Boulder – Druid Build Guide for Diablo 4 (Season 9)

Build Introduction

Unleash an Avalanche to bury your enemies! Hurl Boulders at your foes, obliterating those that stand in your path. The Boulder Druid build uses the Unique Item Dolmen Stone and Aspect of Metamorphic Stone in combination to let your Boulders do massive damage in a large area around you.

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on your Boulder 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.

This video shows only the base build interactions and does not include Seasonal Powers.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

The following Unique Items and Legendary Aspects are required for build functionality to get started on the Boulder Druid:

Required Uniques

Dolmen Stone

Vasily’s Prayer

Required Aspects

Aspect of Metamorphic Stone

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

Quick Navigation

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Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Skill Bar for Boulder Druid

Petrify Hurricane Cyclone Armor Earthen Bulwark Claw Boulder

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.

Make sure to check the Build Mechanics sections on Spirit Management and Hurricane Management to fine tune making the build work for the gear level and progression of your character.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following are the recommended Legendary Aspects, Gear Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs for the Boulder 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 Power
2 Handed Polearm	Igni Xan	Aspect of Retaliation	Your Core Skills deal up to 35-75% increased damage based on your amount of Fortify.
Head	Bac Yom	Unique – Vasily’s Prayer Juggernaut’s Aspect	Your Earth Skills are now also Werebear skills and Fortify you for 2-5% of your Maximum Health.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	Mythic – Shroud of False DeathUnique – Insatiable Fury	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		Aspect of Metamorphic Stone	Boulder is now a Core Skill and costs 40 Spirit to cast dealing 90-130% of normal damage.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Unique – Tibault’s Will	You deal 10-20% increased damage while Unstoppable and for 5 seconds after. When you become Unstoppable, gain 50 of your Primary Resource.
Boots		Unique – Wildheart Hunger 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 0.5% per second.
Amulet	Grand Diamond	Required Unique – Dolmen Stone	Casting Boulder while Hurricane is active will cause your boulders to rotate around you, up to a maximum of 10 boulders. Each rotating boulder increases their damage by 20-40%
Ring 1	Grand Diamond	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 2	Grand Diamond	Mythic –Ring of Starless Skies Unique – Hunter’s Zenith 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%.

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
2 Handed Polearm – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Max Life Resource Cost Reduction Critical Strike Damage	Earth Augments – Chance for Boulder Projectiles To Cast Twice Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance
Helm – Unique Vasily’s Prayer	Willpower% Maximum Life Armor Ranks to Defensive Posture
Chest – MythicShroud of False Death	All Stats Maximum Life Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Resource Generation
Chest- Unique Insatiable Fury	Maximum Life Werebear Overpower Ursine Strength’s Bonuses Ranks to Iron Fur
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Ranks to Core Skills Willpower	Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Pants – Unique Tibault’s Will	All Stats Maximum Life Maximum Resource Damage Reduction While Unstoppable
Pants – Legendary Aspect	Max Life Willpower Armor Resistance to All Elements Dodge Chance	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Boots – Unique Wildheart Hunger	Movement Speed Ranks to Heightened Senses Shapeshifting Attack Speed Cold Resistance
Boots – Legendary Aspect	Movement Speed Ranks to Boulder Max Life Willpower Spirit Per Second	Druid Motion – Movement Speed Worldly Fortune – Lucky Hit chance
Amulet – (Required)Dolmen Stone	Movement Speed while Hurricane is active Nature Magic Cooldown Reduction Ranks to Wrath Skills Ranks to Crushing Earth
Ring – (Recommended)Ring of Starless Skies	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Ranks in Core Skills
Ring – (Recommended Unique) Hunter’s Zenith	Willpower Ranks to Predatory Instinct Ranks to Quickshift Ranks to Heightened Senses
Ring – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Max Life Willpower	Earth Finesse – Earth Critical Strike Chance Ultimate Efficiency —  Petrify Cooldown Reduction

• Nature Magic Cooldown Reduction is the most important affix to roll high and target for Greater Affix and Mastercraft. It will help the most in maintaining Hurricane.
• 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, a well-rolled Vasily’s Prayer, or using a Juggernaut’s Aspect.

After gearing, look at progression systems like Paragon next.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

These Unique Items are recommended or optional for the Boulder Druid

• (Required) Dolmen Stone causes Boulder to rotate around the player while Hurricane is active. It is required for this playstyle. Boulders caught in the Hurricane will do less knockback.

• Vasily’s Prayer is a strong source of Fortify, and makes Boulder a Werebear skill. This enables maintenance of several strong multipliers like Quickshift and Heightened Senses.

• (Before Mythic) Insatiable Fury is a strong defensive Unique Item, and grants skill ranks to Werebear skills, including Boulder, because Vasily’s Prayer makes Boulder a Werebear Skill.

• Tibault’s Will is a reliable source of Spirit and damage boost while Unstoppable. The stats are favorable for the build.

• Wildheart Hunger is a staple of Bestial Rampage builds, and the stacks are easily maintained with this Boulder and Claw playstyle.

• (Before Mythic) Hunter’s Zenith provides periodic Critical Overpowers.
• (Optional Playstyle) Airidah’s Inexorable Will can be a high quality of life option to grip in enemies while doing speedfarming or trivial content. Mastercraft the Willpower%. This can be combined with the Yom Rune for even more grips.

Mythic Unique Items

The Boulder Druid can benefit from the following Mythic Unique items:

• Ring of Starless Skies is a powerful Resource Cost Reduction tool and damage multiplier.

• Shroud of False Death gives +1 to all Skill Passives. This includes strong additions to Damage multipliers, Damage Reductions, Fortify Generation and Quality of Life increases like longer Hurricane.

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 Boulder Druid:

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Emerald for Critical Strike Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	Grand Diamond for resistance to all elements

Horadric Jewels

Seasonal Players can use these Horadric Jewels, placed in jewelry gear slots. Check out the Horadric Spell section for all available options.

Jewel	Description
Scornful Light	You deal 20% and take 10% more Elemental damage.
Idol From Below	You gain 6% primary stat, 6% maximum life and you are always Unhindered. However, you will be hunted in Sanctuary’s darkest places by Jewel Guardians who were entombed to protect this relic.
Elemental Brand	Your Catalytic Skill deals 33% damage of your Infusion’s element over 3 seconds. Lucky Hit: Dealing damage of your Infusion’s element has up to a 33% chance to trigger its secondary effect.

Runewords

Use these Runeword combinations for the Boulder Druid, placed in the 2 Handed Weapon and into one Armor slot:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Xan	Igni – Gain Offering: 25. 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
Bac Yom	Bac – Gain Offering: 50. Travel 5 Meters. Yom – Requires: 500 Offering. Overflow: Increase Stun Duration. Cooldown: 5 seconds Invoke the Druid’s Petrify Skill, Stunning enemies, restoring Primary Resource.

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 provide even more Overpowers for our Boulders. Yom will give periodic casts of Petrify; stunning enemies, restoring resource and applying a Critical Strike Damage Taken debuff.

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

• (Spirit Management) Poc Lum in combination can give strong Spirit Refund while still gearing and leveling.
• (Farm Quality of Life) Kry for casts of Vortex can be a strong convenience in farm content.
• (Topend damage) Qax is a periodic damage multiplier, but Spirit management will need to be solid to use.
• (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 viable.

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Paragon Board

The following are the preferred Glyphs, Boards, and pathing recommended for making the most of the Boulder 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, exchange Tectonic for Territorial.

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Horadric Spell (Season 9)

Season 9: Sins of the Horadrim offers seasonal Powers accessed from a Powers tab on the character Sheet and Horadric Jewels placed into Jewelry slots to augment these Powers.

The Horadric Catalyst is equipped to a Skill on the Skill Bar, triggered on the Skill’s use. One Infusion adds effects and modifies the damage type of the Catalyst, and three Arcana enhance the Catalyst or provide extra effects on Catalyst trigger.

Pushing

Type	Power	Description
Catalyst, Attached to Boulder	Astral Pillar	Shape an Ethereal Column that Taunts for 3.0 seconds. Piercing waves flow from it and deal damage, until you create another one or move too far away.
Infusion	Corrosive Vapor	Your Spell Catalyst now deals Poison and or Poisoning damage. Bonus: Enemies damaged by it take 150% Poisoning damage over 4 seconds. This effect can only happen on each enemy every 3 seconds. While equipped, your Poison Damage Bonus is equal to that of your highest Damage Type Bonus. Rank 5: Deactivates monster Vampiric effects for 5 seconds.
Arcana	Fractured Core	Denial – Your Catalyst deactivates monster Damage Resistance Aura effects for 2.5 seconds, but you take 10% more stacking damage for the same time (+0.5 each rank).
Arcana	Potent Alloy	Denial – Your Catalyst destroys enemy Barriers and Knocks them Down for 1.0 seconds after the removal (+0.8 each rank).
Arcana	Bloody Charm	Denial – Your Catalyst gains a specialized Execute effect for non-Boss enemies with 10% or less Life. (+2% each rank). Astral Pillar: Will launch additional waves towards Executable non-Boss enemies to Execute them.

Most Catalysts are functional and can be played by preference. Other setups can work outside push content, such as:

• (Speedfarm) Propulsion with Floaty Bobble, Gleaming Conduit and Bloody Charm blinks to enemies, and grants movement speed on execute.

Horadric Jewels

Use these Jewels, placed in jewelry gear slots, to enhance the Horadric Spell:

Jewel	Description
Scornful Light	You deal 20% and take 10% more Elemental damage.
Idol From Below	You gain 6% primary stat, 6% maximum life and you are always Unhindered. However, you will be hunted in Sanctuary’s darkest places by Jewel Guardians who were entombed to protect this relic.
Elemental Brand	Your Catalytic Skill deals 33% damage of your Infusion’s element over 3 seconds. Lucky Hit: Dealing damage of your Infusion’s element has up to a 33% chance to trigger its secondary effect.

There are some situationally useful Jewels to consider:

• (Resource) Spark of Creation can help with Spirit Management while still gearing.
• (Qol) While Idol From Below is powerful, If the Jeweled Guardians are bothersome, replace it with another.

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 Boulder Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity: Boulder

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give strong Attack Speed bonuses.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

1. Maintain Werewolf buffs like Bestial Rampage and Toxic Claws bonus Poison damage with Claw.
2. Maintain Hurricane.
3. Cast Petrify against gathered enemies to Stun, Restore Spirit, and apply a Critical Strike Damage debuff.
4. Innate Cyclone Armor to apply damage taken debuffs to enemies. This knock can be disruptive so take care on where it is used.
5. Cast Boulders, pushing against your priority enemies as they are knocked back. Up to 10 Boulders can be maintained at at time.
6. Restore Spirit with Petrify and Earthen Bulwark with Tibault’s Will.
7. As needed, filler attack with Claw.

Use Earthen Bulwark as necessary for Barrier, Fortify and Unstoppable.

Claw and other Skills that change your Form do not need to hit enemies to gain the Shapeshifting benefits. It can often be beneficial to keybind and tap Force Hold to be able to cast in place.

Skills, Support and Synergies

This build has lots of moving parts that come together to make a powerful storm of abilities.

Boulder is our high-damage main Skill. When Hurricane is active, Dolmen Stone causes the Boulders will revolve around the player. Aspect of Metamorphic Stone turns Boulder into a Core Skill, removes the cooldown, and adds a Spirit Cost to the skill. Keep several of these rotating around you at a time, and refresh them as they run out. Up to ten Boulder can be maintained at a time, with a damage multiplier from Dolmen Stone for each active Boulder.

Boulder s a Nature Magic Skill, and the Earth Tags will be included in anything that asks for Nature, such as Defiance. While Boulders usually do physical damage, with Savage Boulder the boulders become Poison Damage and also apply Poisoned Condition, which makes checks like Envenom easy to maintain.

Supporting Skills

Claw is a filler Basic Attack that can help maintain Werewolf buffs like Heightened Senses, Toxic Claws or Bestial Rampage. Primal Shred is an alternative option for when doing speedfarming, as long as your Spirit Management is sufficient.

Earthen Bulwark is a defensive tool for Barrier and Unstoppable.

Innate Cyclone Armor gives a small defensive passive, and the active use applies Vulnerable, Slow and a small damage taken debuff on enemies.

There’s several Shapeshifting buffs that are maintained throughout the fight. Quickshift, Heightened Senses. They are easily maintained with Claw and Boulder.

Ultimate Skill and Key Passive

The Ultimate Skill for Boulder is Petrify. This Stuns, Restores Spirit, and applies a Critical Strike Damage debuff to enemies.

Bestial Rampage is our Key Passive. Wildheart Hunger giving a large bonus on top to each stat. These are easily maintained between casts of Boulder and Claw.

Spirit Management

Boulder can be a Spirit Hungry build. We have several ways we manage Spirit:

• Gift of the Stag Spirit Boon for Spirit and Spirit Per Second.
• Energize Spirit Boon to periodically restore Spirit.
• Tibault’s Will for periodic Spirit when gaining Unstoppable from Earthen Bulwark.
• Casts of Petrify Restore Spirit.
• Gear Affixes like Spirit Cost Reduction on Weapon.
• Ring of Starless Skies grants up to 5 stacks of 10% Spirit Cost Reduction.

If this is not sufficient while leveling and gearing, consider using any of the following:

• Use Aspect of the Umbral or Starlight Aspect for Spirit.
• Mercenary – Use Raheir’s Iron Wolf’s Call Iconic Passive for periodic free casts of Boulder.
• Remove points in Wild Impulses, placing them in Abundance, and Use Claw as an attack to build Spirit.
• Adjust Gear affixes: Resource Cost Reduction on Weapon, and Resource Generation on Rings. Spirit on Kill on weapon, or Spirit Per Second on Helm, Chest, or Boots can all be useful.
• Use Runeword setup Poc Lum for Spirit Refunds.

Hurricane Maintenance

For the Boulder Druid to play smoothly, Hurricane should be a longer duration than its cooldown. If Hurricane Uptime is not complete, any spinning Boulder will shoot out from the relative direction and be lost, spilling all the meatballs from the plate, making a mess, and the Boulder count will restart back at zero next Hurricane. This is a significant issue for maintaining gameplay momentum. There’s a number of ways that we extend the duration, and reduce the cooldown. Sources include:

• The Nature Magic Cooldown Reduction on Dolmen Stone is a large source for Hurricane Cooldown Reductions. Getting these Mastercrafted and Greater Affixed are significant.
• Hurricane Duration Utility Tempers on Gloves, Pants, or Boots can make Hurricane duration more than long enough.
• Ranks in Endless Tempest extend duration. If you need more ranks, take Skill Points from Provocation.
• Any Cooldown Reduction on gear.

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.
• 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 9 Updates

With the nerf to Mjölnic Ryng and Overpower damage scaling, this build will once again default to Petrify over Cataclysm and Bestial Rampage over Ursine Strength. The nerf to overpower additive scaling is significant but we will still lean into Overpower sources. Other than that, not much is changing functionally for the Boulder druid.

The following list details the important changes in the Season 9 Patch Updates that are specific to the Boulder Druid. For general Season 9 information, check out our Season 9 Hub.

Itemization:

• Mjölnic Ryng Damage Bonus reduced from 40-100% to 20-40%.
• Overpower bonus scaling reduced by 80%.
• Aspect of Metamorphic Stone Boulder damage increased from 90-130% to 120-160% of normal damage.
• Dolmen Stone Boulder damage increased from 20-40% per boulder to 30-50%.

Skills and Stats:

• Claw Damage increased from 28% to 80%.
• Fierce Claw Poison Damage increased from 20% to 40%.
• Vigilance Damage Reduction reduced from 7/14/21% to 5/10/15%.
• Toxic Claws New Effect – You deal 5/10/15% increased Poison damage. This is doubled while in Werewolf form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.
• Provocation
  • Previous: When you remain in Werebear form for at least 20/16/12 seconds, your next non-Defensive Skill will Overpower.
  • Now: After 10 seconds of Werebear form, your next non-Defensive Skill will Overpower and deal 5/10/15% increased damage.
• Ursine Strength
  • Previously: Gain 30% additional Maximum Life while in Werebear form and for 3 seconds after leaving Werebear form. While Healthy, deal 15% increased damage, and 70% increased Overpower damage.
  • Now: Gain 30% Maximum Life, 20% more damage, and a 100% Overpower bonus while in Werebear form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.

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Changelog

• 27 June, 2025: Updated for Patch 2.3 Season 9. Changed from a Cataclysm build to Petrify. Changes to Skill Tree, Paragon, Gearing and Spirit Boons.
• 30 April, 2025: Changed build to Savage Boulder. Adjustments to Skill Points and Paragon nodes to account for the change.
• 24 April, 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.
• 15 October, 2024: Updated for new onsite Paragon Tool.
• 28 September, 2024: Updated for Season 6. Changes to Paragon, Skill Tree, Skill Bar, and recommended Uniques.
• 7 August, 2024: Significant rework of the main build due to season 5 bugs. Cataclysm Boulder changed to main build and Nature’s Fury Shred Boulder retired for now.
• 2 August, 2024: Updated Guide for changes with Patch 1.5.0 and Season of the Infernal Horde. Shepherd Boulder variant removed. Cataclysm Boulder variant added.
• 17 June, 2024: Updated for mid-season patch 1.4.3. Updates to Spirit Boons, Gear Affixes and Paragon Board for better total damage.
• 15 May, 2024: Small changes in gear affixes to adjust for season launch changes from PTR.
• 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.
• 10 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.