Hurricane – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Updated for Season 8

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Introduction

Hurricane is a wide persistent spell surrounding the player for its duration, periodically ticking damage to enemies. Set up a giant storm of damage with:

• Guaranteed Overpower from Provocation.
• High Critical Strike Chance from Clarity.
• Aspect of the Tempest stacks ramps Hurricane to incredible damage.
• Utility tempers for Hurricane Size and Duration, and a Weapon temper for Hurricane to deal double damage.

Just starting on your druid adventure? Check our Druid Leveling Guide and swap to this one once you meet the Build Requirements.

Build Requirements

The following Legendary Aspects are required for build functionality to get started on the Hurricane Druid:

Required Aspects

Aspect of the Tempest

You will also need access to the Nature Magic Innovation Utility Manual for Tempering Hurricane Duration.

Many Unique Items are beneficial for the build, but not required for function. Read up on which ones are useful in the Unique Items section.

Quick Navigation

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on the Hurricane Druid, including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates. Jump to the sections you’re looking for here:

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Skill Bar for Hurricane Druid

Ravens Wolves Poison Creeper Cataclysm Maul Hurricane

If you are missing skill points, complete Renown events in each zone. See how these Skills play in the Rotation and Playstyle section.

Druid Class Mechanic – Spirit Boons

Druids unlock powerful Spirit Boon passives, giving offerings to the animal spirits to receive their Blessing. Once fully unlocked, activate the final Boon by Spirit Bonding with one of the four animal spirits to take two passives from that row.

In early gearing before Hurricane has high duration, Pack Leader can be used over Calamity to make sure Companion Active Skills are available to empower each Hurricane with Clarity.

This build heavily relies on cooldown management for Companions and Hurricane. Check out how to balance your casts in the Build Mechanics section.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

Check these sections for all important Hurricane gearing considerations to improve the power of your character in the endgame.

Legendary Aspects

Gear Slots with multiple options are listed in recommended priority. Any slot with an Optional Mythic Unique or Unique Item will include a valid alternative legendary power to use while still leveling and gearing. Combine these with the right stat priorities.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Aspect Power
2 Handed Mace	Nagu Xal	Aspect of the Tempest	Hurricane damage is increased by 15-25% each second while active.
Helm	Igni Kry	(Recommended Unique) Tempest Roar Aspect of Fevered Mauling	Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a 10-35% chance to grant 4 Spirit. Your base Storm Skills are now also Werewolf Skills
Chest	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Unique) Insatiable Fury (Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death Aspect of the Crowded Sage	Werebear form is now your true form, and you gain +2-5 Ranks to all Werebear Skills.
Gloves	N/A	Edgemaster’s Aspect OR Aspect of Inner Calm	Skills deal up to 5-20% increased damage based on your available Primary Resource when cast, receiving the maximum benefit while you have full Primary Resource.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Skinwalker’s Aspect	Basic Skills grant 20.0% Damage Reduction for 2-10 seconds.
Boots	N/A	(Offensive) Stormshifter’s Aspect (Unstoppable) Aspect of Metamorphosis	Lucky Hit: Damaging an enemy has up to a 20% chance to Daze them for 2 seconds. You deal 5-25% increased damage to Dazed enemies.
Amulet	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt	You deal 25-65% increased damage while hitting a Poisoned enemy as a Werebear or a Crowd Controlled enemy as a Werewolf.
Ring 1	Grand Ruby	Aspect of the Unsatiated Aspect of Decisive Resolution	After killing an enemy with Shred, you gain 20 Spirit. Your Werewolf Skills deal 20-40% increased damage when cast above 50 Spirit. Note: with Tempest Roar, this multiplier will include casts of Hurricane.
Ring 2	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended) Mjölnic Ryng Aspect of Inner Calm	While Cataclysm is active, you gain unlimited Spirit and deal 40-100% increased damage.

Use a 2-Handed Mace for Overpower Damage.

For information on Legendary Aspects and the updated Codex of Power, see here.

To see how this build compares to the other builds on our site, you can check out our build tier lists.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. The bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Unique Items cannot be Tempered, but can be Masterworked.  Check the Tempering guide and Masterworking guide for more details about these topics.

Any slot with an Optional Mythic Unique or Unique Item will include a valid alternative legendary power to use while still leveling and gearing.

Slot	Gearing Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Two-Handed Mace	Maximum Life Willpower Overpower Damage Critical Strike Damage	Storm Augments – Chance for Hurricane to deal double damage Natural Finesse – Damage to Close Enemies
Helm – (Recommended Unique)Tempest Roar	Willpower% Lightning Resistance Maximum Spirit Ranks to Wild Impulses
Helm – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Cooldown Reduction Max Life Resistance to all Elements	Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration Worldly Endurance – Max Life
Chest – (Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death	All Stats Maximum Life Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Resource Generation
Chest – (Recommended Unique) Insatiable Fury	Maximum Life Werebear Overpower Damage Ursine Strength Bonuses Ranks to Iron Fur
Chest – Legendary Aspect	Max Life Willpower Armor All Resistances	Worldly Endurance – Max Life Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Gloves	Max Life Willpower Overpower Damage	Natural Finesse– Damage to Close Enemies Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Pants	Armor Willpower Max Life Dodge Chance	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Boots	Implicit: Attacks reduce Evade Cooldown Ranks to Hurricane Movement Speed Willpower Dodge Chance	Natural Motion – Movement Speed Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Size
Amulet	Willpower% Ranks to Clarity Ranks to Envenom Movement Speed Ranks to Quickshift	Natural Finesse– Damage to Close Enemies Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Ring – (Recommended Unique) Mjölnic Ryng	Willpower Critical Strike Chance Movement Speed While Cataclysm is Active Ranks to Endless Tempest
Rings – Legendary Aspect	Maximum Life Lucky Hit Chance Willpower Critical Strike Damage Overpower Damage	Natural Finesse– Damage to Close Enemies Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction

• Hurricane Duration means higher stacks of Aspect of the Tempest. Mastercraft quality increases will push this build much further. Hurricane Duration can be placed on Helm, Chest, Gloves, Pants, Boots and Amulet.
• Hurricane Size Temper is capped at 100%. Since the Utility slot competes with Hurricane Duration, use only one at most.
• The Temper for Damage to Close Enemies is taken for Thunderstruck, up to its cap of 60%.
• Max Life will help increase Overpower damage.
• Armor cap is 1000 for up to 85% Physical Damage Reduction. This is generally reached with either one Armor Gear Affix and one Total Armor% Temper, or using a Juggernaut’s Aspect.
• Attack Speed does not improve Hurricane tick rate.
• Ranks to Clarity means no other source for Critical Strike Chance will be necessary.

For the dedicated page for Gear Systems and Itemization Overview, check here.

After gearing, look at progression systems like Paragon next.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

The following Unique Items are required, recommended, or optional for the Hurricane Druid.

• (Recommended Unique) Tempest Roar makes Hurricane a Werewolf Skill, which allows it to benefit from multipliers like Lust for Carnage and contribute to other Shapeshifting benefits like Quickshift and Heightened Senses. The multiplier from Lust for Carnage will help offset losing a potential Legendary Aspect item with Hurricane Duration temper on it.
• (Recommended, Convenience) Insatiable Fury is a quality-of-life improvement for the build, helping to keep you in Werebear form to keep Provocation ticking. This is not only a convenient Unique, but gives strong defensive benefit with the ranks to Iron Fur and boost to Ursine Strength. However, this is another slot that will compete with Hurricane Duration temper on a Legendary Chest, so can be a damage loss. With the boost to Ursine Strength however, it is not as much of a loss to use.
• (Recommended) Mjölnic Ryng is an oppressively strong option with up to a 100% multiplier. The ranks in Endless Tempest are also welcome for a Hurricane-centric build.

Mythic Unique Items

• Shroud of False Death is a strong Mythic Item, giving +1 to all passives, which includes several offensive multipliers, defensive increases, and quality of life additions. Note this will chance your Provocation duration so adjust accordingly.

Check our Unique Item Target-farming guide for information on where to find everything you need.

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Gems and Runewords

The following are the recommended Gem and Runeword setups for the Hurricane Druid:

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Ruby for Overpower Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	1 Grand Amethyst for Shadow Resistance 1 Grand Ruby for Fire Resistance 1 Grand Sapphire for Cold Resistance

Paragon will give Poison and Lightning Resistance.

Runewords

Use these Runeword combinations for the Hurricane Druid, placed in 2-Handed Weapon and Armor slots:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Nagu Xal	Nagu – Maintain at least 1 summon for 6 seconds gaining 100 offering per Summon, up to 600 max. Xal – Requires: 200 Offering. Gain 20% Maximum Life for 6 seconds. Overflow: Increased duration. Cooldown: 1 second
Igni Kry	Igni – Gain: 25 Offering. Stores Offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a Non-Basic Skill to gain the stored Offering Kry – Invoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling in enemies. Overflow: Up to 50% increased pull radius. Cooldown: 3 seconds

Runewords use a conditional Rune of Ritual to generate Offering. The Offering is consumed by the Rune of Invocation to trigger its effect. Runes replace Gems in gear with two sockets. Up to two sets of Runeword Pairs can be placed at a time.

With the Companion Setup, Nagu will keep the Xal Max Life active persistently. More Life is more Overpower. Periodic casts of Vortex will keep enemies grouped and in range of the Hurricane.

Other options can situationally replace Kry, such as

• (Offensive) Ohm for a small damage multiplier
• (Defensive) Que for periodic casts of Enhanced Earthen Bulwark.

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Paragon Board

The following are the preferred Glyphs, Boards, and pathing recommended for making the most of the Hurricane Druid.

The road to max Paragon is long. The above Paragon tabs show the following:

• The BASE SETUP tab spends 50 fewer points than the max 328 points, taking stricter pathing to take all most all Legendary, Rare and Magic Nodes, and activates all Glyph Nodes with their secondary effects.
• The FULL SETUP tab completes the paragon board in its final form, filling in the rest of the board to get the rest of the Magic and Rare Nodes, as well as give additional additive bonuses especially within the Glyph areas.

Glyphs have two significant breakpoint increases. At level 15, the glyph grows in radius and gains a special effect. At level 46, the glyph grows to its max radius and gains a strong conditional damage multiplier.

Glyphs are placed as if they are at least level 15+ in radius. Total Boards placed are now limited to a max of 5; the Starter Board and four Class Boards. Rotate boards as necessary.

For a more defensive glyph setup:

• Undaunted can replace Dominate.
• Territorial can replace Outmatch.
• Werebear can replace Spirit.

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Boss Powers (Season 8)

Season 8: Belial’s Return offers Boss Powers, equipped from the Boss Power tab of the character sheet. One Main Power is chosen, and three modifier powers boost the Main Power or offer smaller bonuses.

Here’s a general recommendation for the Hurricane Druid:

Main Power

• Andariel’s Flaming Skull

Secondary Modifiers

• Lilith’s Wind of Hate
• Belial’s Eye Beams
• Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste

Many boss power combinations will work and several are only situationally useful. Feel free to adjust powers to your content. For example:

• If pushing high enough Pit that you cannot break the Lilith’s Wind of Hate blister clones, use Wandering Death’s Chest Beams or Duriel’s Burrow.
• If you have sufficient Critical Strike Chance without Hatred’s Embrace’s Haste from high Greater Affix Critical Strike Chance on gear or ranks in Clarity, use Wandering Death’s Chest Beams or Duriel’s Burrow.

Mercenaries

Once unlocked, Mercenaries are followers that aid the Player in combat. A main mercenary is chosen to fight alongside you, granting strong buffs or perks, and a secondary Mercenary is chosen to periodically Reinforce you under a chosen Opportunity condition.

The following Mercenary options are recommended for the Hurricane Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Core Skill: Cleave, Recklessness, Whirlwind, No Escape

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Maul

Both No Escape and Crater will be useful pull-ins.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

The Hurricane Druid has some setup to Critically Overpower your Hurricane, but then is low effort after each setup.

1. Prep your Hurricane:
   • Before max Provocation stacks, cast Wolves and Ravens for Clarity stacks. Wolves and Ravens can consume your Overpower so they need to be cast before Provocation is primed.
   • Cast Poison Creeper for the final Clarity stack.
   • Fill Offering for your Qax rune to be available.
2. Cast Hurricane with Provocation, Clarity stacks, and Qax rune.
3. Maintain Cataclysm while engaged with enemies.
4. Maul as filler and for Fortify. Be careful not to consume Provocation with Maul. Staying in Werebear Form will give the Survival Instincts multipliers.

Skills, Support and Synergies

The Hurricane Druid is an effective and tanky build with high damage that speeds through content. Our primary Skill is Hurricane, which benefits from several interactions from Skill Passives, Legendary Powers, Gearing, and supporting Skills. There is some important set-up to making this damage work.

Storm skills, including Hurricane, will benefit heavily from multipliers like Thunderstruck. This is why Damage to Close is tempered onto gear.

There are no native sources of Unstoppable for this build. Use Aspect of Metamorphosis and Boot Impicit Affix for Attacks to reduce Evade Cooldown if desired.

Poison for Envenom is applied with:

• Casts and Passive Attacks from Poison Creeper.
• Overload Spirit Boon

Despite being a Storm spell, Hurricane deals Physical Damage.

Companions

The active skill use of Companions stack up Clarity for more Critical Strike Chance and Damage multiplier to the entire Hurricane cast. This benefits Hurricane for its entire duration.

(Important) The active skill use of Ravens and Wolves can Overpower their attacks. Poison Creeper cannot. This means Ravens and Wolves need to be cast for Clarity stacks before Provocation reaches max stacks.

After enough ranks in Clarity on Amulet, you can guarantee full Critical Strike Chance on the Hurricane with just two Companions. At a damage loss, Ravens can be replaced with a defensive benefit like Innate Debilitating Roar or Preserving Earthen Bulwark.

Ultimate and Key Passives

Cataclysm is our Ultimate ability. With the Mjölnic Ryng, it will provide up to a 100% damage multiplier while active. We use ranks in Endless Tempest and Calamity Spirit Boon to extend the duration. Ranks in Cataclysm lower the cooldown of Cataclysm, including sources like Stormshifter’s Aspect.

Ursine Strength is a steady Damage and Overpower multiplier that benefits from the damage increase in any Form, so long as you are Healthy. Healthy means to be above 80% Life. If used, These bonuses are increased by Insatiable Fury.

The Hurricane Druid is an effective and tanky build with high damage that speeds through content. Our primary Skill is Hurricane, which benefits from several interactions from Skill Passives, Legendary Powers, Gearing, and supporting Skills. There is some important set-up to making this damage work.

Provocation

Provocation is how we guarantee Hurricane to Overpower. This Overpower works for the entire duration of the cast Hurricane. Maul and if used, Insatiable Fury help keep us in Werebear form to keep Provocation stacks ticking.

(Important) How many ranks in Provocation can matter! Since Aspect of the Tempest increases Hurricane Damage with every tick, this means the longer we can Temper and Mastercraft the Hurricane, the more ramping damage it will tick for. Tempest stacks are reset on Hurricane refresh. So for example, if our Hurricane’s duration is 16 seconds, we would only want 2 points in Provocation instead of 3, so that we can still use skills in that downtime and so Tempest stacks can go higher and deal more damage. Likewise, only a single point in Provocation if our Hurricane is longer than 20 seconds. However, with enough Hurricane Duration tempers we can hit extreme amounts of Hurricane duration such that we get multiples of duration of Provocation, letting us skip entire Provocation triggers. For example, if Hurricane has reached more than 40s duration, we could recast Hurricane every other rank 1 of Provocation. Since Aspect of the Tempest will just keep stacking up, this can mean extreme stacks of Hurricane damage multipliers.

Elixirs, Incense and Health Potions

The Alchemist offers helpful consumables at the cost of foraged materials found throughout Sanctuary.

• Craft the highest available Elixir of Fortitude for Maximum Life%. Max Life% is significant for Overpower.
• One of each Incense Category can be used, for a total of three active Incenses at a time. In priority:
  • Defensive – Reddamine Buzz for Max Life, or Song of the Mountain if you need the Armor, up to 1000 armor cap.
  • Core Stat – Blessed Guide for Willpower.
  • Resistance – Soothing Spices for All Resist, All Resist Maximum, and Armor.
• Upgrade your Potion as you level, increasing the instant healing of the potion!

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Season 8 Updates

With the change to Qax, the multiplier can no longer be snapshot into the entire duration of the Hurricane. This will be a noticable damage nerf to the build.

The following list details the important changes in the Season 8 Patch Updates that are specific to the Hurricane Druid. For general Season 8 information, check out our Season 8 Hub.

Itemization:

• Qax:
  • Previous: Your next skill critically overpowers. Overflow: 1% damage per 10 Offering.
  • Now: Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds. Overflow: Increase duration.
  • Duration increased from 0.25 to 0.35 seconds.
  • Offering required reduced from 700 to 300.
• Dominate – Legendary max bonus reduced from 20% to 12%.
• Overload – Chance for lightning bolts increased from 1% to 35%.

Skills and Stats:

• Cataclysm – New Effect – Rank 5: Casting Cataclysm Slows surrounding enemies by 70% for 8 seconds.
• Poison Creeper
  • Passive damage over 2 seconds increased from 47% to 65%.
  • Active damage over 2 seconds increased from 126% to 180%.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Hurricane damage displayed would not increase with duration bonuses.
• Fixed an issue where the Mending passive did not function when using Insatiable Fury.
• Fixed an issue where Iron Fur would snapshot its bonus when using Insatiable Fury.
• Fixed an issue where the Stormshifter’s Aspect did not actually grant as many Shapeshifting skill ranks as expected in certain scenarios.

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Changelog

• April 24, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 19 January, 2025: Updated for Season 7 and Patch 2.1 updates. Two tab paragon board introduced.
• 17 November, 2024: Minor Updates for patch 2.0.5.
• 15 October, 2024: Updated guide for new onsite Paragon tool.
• 28 September, 2024: Updated for Season 6. Changes to Paragon, Tempers, Skill Tree, and recommended Uniques.
• 7 August, 2024: Updated for post-launch of season 5. No Changes to Skills, Gearing or Paragon.
• 2 August 2024: Updated for patch 1.5.0 and Season of the Infernal Hordes.
• 17 June, 2024: Updated for mid-season patch 1.4.3.
• May 15, 2024: Small changes in gear affixes to adjust for season launch changes from PTR.
• 10 May, 2024: Guide Created.