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

Build Introduction

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

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.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

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

Required Uniques

Greatstaff of the Crone

Required Aspects

Dire Wolf’s Aspect

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

Quick Navigation

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

Want to jump ahead? Find the sections you’re looking for here:

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Skill Bar for Stormclaw Druid

Grizzly Rage Cyclone Armor Hurricane Blood Howl Claw Maul

Points in Earthen Bulwark are for the Que trigger to gain the enhanced effects like Fortify from Preserving Earthen Bulwark, and not placed on the Skill Bar.

Thanks to Greatstaff of the Crone, Claw also casts Storm Strike, which is not needed on the Skill Bar.

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.

Gift of the Stag is for the Max Spirit Multiplier to Aspect of Adaptability.

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

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Gear, Stats, Gems, and Runes

The following are the recommended Legendary Aspects, Gear Affixes, Gems, and Elixirs for the Stormclaw Druid.

Legendary Aspects

Gear Slots with multiple options are listed in recommended priority. Any slot with an Optional Mythic Unique or Unique Item will include a valid alternative legendary power to use while still leveling and gearing. Combine these with the right stat priorities.

Slot	Gem	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Aspect Power
Weapon	Igni Xan	Required Unique –Greatstaff of the Crone	Claw is now a Storm Skill and also casts Storm Strike at 200-350% normal damage.
Helm	Lith Que	Mythic – Heir of Perdition Unique – Tempest Roar Juggernaut’s Aspect	Give in to hatred and earn Lilith’s Favor, increasing your damage dealt by 60%. Slaughter enemies to briefly steal Lilith’s Favor from Nearby allies.
Chest	Grand Sapphire	Mythic – Shroud of False Death Unique – Mad Wolf’s Glee	If you haven’t attacked in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves		Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast	The duration of Grizzly Rage is increased by 3-10 seconds. In addition, Critical Strikes while Grizzly Rage is active increase your Critical Strike Damage by 5% for the duration, up to a maximum of 100%.
Pants	Grand Sapphire	Dire Wolf’s Aspect	Grizzly Rage is now a Werewolf Skill and Shapeshifts you into a Dire Werewolf. Dire Werewolves gain 20-40% Movement Speed and 20-40% Spirit Cost Reduction instead of Damage Reduction. In addition, kills Heal you for 10% of your Maximum Life.
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 .5% per second.
Amulet	Grand Amethyst	Aspect of the Rabid Bear	While Grizzy Rage is active, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage, you deal 40-80% more Poison damage, and you passively spread Rabies.
Ring 1	Grand Sapphire	Aspect of the Moonrise	Damaging an enemy with a Basic Skill grants you 4% Attack Speed for 10 seconds, stacking up to 5 times. Upon reaching maximum stacks, you enter a Vampiric Bloodrage, gaining 40-60% Basic Skill damage and 15% Movement Speed for 10 seconds.
Ring 2	Grand Ruby	Aspect of Adaptability	Now: Basic Skills generate 5 additional Primary Resource, once per Skill. Basic Skills deal 0.4-0.6% increased damage for each point of Primary Resource you have.

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

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance, and some alternatives are given. The bolded affixes are the most important targets for Masterworking upgrades. Unique Items cannot be Tempered, but can be Masterworked.  Check the Tempering guide and Masterworking guide for more details about these topics.

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

• Damage to Close is important for Thunderstruck. The Gear Affix on Greatstaff of the Crone is sufficient to cap this Node.
• Armor cap is 1000 for up to 85% Physical Damage Reduction. This is generally reached with either one Armor Gear Affix and one Total Armor% Temper, or using a Juggernaut’s Aspect.
• Greatstaff of the Crone makes Claw a Storm ability, benefitting from Storm Critical Strike Chance

After gearing, look at progression systems like Paragon next.

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

The following Unique Items are required, recommended, or situational for the Stormclaw Druid:

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

• (Before Mythic) Tempest Roar makes Storm Strike, Cyclone Armor and Hurricane into Werewolf Skills, allowing the skill to benefit from multipliers like Lust for Carnage, get ranks from Mad Wolf’s Glee, and be active during Grizzly Rage.

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

• Wildheart Hunger Gives a stacking bonus to Bestial Rampage, and is a strong offensive option for the boots slot. Even with Grizzly Rage, stacks will be maintained from casts of Que forcing form change (Probably a bug, expect a fix some day).

Mythic Unique Items

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

• Heir of Perdition has Strong Gear Affixes and a steady damage multiplier. The multiplier can be stolen occasionally from others that also use this helm for a higher damage multiplier. However, this is a utility tradeoff since Storm Skills will not persist during Grizzly Rage without Tempest Roar.

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

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Gems and Runewords

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

Gems

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

Poison and Lightning Resistances are covered by Paragon nodes.

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

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Igni Xan	Igni – Gain: 25 Offering. Stores offering every 0.3 seconds. Cast a non-Basic Skill to gain the stored offering. Xan – Requires: 300 Offering. Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.25 seconds. Overflow: 0.35% damage per Offering.
Lith Kry	Lith – Gain:25 Offering. Stand still while fighting for 0.3 seconds. Que – Requires: 300 Offering. Overflow: Increased Duration. Cooldown: 1 seconds. Invoke the Druid’s Earthen Bulwark Skill for 3 seconds, 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 give periodic Critical Overpowers for large damage, and is useful for maintaining Grizzly Rage against bosses.

Que is periodic casts of Earthen Bulwark. This gives Unstoppable, Barrier, Fortify and can force human form which is useful for maintaining Wildheart Hunger stacks during Grizzly Rage.

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

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

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Paragon Board

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

The road to max Paragon is long. The above Paragon tabs show the following:

• The BASE SETUP tab spends 50 fewer points than the max 328 points, taking stricter pathing to take all most all Legendary, Rare and Magic Nodes, and activates all Glyph Nodes with their secondary effects.
• The FULL SETUP tab completes the paragon board in its final form, filling in the rest of the board to give additional additive bonuses especially within the Glyph areas.

Glyphs have two significant breakpoint increases. At level 15, the glyph grows in radius and gains a special effect. At level 46, the glyph grows to its max radius and gains a strong conditional damage multiplier.

Glyphs are placed as if they are at least level 15+ in radius. Total Boards placed are now limited to a max of 5; the Starter Board and four Class Boards. Rotate boards as necessary.

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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 Claw	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, 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:

• (Qol) While Idol From Below is powerful, If the Jeweled Guardians are bothersome, replace it with another like The Starflux.

Mercenaries

Once unlocked, Mercenaries are followers that aid the Player in combat. A main mercenary is chosen to fight alongside you, granting strong buffs or perks, and a secondary Mercenary is chosen to periodically Reinforce you under a chosen Opportunity condition.

The following Mercenary options are recommended for the Stormclaw Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Skills: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Raheir, the Shieldbearer

• Reinforcement Ability – Crater
• Opportunity – Claw

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give strong Attack Speed bonuses.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation and Playstyle

1. Prebuild Quickshift by alternating Maul and Claw
2. Maintain Hurricane while engaged with enemies.
3. Enter Grizzly Rage Dire Werewolf Form.
4. Blood Howl for damage bonuses and as needed for healing.
5. Preserving Cyclone Armor to apply Vulnerable and to grip in enemies.
6. Claw your enemies!

Skills, Support and Synergies

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

Storm Strike can chain back to previous enemies, making it simply excellent in multitarget and completely sus in single target.

Supporting Abilities

Hurricane provides a Damage Reduction debuff on enemies and applies Poison with Overload.

Cyclone Armor grips in enemies, applies Vulnerable, and gives passive elemental defense.

Innate Blood Howl is a persistent damage multiplier. We will be in Werewolf form near constantly.

Alternative Skills that can be flexed in can include:

• Preserving Blood Howl for Attack Speed
• Primal Shred for a strong mobility option.

Ultimate Skill

This build uses Grizzly Rage as its Ultimate Skill. With Dire Wolf’s Aspect, we become the Dire Werewolf.

Dire Werewolf Grizzly Rage grants Unstoppable for its duration, grants movement speed and healing on kill, and a damage buff that grows over time. With Aspect of the Rabid Bear, our damage type for all attacks becomes Poison, which helps unify several multipliers.

Grizzly Rage’s cooldown cannot be reduced while Grizzly Rage is active. Any Skill not tuned to Grizzly Rage, such as Earth Skills will be unavailable while Grizzly Rage is active. Certain Skills like Cyclone Armor with a passive effect will still be up, but the Skill will be unavailable for Active Use without Tempest Roar.

Only one point is invested into Grizzly Rage because further points only reduce the cooldown, and we do not need the Rank 5 effect since we should always be already Armor capped without the effect.

Grizzly Rage has a capped duration, but we gain or extend Grizzly Rage duration with:

• Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast gives up to 10 seconds extra duration.
• Kills extend the duration by 1 second.
• Overpowering Bosses extends duration by 5 seconds. We will Overpower with Xan Rune triggers.
• Offensive Tempers on gear give more duration.

If this is not sufficient to maintain Grizzly Rage for most of the time or your downtime becomes too disruptive, consider one or more of the following options:

• Exchange the Swooping Attacks Spirit Boon for Calamity or Calm Before the Storm
• Target your Mastercrafts towards Grizzly Rage Duration or Cooldown.
• Put more Skill Points into Grizzly Rage for cooldown.

Key Passive

Bestial Rampage gives strong damage and attack speed, and is a Key Passive well worth using. Maul will give the Werebear bonuses, and Claw and other Werewolf Skills will give the Werewolf bonuses. Wildheart Hunger stacks boost Bestial Rampage.

Controller vs Keyboard and Mouse

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

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

Elixirs, Incense and Health Potions

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

• Craft the highest available Elixir of Advantage II for Attack Speed 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

Buffs to Stormclaw? Let’s go! Storm Strike chaining can go back to previous targets, Greatstaff of the Crone buffs, and a Grizzly Rage playstyle put this a little bit back on the map. This should help make the build be comfy in Torment content, though it is still far from meta.

The change to Paingorger’s Gauntlets maybe has some potential but I think it’s still weaker to amping the general multipliers to a chained Storm Strike with legendary aspects.

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

Itemization:

• Greatstaff of the Crone – Damage increased from 170-250% to 200-350%.
• Dire Wolf’s Aspect
  • Category changed from Offensive to Utility.
  • Grizzly Rage is now a Werewolf Skill and Shapeshifts you into a Dire Werewolf. Dire Werewolves gain 20-40% Movement Speed and 20-40% Spirit Cost Reduction instead of Damage Reduction. In addition, kills Heal you for 10% of your Maximum Life.
• Aspect of the Moonrise
  • Damage bonus reduced from 40-100% to 40-60%.
  • Legendary Ranks increased from 16 to 21.
• Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast
  • The duration of Grizzly Rage is increased by 3-10 seconds. In addition, Critical Strikes while Grizzly Rage is active increase your Critical Strike Damage by 5% for the duration, up to a maximum of 100%.
• Aspect of the Rabid Bear
  • Previous: While Grizzy Rage is active, Skills that Critically Strike apply Rabies and your Poison damage is increased by 60-105%.
  • Now: While Grizzy Rage is active, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage, you deal 40-80% more Poison damage, and you passively spread Rabies.
• Aspect of Adaptability
  • Previously: When used below 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills generate 3 of your Primary Resource, once per Skill. When used at or above 50% Maximum Resource, Basic Skills deal 20 – 100[x]% increased damage.
  • Now: Basic Skills generate 5 additional Primary Resource, once per Skill. Basic Skills deal 0.4-0.6%[x] increased damage for each point of Primary Resource you have.
• Mjölnic Ryng – Damage bonus reduced from 40-100% to 20-40%.
• Overpower bonus scaling is removed.

Skills and Stats:

• Claw Damage increased from 28% to 80%.
• Fierce Claw Poison Damage increased from 20% to 40%.
• Maul Damage increased from 26% to 80%.
• Storm Strike Damage increased from 20% to 60%.
• Storm Strike After chaining, Storm Strike will now chain back to old targets after running out of new options to chain to.
• Vigilance Damage Reduction reduced from 7/14/21% to 5/10/15%.
• Toxic Claws – Now: You deal 5/10/15% increased Poison damage. This is doubled while in Werewolf form and for 8 seconds after leaving it.
• Enhanced Debilitating Roar Fortify amount increased from 22% to 30%.
• Innate Debilitating Roar Damage bonus increased from 15% to 25%.
• Grizzly Rage Damage bonus per second in the form increased from 3% to 4%. Companion Skills are now always usable during Grizzly Rage.
• Grizzly Rage Rank 5 Bonus
  • Previous: Companion Skills can be Cast during Grizzly Rage.
  • Now: You gain 30% increased Armor while Grizzly Rage is active.
• Prime Grizzly Rage
  • Previously: Grizzly Rage makes you Unstoppable for 6 seconds.
  • Now: You are Unstoppable while Grizzly Rage is active.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where Shroud of False Death also granted bonuses to Spirit Boons.
• Fixed an issue where Aspect of the Rabid Bear would not always work for the entire duration of Grizzly Rage.

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Changelog

• 27 June, 2025: Updated for Season 9 and Patch 2.3.
• 24 April, 2025: Updated to new unified format and for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 19 Jan, 2025: Updated for Season 7 and Patch 2.1 updates. Two tab paragon board introduced.
• 15 October, 2024: Updated for new onsite Paragon Tool.
• 29 September, 2024: Updated for Season 6. Changes to Paragon, Skill Tree, Skill Bar, and recommended Uniques.
• 7 August, 2024: Updated for post-launch of season 5. Some changes to Tempering recommendations and improving readability.
• 3 August, 2024: Updated for patch 1.5.0 and Season of the Infernal Horde.
• 17 June, 2024: Updated for mid-season patch 1.4.3.
• 5 May, 2024: Guide reworked for the significant 1.4.0 changes to gearing and for season 4 speculative changes. Format changed to frontload basic build information and offer extra information and options afterwards.
• 9 March 2024: Guide Created, fully replacing previous guide.

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