Cataclysm – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 9)

Build Introduction

Unleash the Cataclysm to drive your enemies before a storm of Lightning Bolts and Twisters! This is an Ultimate Skill build using the Druid’s Cataclysm.

This Skill is a long-duration cast that can get large stacking layers of multipliers guaranteed throughout including:

• Provocation Snapshot Overpowers the entire duration of the Cataclysm.
• Mjölnic Ryng causes your Cataclysm to scale off Lightning Bolt benefits including Charged Atmosphere and Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect.
• Ancestral Guidance increases Ultimate Damage based on Spirit when cast.

This build can be played early, but has high requirements to function smoothly in the endgame. Be sure to check the Build Requirements before diving in. Gameplay will feel similar to the Hurricane Druid.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

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

Required Uniques

Tempest Roar

Mjölnic Ryng

Airidah’s Inexorable Will

Required Aspects

Stormshifter’s Aspect

Many Unique Items are beneficial for the build, but not required for function. Read up on which ones are useful in the Unique Items section.

You will also need these Temper Manuals:

• Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid for Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction
• Nature Magic Innovation for Hurricane Duration, important for Stormshifter’s Aspect.

For smoothness of play, you will need enough Cataclysm duration and cooldown reduction to keep Cataclysm running. This means:

• Enough ranks in Endless Tempest from sources like Mjölnic Ryng.
• Enough Cooldown Reduction on your Ultimate Skills from sources like Airidah’s Inexorable Will and Stormshifter’s Aspect.

There’s more info on this in the Cataclysm Cooldown Management section, including extra options.

Quick Navigation

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on your Cataclysm adventure, including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates. Navigate straight to hot topics here:

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

MaulPulverizeDebilitating RoarEarthen BulwarkHurricaneCataclysm

There’s several flex options for Skilling that can change based on the content, like speedfarming or pit-pushing. Check the Variant Options section to optimize for your content.

Understanding Provocation and aligning it with Cataclysm is essential. Read up on managing Provocation here.

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

Strong Cataclysm cooldown reduction and duration is essential for the build. Check the Cataclysm Cooldown Management for more info.

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

Check these sections for all important Cataclysm 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 non-required 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
2 Handed Mace	Igni Zec	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.
Helm	Bac Gar	Tempest Roar	Lucky Hit: Storm Skills have up to a 10-35% chance to grant 4 Spirit. Your base Storm Skills are now also Werewolf Skills
Chest	Grand Sapphire	Shroud of False Death Mad Wolf’s Glee	If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves	N/A	Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect	Critical Strikes with Storm Skills cause Lightning Bolts to periodically strike close enemies for 3 seconds, each dealing Lightning damage. Your Lightning Bolts deal 25-40% increased damage.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Damage/Cooldown – Stormshifter’s Aspect Defensive– Aspect of Fevered Mauling Armor – Juggernaut’s Aspect	While Hurricane is active, gain +5 Ranks to your Shapeshifting Skills.
Boots	N/A	Rakanoth’s Wake Stormshifter’s Aspect Wildbolt Aspect	When you cast a Skill with a Cooldown, you explode, dealing [150 – 450] Fire damage.
Amulet	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of Apogeic Furor Aspect of Electrified Claws	Casting an Ultimate Skill increases your Ultimate damage by 6-10%, up to 60-100%. At 10 stacks, your Cooldowns and this bonus are reset.
Ring 1	Grand Ruby	Airidah’s Inexorable Will	When casting an Ultimate Skill and again 5 seconds after, you Pull in Distant enemies and deal Physical damage to them. This damage is increased by 10% per 1 point of Willpower you have.
Ring 2	Grand Sapphire	Mjölnic Ryng	While Cataclysm is active, you gain unlimited Spirit and deal  20-40% increased damage. Cataclysm receives your Lightning Bolt benefits.

There’s a few valid setups for Offensive Aspect with this build:

• Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt is a reliable multiplier against Poisoned enemies. With the Overload Spirit Boon, the Poisoned condition is fully covered.
• Aspect of Apogeic Furor is a stacking Ultimate Damage buff, which can have higher top-end than Changeling’s Debt but is lower on average, especially when considering the rampup necessary. It would be the better 2-handed choice in long duration Pit Push, but worse in most other content.
• Aspect of Electrified Claws is a little weaker on damage but the Stun will be high quality of life, add survivability, stagger bosses faster, and easily activate bonuses like Bad Omen and Natural Disaster without relying on other sources of Crowd Control. However, these Stuns can disrupt gathering and stacking enemies so would not be preferred in high push content.
• Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect increases Lightning Bolt damage similarly to Electrified Claws, and periodically summon unempowered Lightning Bolts against Close enemies.

Boots is also a competitive slot, and can be played according to need:

• Rakanoth’s Wake covers early gearing resistances and cooldown for Cataclysm.
• If this is not necessary, Legendary Boots giving high willpower will pull ahead.

Use a 2-Handed Mace for Overpower Damage. Really anything but a staff is fine since Staff has a faster attack speed, which does not scale Cataclysm 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
Two-Handed Mace	Maximum Life Willpower Overpower Damage Critical Strike Damage	Lightning Augments – Chance for Cataclysm to deal double damage. Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance
Unique Helm Tempest Roar	Willpower% Lightning Resistance Maximum Spirit Ranks to Wild Impulses
Mythic Chest Shroud of False Death	All Stats Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Maximum Life Resource Generation
Unique Chest Mad Wolf’s Glee	Maximum Life Damage Bonus to Lupine Ferocity Werewolf Attack Speed Ranks in Digitigrade Gait	Werewolf form is now your true form, and you gain 4-7 Ranks to all Werewolf Skills.
Gloves	Max Life Willpower Armor or All Resistances Overpower Damage	Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Pants	Willpower Max Life Armor or All Resistances Dodge Chance	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor% Nature Magic Innovation – Hurricane Duration
Unique Boots Rakanoth’s Wake	Movement Speed Cooldown Reduction Resistance to All Elements Non-Physical Damage
Legendary Boots	Movement Speed Max Life Willpower All Resistances Armor	Natural Motion – Movement Speed Worldly Fortune – Crowd Control Duration OR Nature Magic Innovation – Petrify Duration
Amulet	Willpower% Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Quickshift Ranks to Resonance Critical Strike Chance	Storm Finesse – Storm Critical Strike Chance Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction
Unique Ring Airidah’s Inexorable Will	Willpower% Damage to Close Enemies Lucky Hit Chance Ultimate Cooldown Reduction
Unique Ring Mjölnic Ryng	Willpower Critical Strike Chance Movement Speed While Cataclysm is Active Ranks to Endless Tempest

Make sure to have enough Hurricane duration Tempers to last through each cast of Cataclysm, so Stormshifter’s Aspect can always be active.

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 Cataclysm Druid:

• (Required) Tempest Roar gives Storm spells including Cataclysm the Werewolf tag, allowing them to benefit from multipliers like Lust for Carnage.

• (Optional) Mad Wolf’s Glee – The ranks in Cataclysm mean more damage and cooldown reduction on Cataclysm, making this Unique a good early investment.

• (Optional) Insatiable Fury – This chest is usable as a convenience item, with useful gear affixes and keeping you in Werebear form, which is useful when watching for Provocation. It is strictly worse than Shroud of False Death and needs more cooldown reduction on your cataclysm than Mad Wolf’s Glee. Mastercraft the Max Life%.

• (Hardcore) Temerity is a notable option for dangerous push or in Hardcore, adding a layer of protection at the expense of some damage.

• (Optional) Tibault’s Will has fantastic gear affixes for Cataclysm, and is justifiable with good rolls or Greater Affixes. This can be paired with the Que rune for good Unique effect uptime.

• (Required) Mjölnic Ryng gives a significant damage buff during Cataclysm, Cataclysm receives your Lightning Bolt benefits. This means all Lightning Bolt modifiers for damage, utility and other effects. The ranks in Endless Tempest will be significant for Cataclysm and Hurricane uptime.

• (Required) Airidah’s Inexorable Will has two important parts; it clusters enemies together, and gives significant cooldown reduction on Ultimate Skills.

• (Early Gearing)Rakanoth’s Wake is reliable source of Cooldown Reduction, and the resistances are a strong early gearing perk. Drops from Infernal Hordes.

Mythic Unique Items

These Mythic Unique items are recommended for the build:

• (Recommended Mythic Unique) Shroud of False Death gives +1 to all Passives. This is a lot of damage multipliers, quality of life, and other benefits, and is generally great to use.

Check our Unique Item Target-farming guide for information on where to find everything you need.

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Gems and Runewords

Use these recommended Gem and Runeword setups for the Cataclysm Druid:

Gems

Weapon Gems	Armor Gems	Jewelry Gems
Grand Ruby for Overpower Damage	Grand Sapphire for Willpower	1 Grand Amethyst for Shadow Resistance 1 Grand Ruby for Fire Resistance 1 Grand Sapphire for Cold Resistance

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 Cataclysm Druid, placed in 2-Handed Weapon and Armor slots:

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Zec	Igni – Gain 25 Offering. Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering. Zec – Requires: 100 Offering (Overflow: Further Reduced Cooldown) Cooldown: 1 second. Reduce your active Ultimate Cooldown by 1 seconds.
Bac Gar	Bac – Gives 50 Offering. Travel 5 Meters. Yom – Requires: 25 Offering. (Overflow: Gain Multiple Stacks). Cooldown: 1 second. Gain 2.5% Critical Strike Chance for 5 seconds, up to 25%.

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.

Zec Reduces Cataclysm cooldown, which helps to align it with Provocation.

Gar provides an easy and low tradeoff source of Critical Strike Chance.

Other Rune setups will be usable over Gar depending on the content and state of gearing. For example:

• Jah when speedrunning.
• Que can give an extra layer of defense in Push, and is pairable with Tibault’s Will.
• Yom can periodically cast Petrify, stunning enemies. With Airidah’s Inexorable Will, this also means frequent grips to stack enemies for Lightning Bolt splash damage.

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Paragon Board

The following are the preferred Glyphs, Boards, and pathing recommended for making the most of the Cataclysm 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 and filling out Glyph additives.

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 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:

• Replace Dominate with Undaunted.
• Replace Spirit with 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 Pulverize	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 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:

• (Cooldown) In Early Gearing while you still need Cataclysm cooldown, use Luminate Eye and affix your Horadric Spell to Cataclysm.
• (Qol) While Idol From Below is powerful, If the Jeweled Guardians are bothersome, replace it with another like The Starflux or Horadric Crest.

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.

Main Mercenary – Subo, the Drunken Archer

• Skills: Wire Trap, Ready At Hand, Cover Fire, Opening Fire

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Maul

Subo’s Opening Fire Critical Strike Damage debuff is a strong damage gain. The minimap target tracking is high quality of life on top. Other Mercenaries are usable, such as if you need additional defenses like Armor or All Resistance from Raheir.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

1. Maintain Hurricane for Stormshifter’s Aspect boost to Cataclysm. Cast before max stacks of Provocation.
2. Stay in Werebear form for your max stacks of Provocation. Give a small gap near max stacks so you do not accidentally spend your Provocation on anything else. When your stacks are capped:
   • Cast Earthen Bulwark to prepare Resonance for your Cataclysm.
   • Cast your empowered Cataclysm.
3. Maintain Werebear form between casts of Cataclysm for damage bonuses like Survival Instincts:
   • Use Debilitating Roar for the damage buff and damage reduction debuffs.
   • Use Primal Pulverize for the damage reduction against important enemies and Ancestral Guidance damage multiplier.
   • Otherwise, use Maul as filler and for Fortify.

Be careful about wasting a Provocation on casts other than Cataclysm, as you want the Overpower buff for every Cataclysm. Read more on this in the Provocation section.

Use Earthen Bulwark as necessary for Barrier and Unstoppable.

Skills, Support and Synergies

The Cataclysm Druid loads its power into its Ultimate Skill Cataclysm, stacking heavy multipliers and additives to send out Twisters and Lightning Bolts against enemies.

Cataclysm Damage

Lots of parts come together to make Cataclysm do massive damage. Here’s the notable ones.

From Items:

• Tempest Roar Makes Cataclysm a Werewolf Skill, benefitting from multipliers like Lust for Carnage and other Shapeshifting bonuses.
• Mjölnic Ryng increases all damage for the duration of Cataclysm and also makes Cataclysm be affected by modifiers to Lightning Bolt. These sources like include:
  • Charged Atmosphere
  • Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect
  • Aspect of Electrified Claws
• Lightning Augments gives Cataclysm a high chance to deal double damage.

From Paragon:

• All used paragon legendary nodes increase Cataclysm damage, but Ancestral Guidance is especially potent, increasing damage based on Spirit when cast. Spirit is increased from a few sources to max this power, including paragon nodes and Gift of the Stag Spirit Boon. Because of Mjölnic Ryng, we are always at full Spirit.

From other Skills:

• Hurricane is maintained for Stormshifter’s Aspect, which gives ranks to Cataclysm for more damage and more cooldown reduction. We get more duration on Hurricane from Endless Tempest and Hurricane Duration Tempers on gear. make sure you have Hurricane that lasts through an entire Cataclysm and Rune charging cycle.
• Provocation guaranteeds Overpower for every cast.

Cataclysm has a short 0.5 second lockout for the Lightning Bolts to target the same enemy or area. This will slow down bossing somewhat, but is manageable.

Poisoned Condition for Envenom is applied from Overload Spirit Boon, giving all Storm Damage a 5 second Poison for 20% of damage dealt.

Supporting Skills

The rest of the Skills are supporting skills:

• Earthen Bulwark is taken for Barrier and our sole source of Unstoppable. It also
• Debilitating Roar is a strong Damage Reduction debuff on enemies and a small damage buff on top.
• Maul is a filler spell to keep us in Werebear form. While in Werebear form, we benefit from the Survival Instincts buff to damage and Overpower.
• Primal Pulverize is another Werebear skill that can reduce damage of enemies. It will not cost Spirit since we have Mjölnic Ryng, but still counts as spending for Ancestral Guidance. This is flex point that could be swapped with other abilities or skill passives. Examples include:
  • Primal Shred for mobility in farm.
  • Skill Passive damage amps such as Electric Shock or Nature’s Reach.
  • Defensive Passives like Iron Fur.

You may find that in trivial content, these supporting abilities are surplus to requirement. You are right. Enjoy the game with fewer things to worry about. Eventually with strong gear, world content or nightmare dungeons or Hordes or bosses only need Cataclysm and a breezy walk through, murdering all things in your way.

Form checks like Heightened Senses and Quickshift do not need the Skill to hit an enemy. You can even just Force Hold and Maul in place.

Key Passive

The Key Passive for this build is Ursine Strength:

• Gain 30% Maximum Life, 20% more damage, and a 100% Overpower bonus while in Werebear form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.

We maintain Werebear form with Maul or Pulverize.

Cataclysm Cooldown Management

Maintaining Cataclysm is essential for output. Having enough duration and cooldown reduction means being able to chain casts without significant downtime between casts.

We gain Cataclysm duration from:

• Calamity Spirit Boon for 35% more Ultimate Duration.
• Ranks in Endless Tempest.

To lower the cooldown on Cataclysm, we have:

• Skill ranks in Cataclysm reduce cooldown. These are from Skill points and sources like Stormshifter’s Aspect and if used, Mad Wolf’s Glee.
• Ultimate Cooldown Reduction from Tempering on Jewelry.
• Zec Rune gives Ultimate Cooldown Reduction every trigger.
• Ultimate Cooldown Reduction from Airidah’s Inexorable Will. This is a good affix to target with Greater Affix, and as needed, Masterworking. After your duration and cooldown are sufficient, the masterworking can be moved onto the Willpower% Affix instead.
• If used, Rakanoth’s Wake has general Cooldown Reduction.
• Calm Before the Storm Spirit Boon. Unfortunately Cataclysm has low Lucky Hit Chance so these triggers don’t happen often. The in game tooltip on Cataclysm indicates high Lucky Hit Chance, except it actually means that’s the chance over the entire duration of a very long Cataclysm cast.

There are a few very inefficient ways to additionally lower cooldown on Cataclysm. Try all the above before resorting to these:

• Vehement Brawler’s Aspect gives ranks in Ultimate Skills, which gives some cooldown reduction. However, the multiplier is short duration and weak.
• Flickerstep can give some Ultimate Cooldown Reduction when evading through enemies. The trouble is being in content where things are dying slowly enough to actually get the evade off.

Snapshotting

Snapshotting means preparing multipliers, buffs or other effects into the entire length of the Skill; in this case, our Cataclysm. Since Season 8, recasts before duration runs out no longer keep buffs, so these buffs need loaded into every Cataclysm cast. Don’t worry, it’s a lot to read but not a lot to manage in game.

What are we snapshotting into our Cataclysm:

Power	Effect	Trigger
Provocation	Guaranteed Overpower	Max Provocation stacks from being in Werebear form
Resonance	Earth Skills empower your next Storm Skill	Earthen Bulwark before each Cataclysm
Stormshifter’s Aspect	Cataclysm Ranks and Cooldown Reduction from those Ranks	Casting Hurricane

• Provocation guarantees Overpower; you want max stacks before each cast of Cataclysm.
• Resonance is a strong elemental multiplier. Earthen Bulwark is the convenient Earth Skill trigger before each storm skill Cataclysm. Casts of Bulwark will not interfere with Provocation.
• Stormshifter’s Aspect needs Hurricane to be active before the Cataclysm for the Cataclysm to recieve the cooldown reduction from the extra ranks. Cataclysm is a Shapeshifting Skill thanks to Tempest Roar. Casts of Hurricane can eat your Provocation so prepare it ahead of hitting max Provocation stacks.

Lots of multipliers are not snapshot into the cataclysm, but are instead dynamic or conditional checks so only give their bonuses when those conditions are met, such as:

• Form-based multipliers like Ursine Strength, Mending or Survival Instincts.
• Status condition Checks like Poisoned for Envenom.
• Dynamic checks like seasonal power Belial’s Eye Beam, which gives its buff after every Main Boss Power trigger.
• Dynamic buffs like Backlash.

So how’s this play? Provocation takes 10 stacks to guarantee an Overpower. I will:

• Cast Werebear skills to be in Werebear form to gain Provocation stacks.
• Around 8 stacks, refresh Hurricane.
• Maul, Debilitating Roar or Pulverize to get back into Werebear form.
• *Wait* without hitting Skills, and watch my Provocation stacks so I do not accidentally spend them on something that is not Cataclysm.
• When stacks hit 10, Earthen Bulwark into Cataclysm.
• Repeat each Cataclysm.

At this point, you should see Blue/Orange numbers indicating Cataclysm is overpowering. Not all Lightning Bolts will be Overpowered Cataclysm Bolts, as some are coming from other sources like Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect, Charged Atmosphere and Overload Spirit Boon.

Provocation

Provocation – After 10 seconds of Werebear form, your next non-Defensive Skill will Overpower and deal increased damage.

Provocation is how we Overpower our Cataclysm for a large damage multiplier.

At least one point in Provocation is required. Provocation takes 10 seconds in Werebear form to be ready to trigger.

Sometimes the Provocation stack buff will be pushed off the buff bar because too many other active buffs…There is no solution to this other than keeping count or waiting a bit for the buffs to reappear.

Bug: Other Skills can eat your Provocation or prematurely end the Overpower on your cataclysm! This is why we want to match cooldown to stacks. This is why we take so many Cooldown choices; we want our Cataclysm to be ready about every Provocation.

Shroud of False Death will add one point in Provocation. keep that in mind when allocating Skill Points.

Variant Options

Cataclysm has several options for gameplay, including Skill flexibility, Rune options, Boss Powers, and Unique Items. Here’s some considerations for both speedfarming, and for the highest Pit push:

Speedfarming

For speedfarming, try these options:

• Primal Shred can replace Primal Pulverize as your spender for stronger mobility.
• Jah can replace Yom for a higher distance Evade.
• Debilitating Roar can be replaced for a stronger Backlash uptime defensive like Innate Cyclone Armor or Enhanced Blood Howl.

Pit Push

There’s a few optimizations with heavy gear requirements that can give an advantage in the Pit. These will be late season gearing on high paragon to become a meaningful difference. These will require strong Greater Affixes on the gear. Most of these optimizations are gratuitous or overkill in regular non-push play like world content, Hordes or Bossing.

Each part will give the variant option and what to exchange for it, and any of these or all in combination will give small advantages for a total push strength:

• Nagu can be an excellent rune trigger for the easiest rate and overflow of your runes. To use this;
  • Exchange Maul and Hurricane for Rank 1 Wolves and Brutal Ravens on the Skill Bar. They are just there to be Summon Count for the Nagu.
  • Replace Stormshifter’s Aspect. This means more sources of Ultimate Cooldown Reduction is necessary.
• Tibault’s Will has incredible gear affixes for Cataclysm, when rolled well with strong Gear affixes.
  • Greater Affix the Max Resource.
  • Pair this with the IgniQue Runeword for strong uptime on the Unstoppable multiplier.
  • Keep skill points in Enhanced Earthen Bulwark even if not on the Skill Bar so the rune will give the Unstoppable.

Any Defensive Skill can be conditionally swapped; adjust to your game state.

• Innate Debilitating Roar gives the strongest stacked defense and strong fortify, at a larger cooldown, so less Backlash uptime.
• Enhanced Blood Howl gives the strongest uptime on Backlash, and access to some Werewolf buffs.
• Cyclone Armor is significant passive elemental defense. Both Passive are usable:
  • Innate Cyclone Armor gives a minor damage taken debuff on enemies, especially good vs non-pushable enemies like bosses.
  • Preserving Cyclone Armor stacks enemies for better Lightning Bolt splash and minor defense.
• Earthen Bulwark is a reliable source of Barrier, Fortify and Unstoppable.

Good luck on your push!

Elixirs, Incense and Health Potions

The Alchemist offers helpful consumables at the cost of foraged materials found throughout Sanctuary.

• Craft one of these Elixirs
• (Damage) Elixir of Resourcefulness II to scale Ancestral Guidance.
• (Defense) Elixir of Fortitude II for Max Life%.
• 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

This season sees nerfs to Mjölnic Ryng, Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect and Overpower damage in general. While still viable and likely A-Tier, Cataclysm will not be the definitive push build for Druid anymore. As well, variants like Vasily’s Prayer – Stone Burst Cataclysm will be a little worse rather than a little better than Tempest Roar – Cataclysm.

The following list details the important changes in the Season 9 Patch Updates that are specific to the Cataclysm Druid as well as any Known Bugs. For general Season 9 information, check out our Season 9 Hub.

Itemization:

• Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect – Secondary effect changed.
  • Previously: Your Lightning Bolt damage is increased by 15% for every 100 Willpower you have.
  • Now: Your Lightning Bolts deal 25-40% increased damage.
• Mjölnic Ryng – Damage bonus reduced from 40-100% to 20-40%.
• Overpower bonus scaling is removed.
• Overpower additive on gear affixes and tempers is reduced.

Skills and Stats:

• Maul – Damage increased from 26% to 80%.
• Pulverize – Damage increased from 92% to 110%.
• Enhanced Pulverize
  • Previously: Your next Pulverize will Overpower every 12 seconds while you remain Healthy.
  • Now: Every 10 seconds, your next Pulverize will Overpower.
• Enhanced Debilitating Roar – Fortify amount increased from 22% to 30%.
• Innate Debilitating Roar – Damage bonus increased from 15% to 25%.
• 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.
• Vigilance – Damage Reduction reduced from 7/14/21% to 5/10/15%.
• 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 5 seconds after leaving it.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the buff from Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect would not be removed when unequipping the item.
• Fixed an issue where Shroud of False Death also granted bonuses to Spirit Boons.

Known Bugs:

• Some additive lightning bolt damage sources such as Lightning Bolt Tempers and Electrocution are not properly scaling Cataclysm damage.
  • Electrocution glyph is still taken for its working multipliers.
  • We are taking Storm Critical Strike Chance instead of Lightning Bolt additive on the Temper anyways.
• Using Provocation on other Skills will cancel any active overpower on other duration skills, including Cataclysm.

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Changelog

• 27 June, 2025: Updated for Season 9. Paragon and some gearing updated to account for Runeworker’s Conduit Aspect and Overpower changes.
• 9 May, 2025: Variant Options section added with Speedfarming and Pit Pushing flex considerations. Main build is unchanged.
• 1 May, 2025: Tempering Changes for offensive slots – Storm Finesse for filling out Storm Critical Strike Chance. Further clarified how to Snapshot and use Provocation. Added to Known Bugs
• 24 April, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes. Sections on using Provocation introduced. Snapshotting section moved to Build Mechanics.
• 3 March 2025: 2.1.3 updates – clarified some in cataclysm management and snapshotting based on findings.
• 12 February 2025: 2.1.2 updates
  • Adjusted Witch Powers to adjust for the change to Decay Augmentation.
  • Adjusted Tempers to account for Known bugs involving Lightning Bolt additives not working with cataclysm.
  • Clarified some sections.
• 27 January 2025: Adjusted several sections:
  • Skill tree swapped Bad Omen for Catastrophe. Uptime better than expected.
  • Paragon changed pathing, replacing Earth and Sky for Headhunter for more Runeworker’s scaling.
  • Gearing options for the boot slot, and Aspect options for Pants.
  • Dedicated section to explaining Snapshotting.
  • Various cleanups of sections for clarity or (haha steve) brevity.
• 24 January 2025: Adjusted recommended witch powers, clarified applying Runes in both Rotation and Runeword Sections.
• 16 January 2025: Build Created for Season 7 and Patch 2.1.