, you can also tweak the setup slightly to raise your survivability:

• Focus more on Armor & Resists, making sure that they are always capped especially as you transition into higher torment difficulties.
• Focus more on maximum life rolls, for example replacing DPS stats like main attributes, attack speed, critical strike chance and additive increased damage rolls. Also masterwork life more than normal if no other crucial stats have priority.
• Focus on adding defensive skills, passives and paragon nodes first as you level up.
• Play on a slightly lower difficulty than normal, don't push into difficult territory. As long as you can deal with all enemies swiftly, they can't retaliate.
• Include a source of Unstoppable if possible to get out of crowd controls.
• Use defensive elixirs and incenses instead of offensive ones.

Mechanics

Airidah's Inexorable Will

• Airidah's Inexorable Will activates when you cast an Ultimate Skill. At the moment of casting and 5 seconds after, all enemies in your FoV that are considered Distant will be pulled to your character. If the monster is Unstoppable or a Boss, the mechanic will still damage the monster, but will not pull it in.

Wildheart Hunger

• With these unique boots equipped, Shapeshifting adds a stack of Wildheart. Each stack of Wildheart increases the bonuses of your Bestial Rampage by 5%[+]. These stacks are additive, resulting in up to 50[x] damage and 50% Attack Speed bonuses. However, the stacks decrease at 2%[+] per second, essentially requiring a new Shapeshift form every 2-3 seconds in order to maintain the maximum stacks.

Attack Speed Caps

• While all the exact mechanics are much more nuanced, there are two separate Attack Speed Bonus caps of +100% that apply to all builds for a total potential of +200%. For Druids, these two caps are distributed in the following way:

Cap 1

• Gear rolls
• Paragon nodes
• Elixirs
• Artillery Shrine
• Swooping Attacks

Cap 2

• Werewolf Attack Speed Affix
• Preserving Blood Howl
• Bestial Rampage
• Wildheart Hunger
• Accelerating

For a more detailed explanation, read up more on Attack Speed in our dedicated guide by Ava.

Stagger

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.

The ‍Lightning Storm Druid is an excellent build with incredible speed and clear. It can dive deep into Nightmare Dungeons and the Pit. Late endgame, the build can be played smoothly without the use of a generator making it a highly efficient and enjoyable farming build.

• Shapeshifting every few seconds plays a major role in maintaining this build's damage.
• Utilize Airidah's Inexorable Will alongside Lacerate for big pulls when attacking packs.
• Acquire Tempest Roar as early as possible to enable all the Shapeshifting synergies.

Written by Danger

Reviewed by IBoilerUp