Druid, a new class introduced in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0, boasts one of the most flexible and sustainable combat cycles in the game, encouraging players to be creative and experiment with new build layouts. However, as a new class, many players are not yet fully familiar with Druid, and blindly starting a league journey with an unfamiliar build carries considerable risk.
If you want to know if Druid is advantageous in the late game and worth trying, this guide might provide the answers. We're sharing some unique Druid build playstyles here, hoping to bring you more exciting new inspiration in POE 2!
Tornado Shaman Druid Build
First, we'll mention Tornado Shaman build. This Shaman utilizes Advancing Storm Support and Ground Surfaces debuffs to transform tornadoes into devastating whirlwinds.
Notably, tornadoes absorb any elemental Ground effects they encounter, enhancing the tornado's power and dealing extra damage. Since Druid's Wolf form can easily freeze enemies, this means we can use this support skill to create Chilled Ground, freezing enemies standing in it, reducing their movement speed for a default duration of 6 seconds.
Furthermore, we've also set up a curse skill to create Burning Ground, and equipped a unique pair of boots that generate Shocked Ground, fully utilizing these Ground debuffs.
For Shaman Ascendancy passive, we chose Wisdom of the Maji node, which unlocks new affixes for runes and idols, gaining additional bound affix bonuses. Additionally, it synergizes well with the new Idol item: Idol of Maxarius, increasing our storm cap for maximum damage.
Flame Breath Wyvern Druid Build
If you don't like the tornado playstyle, Wyvern's Flame Breath might offer you ideal damage and the most spectacular visual effects.
Flame Breath, as the ultimate skill of Wyvern form, is incredibly powerful, especially for ignite builds. This is because it has a unique mechanism: each attack stacks the ignite effect, and the ignite damage increases rapidly over time.
Flame Breath boasts a base attack speed of 800% and a Magnitude of Ignite of 750%, making it a devastating DoT (Damage over Time) skill. Once Ignite is fully stacked, it can deal hundreds of times your attack damage per second.
However, Flame Breath is a Rage-dependent skill, so we need sufficient Rage to sustain flight and unleash our fury.
To accelerate Rage generation, we utilize the new Persistent Buff Skill Support Gem, Eternal Rage. When linked to a skill, it significantly increases Rage regeneration, allowing Druid players to continuously cast devastating skills such as shapeshifting and channeling.
We also use Primal Hunger Passive, which restores one Rage per second for every four Rage consumed in the past 4 seconds, while also increasing our maximum Rage by 100%.
Additionally, don't forget to unlock all Ignite and Rage nodes in the skill tree's Jewel area. With all of this, we can simply take to the skies, ready to unleash flames and destroy all enemies.
Plants Spellcaster Druid Build
The next build setup revolves around Oracle Ascendancy, utilizing plant power as the primary means of output, and using spell totems to generate automated plant explosion effects.
The core of this build is Wildsurge Incantation keystone, which allows all storm and plant spells to deal higher damage and consume fewer resources, but at the cost of significantly shorter spell duration. However, since we are automating the process, duration isn't a major issue.
In addition, the new unique item Voll's Protector is an indispensable key element in this plant-based build, ensuring we always have enough energy charges to summon totems. Once we generate the initial charges, the totems can sustain themselves.
If we place Entangle skill on a spell totem, we can also create roots to trap enemies in place. Combined with Accelerated Growth and Thrashing Vines, this can create a true plant-based catastrophe, allowing you to escape even the toughest monsters and bosses.
Wolf Druid Build
If you're not interested in plant power and prefer to destroy enemies with a pack of minion friends, then this Wolf Druid build is a good starting point. To support a large army of wolf minions, you can choose Lord of the Wilds keystone, allowing you to equip a scepter while using Animal Talismans. This will empower your minions and provide you with a powerful pack of eight wolves. As they leap across the map, they deal enough damage to shred enemies and attract even more wolves to join the pack.
Additionally, Lunar Assault helps clear and freeze enemies, and empowers your wolves, resulting in higher damage.
This build also utilizes rage in several ways. It uses Commanding Rage to allow your rage stacks to affect your wolf pack's damage. Rage also extends the duration of Lunar Blessing, a skill that provides more frost damage to the entire party and creates devastating moonlight beams with each attack.
In short, these are all Druid endgame builds worth trying right now, with even more details waiting for you to explore. As you can see, Druid class in PoE 2 0.4.0 offers many options, whether you're sweeping across the map with storms, raining down deadly fire from the heavens, unleashing the destructive power of plants, or rampaging across the continent of Wraeclast with your loyal wolf companions, there's a build to suit your primal combat style.
You can seamlessly switch between various playstyles such as tanking, burst damage, or ranged attacks, complemented by powerful elemental skills, allowing for deep customization and creating builds that could potentially disrupt the game balance, making it a highly anticipated and exciting build!
