I will show you the best Lightning Shred Druid build in Diablo 4. So, at the start, I will explain how to play this class. Then look into the best skills, paragon setup, what gems and caged hearts are the most overpowered. Lastly, I will tell you what exact gear to farm and use, then you would get the highest damage.

This build is all about dashing quickly from enemy to enemy, dealing big critical strikes that are further enhanced through the Stormclaw's Aspect. This setup has exceptional mobility and clearing speed, and that’s why it is one of the fastest builds in the game.

It will benefit from Uniques but absolutely does not require them to play at a high level, which makes this build new player and season starter-friendly. However, it will become even more devastating in the endgame content. Don't forget to bring enough Diablo 4 Gold with you while playing.

Leveling Build

Let’s move over to the druid special class bonus and the druid spirits. Allow you to select a total of 5 categories from 4 spirits that act as a passive buff to your character.

For your first 25 Spirit offerings, I recommend activating the Wolf Spirit, the Packleader.

Then, when you collect 25 more Spirit offerings, activate it on the Eagle Spirit, the Scythe Talons.

Afterwards, save up to 100 more spirits and spend them on the Snake Spirit, activating the Massacres.

Next, pick up 75 more spirits and unlock the Deer Spirit, the Vines.

Lastly, collect your last 175 spirit offerings to unlock the remaining categories and bond with the Eagle Spirit, activating the Swooping Attack.

As far as your gear goes, leveling up in Diablo 4 is similar to most other MMOs. For the most part, this will mean that you have to constantly replace one rare Diablo 4 Item with a better one all the way up to level 50. Generally, you want to use a two-handed weapon which has the highest damage numbers. Then the others are:

• Weapon: You want to get preferably a staff with core skill damage, vulnerable damage, and a socket.
• Armor: Typically granting defensive and utility stats, except gloves, which will offer offense.
• Helmet: Try to get poison creeper rings, life, cooldown reduction, and willpower.
• Chest: Get damage reduction, life, willpower, and armor.
• Gloves: Get shred ranks, critical strike chance, and attack speed.
• Pants: Get damage reduction, life, willpower, and armor.
• Boots: Get movement speed, spirit cost reduction, and willpower.
• Jewelry: Specifically your amulet, get movement speed, spirit cost reduction, companion skill ranks, and damage increase.
• Rings: Get critical strike chance, damage to close enemies, and life.

Don’t forget to not upgrade armor or Jewelry while leveling. Only socket armor with rubies, Jewerly with skulls, weapons with sapphires, and save the rest of your upgrades for your level 50 build.

Overall, for your leveling build, I recommend just enjoying each skill and getting used to the Druid gameplay. So, Shred, Storm Strike, and Poison Creep are your main damage skills. Then, Blood Howl and Debilitating Roar are your main defensive skills. Use them when you take a lot of damage or just to protect yourself.

Endgame Build

Let's move over to the second part where I will show you your endgame druid build. By this point, you should be familiar with the Lightning Shred playstyle, what gear stats you should look out for. As I did the most explaining at the start, I will just show you the best setup that you want to use. I personally tested multiple setups, and this one was the best one.

First of all, for your skills, we want to use Shred, Grizzly Rage, Hurricane, Blood Howl, Storm Strike, and Cyclone Armor. For your special bonus Spirits, like we discussed in the leveling build guide, get the Varese, Sight Talons, Swooping Attack, Calamity, and Masochistic.

As for your gear, we already discussed what stats to look out for, but if you're purely looking for the best of the best gear, then here it is:

• Tempest Roar Helmet
• Vigorous Primal Breastplate (Chest Armor)
• Primal Gauntlets of the Rampaging Werebeast (Gloves)
• Primal Chausses of Disobedience (Pants)
• Stormshifter's Primal Sabatons (Boots)
• Stormclaw's Necklace (Amulet)
• Dire Wolves' Band (First Ring)
• Band of Retaliation (Second Ring)
• Edgemaster's Octopian Edge (Weapon)
• Accelerating Aspect (Off-hand)

Caged Hearts

Then, for your gems, socket in weapons with emeralds and armor pieces with rubies.

For your first heart, get the Caged Heart of the Barber because the enemy groups have low HP, so this will cause them to instantly explode, and this damage increase from the heart is just way too overpowered not to use.

For the second heart, get the Caged Heart of the Revenge because getting free 20% damage reduction is again very op as well, and this is the best in slot heart for the druid class.

Lastly, get the Caged Heart of the Prudent Heart because when you pull massive amounts of mob groups, you can sometimes get one-shotted, especially if you play in hardcore mode. So, getting the protection of this heart while using the Barber at the same time will allow you to farm a lot of mob groups very quickly and without taking almost any significant damage.

Skill Tree

Moving forwards and then let’s talk about skill tree. If you just came from the leveling build, then this is very similar, so just copy these exact upgrades in no particular order. Remember that by gathering all the Renown in the game, you will get 10 extra skill points.

Paragon System

Finally, we have the paragon system.

At the first 25 points: We use the starting board and for our glyph select, Exploit.

At around 64 points: We get the last of Carnage board and for the glyph select, Werewolf.

At around 80 points: This time, we only select the Ancestral Guidance board.

At around 120 points: You need to select the Heighten Malice board and equip the Fang and Claw Glyph.

At around 150 points: We want to get the Thunderstruck board and select the Territorial Glyph.

At around 197 points: Get the Inner Beast board, and for the glyph select, Spirit.

Gameplay

Let’s take a closer look at each kill in the gameplay. First of all, at the beginning of the fight, we want to activate the Blood Howl or Cyclone Armor skills. Then, afterward, we want to spam the Shred skill. I would recommend trying to target distant and enclosed enemies so your dash and hit skills would connect between all enemies. This will enable us to fly between mob groups and do massive amounts of AOE damage.

During the fight, rotate between using the Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor to keep the Vigilance passive up. Before engaging in the big monster groups, use the Hurricane skill. Lastly, for any additional spirit or for damage reduction if needed, use the Storm Strike. At the start of the rotation, use Blood Howl and Cyclone Armor because they will make us stronger and activate the Vigilance passive, which will give us plus 5% extra damage.

From here, spam our main damage skill called The Shred. This skill will transform us into a wolf that does massive amounts of damage in three attacks. Each attack will increase its damage even more. By the way, we want to keep on using Blood Howl or Cyclone Armor every 6 seconds so we will get the plus 5% extra damage 24/7. Lastly, to finish our rotation, in between spamming werewolf or activating the damage buff, we want to finish the rotation with the Hurricane or Storm Strike to gain additional spirits or just to increase our damage even more.