Stormclaw – Druid Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Updated for Season 8

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Introduction

The Stormclaw Druid is a fast, simple, and tanky Basic Skill build with a melee playstyle, using Greatstaff of the Crone to deliver a high volume of Claw and Storm Strike. Speed between enemies and cleave them down.

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

Just starting on your druid adventure? Check our Druid Leveling Guide for options on how to level, and swap to this one at Level 60.

Build Requirements

The following Unique Items are required for build functionality to get started on the Stormclaw Druid:

Required Uniques

Greatstaff of the Crone

Get more info on the Unique items supporting this build in the Unique Items section.

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Skill Bar for Stormclaw Druid

Earthen Bulwark Poison Creeper Hurricane Cataclysm Claw Debilitating Roar

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

Spirit Boons are just one part of the Stormclaw druid. Check how it plays in the Build Mechanics section!

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following are the recommended Legendary Aspects, Gear Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs for the Stormclaw 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. Combine these with the right stat priorities.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Aspect Power
Weapon	Igni Xan	(Required Unique) Greatstaff of the Crone	Claw is now a Storm Skill and also casts Storm Strike at 175-250% normal damage.
Helm	Lith Kry	(Recommended Mythic) Heir of Perdition (Recommended Unique) Tempest Roar Juggernaut’s Aspect	Give in to hatred and earn Lilith’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Lilith’s Favor from Nearby allies.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death (Recommended Unique)Mad Wolf’s Glee Hectic Aspect	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		(Pit Pushing)Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt OR (Farming) Rapid Aspect	You deal 25-65% increased damage while hitting a Poisoned enemy as a Werebear or a Crowd Controlled enemy as a Werewolf.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Aspect of Might	Basic Skills grant 20% Damage Reduction for 2-10 seconds.
Boots		(Recommended) Wildheart Hunger OR Stormshifter’s Aspect	Shapeshifting into a new animal form increases the value of your Bestial Rampage bonuses by 2-5%, up to 20-50%. This bonus decays by 2% per second.
Amulet	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of the Moonrise	Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gaining 40-100% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Ring 1	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended) Mjölnic Ryng OR Aspect of Impending Deluge	While Cataclysm is active, you gain unlimited Spirit and deal 40-100% increased damage.
Ring 2	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Adaptability	When cast below 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource, once per cast. When cast at or above 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills deal 20-100% increased damage.

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, and some alternatives are given. 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.

Slot	Gearing Affixes	Tempering Affixes
Weapon – Greatstaff of the Crone (Required)	Chance for Stormstrike to Hit Twice Damage to Close Enemies Storm Strike Chains to extra Targets Ranks in Basic Skills
Helm – (Recommended Mythic) Heir of Perdition	Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Movement Speed Ranks to Core Skills
Helm – Godslayer Crown (Recommended)	Cooldown Reduction Maximum Life Elite Damage All Stats
Helm – Legendary Aspect	Max Life Willpower Cooldown Reduction Lucky Hit Chance	Worldly Endurance – Max Life Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Chest – (Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death	All Stats Maximum Life Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Resource Generation
Chest – (Recommended Unique) Mad Wolf’s Glee	Max Life Werewolf Attack Speed Lupine Ferocity’s Damage Bonus Ranks to Digitigrade Gait
Chest – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Max Life Armor Ranks to Defensive Skills	Worldly Endurance – Maximum Life Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Willpower Lucky Hit Chance	Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Pants – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Claw OR Storm Strike OR Ranks to Basic Skill Armor Willpower Max Life	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Boots – Wildheart Hunger	Movement Speed Shapeshifting Attack Speed Cold Resistance Ranks to Heightened Senses
Boots – Legendary Aspect	Impicit: Attacks Reduce Evade’s Cooldown By 1.5 Seconds Willpower Movement Speed Max Life	Natural Motion – Movement Speed Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Amulet	Ranks to Envenom Critical Strike Chance Movement Speed Resource Cost Reduction	Natural Motion – Movement Speed Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance
Ring – Mjölnic Ryng	Willpower Critical Strike Chance Movement Speed While Cataclysm is Active Ranks to Endless Tempest
Rings – Legendary Aspect	Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Maximum Life Critical Strike Damage	Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance Ultimate Efficiency —   Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction

• Damage to Close is important for Thunderstruck. The Gear Affix on Greatstaff of the Crone is sufficient to cap this Node.
• Get at least one Hurricane Duration temper for stronger coverage of the Skill.
• 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.
• Greatstaff of the Crone makes Claw a Storm ability, benefitting from Storm Critical Strike Chance
• After you have sufficient Storm Critical Strike Chance, Temper Offensive slots for Werewolf Finesse Werewolf Attack Speed.

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 situational for the Stormclaw Druid:

• (Required) Greatstaff of the Crone is necessary for the build to function well, making Claw a Storm Skill, boosting Claw and Storm Strike damage, and doubling the amount of Basic Attacks you are able to cast at once. The Damage to Close on the Staff is sufficient to cap Thunderstruck.

• (Recommended) Godslayer Crown gives quality of life grips and good cooldown reduction for upkeeping Cataclysm.

• (Optional) makes Storm Strike, Hurricane and Cataclysm into Werewolf Skills, allowing the skill to benefit from multipliers like Lust for Carnage, get ranks from Mad Wolf’s Glee and other Shapeshifting bonuses.

• (Recommended) Mad Wolf’s Glee is an excellent offensive Unique Item, giving movement speed and Skill Ranks to Werewolf Skills, including Claw.

• (Recommended) Wildheart Hunger Gives a stacking bonus to Bestial Rampage, and is a strong offensive option for the boots slot. Periodic casts of supporting abilities will force form change to give some stacks, but the general gameplay rotation will not keep stacks capped.

• (Optional, convenience) Airidah’s Inexorable Will is a quality of life grip with strong affixes, but at a marked tradeoff in this Aspect heavy build. Can be useful for speed/farm where you do not need the Legendary Aspect’s damage.

Mythic Unique Items

If acquired, the following Mythic Unique Items are recommended for the build:

• (Recommended) Heir of Perdition has Strong Gear Affixes and a steady damage multiplier. The multiplier can be stolen occasionally from others that also use this helm for a higher damage multiplier.

• (Optional Defensive)Harlequin Crest has strong Gear Affixes and ranks to all Skills. This can allow the build to push higher while staying safer.

• (Recommended) Shroud of False Death gives +1 rank to all Skill Passives which means several bonuses to Damage Multipliers, Damage Reductions, Resistances, Fortify, Healing and Critical Strike Chance.

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Gems and Runewords

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

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Topaz for Basic Skill damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Amethyst for Shadow Resistance Grand Sapphire for Cold Resistance Grand Ruby for Fire Resistance

Poison and Lightning Resistances are covered by Paragon nodes.

Runewords

Use these Runeword combination options, placed in the 2 Handed Weapon and into one Armor slot:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Xan	Igni – Gain: 25 Offering. Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering. Xan – Requires: 300 Offering. Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.25 seconds. Overflow: 0.35% damage per Offering.
Lith Kry	Lith – Gain:25 Offering. Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds. Kry – Requires: 300 Offering Cooldown: 3 Seconds. Overflow: Increased Radius. Evoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling In enemies.

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.

Xan will give periodic Critical Overpowers for large damage. Casts of Vortex can help group and cluster enemies efficiently.

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

• (Defensive) Que for Earthen Bulwark can be strong Barrier and Unstoppable.
• (Early Gearing) While leveling and gearing, before legendary Runes become accessible, many Magic and Rare runewords such as Gar for Critical Strike Chance will be beneficial for the build.

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Paragon Board

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

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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 Stormclaw Druid:

Main Power

• Ashava’s Poison Breath

Secondary Modifiers

• Lilith’s Wind of Hate
• Wandering Death’s Chest Beam
• 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:

• For a defensive option, use Blackmailer’s Sabotage.
• in high push content where Lilith’s Wind of Hate Blood Boils are not dying in time, use a flat multiplier like Sinerat’s Flame.

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 Stormclaw Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Claw

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give strong Attack Speed bonuses.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

1. Maintain Hurricane while engaged with enemies for Damage Reduction.
2. Innate Debilitating Roar to activate Werebear form for Bestial Rampage.
3. Maintain Cataclysm for the Mjölnic Ryng Damage Buff.
4. Apply Crowd Controls and Poison to packs with Poison Creeper.
5. Claw your enemies!

Earthen Bulwark is a Defensive Skill providing Barrier and Unstoppable. Use as needed.

Skills, Support and Synergies

The Stormclaw Druid has simple gameplay. Use Claw to kill your enemies. Greatstaff of the Crone boosts Claw and Storm Strike damage, makes Claw a Storm skill so it can benefit from Nature damage passives and effects, and casts Storm Strike with every Claw cast. Since Storm Strike is a triggered effect from Claw, it does not need to be on the Skill Bar.

We benefit from several layered Attack Speed buffs, including Paragon nodes Aspect of the Moonrise, Rapid Aspect, and Attack Speed Gear Affixes, Paragon and Tempers.

Supporting Abilities and Effects

Earthen Bulwark provide defensive benefits and give Unstoppable.

Innate Debilitating Roar is used for Defense and a short Attack Buff, as well as maintaining Werebear buffs such as Heightened Senses.

Hurricane provides a Damage Reduction debuff on enemies, and triggers damage events for Calm Before the Storm to maintain Cataclysm uptime.

Poison Creeper poisons enemies, applies Immobilize in a large area. This Immobilize can trigger effects for Godslayer Crown.

Alternative Skills that can be flexed in can include:

• Preserving Blood Howl for Attack Speed
• Trample for another mobility source and Unstoppable
• Primal Shred for a strong mobility option.

Ultimate and Key Passives

Cataclysm casts Twisters and Lightning Bolts frequently, and with Mjölnic Ryng can provide a hefty 100% multiplier to all damage. Cooldown Reduction Gear Affix, Endless Tempest ranks and Calm Before the Storm and Calamity Spirit Boons help keep this Skill active.

Bestial Rampage gives strong damage and attack speed, and is a Key Passive well worth using. Debilitating Roar and Claw for Werewolf buffs. Since we are also juggling other Shapeshifting effects like Wildheart Hunger, Quickshift and Heightened Senses, the playstyle requirements are already there.

Petrify Variant

Petrify is another valid Ultimate setup, offering periodic Stun and Critical Strike Damage debuffs on enemies. To play this style:

• Exchange ranks in Cataclysm for Petrify.
• Use the XolYom Runeword for periodic casts of Petrify.
• Use Airidah’s Inexorable Will instead of Mjölnic Ryng. Between Casts of Petrify and the Runeword setup, the yoink from Airidah will be a high Quality of Life increase and an effective grouping tool.
• Use Utility Tempers for Petrify Duration. At extreme counts of utility tempers this can mean enemies just stay Stunned.

Controller vs Keyboard and Mouse

Stormclaw can play smoother on a controller. Controllers default to allowing movement while holding Basic Attacks. Keyboard and mouse users will find some restrictions in movement while casting and may have to click a lot to retarget. Some ways to improve quality of life on keyboard and mouse can include any of the following in combination:

• Change Keybind settings to deselect ‘Combine Move / Interact / Basic Skill slot’ along with rebinding their Basic Skill to not be left clicked.
• Use Claw on another keybind.
• Change preset movement setting to WASD.

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 Advantage II for Attack Speed bonuses.
• 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

Expect Stormclaw to be about the same old. The Deluge aspect causing Storm Strike chains to twice as many targets has decent potential given the increased range of Storm Strike chaining range, but since it doesn’t buff its own Storm Strike damage, is maybe a miss. Could be interchangable with Aspect of Adaptability. The change to Xan gives some welcome access to Overpower attacks, which is a strong gain for damage. The decreased stack decay to Wildheart Hunger will be far nicer for buff management.

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

Itemization:

• New Aspect – Impending Deluge – Storm Strike chains to twice as many targets and increases the damage the targets take from other skills by 30-50% for 6 seconds.
• Xan – New Effect: Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds. Overflow: Increased duration.
• Worldly Fortune
  • Lucky Hit: Chance to Apply Crowd Control affixes have been removed.
  • New Affixes: Lucky Hit Chance, Impairment Reduction, Crowd Control Duration.
• Wildheart Hunger – Decay rate reduced from 2% per second to 0.5% per second.

Skills and Stats:

• Enhanced Blood Howl
  • Previous: Kills reduce the cooldown of Blood Howl Blood Howl by 1 second.
  • Now: Killing enemies reduce the Cooldown of Blood Howl by 1 second and hitting a Boss reduces its Cooldown by 0.3 seconds.
• 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 the description for Enhanced Claw displayed its Attack Speed bonus as additive instead of multiplicative.
• 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

• 24 April, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 19 Jan, 2025: Updated for Season 7 and Patch 2.1 updates. Two tab paragon board introduced.
• 15 October, 2024: Updated for new onsite Paragon Tool.
• 29 September, 2024: Updated for Season 6. Changes to Paragon, Skill Tree, Skill Bar, and recommended Uniques.
• 7 August, 2024: Updated for post-launch of season 5. Some changes to Tempering recommendations and improving readability.
• 3 August, 2024: Updated for patch 1.5.0 and Season of the Infernal Horde.
• 17 June, 2024: Updated for mid-season patch 1.4.3.
• 5 May, 2024: Guide reworked for the significant 1.4.0 changes to gearing and for season 4 speculative changes. Format changed to frontload basic build information and offer extra information and options afterwards.
• 9 March 2024: Guide Created, fully replacing previous guide.

• Ownership transferred.
• Adjusted Gear, Skills, and Paragon sections to hit defensive stats targets and improve overall damage output.
• Improved readability, explanations, and options.