Wolf Companion – Druid Build for Diablo 4

Build Introduction

The Wolf Companion Druid is a pet playstyle specializing in Single-Target damage. Summon your Wolves and command them to seek and slay your enemies. This build focuses solely on Wolves as the active companion, with supporting companions present only with One With Nature.

This guide covers everything necessary to start your Wolf Companion adventure, including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, Seasonal updates, and in-depth explanations.

Strengths and Weaknesses

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

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Storm’s Companion

Required Legendary Aspects

Aspect of the Alpha

Aspect of the Stampede

Shepherd’s Aspect

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Blood Howl Debilitating Roar Wolves Petrify Maul Shred

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 Board

The following are the preferred Glyphs, Boards, and pathing recommended for making the most of the Wolf Companion 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 further info on Paragon choices, check the Paragon Information in the Advanced Information Section.

Gear, Stats, Gems and Elixirs

The following are the recommended Legendary Aspects, Gear Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs for the Wolf Companion 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 valid alternative legendary powers to use while still leveling and gearing.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Power
2 Handed Polearm	Grand Emerald	Shepherd’s Aspect	Companion Skills deal an additional 5-13% damage per Companion you have.
Head	Grand Sapphire	(Recommended Mythic) Heir of Perdition Skinwalker’s Aspect Aspect of Might	Succumb to hatred and earn Mother’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Mother’s Favor from Nearby allies.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	(Offensive Mythic) Shroud of False Death (Defensive Mythic) Tyrael’s Might Spirit Bond Aspect	If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		Moonrage Aspect	Kills have a 5% chance to summon a Wolf Companion to your side for 20-35 seconds. This effect is a Lucky Hit against bosses. Maximum 3 additional wolves. In addition, gain +3 Ranks to Wolves.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	(Required Unique Item)Storm’s Companion	Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability.
Boots		(Unstoppable) Aspect of Metamorphosis (Speedfarming) Aspect of the Rushing Wilds	When you Evade you turn into a cloud of bats, becoming Unstoppable for 2.5 seconds. Enemies along your path take 300 Physical damage and are inflicted with Vampiric Curse. Evade’s Cooldown is increased by 10-4 seconds.
Amulet	Grand Diamond	Aspect of the Alpha	Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf Companions deal 100-140% additional damage and can spread Rabies.
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	Aspect of the Stampede	Gain 1 additional Companion. In addition, your Companion Skills deal 15-35% bonus damage.
Ring 2	Grand Diamond	(Recommended Mythic) Ring of Starless Skies Accelerating Aspect	Spending your Primary Resource reduces the Resource cost of your Skills and increases your damage by 10% for 3 seconds, up to 50%.

For more information on Legendary Aspects and the Codex of Power, check the guide 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
2 Handed Polearm – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Max Life Critical Strike Damage	Companion Augments – Chance for Wolves to deal Double Damage Worldly Finesse – Critical Strike Damage
Helm – (Recommended Mythic) Heir of Perdition	Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Movement Speed Ranks to Core Skillls
Helm – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Wolves Cooldown Reduction Willpower All Resistances Armor	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Companion Innovation – Wolves Attack Speed
Chest – (Offensive Mythic) Shroud of False Death	All Stats Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Maximum Life Resource Generation
Chest- (Defensive Mythic) Tyrael’s Might	Damage Reduction Movement Speed Resistance to All Elements Maximum Resistance to All Elements
Chest- Legendary Aspect	Willpower Armor Restance to All Elements Spirit Per Second	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Worldly Fortune – Chance to Stun or Chance to Freeze for 2 seconds
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Willpower Chance on Hit to make enemies Vulerable	Companion Innovation – Wolves Attack Speed Worldly Finesse – Critical Strike Damage
Pants – (Required Unique) Storm’s Companion	Damage Reduction from Close Enemies Lucky Hit Chance bonus to Pack Leader Sprit Boon Wolves Attack Speed Ranks to Wolves
Boots – Legendary Aspect	Implicit: Attacks Reduce Evade’s Cooldown Movement Speed Willpower Armor All Resistances	Druid Motion – Movement Speed Companion Innovation – Wolves Attack Speed
Amulet – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Call of the Wild Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Quickshift Ranks to Heightened Senses Critical Strike Chance Total Armor%	Companion Efficiency – Wolves Cooldown Reduction Nature Magic Innovation – Petrify Duration
Ring – (Recommended)Ring of Starless Skies	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks to Core Skills
Ring – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Chance on Hit to make Enemies Vulnerable Willpower	Companion Efficiency – Wolves Cooldown Reduction Worldly Finesse – Critical Strike Damage

The Utility Temper is a competitive slot that can be Wolves Attack Speed, Petrify Duration or Chance to Crowd Control (Stun/Freeze). Any of these will be beneficial. We want at least one Petrify Duration and one Crowd Control; this will be significant for total survival and stagger on enemies. The rest can go to Wolves Attack Speed.

Cooldown Reduction is for Lucky Hit dry spells on Pack Leader resets. Wolves’ Cooldown can be reduced up to a cap of 75%, or 2.75 seconds. After that, further Cooldown Reduction will not be beneficial.

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

Gems and Runewords

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

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for Critical Strike Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Skull up to 1000 Armor, then Grand Diamond for resistance to all elements

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 2 sockets of the same item e.g. Helm, Chest, Pants or 2-handed Weapon.

The following are Runeword combination options for the Wolf Companion Druid, placed in the 2 Handed Weapon and into one Armor slot:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Yul Ceh	Yul – Gain: 50 Offering. Cast a Skill with a Cooldown. Ceh – Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Summon Multiple Wolves) Cooldown: 1 seconds. Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds.
Tam Kry	Tam – Gain: 25 Offering. Cast a non-Channeled Core Skill. Kry – Requires: 300 Offering Cooldown: 3 Seconds. Evoke the Spiritborn’s Vortex, dealing damage and Pulling In enemies.

YulCeh will periodically summon Spirit Wolves to assist you in combat; applying Chill and adding to Shepherd’s Aspect count. They are Unhindered, passing through enemies and the player. They won’t do great damage themselves but they’re good boys anyways.

TamKry will periodically cast Vortex, helping to group enemies and keep them Close. Shred is a fast attack and will build Offerings quickly.

Other valid combinations can also work, depending on the situation, such as:

• (Ritual Efficiency) Other offering generators such as Bac for travel or Lith for stand still may trigger Ceh more often. Try out Feo for getting Crowd Controlled and summon 10 Spirit Wolves at once!
• (Invocation Alternatives) Kry is used for casts of Vortex to keep enemies Close and grouped. Other Invocation runes such as Yom for Petrify could also work, keeping enemies periodically Stunned. This is especially good with Petrify Duration Tempers. Wat for Horrid Decrepify is a strong Damage Reduction option.
• (Early Gearing) While leveling and gearing before legendary Runes become accessible, many Magic and Rare runeword combinations such as MoniGar for Critical Strike Chance to increase Pack Leader reset chance will be viable.

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 and Lucky Hit bonuses, or Elixir of Precision II for Critical Strike Chance. Both are beneficial for Pack Leader resets.
• 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 Wolf Companion Druid can benefit from several Unique and Mythic Unique Items:

• (Required) Storm’s Companion has powerful gearing affixes and gives werewolves the Storm Tag. The increase to Ranks in Wolves, Wolves Attack Speed, and Additional Chance to trigger Pack Leader all scale the build well.

• (Optional for Resistances) The boot slot is a good slot for early gearing for covering All Resistance. Try out Rakanoth’s Wake or Yen’s Blessing; either is viable. The downside is losing Aspect of Metamorphosis; our source of Unstoppable.
  • Rakanoth’s Wake also gives cooldown reduction, but the Unique item effect is not great.
  • Yen’s Blessing can periodically trigger extra casts of Wolves or other Supporting Skills.

• (Optional Playstyle) Mjölnic Ryng can be an effective multiplier before you have your Ring of Starless Skies. To use this item:
  • Replace Supreme Petrify with Supreme Cataclysm.
  • Replace Masochistic Boon with Calm Before the Storm.
  • Replace ranks in Catastrophe with Endless Tempest.
  • Masterwork ranks in Endless Tempest.

Mythic Unique Items

• (Recommended) Heir of Perdition is a strong multiplier with even stronger Gear Affixes. The Critical Strike and Lucky Hit chance both boost our chance for Pack Leader Resets. This is enough Critical Strike Chance to chance Spirit Boon Scythe Talons to Iron Feather or Swooping Attacks instead.

• (Optional Defensive) Harlequin Crest is not as much damage as other options, but comes with strong Cooldown Reduction for Wolves and Damage Reduction. It is a close second to Heir of Perdition.

• (Recommended) Ring of Starless Skies gives a heavy multiplier and ideal gear affixes for Attack Speed, Critical Strike Chance, and Lucky Hit Chance; everything a Wolf Companion druid needs! The buff is maintained with periodic attacks from Shred.

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 Wolf Companion Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Core Skill: Cleave
• Core Passive: Hysteria
• Iconic Skill: Bloodthirst
• Iconic Passive: Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Provoke
• Opportunity – Shred

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give useful Attack Speed Bonuses

Rotation

1. Keep Wolves on cooldown, cast on priority enemies.
2. Petrify dangerous enemies to stun and apply a Critical Strike damage debuff.
3. Blood Howl to heal and increase attack speed.
4. Innate Debilitating Roar for the damage buff and damage taken debuff on enemies.
5. Shred and Maul as a builder/spender filler to fish for Pack Leader resets of Wolves.

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

Season 6: Season of Hatred Rising

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

Itemization:

• New items including Shroud of False Death.
• Companion Damage on Offensive Tempers removed, replaced with Companion Augments Weapon Manual for Chance for Companions to deal double damage.
• New Aspect – Stormcrow’s Aspect – Ravens now deal Lightning damage which is increased by 60-100%. Ravens Active deals its full damage in half the time, and enemies inside it are Stunned.

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 Paragon board: Untamed – Casting a Companion Skill grants 20% increased Companion damage for 5 seconds, stacking up to 80%.
• New Skill Passives including Backlash and Feral Aptitude.
• New Key Passive One With Nature: Your Companion Skills each gain 1 additional companion and deal 60% increased damage. Gain the Passive Effect of Ravens, Wolves and Poison Creeper.
• Wolves – Wolf Companion’s Attack Speed increased by 15%.
• 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.
• Innate Debilitating Roar New Effect- Debilitating Roar increases your damage by 15% for its duration.
• Petrify – New Effect – Generates 100 Spirit. Encase all Nearby enemies in stone, Stunning them for 4 seconds.
• Prime Petrify – New Effect – You deal 30% increased Critical Strike Damage to enemies affected by Petrify. Against Bosses the Critical Strike Damage bonus is increased to 50% and its duration is increased to 7 seconds. Bonus Critical Strike Damage now applies to damage done by your Companions.
• 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.
• Ancestral Guidance increased from 30% to 40%.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where active Ravens would persist indefinitely after unequipping Stormcrow’s Aspect.
• Fixed an issue where Stormcrow’s Aspect did not mark Ravens as a nature skill.
• Fixed an issue where only the first instance of Druids Raven active attack was doing Lightning Damage while the Stormcrow’s affix is equipped.
• Fixed an issue where Poison Creeper could be re-cast via One with Nature each time the player adjusted Paragon Points, Skill Points, or changed equipment.
• Fixed an issue where the Stormcrow aspect could make Ravens invisible.
• Fixed an issue where the first attack of Shred didn’t hit the targeted enemy after dashing.

Persisting Issues:

• The Storm Tag from Storm’s Companion does not actually make Wolves benefit from Thunderstruck and other Storm modifiers.
• The Werewolf Tag from Aspect of the Alpha not not makes Wolves benefit from Werewolf modifiers like Werewolf Attack Speed or Werewolf Critical Strike Chance.

2.0.5

• One With Nature Companion bonus damage increased from 60% to 80%.
• Ceh – Spirit Wolves now all have the Unhindered buff allowing them to move through enemies and the player, because spirits don’t normally run into things.
• Pack Leader Spirit Boon chance increased to 30%
• Swooping Attacks increased to 20%.
• Masochistic increased to 10.
• Avian Wrath increased to 40%.

Advanced Information

It is time to get started on your Wolf Companion 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.

Mechanics and Gameplay

The primary source of damage for the Wolf Companion build is naturally Wolves.

Wolves are Companions that are out and active; they attack and can be attacked and tank for you. Their Active Skill grants them Unstoppable and make them leap onto your target for high damage. Each active Wolf makes a separate attack.

Base Wolves starts with 2 Wolf Companions:

• One With Nature adds one.
• Aspect of the Stampede adds another.
• Moonrage Aspect adds up to three more.
• Probably a bug, Shroud of False Death gives +1 to all companion counts, even without One With Nature. Likely fixed soon™.

Wolves becomes Werewolves and apply Rabies with Aspect of the Alpha, and become Storm wolves with Storm’s Companion. However, these tags mean very little. Wolves will not scale with Werewolf things like Lust for Carnage or Storm things like Thunderstruck.

Companions inherit all your Stats; your attack speed bonuses will improve your pet’s attack speed. Even in odd ways like Werewolf Attack Speed; if the player is in Werewolf form from casts of Shred, then wolves attack faster because of the Werewolf Attack Speed modifying the player, and being shared to the wolves. However, Werewolf Attack Speed would not directly affect Aspect of the Alpha Werewolves.

Wolves excel at single target, and there is very little area of effect or splash damage that is significant.

Shepherd’s Aspect increases Companion damage for every Companion. Because of One With Nature, Ravens and Poison Creeper do not need to be on your bars; they’re passively out and counting for Shepherd’s Aspect.

Spirit Wolves summoned from the Ceh Rune also count for total Shepherd’s Aspect, but do not otherwise benefit from our Companion scaling. They are nonetheless good boys.

Wolves Cooldown

The lowest any Skill can get for cooldown reduction is 75%. For Wolves, that means 2.75s (75% of base 11 seconds). After 75%, any further sources will not be beneficial. This is achievable through Cooldown Reduction sources such as:

• Companion Efficiency – Wolf Cooldown Temper
• Paragon Nodes like Ferocity
• Generic Cooldown Reduction Gear Affixes

Spirit Boon Packleader resets Companion Skills as a Lucky Hit on Critical Strikes.

• We can guarantee Critical Strikes in late endgame just with masterworked Heir of Perdition and Ring of Starless Skies.
• Lucky Hit comes from the same items, paragon nodes in Untamed, and from Storm’s Companion.

Enough sources of Critical Strike and Lucky Hit and we all but guarantee resets before even the 2.75s cooldown, but it’s important to have that cooldown reduction anyways for redundancy or dry spells of Lucky Hit, especially against push bosses.

Supporting Skills

• Maul and Shred are the builder/spender between casts of Wolves. This combination will:
  • maintain shapeshifting buffs like Quickshift and Heightened Senses.
  • Shred is a fast and cheap Core skill that will trigger Tam quickly,
  • The alternation between Werebear builder and Werewolf Spender will give periodic Petrify cooldown reduction from Inner Beast.
  • Spending Spirit with Shred will keep Ring of Starless Skies and Ancestral Guidance buffs up.

By player preference, you can instead play Claw and Primal Pulverize if you would like. It will be a little less efficient in spender volume, but have a bit more cleave and damage reduction.

• Blood Howl is periodic attack speed and healing.
  
• Innate Debilitating Roar is a damage reduction debuff on enemies and a short damage buff for the player.

Ultimate and Key Passive

• Petrify will stun enemies and place a Critical Strike Damage taken debuff on them.

• One With Nature gives the passive count and passive attacks of any pet, even if not on the Skill Bar. This is important for Shepherd’s Aspect and allows use of other Skills on top. This and the damage multiplier for Companions puts this Key Passive ahead for this build.

Paragon Information

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. Paragon Points are earned from leveling, Renown and Altars of Lilith.

The recommended Paragon boards with images for the Wolf Companion Druid are listed above. The following section goes over some explanations and descriptions for the pathing process for the Wolf Companion 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 Spirit.
  • Legendary Nodes such as Untamed and Ancestral Guidance.
  • Magic and Rare nodes such as Apex and Fortune for Companion damage.
• Defense – The paragon boards help reach goals on Damage Reduction, Armor, and Resistances. This includes:
  • Damage Reduction is improved from individual nodes providing bonuses like Damage Reduction against Elite enemies.
  • Resistances are improved from Magic and Rare Resistance nodes.
• Build Functionality – The paragon boards improve Spirit Generation for the build from a few sources, including:
  • Resource cost reductions and Ultimate Cooldown Reduction from Inner Beast.
  • Resource Generation from the Ancestral Guidance board.
  • Lucky Hit Chance from Untamed.

Changelog

• 18 October, 2024: Ownership of page transferred. Significant changes to Paragon, Skill Trees, and Gearing.
• October 3rd, 2024: Updated for Season 6 (Patch 2.0.2)
• August 3rd, 2024: Updated for Season 5 (Patch 1.5.0)
• June 17th, 2024: Updated for Season 4 Midseason (Patch 1.4.3)
• May 10th, 2024: Updated for Season 4 (Patch 1.4.0)
• January 22nd, 2024: Updated for Season 3 (Patch 1.3.0)
• October 17th, 2023: Updated for Season 2 (Patch 1.2.0)
• August 7th, 2023: Updated for patch 1.1.1.
• July 27th, 2023: Clarified the Aspects required to transition to this build, in the Build Requirements section.
• July 23rd, 2023: Updated Gems section to reflect the presence of Malignant Hearts.
• July 18th, 2023: Updated for Season 1, adding Malignant Hearts to the guide. Added Active Skill Bar.