Pulverize
Druid Build for Diablo 4
Last Update: June 10, 2023
| Build notes: |
June 10, 2023
-Build created |
Build Overview
The Druid class has access to quite diverse types of gameplay. This Guide focuses on the Shapeshifter style, using the Pulverize Skill as a main way of dealing Damage. With this ability, you will smash the ground in front of you, and potentially send out a huge shockwave to further boost your damage and clear if you have found a particular Aspect. To use this Skill you will need to generate Spirit. To do so, you will use a Werewolf ability, Claw. It is a pretty simple basic ability that has one particularly interesting trait: it always Poisons Enemies, which allows you to take advantage of powerful conditional modifiers such as increased Critical Damage or Reduced Damage taken from Poisoned Enemies. The Grizzly Rage is arguably the best Ultimate Skill for a Druid, as it massively increases your Damage and survivability.
Pulverize has a great Area of Effect and can comfortably take you through the whole leveling process all the way to the end-game. Its single-target Damage is not its strongest suit, but it is not a problem until you start pushing high Nightmare Dungeon Tiers.
Please keep in mind, that the following Guide explains the basic variant of the build, without diving into all alternative variants that may utilize different utility skills for various benefits. This will be obviously updated as we have a chance to test out this build properly in the actual game.
You can also check our other Diablo 4 Builds
 Pros |
 Cons |
| Easy to get started |
Single-target Damage is lacking |
| Great for speed-farming |
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| Very tanky and almost permanently Unstoppable |
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Skills
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PULVERIZE [5/5]
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Your main Spirit spender. It deals massive Damage in large Area in front of you, and which particular Aspects it also sends out a Shockwave and leaves a spiky ground that deals pretty high Damage over Time.
Modifiers:
- Enhanced Pulverize [1/1] - every 12 seconds you will deal additional Damage with an Overpowered Hit.
- Primal Pulverize [1/1] - enemies Hit by Pulverize deal significantly reduced Damage for 4 second, which is a great defensive layer.
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CLAW [1/5]
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A simple attack that also turns you into Werewolf. It has great Attack Speed which makes up for smoother gameplay, and always inflicts Poison. It is used to generate Spirit, so you can also use any other Basic Skill ability to your liking.
Modifiers:
- Enhanced Claw [1/1] - improves the Attack Speed of this ability, which allows you to generate Spirit faster.
- Fierce Claw [1/1] - hitting Enemies with Claw will inflict Poison for 6 seconds.
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EARTHEN BULWARK [1/5]
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A useful defensive Skill that forms a Barrier around you, protecting you from incoming Damage. It has a relatively low Duration, so you should use it wisely.
Modifiers:
- Enhanced Earthen Bulwark [1/1] - grants you Unstoppable which makes you immune to incoming Crowd Control effects.
- Preserving Earthen Bulwark [1/1] - Fortifies you for 18% of your maximum Life.
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DEBILITATING ROAR [1/5]
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A very powerful Defensive ability that reduces Damage of all nearby Enemies by 70%. Use it when you anticipate dangerous fights.
Modifiers:
- Enhanced Debilitating Roar [1/1] - using this Roar also generates a decent amount of Fortify on you.
- Preserving Debilitating Roar [1/1] - with this upgrade you will regenerate 16% of maximum Life over its duration.
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TRAMPLE [1/5]
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Druid's only Movement ability. It causes you to quickly dash toward the targeted direction. Knocking Enemies into terrain will Stun them, which has a great defensive and offensive value.
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GRIZZLY RAGE [1/1]
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A very powerful Ultimate Ability that massively increases your Damage dealt and reduces Damage taken by you. The Damage bonus starts low and increases over the duration. With high Cooldown Reduction on your gear, you can make it almost permanent.
Modifiers:
- Prime Grizzly Rage [1/1] - grants you immunity against Crowd Control effect.
- Supreme Grizzly Rage [1/1] - steadily generates Fortify over its duration.
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Passive Skills
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WILD IMPULSES [3/3]
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| Increases the Spriti cost of your Skills, but grants a decent amount of Damage Multiplier. |
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ABUNDANCE [3/3]
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| Improves your Spirit generation to counter the penalty of the previous Passive. |
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PREDATORY INSTINCT [3/3]
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| Grants you a 6% Critical Strike Chance, as you will always be in Close Distance with your Enemies when dealing Damage. |
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IRON FUR [3/3]
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| This Passive grants you a 9% Damage Reduction while in the Werebear form and for 3 seconds after leaving it, which is almost all the time. |
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VIGILANCE [3/3]
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| Using your Defensive Skills will further improve your Damage Reduction. |
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ANCESTRAL FORTITUDE [3/3]
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| Stacking particular Resistances is ineffective, but this Passive grants you Damage Reduction against all non-Physical types. |
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CRUSHING EARTH [3/3]
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| Your Earth Skills deal more Damage to Slowed Enemies. Pick it up once you acquire the Ursine Horror Aspect which turns Pulverize into Earth Skill. |
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STONE GUARD [3/3]
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| Improves the Damage of your Earth Skill when you have a high amount of Fortify, which you should have no problems keeping up. |
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NEUROTOXIN [1/3]
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| Your Poison from the Claw Skill will also Slow your Enemies, which allows for even more combinations of Conditional Damage improvements to be effective. |
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ENVENOM [3/3]
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| Massively improves your Damage against Poisoned Enemies. |
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DEFIANCE [3/3]
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| Your Nature Skills (which include Earth) will deal more Damage against Elite enemies. |
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CIRCLE OF LIFE [3/3]
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| Your Pulverize will also heal you for 3% of your maximum Life every time you use it. |
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NATURAL DISASTER [3/3]
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| If you can reliably inflict Stun, Knock Back, or Immobilize you should pick this Passive to increase your Damage against such foes. |
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RESONANCE [3/3]
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| Another good amount of Damage improvement for your Skills. |
Key Passive
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EARTHEN MIGHT
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| A very powerful Passive for all Earth Skills, it grants you a chance to fully regenerate all your Spirit or always deal Critical Strikes for 5 seconds. |
Spirit Boons
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Wariness
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| The best Boon of the Deer, it reduces the Damage you take from Elite Enemies. |
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Avian Wrath
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| A great amount of Critical Strike Damage makes one-shotting enemies with Pulverize even easier. |
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Calamity
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| This Boon makes your Ultimate Ability last longer, and thus easier to have permanent uptime. |
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Masochistic
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| Your Critical Strikes with Pulverize and Claw will Heal you for 3% of your maximum Life. |
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Calm Before the Storm
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| Another great Boon that is used to improve your uptime on the Grizzly Rage. |
Items
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Critical Strike Chance and Damage is the main way to scale your Damage in Diablo 4, and this Build is no exception. Other than that, you should look for bonuses to Cooldown Reduction and all modifiers related to Spirit, which will improve your uptime on your Buffs, and make spamming Pulverize easier. Attack Speed and Ranks for your main Skills is also great way to improve your Damage. You should also look for bonuses to Vulnerable Damage, which you can apply through the Exploit Glyph. After that, you should look for various sources of increased Damage, preferably the universal ones, or with conditions easy to meet with this Build, such as against Poisoned, Vulnerable, Slowed, or Close Distance Enemies. Willpower and all other Attributes except for Strength are also quite useful. The defenses are pretty universal, try to get Damage Reduction, maximum Life, and some Armour everywhere you can.
Sapphire socketed in your Weapon will greatly improve your Damage output thanks to the Slow you can easily inflict on Enemies. In your Armour Sockets, you should put either Ruby or Sapphire, depending on your uptime on the Fortify (if it's low, use Rubies). For Jewelry, it will always be Skull for additional Armour.
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OPTIONAL UNIQUE ITEMS
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Insatiable Fury (Armour) - grants extra Damage Reduction and improved Armour. It will make you be in the Bear Form by default and improves the Ranks of all your Werebear Skills.
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+ Total Armor while in Werebear Form
+ Damage Reduction while Fortified
+ Physical Damage
+ Overpower Damage
Werebear form is now your true form, and you gain +2 Ranks to all Werebear Skills.
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Temerity (Pants) - a very good option to gain tons of additional Barrier through all Healing sources you have.
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+ Potion Charges
+ Potion Drop Rate
+ Lucky Hit: Chance to Heal
+ Healing
Effects that Heal you beyond 100% Life grant you a Barrier up to [40 - 80%] of your Maximum Life that lasts for 8 seconds.
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Penitent Greaves (Boots) - those Boots form a Chilling ground around you, enabling various modifiers versus Crowd Controlled Enemies, and increase your Damage against them.
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+Movement Speed
+Crowd Control Duration
+Reduced Duration of Enemy Slow
+Cold Resistance
You leave behind a trail of frost that Chills enemies. You deal [7 - 10%] more damage to Chilled enemies.
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Mother's Embrace (Ring) - a great Ring to increase your Damage. It also makes your Pulverize much easier to sustain in AoE situations.
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+Critical Strike Chance
+Critical Strike Damage
+Overpower Damage
+Core Skill Damage
If a Core Skill hits 5 or more Enemies, [20 - 40%] of the Resource cost is refunded.
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CODEX OF POWER
Legendary Aspects
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Mandatory/Heavily recommended Aspects
- Aspect of the Ursine Horror turns your Pulverize into an Earth Skill which enables much more scaling opportunities. It also causes it to leave a ground effect that deals Damage for 2 seconds after using this skill.
- Shockwave Aspect using Pulverize will send out a powerful Shockwave that can overlap with your Pulverize for massive Damage. It is best to use it on a 2-handed Weapon for doubled effectiveness.
- Aspect of Retaliation is a great Damage Multiplier for your Pulverize given you can accumulate your Fortify effect fast enough to sustain it on a high level. Preferably imbue it on Amulet to get a 50% increased effect.
Optional Aspects
- Aspect of the Umbral greatly improves your Spirit sustain once you start inflicting Crowd Control on your enemies.
- Aspect of Quicksand makes your Earth Skills inflict Slow, which enables many Passive Effect and Damage bonuses.
- Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast makes your Ultimate Ability even more powerful. It will last longer and improve your Critical Strike Damage.
- Aspect of Might while you generate Spirit with your Basic Skill, you will also gain a Damage Reduction buff for 6 seconds.
- Aspect of the Protector helps you in battle with Elite Enemies by granting you a decent amount of Barrier every 30 seconds.
- Aspect of Disobedience is another great defensive Aspect, it improves your Armour during the battle. The stacks fall off relatively quickly when you do not fight any Enemy.
- Aspect of Mending Stone greatly improves the duration of your Earthen Bulwark. It also allows you to replenish it if you kill Enemies while it lasts.
- Ballistic Aspect simply improves your Damage through the additional Ranks for your main Skills while you have Fortify.
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Paragon
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1st Board - Starting Board
Nodes - Path through the Damage Nodes, and Attributes or generic Damage bonuses to power up your Glyph later on.
Glyphs - At first use the Exploit Glyph just to activate its bonuses, and replace it with Werebear Glyph once you unlock a Socket more suitable for the Exploit.
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2nd Board - Ancestral Guidance Board
Legendary Node in the Down Left corner
Nodes - This Legendary Node grants you tons of Damage. Spiritual Power and Harmony increase further increase your Damage, while Reclamation helps with Spirit Management.
Glyphs - Thanks to your Fortify stacking, the Undaunting Glyph has great value here. It will significantly improve your Damage.
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3rd Board - Survival Instincts Board
above of the Ancestral Guidance Board
Legendary Node in the Down Middle
Nodes - Survival Instincts greatly improve your Damage while you are in Werebear Form. This Board also has many great Rare Nodes, such as Bulwark, Spearhead, Battleworn Hide, and Grizzly.
Glyphs - here you can Socket the Exploit Glyph to get the maximum value from it.
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4th Board - Constricting Tendrils Board
to the left of the Survival Instincts Board
Legendary Node in the Down Left corner
Nodes - we use this Board purely for the Glyph Socket and a few nearby Rare Nodes, the Courage and Nature's Will.
Glyphs - Spirit Glyph appears to be one of the strongest ones in the game currently. It will significantly improve your Critical Strike Damage, and with enough Dexterity, Critical Hits will make your Enemies take more Damage.
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5th Board - Earthen Devastation Board
to the left of the Ancestral Guidance Board
Legendary Node in the Left Top corner
Nodes - another very powerful Legendary Node, this one grants 30% more Damage with Earth Skills against Crowd Controlled Enemies. You should also pick up the Earthen Power, Crushing Earth, Resolve, and Oppress Nodes.
Glyphs - Earth and Sky Glyph grant tons of Critical Strike Damage and Damage against CC Enemies.
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END NOTE
This is the beta version of our Pulverize Druid Build for Diablo 4. The game has just launched so we expect all of the Guides will require constant updates when we get to test all the builds properly. Make sure to check out the Guides regularly to keep track of all the changes!
If you have any Build requests, please post them in the Comments section below. We will be happy to cover your most requested builds in the future! Also, we hope that you have found this guide useful and informative. Also, we will be happy to receive constructive criticism that will help us improve our future work, so don't hesitate to give us your feedback.
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Pictures used in this article are the intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment
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