The Summoner Druid is a long-standing classic build. The tactics of this build emphasize a do-less playstyle where you sit back and watch your minions tear apart your foes. This leaves you with enough time to position yourself safely and support your minions while you maneuver around the battlefield.
Since this build is minion-heavy, most of the skills will involve summons of various kinds to keep the enemies occupied. Simply stand back and cast Trample and Blood Howl when needed to keep yourself alive and your summons should do the rest.
Diablo 4 Summoner Druid build guide
When it comes down to skills, this build focuses on three different summons: Ravens, Wolves, and Poison Creepers. The way this build works is that you weaken foes using the Vulnerable status effect that Ravens inflict on your enemies while the Poison Creeper slowly breaks them down with poison. That’s when your Wolves step in and finish off the weakened enemies one by one.
To augment this build, we will need to pick up a defensive skill as well. Our choice here is Earthen Bulwark, a great skill that grants you damage immunity for a certain percentage of your max health through a barrier that absorbs damage. If you feel like you can do without it, however, Trample is a great alternative choice to have.
But for the purpose of an end-game build, we will pick Earthen Bulwark. When maxed out, this barrier of rocks lasts for three seconds and negates most incoming damage by absorbing it. The amount of damage absorbed scales up to 45 percent of the Druid’s max health, which makes this a great skill to have in higher-level areas such as Nightmare Dungeons.
Since we’re choosing to focus on Earthen Bulwark and have no other Core skills in this build, we will not have to depend on Spirit costs. But in return, the build will be quite cooldown-dependent. Because of this, you will need to adopt a safer playstyle that keeps you away from the action at all times while your skills reset, creating quite a bit of downtime.
Since the build is very cooldown-dependent, Storm Strike is our Basic skill of choice. While it is widely considered to be the best Basic skill in the Druid’s arsenal, the chance to completely reset cooldowns is invaluable in this build. Having a constant uptime on your summoning and support skills is what makes this build shine in the endgame.
Once your build is complete, this is what it will look like.
Skill progression
First, we bring out the summons, the backbone of this build.
- Poison Creeper: Passively spawns a venomous creeper from the ground that moves around enemies, poisoning them. Activating this skill will create vines that immobilize all enemies caught while increasing the poison damage they take.
- Ravens: Passively spawns a Raven that flies around the Druid and periodically attacks enemies. When activated, a flock of Ravens will swoop toward the target location, damaging every enemy within the area for six seconds.
- Wolves: Passively summons two Wolf companions that attack nearby enemies at random. Activating your Wolves will cause them to leap toward a targeted enemy, dealing additional damage and focusing down the target till it perishes.
Poison Creeper is a great way to crowd-control enemies by immobilizing them and slowly whittling down their health with poison damage. Upgrades like Enhanced Poison Creeper will then increase the duration that enemies will be immobilized while Ferocious Poison Creeper will keep enemies poisoned for longer than the default duration.
Ravens bring in more damage via a flock of aggressive birds that peck everything in the area. While the passive damage is appreciable, activating this skill increases the damage tenfold. Additionally, Enhanced Ravens increase the critical hit chance for allies attacking the pecked targets and Ferocious Ravens leave every target they hit with a Vulnerable status.
And finally, we round out our summons with Wolves. Our main damage-dealing summons can be used to finish off weakened enemies by focusing them. Enhanced Wolf Pack further increases their damage by giving them a damage bonus against poisoned, immobilized, and vulnerable enemies. Brutal Wolf Pack then grants them increased attack speed each time you critically strike an enemy.
- Storm Strike: Fires a chain lightning bolt that hits up to three enemies. Each enemy hit decreases the damage dealt by the skill but increases your damage reduction in turn.
- Earthen Bulwark: Creates a barrier of rocks around the Druid. These rocks absorb a percent of the Druid’s max health in damage and reduce the damage they receive.
- Blood Howl: Transforms you into a Werewolf, healing you for a percent of your max health.
The other three skills we pick up will complement our summons and keep us alive, starting with Storm Strike. This skill grants you damage reduction while its upgrade, Enhanced Storm Strike, has a chance to immobilize all enemies hit. We round off this skill by picking up Fierce Storm Strike which has a chance to turn every enemy hit Vulnerable, making this a great debuff skill as well.
Earthen Bulwark is our major Defensive skill when we get caught out of position. The damage-blocking capabilities of this skill can be used in a clutch scenario and Enhanced Earthen Bulwark makes you unstoppable when you activate it. If you’re really low on health, Preserving Earthen Bulwark will Fortify you for a percent of your base health pool.
The final skill in our build is Blood Howl, a great healing ability to save you in a pinch. You can heal up to 20 percent of your max health while Enhanced Blood Howl grants you cooldown reduction for the skill each time you kill an enemy. Finally, Preserving Blood Howl increases your attack speed when you cast it, allowing you to spam Storm Strike.
Now that the active abilities are sorted, time to move on to the passives.
Passive abilities
First, we choose the offensive passives that add to our damage output.
- Predatory Instinct: Gain increased critical strike chance against close enemies.
- Call of the Wild: Deal increased damage with your Companion skills.
- Envenom: Deal increased critical strike damage against poisoned enemies.
- Quickshift: Deal increased damage when you shapeshift.
- Toxic Claws: Poison enemies with your Werewolf critical strikes.
Next, we choose the utility-based passives that complement our active skills well.
- Vigilance: Gain increased non-physical damage resistance.
- Digitigrade Gait: Gain increased movement speed in Werewolf form.
- Ancestral Fortitude: Gain increased damage reduction upon using a Defensive skill.
- Heightened Senses: Gain increased damage reduction against Elite enemies when you shapeshift.
- Neurotoxin: Poisoned enemies are slowed upon attack.
And finally, the Key Passive of this build.
- Bestial Rampage: Turning into a Werewolf grants you increased attack speed. Turning into a Werebear grants you increased damage. These buffs start 2.5 seconds after the transformation and last for 15 seconds.
Spirit Boons
Spirit Boons are essential for any build since they grant the Druid additional passive abilities based on the tree they decide to focus on. This unique class ability allows the Druid to focus on one of four different skill trees based on different animal spirits: Deer, Eagle, Snake, and Wolf. Each spirit grants you four Boons, making a total of 16 Spirit Boons to choose from.
Of these 16, each build allows you to choose five Spirit Boons only. Depending on our skill choices, these are the Spirit Boons that would complement this build.
- Deer: Wariness – Take reduced damage from elites.
- Eagle: Scythe Talons – Gain increased critical strike chance.
- Eagle: Swooping Attacks – Gain increased attack speed.
- Snake: Overload – Gain a chance to create a Static Charge each time you deal Lightning damage to an enemy. This Static Charge deals 20 percent of your Lightning damage to all of the surrounding enemies.
- Wolf: Pack Leader – Gain a chance to reset the cooldowns of your companion skills each time you land a critical strike.
The final part of this build revolves around choosing Aspects.
Aspects
The best Aspects for a Summoner Druid are as follows.
- Aspect of the Stampede: You gain an additional Companion with all of your Companion skills. All your minions deal bonus damage.
- Aspect of the Alpha: Your Wolf Companions turn into Werewolf Companions. They deal bonus damage and each hit has a chance to inflict Rabies.
- Aspect of the Wildrage: Your Companions also gain the Bestial Rampage passive bonuses.
- Aspect of Disobedience: Dealing damage grants you increased armor per attack.
- Aspect of Might: Your Basic skills grant damage reduction when cast.
- Aspect of the Umbral: You restore some Spirit each time you crowd control an enemy.
- Ballistic Aspect: Your Earth skills gain two bonus ranks when you have an active Fortify.
- Earthguard Aspect: Your Earthen Bulwark’s barrier gets stronger depending on how many crowd-controlled enemies are around you.
- Ghostwalker’s Aspect: While Unstoppable, you gain increased movement speed and can run through enemies.
- Overcharged Aspect: Your Lightning damage has a chance to overload the target. When overloaded, any hit can cause the target to pulse with Lightning damage that affects all surrounding targets.
- Rapid Aspect: Your Basic skills gain increased attack speed.
- Subterranean Aspect: Your Earth skills deal increased damage to poisoned enemies. Additionally, Poison Creeper’s active ability also casts Landslide around you.
The Summoner Druid might not be the best Druid build going today but with the right gear and some early levels, you should be clearing through most content in no time.
