Wolf Companion – Druid Build for Diablo 4 (Season 11)

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 is a Grizzly Rage build that uses the Dire Werebear form for deadly effect. Try out other ways to play with the Dire Werewolf and Human Variants as well!

If you are interested in other Companion skills, such as Ravens, try out the Ravens Companion Druid.

Just starting on your Druid adventure? Try out the Companion Leveling Build and swap to this one at Level 60.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Build Requirements

Required Uniques

Storm’s Companion

Required Legendary Aspects

Aspect of the Alpha

Aspect of the Stampede

Shepherd’s Aspect

Get more info on the Uniques supporting this build in the Uniques section.

Quick Navigation

This guide covers everything necessary to get started on the Wolves Companion Druid, including Skill Tree points, Paragon, Gearing, and Seasonal updates. Jump to the sections you’re looking for here.

Skill Bar and Skill Tree Points

Recommended

Suggested Skill Bar

Cyclone Armor Debilitating Roar Wolves Grizzly Rage Claw Ravens

If you are missing skill points, complete Renown events in each zone.

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.

Check how the build plays in the Build Mechanics section.

Overload is an easy way to apply Poisoned Condition and give some extra damage. Wolves have the Storm tag thanks to Storm’s Companion.

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Check the following sections for all important Wolf Companion gearing considerations to improve the power of your character in the endgame.

Legendary Aspects

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

Slot	Aspect	Unique/Legendary Power
2 Handed Polearm	Shepherd’s Aspect	Companion Skills deal an additional 5-13% damage per Companion you have.
Head	Mythic – Heir of Perdition Juggernaut’s Aspect	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	Mythic – Shroud of False Death Spirit Bond Aspect	If you haven’t dealt damage in the last 2 seconds, gain Stealth and 40% Movement Speed.
Gloves	Aspect of the Rabid Bear	Deal 40-80% more Poison Damage. While Shapeshifted, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage.
Pants	Unique – Storm’s Companion	Your Wolf Companions are infused with the power of the storm, dealing Lightning damage and gaining the Storm Howl ability.
Boots	Yen’s Blessing	Casting a Skill has a 40-60% chance to trigger a Non-Mobility, Non-Ultimate Skill that is currently on Cooldown. Can only occur once every 8 seconds.
Amulet	Aspect of the Alpha	Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf Companions deal 100-140% additional damage and can spread Rabies.
Ring 1	Aspect of the Stampede	Gain 1 additional Companion. In addition, your Companion Skills deal 15-35% bonus damage.
Ring 2	Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast	Critical Strikes while in Grizzly Rage increases your damage by 3% for 60 seconds, up to 120%.

For more information on Legendary Aspects and the Codex of Power, check the guide here.

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Stat Priority and Tempering Affixes

Each line of affixes is listed in order of importance, with some alternatives given. The bolded affixes are the most important targets for Greater Affixes and Masterwork Critical Increases. 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 Critical Strike Damage Vulnerable Damage Life on Hit	Companion Augments – Chance for Wolves to deal Double Damage
Helm – Mythic Heir of Perdition	Critical Strike Chance Lucky Hit Chance Movement Speed Ranks to Core Skills
Helm – Legendary Aspect	Ranks to Wolves Cooldown Reduction Willpower All Resistances Armor	Companion Innovation – Wolves Attack Speed
Chest – Mythic Shroud of False Death	All Stats Damage on Next Attack After Entering Stealth Maximum Life Resource Generation
Chest- Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Willpower Chance on Hit to make enemies Vulnerable	Worldly Endurance – Total Armor%
Gloves – Legendary Aspect	Willpower Critical Strike Chance Attack Speed Armor or All Resistance Chance on Hit to make Enemies Vulnerable	Shapeshifting Finesse – Grizzly Rage Duration
Pants – Required UniqueStorm’s Companion	Damage Reduction from Close Enemies Lucky Hit Chance bonus to Pack Leader Spirit Boon Wolves Attack Speed Ranks to Wolves
Boots – Yen’s Blessing	Movement Speed All Stats Resource Generation Resistance to All Elements
Boots – Legendary Aspect	Implicit: Attacks Reduce Evade’s Cooldown Movement Speed Willpower Armor All Resistances	Druid Motion – Movement Speed
Amulet – Legendary Aspect	Willpower% Ranks to Call of the Wild Ranks to Envenom Ranks to Quickshift Critical Strike Chance Total Armor%	Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction
Ring – Legendary Aspect	Attack Speed Critical Strike Chance Chance on Hit to make Enemies Vulnerable Willpower	Ultimate Efficiency —  Druid – Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction

Storm Critical Strike Chance works for Wolves because Storm’s Companion applies the Storm Tag.

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

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Uniques and Mythic Uniques

The Wolf Companion Druid can benefit from several Unique and Mythic Unique Items.

Uniques

• 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.

• Yen’s Blessing is useful for its Gear affixes and occasional extra cast of Wolves or other cooldown Skills. Legendary Boots can also be used without much difference.

Mythic Uniques

• 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.

• Shroud of False Death, like for all builds, the +1 to all Skill Passives is powerful.

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Gems and Runewords

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

Gems

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

Use these Runeword combinations for the Wolf Companion Druid, placed in the 2-Handed Weapon and into one Armor slot.

Runeword Combination	Runeword Effects
Nagu Ceh	Nagu – Gain: 100 Offering. Maintain at least 1 active Summon for 5 seconds, gaining Offering for each up to 6 Summons. Ceh – Requires: 100 Offering, Overflow: Summon Multiple Wolves. Cooldown: 1 seconds. Summon a Spirit Wolf to attack enemies for 8 seconds.
Ahu Xan	Ahu – Gain: 15 Offering. Lucky Hit: Up to a 100% chance against non-Healthy enemies. Xan – Requires: 300 Offering. Overflow: Increase Duration. Cooldown: 1 seconds. Your next attack will cause your hits to be a guaranteed Critical Strike and Overpower for 0.35 seconds.

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 offer periods where all direct damage events Overpower. This is useful during boss fights to extend Grizzly Rage.

Ceh will periodically summon Spirit Wolves to assist you in combat, applying Chill, Vulnerable, and adding to Shepherd’s Aspect count. They are Unhindered, passing through enemies and the player. They won’t do high damage like your Wolves, but they’re good boys anyway.

Zec may also be an option over Xan for Grizzly Rage cooldown reduction.

Yul can be the more efficient trigger over Ahu depending on content; Ahu will be better in multitarget, while Yul will be better vs. Bosses.

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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 is long. The above Paragon tabs show the following.

• The BASE SETUP tab spends 50 fewer points than the max 328 points, taking a stricter pathing to take most 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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Season 11 Mechanics

Divine Gifts

Earn Corrupted Essences by defeating the Lesser Evils in their associated content. These Essences can be transformed into Divine Gifts by Hadriel. Divine Gifts have three aspects.

1. Increased reward in the associated content
2. A purified effect
3. A corrupted effect

Slotting an Essence into the Purified slot grants double drop rewards and a boon, while slotting an Essence into the Corrupted slot grants normal drop rewards and a curse. Upgrade these gifts by engaging with their content. Leveling these Gifts increases the drop rewards while the boon and curse stay the same.

Here is a general setup for Divine Gifts:

Helltides – Duriel

• Purified: Essence of Pain – Briefly gain maximum Barrier after becoming Injured, every 20 seconds.
• Corrupted: Essence of Squallor

World Bosses – Azmodan

• Purified: Essence of Sin – Gain 20% increased Armor.
• Corrupted: Essence of Hellfire

Kurast Undercity – Andariel

• Purified: Essence of Anguish – Gain 30% Movement Speed.
• Corrupted: Essence of Screams
• Note: If you are already move speed capped or need extra defense, swap the Andariel Gifts for a 20% Resistance boost to defense.

Belial – The Pit

• Purified: Essence of Lies – Fortify for 1% of your Maximum Life a second.
• Corrupted: Essence of Shadows

These Gifts can be freely swapped based on desired rewards. For example, swap the Belial Gifts to earn more gold while in the Pit.

Sanctification

Hadriel offers a final gamble to empower items. Use the Heavenly Forge to Sanctify the item, imbuing the item with heavenly power.

Sanctifying is the final change for an item. After Sanctifying the item, it cannot be upgraded, masterworked, tempered, or otherwise altered, including its Aspect. Runes and Gems can still be swapped.

Options that can happen include:

• Apply a bonus Legendary power
• Improve an Affix into a Greater Affix
• Add a bonus Affix from a pool of special Sanctification affixes
• Replace an existing Affix with a random Sanctification affix
• Add a random amount (5-25) of bonus Quality

Some of the jackpot desirable Sanctifications include +Ranks to All Skills, useful Affixes like Critical Strike Chance, or Offensive Generic Legendary Aspects. The potential Quality Increases will be especially strong on a weapon, increasing its DPS. Other options can ruin your item, such as replacing a necessary existing affix.

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 Wolf Companion Druid:

Main Mercenary – Varyana, the Berserker

• Core Skill: Cleave, Hysteria, Bloodthirst, Bloodlust

Reinforcement – Aldkin, the Cursed Child

• Reinforcement Ability – Field of Languish
• Opportunity – Wolves

Hysteria and Bloodlust will both give useful Attack Speed Bonuses. Other setups are viable, such as Subo’s Cover Fire for Critical Strike Damage and minimap marking quality of life, or Rahier for any needed extra Armor.

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Build Mechanics

Rotation

• Pre-build Quickshift Stacks. Alternate Claw with other non-Werewolf Skills.
• Activate Grizzly Rage.
• Debilitating Roar for damage buffs and damage reduction debuffs on enemies.
• Keep Wolves on cooldown, cast on priority enemies.
• Ravens and your Basic Skill can be used as filler to fish for Pack Leader Resets of Wolves and Ahu triggers.

Cyclone Armor Active portion is not used. The passive defense is present even during Grizzly Rage.

Skills, Support, and Synergies

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 makes them leap onto your target for high damage. Each active Wolf makes a separate attack.

Wolves excel at single target, and with Storm’s Companion, will do periodic shouts of Storm Howl for minor area of effect damage.

Summon Count and Modifiers

Base Wolves starts with two Wolf Companions.

• One With Nature adds one.
• If used, Aspect of the Stampede adds another.
• If used, Moonrage Aspect adds up to three more.

Wolves gain the Storm Tag with Storm’s Companion. This means scaling with appropriate Storm and Nature modifiers like Thunderstruck and being able to use Sinister Tendrils.

Companions inherit all your Stats. For example, your attack speed bonuses will improve your Companions’ attack speeds. Likewise, for other stats like Critical Strike Chance and Lucky Hit Chance.

Shepherd’s Aspect increases Companion damage for every active 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 the total Shepherd’s Aspect. These are also Summons and will scale with some Companion modifiers.

Aspect of the Alpha changes your wolves to Werewolves, adding passive Rabies spread for Poisoning and improving Wolf damage.

Wolves Cooldown

We will rely on Spirit Boon Pack Leader with high Lucky Hit to reset Wolves. Spirit Boon Pack Leader 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 other Gear sources.
• Lucky Hit comes from paragon nodes in Untamed or Sinister Tendrils, Elixirs, and from Storm’s Companion.

Enough sources of Critical Strike and Lucky Hit, and we all but guarantee chain resets.

Ultimate and Key Passive

This build uses Grizzly Rage as its Ultimate Skill. Grizzly Rage grants Unstoppable for its duration, grants Damage Reduction, and a large Damage multiplier. Grizzly Rage cooldown cannot be reduced while Grizzly Rage is active.

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 of extra duration
• Offensive Tempers on gear give more duration.

Cooldown of Grizzly Rage can be reduced to minimize downtime with the following:

• Rank 5 of Grizzly Rage reduces the cooldown by 10 seconds.
• Any generic Cooldown Reduction on gear including Totem.
• If used, Zec Rune.
• Calm Before the Storm Spirit Boon.

Our Key Passive 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 the use of other Companions’ passives on top. This and the damage multiplier for Companions put this Key Passive ahead for this build.

Variant Play

This build is a Grizzly Rage Werebear build. There are other options available to fit the need, situation, or playstyle preference.

Dire Werewolf

Dire Werewolf is a Wolf Commander thematic gameplay that offers better movement options. To play into this variant:

• Add Dire Wolf’s Aspect to a Utility Slot like Boots.
• Exchange Debilitating Roar for Innate Blood Howl.
• Exchange Claw for Primal Shred. Take extra points from Mending.

Human Commander

Sick and tired of 10 seasons of Shapeshifters dominating, and want to show off your hella clean transmog? Great! Human is a viable option for the Wolf Companion Druid this season! Make the following changes.

• Use Gathlen’s Birthright on the helm. Mastercraft ranks in Humanity.
• Exchange Headhunter for Human.
• Exchange rank in Mending for Humanity.
• Exchange ranks in Grizzly Rage for Petrify.
• Exchange ranks in Toxic Claws for Electric Shock.
• Exchange Tempers for Grizzly Rage Cooldown for Petrify Cooldown, and Grizzly Rage duration for Critical Strike Damage or Storm Damage.
• Exchange Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast for Mighty Storm’s Aspect.
• Exchange Aspect of the Rabid Bear for Airidah’s Inexorable Will for easy grouping from casts of Petrify.

Will you still want to maintain buffs like Quickshift with occasional casts of Claw or other Shapeshifting Skills? Yeah, they are important multipliers, sorry. Except on farm, where you are likely overkilling things without these passives!

Which Elixirs Should You Use?

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

• Craft the highest available Elixir of Advantage II for Lucky Hit and Attack Speed Bonuses.
• One of each Incense Category can be used, for a total of three active Incenses at a time. In priority:
  • Defensive – Reddamine Buzz for Max Life.
  • Core Stat – Blessed Guide for Willpower.
  • Resistance – Soothing Spices for All Resist, All Resist Maximum, and Armor.

Season 11 Updates

Note that there are lots of sweeping changes to defensive systems, gearing, masterworking, tempering, and season journey. Don’t be afraid to take a couple of extra defensive choices over previous seasons to keep things smooth.

The change to Grizzly Rage means it is stronger while up, but we have to deal with downtime. We still take it for the many benefits, including long-term Unstoppable, favorable aspects, the strong multiplier, and defensive bumps. A Petrify gameplay might be favorable instead; I’ve included that setup in the Variant Options.

The following list details the important changes in the Season 11 Patch Updates that are specific to the Wolf Companion Druid. For general Season 11 information, check out our Season 11 Hub.

Itemization:

• Aspect of the Rampaging Werebeast
  • Previous: 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 10% for the duration, up to maximum of 200%.
  • Now: Critical Strikes while in Grizzly Rage increases your damage by 3% for 60 seconds, up to 120%.
• Aspect of the Rabid Bear (Bear)
  • Previous: While Grizzly Rage is active, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage, you deal 40-80% more Poison damage, and you passively spread Rabies.
  • Now: Deal 40-80% more Poison Damage. While Shapeshifted, your direct damage is converted into Poison damage.
• Spirit Bond Aspect – Now has 21 ranks, up from 16.

Skills and Stats:

• Grizzly Rage:
  • Stacking duration is no longer a part of the ability, and Cooldown doesn’t start until the ability ends.
  • Stacking Damage per second removed and Damage Bonus increased to 60%.
  • Skill Ranks of Grizzly Rage now grant bonus damage instead of reducing Cooldown.
  • Cooldown reduced from 50 to 35 seconds.
  • Duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
  • Damage Reduction increased from 20% to 30%.
  • Rank 5:
    • Previous: You gain 30%[+] increased Armor while Grizzly Rage is active.
    • Now: Cooldown reduced by 10 seconds.
• Supreme Grizzly Rage – Fortify per second reduced from 8% to 2% of Maximum Life.
• Defensive Posture:
  • Previous: Increases the amount of Fortify you gain from all sources by 5% and you gain 3% Damage Reduction while Fortified.
  • Now: Increases the amount of Fortify you gain from all sources by 5%.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where the description for Grizzly Rage didn’t properly display the damage increase for adding additional skill points.

Changelog

• 6 December, 2025: Updated for Season 11 and Patch 2.5.
• 6 October, 2025: Minor updates to Spirit Recommendations under Chaos Perks and some Chaos Armor suggestions.
• 21 September, 2025: Updated for Season 10 and Patch 2.4. Aspect of the Alpha has finally unbugged enough to recommend. Returned to a one-page guide setup. Added Variant Play options for Dire Werewolf and Human. Seasonal Players, please note that the Season 10 Mechanics section has setups that include the seasonal Chaos Armors.
• 12 July, 2025: Changed out Aspect of the Alpha since it is still buggy.
• 27 June, 2025: Updated for Season 9 Patch 2.3. Significant changes to Skills, Paragon, Spirit Boons, Ultimate, and Gearing for Grizzly Rage setup.
• 24 April, 2025: Updated to new unified format for Season 8 Patch 2.2 changes.
• 3 March, 2025: Updates for 2.1.3.