Hurricane – Druid Build for Diablo 4

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.

Season 6: The Temper for Hurricane Duration has moved to Utility Slot, meaning Aspect of the Tempest can be stacked to significant damage multipliers.

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on your Hurricane adventure, including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates.

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

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.

Skill Tree Points and Skill Bar

Recommended

Skill Bar for Hurricane Druid

Ravens Wolves Poison Creeper Cataclysm Maul Hurricane

Spirit Boons – The Druid Class Specialization

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.

Paragon

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

The road to max paragon level is long. Pathing priority should be the following:

• Path for the Legendary Node effects and the board’s Glyph Slots, filling out enough surrounding nodes to activate the Additional Bonus for the Glyph.
• Fill out Rare Nodes along the path taken for Legendary Nodes and Glyphs.
• Take the rest of the paths inside the Glyph Radius, such as filling in all Dexterity nodes for Spirit for their additive bonuses.
• Take the branching paths to the rest of the Rare Nodes.
• Fill out the remaining Magic Nodes near their Rare Nodes.
• Complete the rest of the board.

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.

Gear, Stats, Gems and Elixirs

The following are the recommended Legendary Aspects, Gear Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs for the Hurricane Druid.

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.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Aspect Power
2 Handed Mace	Grand Ruby	Aspect of the Tempest	Hurricane damage is increased by 15-25% each second while active.
Helm	Grand Sapphire	(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	Aspect of the Crowded Sage (Optional Unique) Insatiable Fury	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	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20.0% Damage Reduction for 2-10 seconds.
Boots	N/A	(Offensive) Aspect of Concussive Strikes (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 Elements	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.

Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance. Tempering Manuals and their recommended affixes are provided in the final column. 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 – (Optional 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	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.

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

Runewords are a flexible power to help strengthen a build or fill its weaknesses. Two Runes combine for the total Runeword effect:

• A conditional trigger Rune of Ritual that supplies Offerings when the condition is met.
• An effect Rune of Invocation that costs Offerings.

Once the Rune of Ritual has supplied enough Offerings, the Rune of Invocation will trigger its effect. Some Runes of Invocation will have overflow effects, where excess Offerings will spillover to empower the triggered effect.

Runewords replace Gems in gear. Up to two sets of Runeword pairs can be placed at a time. Runeword combinations are placed within two sockets of the same item e.g. Helm, Chest, Pants or 2-handed Weapon.

The following are Runeword combination options for the Hurricane Druid, placed in 2-Handed Weapon and Armor slots:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Bac Wat	Bac – Gain: 50 Offering. Travel 5 meters. Wat – Requires: 100 Offering Cooldown: 1 Second. Evoke the Necromancer’s Horrid Decrepify, Slowing enemies, reducing their damage, and letting you Execute them.
Xol Qax	Xol – Gain: 150 Offering. Evoke power from another Class. Qax – Requires: 400 Offering. (Overflow: Further Increased Damage). Your next non-Basic Skill cast spends all of your Primary Resource to deal up to 100% increased damage.

Horrid Decrepify is an efficient way to gain offering for Xol. Qax will double the damage of the entirety of the Hurricane cast.

Other combinations can also situationally work well; adjust to the content you are running. These can include:

• (Offering Efficiency) other Ritual options such as Lith for Stand Still, Moni for Skill after Moving can be more reliable. Feo with Qax can overflow the Skill to be a much higher multiplier but will need to be watched and will sometimes be unreliable when Crowd Control isnt available.

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.
• If mats are available, craft Chorus of War.
• Remember to upgrade your potion as you level, increasing the instant healing of the potion!

Unique Items

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

• (Recommended Unique) Tempest Roar has weak Gear Affixes, but makes Hurricane a Werewolf Skill, which allows it to benefit from multipliers like Lust for Carnage, easily Poison enemies with Toxic Claws, 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.
• (Optional, 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.
• (Optional) Hunter’s Zenith is a defensive option Unique Item while providing high ranks in Quickshift and Heightened Senses and another way to guarantee Critical Overpowers.

Mythic Unique Items

No Mythic Unique Items are recommended for this build.

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. As you build Rapport with your Mercenary, you gain more access to their Skills and Perks.

The following Mercenary options are recommended for the Hurricane Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Core Skill: Cleave
• Core Passive: Recklessness
• Iconic Skill: Whirlwind
• Iconic Passive: No Escape

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Maul

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

Rotation and Playstyle

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.

Check out the advanced Build Mechanics section for a more in-depth description on how the build works, what synergies exist, and what to look out for.

Season 6: Season of Hatred

The following list details the important changes in the Season 6 Patch Updates that are specific to the Hurricane Druid. For general Season 6 information, check out our Season 6 Hub.

Itemization:

• New Temper – Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration is now a Utility Temper (yay)
• New Temper – Storm Augments – Chance for Hurricane to deal double damage (also yay)
• Hurricane Damage Temper has been removed from Storm Finesse.
• Hunter’s Zenith – New Effect – Every 30 seconds you spend in an animal form, your next Core Skill is guaranteed to Overpower and Critically Strike and deals 30-60% increased damage. Casting Shapeshifting Skills reduces this timer by 1 second, or 2 seconds if you change to a new animal form

Skills and Stats:

• Paragon Boards are now limited to 5 boards; the Starter Board and up to four Class Boards.
• Several Paragon Boards have shifted their nodes around.
• New Skill Passives including Feral Aptitude.
• Ursine Strength:
  • Damage bonus while Healthy reduced from 30% to 15%.
  • Maximum Health bonus increased from 20% to 30%.
  • Overpower damage bonus increased from 30% to 45%.
• Quickshift – New Effect – Shapeshifting into a new animal form grants 1/2/3% increased damage, up to 6/12/18%. This bonus is lost after 3 seconds in Human form.
• Heightened Senses – New Effect – When Shapeshifting, Werebear grants 3/6/9% Damage Reduction and Werewolf grants 2/4/6% Movement Speed. Both bonuses persist as long as you are in either animal form and are doubled while both are active. They are lost after 3 seconds in Human form.
• Cataclysm – Lightning Strike damage increased from 95% to 115% Weapon Damage. Lightning Strikes now cannot hit the same target more than once every 0.5 seconds.
• Lust for Carnage now also grants 50% damage on Werewolf Critical Strike.

Patch 2.0.5

• Aspect of the Tempest – Hurricane damage per second active increased from 10.5-20.5% to 15-25%.
• Ursine Strength – Overpower damage increased from 45% to 70%.
• Iron Feather Spirit Boon increased to 30%.
• Avian Wrath Spirit Boon increased to 40%.
• Pack Leader Boon increased to 30% chance.

Advanced Information

It is time to get started on your Hurricane journey!

Or see below for further information on how the build works, as well as further explanations for Paragon, Gearing, and Gameplay, and available playstyle options.

Build Mechanics

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 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.

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.
• If used, Tempest Roar with Toxic Claws will allow Hurricane and Cataclysm ticks to trigger Poison.

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 Calm before the Storm to maintain Cataclysm. If Hurricane Duration reaches above the cooldown on your companions, Pack Leader Spirit Boon can also be exchanged for Calamity.

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.

Paragon

The Paragon Board is a progression system unlocked at Level 60, giving player power through Common stat Nodes, Magic affix Nodes, Rare leveled Glyphs, and Legendary board-exclusive Nodes. For general paragon board information, check the guide here.

The recommended Paragon boards with images for the Hurricane Druid are listed above. The following section goes over some explanation and descriptions for the pathing process for the Hurricane Druid.

Broadly speaking, decisions for pathing through the Druid paragon board are divided into three categories:

• Damage – The paragon boards provide a significant amount of Damage Multipliers and Additives. This includes:
  • Socketed Glyphs such as Dominate and Outmatch.
  • Legendary Nodes such as Thunderstruck.
  • Magic and Rare nodes such as Impel and Reclaim.
• Defense – The paragon boards help reach goals on Damage Reduction, Armor and Resistances. This includes:
  • Damage Reduction is improved from individual Magic and Rare nodes providing bonuses like Damage Reduction against Vulnerable enemies.
  • Resistances are improved from Magic and Rare Resistance nodes.
  • Armor goals are reached with the help of Armor nodes in Inner Beast.
• Build Functionality – The paragon boards improve total build functionality including:
  • Max Life% nodes increase Effective Health but also boost capability for total Fortify as well. This increases overall output for Overpower damage.

Changelog

• 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.