DIABLO 4 SEASON 9 - WELCOME TO THE LIGHTNING ZOO!
Welp, as we all knew would happen, I’m back to playing Druid! I got the Necro to max level and started going into Paragon levels, but had some solo play time on my hands so I rolled a Druid and started the leveling process as a companion focused Druid with the core skill lightning storm. This build started a bit slow, but with the Horadric powers (my disintegrate was leveled from my Necro, so that MELTED most everything I ran into, then shifted to anomaly) leveling was a breeze and got to Paragon 60-ish in one session. I finally got a lot of the aspects I was working towards and put them together, with some lucky tempering and some lucky drops (a nice Gathlen’s Birthright, and a Tassets of the Dawning Sky very early in the run) the build was feeling solid, with some help of a buddy running our original minion necro idea, we breezed into Torment 1, and then I got lucky again and got an Ancestral Unique Polearm with VERY good affixes, tossed perfect tempers on that, masterworked to 4 and within 30 min, Torment 1 already feels trivial. I’ll more than likely stay in T1 for a bit and farm more ancestral legendaries, some lair bosses for more uniques, compasses to level paragon/masterwork and start looking at a T2 move. This hybrid Lightning Storm/Companion build is fun. My go to for Druid in D4 has LONG been companion Druid, which most people who play can tell you for the first 5-6 seasons was GOD AWFUL, but I always like the challenge, nowadays, with the updates to companion stat inheritance from the player, updated/improved aspects and companions having their own glyph and paragon board tied solely to them, I would say companions are up there with the necro minions most times, all of that being said however, this build isn’t relying on companions for a lot of its damage and is really leveraging them for utility, some defense and even some DPS increases. I wont go into heavy detail here because honestly I’m not an expert, but some info:
I’m running lightning storm which is a channeling spell, meaning I cant move when casting it which presents problems in and of itself, how I’ve solved some of those:
Utilizing the Mercenary system, hiring Raheir as your reinforcement, and setting his trigger to Bastion and centering it around a defensive spell (imo something you use a lot, but NOT your core skill you spam i.e. lightning storm.) you basically have a forcefield on a relatively short cooldown which is SUPER nice
Aspect of Inner Calm is an EASY recommend here, since your running a channel, and this aspect buffs your damage if you’re stationary. Easy to imprint on a piece of gear for added [x] damage.
How my companions play off of my build and give defenses, utility and DPS:
Wolves give “Fortify” with their attacks in the 3rd node of the tree, this is directly referenced in the Aspect of Retaliation, so the more your wolves attack, the higher your channeled lightning storm hits for.
Ravens also improve this by adding crit chance for enemies caught in its active swoop/whirlwind attack, and apply “Vulnerable” synergies with their active.
Poison Creeper adds some nice burst in leveling/early endgame, but more than that an invaluable CC in the stun + a reliable way to proc poison damage, which opens up the multiplier for envenom to empower crits against enemies affected by poison DoT.
Blood Howl is another active that with the Nighthowler’s Aspect, allows me to buff me and my minions with crit chance, also provides a really nice 35% max health heal with a super low cooldown as long as your mob clear can keep up (kills reduce Blood Howls Cooldown).
This all together the Clarity passive (I have some +Ranks of on some gear) adds multiplicative damage for weaving companion skills in with your storm casts. Letting your wolves act as a front line, with poison creeper acting as a hard CC to keep hordes off you, ravens can swoop in passively and slow enemies plus their active, buffing your “Damage to Distant Enemies” stat can help you blast enemies while your companions “hold them at the pass” which is even more capable with the new-ish aspect (and my favorite aspect in the entire game) Spirit Bond Aspect, which redirects 30% of the damage done to you to your companions, but more importantly than that, makes your companions INVULNERABLE, which makes the front line as steadfast as possible.
Since this isn’t solely a companion build, there’s not a lot of room for aspects to add more to the companion capability (Alpha, Stormcrow, Stampede, Shepherds Aspects and so on) but in my experience, the 2 standard wolves, ravens and creeper are enough, you don’t NEED them to be werewolves via the Alpha aspect because before most enemies break through the wolves, you’re already nuking them down with your storms with TONS of extra DPS keeping your distance and your wolves stacking your fortify maxing your value from Retaliation.
This companion defensive and utility bonuses plus the damage they add to the lightning storm feels VERY good, I don’t know how “endgame” viable it is without fully leaning into either lightning storm OR companions is, but as of now its super fluid and feels good. My build is roughly based on Boiler’s Lightning Storm leveling build on Maxroll, but I’ve gone a bit sideways with it to test stuff. I will say, this in addition to the runewords utilizing the Spiritborn’s Vortex skill along with the CC and Companion boons above, and with a very low cooldown on the Petrify ultimate, this build enables ALOT of different builds, and can vouch for running with a minion necro on T1 VERY early and VERY unoptimized still feel like a breeze. I’ve killed ALL Lair bosses in T1 the second I got there solo as well, so this build isn’t truly a support build, but in party play with everything it offers, it feels as good as one with the added team healing, buffs and wild movement speed with the Aspect of Rushing Wilds on the boot slot. Overall, having a TON of fun with this VERY off-meta hybrid build. Looking out for the new 2H mace so i can make a pulverize loadout too, stick around for that!
