Tornado – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 8)

Updated for Season 8

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Introduction

Embrace the tempest as the Tornado Werewolf Druid whirls through the battlefield, unleashing a storm of destruction upon the enemies of Sanctuary! Equip your Tempest Roar and send out twisting and twirling tornados!

Get started on your Tornado adventure with everything you need 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 and Legendary Aspects are required for build functionality to get started on the Tornado Druid:

Required Uniques

Tempest Roar

Mjölnic Ryng

Required Aspects

Stormchaser’s Aspect

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 Tornado Druid

Cyclone Armor Earthen Bulwark Blood Howl Cataclysm Maul Tornado

Use Key Passive Perfect Storm while leveling and gearing.

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.

While leveling and gearing, use the Deer’s Gift of the Stag and the Wolf’s Energize for Spirit management.

Druid’s primary resource is Spirit. See the Spirit Management Section on how to keep casting!

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

Check these sections for all important Tornado 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
Staff	Igni Xan	Aspect of Retaliation	Your Core Skills deal up to 35-75% increased damage based on your amount of Fortify.
Helm	Lith Que	(Required Unique) Tempest Roar	Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a 15-35% chance to grant 4 Spirit. Your base Storm Skills are now also Werewolf Skills
Chest	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Mythic) Shroud of False Death (Recommended Unique) Mad Wolf’s Glee OR Juggernaut’s Aspect	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		Stormchaser’s Aspect	Tornado will seek up to 1-5 targets and increased Tornado damage by 30-50%.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Vigorous Aspect	Gain 7.5-17.5% Damage Reduction while Shapeshifted into a Werewolf.
Boots		(Optional Minmax Unique) Wildheart Hunger Aspect of Metamorphosis	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 Unsatiated	After Critically Striking an enemy with Shred, you gain 15 Spirit. While at 100 Spirit, Werewolf Skills deal 20-40% increased damage until you go below 30 Spirit. Note: The damage multiplier affects all werewolf skills, including Tornado with Tempest Roar.
Ring 1	Grand Ruby	(Recommended Unique) Mjölnic Ryng Aspect of the Umbral	While Cataclysm is active, you gain unlimited Spirit and deal 40-100% increased damage. Cataclysm receives your Lightning Bolt benefits.
Ring 2	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Mythic) Ring of Starless Skies (Recommended Unique) Hunter’s Zenith Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt	Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by 10% for 3 seconds, up to 50%.

Staff is used for the faster Attack Speed over other 2 Handed types. The Damage Over Time will get a small value from Overload Spirit Boon.

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
Staff	Willpower Maximum Life Critical Strike Damage Chance on Hit to Restore Spirit	Storm Augments – Chance for Extra Tornado Projectiles Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance
Helm – (Required Unique)Tempest Roar	Willpower% Maximum Resource Lightning Resistance Ranks to Wild Impulses
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 Spirit Per Second Armor	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Ranks to Tornado Critical Strike Chance Willpower	Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Pants – Legendary Aspect	Armor Willpower Max Life Dodge Chance	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Boots – (Recommended Unique)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 Spirit Per Second	Druid Motion – Ranks to Digitigrade Gait OR Movement Speed Worldly Fortune – Impairment Reduction
Amulet – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Quickshift Willpower% Critical Strike Chance	Druid Motion – Ranks to Digitigrade Gait OR Movement Speed Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance
Ring – (Recommended Unique) Mjölnic Ryng	Willpower Critical Strike Chance Movement Speed While Cataclysm is Active Ranks to Endless Tempest
Ring – (Recommended Unique) Hunter’s Zenith	Willpower Ranks to Predatory Instinct Ranks to Quickshift Ranks to Heightened Senses
Ring – (Recommended) Ring of Starless Skies	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks to Core Skills
Rings – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Maximum Life Resource Cost Reduction Critical Strike Damage	Natural Finesse – Damage to Close/Distant Enemies Ultimate Efficiency – Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction

• Damage to Close or Damage to Distant Enemies for the Offensive Tempers is taken until the Thunderstruck cap at 60% contribution. After that, the tempers can take Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance.
• Chance for Double Tornado Projectiles is priority for total output.
• Some Gear Affixes like Cost Reduction, Spirit on Kill or Spirit Per Second can be useful in early gearing or leveling, especially if not using the Mjölnic Ryng with full Cataclysm uptime.
• 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.
• Polearm for Vulnerable damage is the most consistent additive for available 2 handed weapons, but is not high priority if there are better gear affixes on another 2 handed weapon.

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 Tornado Druid.

• (Required) Tempest Roar is required for the build to be considered functional; making Tornado a Werewolf Skill and providing significant Spirit Generation. This also will enable Tornado to benefit from Shapeshifting passives like Envenom, and synergize with other Uniques Mad Wolf’s Glee and Wildheart Hunger.

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

• (Recommended) Wildheart Hunger has gear affixes and grants a stacking bonus to Bestial Rampage. For a boot slot, this is a strong offensive option. However, the stacks decay unless maintained by constant shifting. This bonus can be well worth maintaining by cycling between and to Werewolf or Werebear forms, but makes the rotation much more frenetic. Stacks will not always be maxed under normal gameplay.

• (Recommended) The Mjölnic Ryng grants a high damage multiplier during Cataclysm and makes Tornado cost zero Spirit. See the Cataclysm and Spirit Management section for more information about Cataclysm uptime.

• (Recommended) Hunter’s Zenith provides occasional Critical Overpowers. With the fast rate of attack with the Tornado druid, this will happen frequently as a nice bonus.

Mythic Unique Items

The following Mythic Unique Items are useful to the build:

• (Recommended) Ring of Starless Skies is a powerful Resource Cost Reduction tool and damage multiplier with exellent Gear Affixes. Replaces Aspect of the Unsatiated. The damage buff will stack even while using Mjölnic Ryng.

• (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.

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 Tornado Druid:

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for Critical Strike Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Amethyst for Shadow Resistance Grand Sapphire for Cold Resistance Grand Ruby for Fire Resistance

Poison and Lightning Resistance are covered by Paragon nodes.

Runewords

Use these Runeword combinations, placed in the 2-Handed and 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 0.35 seconds. Overflow: Increased Duration
Lith Que	Lith – Gain: 25 Offering. Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds. Que – Requires: 300 Offering. Overflow: Increased Duration. Cooldown: 1 second. Evoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark, granting yourself a Barrier.

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 periodically cause your Tornado to Critically Overpower for large damage. Que will cast Enhanced Earthen Bulwark granting Barrier, Unstoppable and Fortify.

Other more offensive setups could trade Que for options such as Kry for Vortex, Gar for Critical Strike Chance, or Yom for casts of Petrify.

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Paragon Board

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

For a more defensive setup, exchange Outmatch for Territorial.

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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 Tornado 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.

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 Tornado Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Tornado

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give strong Attack Speed bonuses.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

1. Maul in place to activate Werebear Shapeshifting buffs like Bestial Rampage.
2. Cataclysm as you engage enemies.
3. Maintain Preserving Blood Howl for Attack Speed bonuses.
4. Cast Tornado to slay your foes!

Use Earthen Bulwark for Barrier and Unstoppable, as needed.

Maul does not need to hit a target for Werebear Shapeshifting buffs. Make sure you’re familiar with your Force Hold keybind to easily Maul in place.

Skills, Support and Synergies

The Tornado Druid is a simple to play and effective build. Our primary Skill is Tornado, which benefits from several interactions from Skill Passives, Legendary Powers, Gearing, and supporting Skills.

Tempest Roar makes all Storm Skills into Werewolf Skills, which allows Tornado to benefit from Shapeshifting Passives like Quickshift and Envenom.

Stormchaser’s Aspect allows cast tornadoes to seek out enemies.

Overload Boon maintains the Poisoned debuff on enemies for multipliers like Envenom and Heightened Malice.

Both the Initial Tornado and the extra Tornado from Enhanced Tornado can trigger the Weapon Temper for Chance for Tornado Projectiles to Cast twice. The means there is a chance for up to 4 Tornadoes per cast!

Supporting Skills

Maul is Werebear buff maintenance Skill to help maintain Shapeshifting skills like Quickshift, Heightened Senses, Bestial Rampage and Unique Item Wildheart Hunger. This does not need to hit an enemy, it’s just the Form change that matters. Force Hold and swipe at the air before engaging enemies for the Bestial Rampage buff. Alternatively, other Werebear abilities like Innate Debilitating Roar or Trample could be used to maintain Werebear buffs.

Blood Howl is maintained for the Attack Speed bonus and Vigilance buff.

Earthen Bulwark is used for Barrier and a source of Unstoppable.

Cyclone Armor is passive elemental defense, and the Pushback active will rarely be used.

Ultimate and Key Passive

Cataclysm casts Lightning Bolts and Twisters frequently and applies Vulnerable. With Mjölnic Ryng, Cataclysm provides a hefty 100% multiplier to all damage and make Tornado cost zero Spirit. Cooldown Reduction Gear Affix, Inner Beast, Endless Tempest ranks and Calm Before the Storm and Calamity Spirit Boons help keep this Skill active. See the Cataclysm and Spirit Management section for more info on maintaining Cataclysm.

Our Key Passive is Bestial Rampage for the high damage and attack speed multipliers. These are maintained easily with Maul for Werebear and Tornado for Werewolf. While leveling and gearing, especially before full Cataclysm uptime or you have gotten your Mjölnic Ryng, use Perfect Storm for better Spirit Generation.

Cataclysm and Spirit Management

With the new Unique Item Mjölnic Ryng, many Druid builds will play around Cataclysm for the significant Damage Multiplier and full Spirit Cost Reduction while Cataclysm is active. We make several choices on Spirit Generation and Spirit Boons that enable or make this choice shine. This also means downtime can be punishing, so we want to keep Cataclysm up to avoid Spirit problems.

To Maintain Cataclysm, we use:

• Calm Before the Storm for Ultimate Cooldown Reduction and Calamity Spirit Boon for Longer Ultimate duration.
• Ranks in Endless Tempest extend the duration of Cataclysm.
• Ranks in Cataclysm reduce Cataclysm cooldown.
• Ultimate Efficiency —  Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction on the 2nd ring slot if using a Legendary Aspect.

If this is not sufficient for uptime, we can optionally use:

• Target Cooldown Reductions or Lucky Hit Chance with Greater Affix or Mastercrafting.
• Use Airidah’s Inexorable Will, targeting Ultimate Cooldown Reduction for Mastercrafting.

Spirit Management

With Mjölnic Ryng, Tornadoes cost no Spirit while Cataclysm is active. In Early Gearing and Leveling, or before using the Mjölnic Ryng, consider doing one or more of the following for Spirit Generation and Management:

• Use Key Passive Perfect Storm.
• Take the Wolf’s Energize Spirit Boon, replacing Calamity.
• Use Gift of the Stag Spirit Boon, replacing Wariness.
• Use Aspect of the Umbral for Spirit against Crowd Controlled enemies.
• Adjust Gear affixes: Chance to Restore Resource on Weapon, and Resource Generation on Rings. Spirit Per Second on Helm, Chest, or Boots can all be useful.
• Use Tibault’s Will. Periodic casts of Enhanced Earthen Bulwark from hard casts and Runeword triggers will give significant Spirit.
• Use the PocLum Runeword Setup.
• Use Rahair’s Iron Wolf’s Call Iconic Passive, with Varyana’s Bloodthirst with Tornado Opportunity.
• Worst case, use Maul as an attack to build Spirit.

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

The change to Xan is welcome, as it provides Tornado with a significant bump in Overpower total events. As well, the lower stack decay on Wildheart Hunger is a nice stack management relief.

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

Itemization:

• Xan
  • 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.
• Lum – Offering gained increased from 2.5% to 3.5%.
• 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:

• Overload Spirit Boon – chance for Lightning Strikes increased to 35%.
• Gift of the Stag Spirit Boon – Maximum Spirit reduced from 40 to 30. Spirit generation increased from 5 to 10.
• Cyclone Armor – Non-physical damage resist increased from 15% to 20%.
• 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.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where the Poc rune effect did not consistently trigger when using Unlimited Spirit granted by Mjölnic Ryng.
• Hurricane – Fixed an issue where Hurricane damage displayed would not increase with duration bonuses.
• Stormshifter’s Aspect – Fixed an issue where the Stormshifter’s Aspect did not actually grant as many Shapeshifting skill ranks as expected in certain scenarios.
• Fixed an issue where the effect from Mjölnic Ryng could randomly stop functioning.

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Changelog

• 24 April, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 12 Jan, 2025: Started on Season 7 and Patch 2.1 updates. Two tab paragon board introduced.
• 17 November, 2024: Minor updates for 2.0.5.
• 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.
• 5 August, 2024: Significant changes to Skills and Paragon to adjust for season 5, the change to Shepherd’s Aspect and the introduction of the Mjölnic Ryng.
• 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. Because of the nerf to the Resource Cost Reduction affix on weapon, now recommending Perfect Storm over Ursine Strength.
• 3 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.
• 11 March 2024: Guide created, fully replacing the 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.