Summary
The skills available to each class inDiablo 4are primarily focused on granting new abilities to the characters who unlock them. There are sub-trees within the main skill tree that provide passive buffs and percentage boosts to damage, resources, and more. But most players will focus on unlocking the skills themselves,especially in the early gamewhen their skill bar still carries a few open slots. However, once they’ve unlocked those skills, they will focus on their class’s key passive abilities.
The Druid class is no differentin this regard.Diablo 4’sDruid is designed to be effective with a number of different build structures, and its key passives play a significant role in making the class sing. Not all key passives are created equal though. Some can completely change the feel of the character, while others come with a few hindrances that punish certain styles of play over others.
Updated October 28th, 2023 by Evan Regan:Diablo 4’sSeason of the Malignantdid little to enhance any of the game’s classes, including the Druid. After a series of significant nerfs, the class felt stunted, with a slow level grind and only a few viable builds at its disposal. With the launch of Season of Blood, all that has changed. Blizzard has let loose a boatload of buffs to every class in the game, and where the Druid was once an unappealing class to take on, it is now one of the deadliest around. These buffs have altered the impact of several key passives listed below, and we’ve updated them accordingly.
6Ursine Strength
This is odd because Werebear builds are some of the most effective Druid builds available, but the Werebear-focused key passive Ursine Strength is a bit of a letdown. It’s still serviceable, increasing the player’s maximum life by 20% while in Werebear form and for 3 seconds afterward, which encourages them to play a tank style. However, this key passive’s other buff makes it a weaker choice.
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Simply put, when a Druid player is healthy (at 80% health or higher), Ursine Strength increases their damage by 30%. On the surface, that doesn’t sound too bad. The issue is that playing as a tank build is going to cause players to lose some health. It just doesn’t mesh with the other buff, which encourages taking hits because the Druid will have extra health to absorb them, but doing so will rapidly extinguish the damage boost that Ursine Strength grants. The only option is for players to chug potions on a constant basis, but even then, once their potion supply is gone, the 30% damage boost will go with it shortly after.
Update:Ever since the Season of Blood update, Ursine Strength’s secondary buff has become a lot more useful, increasing not only the character’s damage (down to a 25% increase from the previous version’s 30%) but also their Overpower damage by 25% as well. Season of Blood has alsobuffed Overpower damage as a whole,making it easier to trigger Overpower damage on every hit, which makes this key passive a lot more viable than it once was.
5Earthen Might
This Earth-focused key passive is also a bit strange because there’s nothing particularly wrong with any buffs it provides. It grants a 5% chance for any Earth skills to both fully restore the player’s Spirit resource, and to make all their attacks Critical Strikes for 5 seconds. Those odds increase to 10% on Critical Strikes, as well as if their target is Stunned, Immobilized, or Knocked Back.
All that sounds good, but here’s the thing: 5% (or even 10%) isn’t that good of a chance to trigger this key passive’s effect. Players need to consider how often they’re using Earth skills, how often those skills hit, and how often they land a Critical Strike. Then take that frequency and consider that this key passive will only trigger 1 out of every 10 times that happens. It’s not significant enough to be worth investing in.
This key passive can be built around by pumping gear enchantments into Critical Strike percentage, anda few Legendary Aspectscan increase the number of hits landed by Earth skills. But overall, there are better options that are easier to make use of on a regular basis.
4Lupine’s Ferocity
As far as Werewolf builds go,this might be their best option for a key passive that focuses on their build with no distractions elsewhere. Lupine’s Ferocity guarantees that every sixth hit from a Werewolf skill is a Critical Strike, as well as guaranteeing that Critical Strike will deal an extra 60% damage. That extra damage is no joke, and there are certain Werewolf skills that strike several times in quick succession, meaning that six hits won’t take long to stack up.
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The thing is, that’s all it does. A huge damage boost for every sixth hit isn’t bad, but unless players are hyper-focused on tracking their hits and making sure that the sixth one is dealt by a more powerful ability, there’s just as much chance that their amped-up Critical Strike will be dealt by a Basic skill as it is by any other ability. There are plenty of upsides to this key passive, but it’s not quite good enough to be a must-have.
Update:With thelaunch of Season of Blood,Lupine’s Ferocity has gained an extra effect, making it even more deadly. It still lands a Critical Strike with 60% bonus damage on every sixth hit, but now, that bonus damage leaps up to a whopping 140% if that Critical Strike is against an injured enemy. Strapping this key passive to a Werewolf build can make the Druid the perfect character for clean up duty when a co-op group comes up against a large mob. Alternatively, players will get that 140% bonus damage pretty frequently in a boss fight, since it will spend most of the fight below 80% Health, the criteria for the Injured status effect.
3Perfect Storm
The vast majority of a Druid’s Storm skills will make their targets Vulnerable on top of dealing damage, and Perfect Storm exploits this effectively. This key passive grants 2 Spirit and 20% increased damage from Storm skills against enemies who are Vulnerable, Immobilized, or Slowed. Since it’s a fairly easy task to structure a Druid’s build around making their targets Vulnerable, it’s equally easy to take full advantage of this key passive.
The only downside here is that a Druid whoinvests fully into a Storm buildwill be vulnerable if they get in too close to a large mob. Otherwise, players can enhance their Storm Strike, Lightning Storm, Hurricane, and Cataclysm Skills to make their targets Vulnerable, which then increases the damage of all of those same skills as a result. It’s this kind of compounding effect that makes a potent key passive ability.
2Bestial Rampage
For shapeshifter builds (dual shapeshifters, Werewolves, and certainly Werebears) this key passive covers a nice range of bonuses that makes their character stronger regardless of which beast they put their focus into. Bestial Rampage grants a 20% attack speed boost to Werewolves for 15 seconds if they’ve been in Werewolf form for 3 seconds, and a 20% damage increase to Werebears for 15 seconds if they’ve been in Werebear form for 3 seconds.
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As far as Werebear builds go, this is a no-brainer choice compared to theirother key passive options.That damage boost does not take long to trigger, and will trigger again every time players shift out of Werebear form and then back into it. For Werewolf builds, it’s more of a toss-up between this and Lupine’s Ferocity, depending entirely on their playstyle. But that attack speed increase makes abilities like Shred and Claw much stronger.
1Nature’s Fury
For Druid players who invest in Nature magic (and particularly those who split their focus between Earth and Storm skills) there is no better key passive available. This skill grants a 20% chance to both Earth skills and Storm skills, to trigger a free skill of the opposite type from the same category. That means casting a Core Storm skill like Lightning Storm has a 20% chance to simultaneously trigger a Core Earth skill like Landslide for no Spirit cost.
There are a lot of great perks to the key passives on this list, butnothing tops a free Druid skill.For players building around Nature magic, this essentially doubles the effectiveness of 1 out of every 5 skills they use. Many of those will be Basic skills, but that doesn’t take anything away from when they cast Earthen Bulwark and get a free Cyclone Armor, or cast Boulder and get a free Hurricane. The best part is: this key passive doesn’t require any readjusting to the Druid’s build. It simply amplifies what’s already there.
Update:Blizzard’s changes to Nature’s Fury are simple but effective, allowing it to still hold the top spot on this list. All that Season of Blood changes is that now, instead of Storm skills and Earth skills having a 20% chance of triggering each other, that number is now up to 30%. That means that, instead of one Core skill triggering another 1 out of every 5 uses, it’s more like 1 out of every 3. Players with an Elemental build on their Druid are going to love seeing all these skills popping off at no cost to their Spirit pool.
