Best Druid Build For Path of Exile 2

1 week ago 15

Anyone in the is well aware of the new patch recently added to Path of Exile II. Not only did this update bring a whole new league, but it also brought a new ascendancy for the Sorceress and, more importantly, the brand-new Druid class. We’ve been waiting for this one for a while!

The druid is an extremely well-fleshed-out class, with 2 ascendancies and a new kind of gameplay formula we aren’t really used to. Not only does the druid have the ability to transform into 3 wild and powerful beasts, but so does everyone else, too!

Path of Exile 2: 6 Best Early Game Builds

For those struggling to pick a Class in Path of Exile II, this list covers a selection of great early-game builds to get you started!

So today, let’s take a look at one of the most powerful new Druid builds and just how to take advantage of his amazing set of abilities.

Overview

While we do have the option to turn into a Bear and a Wyvern, today we’re specifically going to be checking out the wolf transformation. The wolf is known for its powerful cold skills and movement speed bonuses, being able to run around maps at high speed, freezing everything solid in sight.

While in previous builds, you might have been used to using 1–2 abilities max and shattering everything on screen at once, these last few patches have been a bit slower and more combo-prone, and the Druid seems to be the culmination of a lot of that work.

You can cause a ridiculous amount of damage with this build, but you’re going to have to work for it, using multiple skills to build up to a big finish. So let’s take a look at these skills and how to use them effectively.

Skills

Skill Gems

Your endgame-mapping set-up is going to look a little bit like this:

Skill

Ability Type

Description

Recommended Support Gems

Shred

Pounce

Lunar Assault

Arctic Howl

Cross Slash

Herald of Ice

Savage Fury

Lunar Blessing

Attack	This is your basic attack while you’re in your wolf form. You won’t use this much unless your opponent is Frozen. Then it can be used to whittle ice shards from them, which explode after a short while.	Long Fuse, Rapid Attacks, Crescendo
Attack	Pounce is great for initiating and clearing enemies at high speeds. You will equip this with Freezing Mark, which is a skill gem. When you pounce, you will automatically mark opponents to set up your combo.	Freezing Mark, Ice Bite, Cold Attunement
Attack	This is your bread and butter. Most of the time, this will be used simply to clear basic enemies. It’s also great for building up freeze on bosses.	Ancestral Call, Ice Bite, Magnified Area.
Buff	You can use this to automatically freeze a boss when it gets to 70% freeze threshold. If successful, you’ll gain added cold damage. (Can be used for easy rage gain)	Ancestral Call, Ice Bite, Magnified Area.
Attack	This is the final part of your combo. Once you’ve shredded ice shards off your frozen opponent, Cross Slash will gather them all in 1 spot and detonate them all at once, dealing massive damage. This will also trigger the Freezing Mark from Pounce.	Concentrated Area, Cold Attunement
Buff	This is pretty core on any ice build. When you shatter frozen enemies with Lunar Assult, it will deal damage and shatter enemies around it, too.	Magnified Area, Elemental Armament
Buff	You can put this on weapon set 2, to avoid using extra Spirit. Use this before your big combo to speed up your attacks, generating more ice shards	Prolonged Duration
Buff	Expend all of your rage to give yourself a massive damage boost. You will also call down beams of light that deal a good amount of damage around you. The more rage you use up, the longer this will last.	Cooldown Recovery, Magnified Area, Second Wind

These are the main abilities you’re going to be using constantly. However, if you're struggling with getting enough rage to be constantly using Lunar Blessing, you can also equip something like Eternal Rage. However, this does cost 100 spirit, which is quite steep.

Attack Rotation

Now that you have all your skills equipped, how are we going to use them? Here is a pretty common rotation that you’ll want to get used to.

Lunar Blessing to begin combo
Savage Fury to build attack speed
Pounce to close distance and Mark enemies
Lunar Assault to damage and build up freeze
Arctic Howl to Freeze and Buff
Use Shred as much as possible before the Ice Shards explode on their own
Cross Slash to bring in all the shards and explode them at once.

Now, this is quite a lot in all honesty, especially if you’ve come from a 1-button build, but when performed correctly, this whole combo can utterly shred a boss's health bar.

Path of Exile II: Every Class Ranked

For those struggling to pick a class in Path of Exile II, this list will show you some of the most powerful classes to play and why to pick them.

If you’re just mapping and want as much clear as possible, you can’t go wrong with simply using Arctic Howl for building rage, Lunar Blessing for more damage, and then spamming Lunar Assault. This is a lot easier to handle than the single-target combo rotation.

During the early game, you can just rely on Lunar Assault, Arctic Howl and Shred for your DPS. Cross Slash will come later, with Lunar Blessing only unlocking when you get to the mapping stage.

Important Gear

Weapon

Alright, now that we’ve got our skills sorted out, it’s worth touching on the more important pieces of gear that will give us our damage and defences.

Of course, the most important piece is your weapon. Here, you’re going to want to look for a talisman with as much physical and cold damage as possible. If you can add extra melee levels and critical hit chance or damage here, then that’s good too!

Make sure you use Iron or Glacial Runes for extra damage, while adding 20% quality once you’ve found a talisman that you’re happy with.

Every time you get a new level, check out the shop for more gear. If in doubt, wait a little while and use the online marketplace for some decent bases that you can use to craft with.

Armour

Chest: Look for a solid chest piece with a lot of armour and Energy Shield. Having both of these defence types is going to help you tank a lot of damage while you’re mapping. 2 layers of defence are massively better than just 1. In addition, look for high resistances as a priority.
Helmet: The helmet is pretty much the same as your body armour. Look for high armour and energy shield with more resistances, or even max life and Crit chance.
Gloves: This is a great place for adding damage through extra Melee Skill levels, Attack Speed or flat Physical or Cold damage. A mixture of these is crucial.
Boots: Naturally, movement speed is invaluable here, along with some nice elemental resistances too.
Belt: The belt slot can be used for those elemental resistances that you need a bit more of, as well as bonus life and stats.

Jewelery

Rings: The rings are great for adding flat physical and cold damage to your attacks. In addition, you can get massive amounts of elemental resistance on certain rings, especially if you add quality to them through Breach content . You can use a Polcirkeln early on, and then transition out as you find more powerful gear later.
Amulet: This is a great spot to put an extra bit of spirit to help you afford Eternal Rage. If you don’t want spirit, simply look for elemental resistance, crit damage or life. You can allocate something like Overwhelming Strike for more critical hit power!

Passive Tree and Ascendancy

Because our build revolves around a high crit chance, we’re going to want to look at as many of the critical-hitting options as possible. However, before we touch on that, let’s look at our ascendancy options.

We want to pick Oracle with the following nodes: (The 4th is up to you)

Unseen Path
Lesser Harm
Forced Outcome

Unseen path will reveal a ton of new nodes in our tree, some of which with some pretty amazing buffs:

Hidden Forms
Calculated Hunter
Lunar Boon
Limitless Pursuit

Now, when we add, on top of this, important nodes like Primal Spirit, Swift Claw, Barbaric Strength, Vulgar Methods and Spirit of the Wolf, we will have a massive amount of critically hitting opportunities.

The real damage increase comes from the ascendency choice, Forced Outcome. I won’t bore you with the maths mumbo jumbo here, but it makes your crits guaranteed (as long as you already have a good crit chance), obviously making you deal way more damage. It’s a no-brainer, really. Crit builds have always been strong in PoE2, and here it’s no different.

While you can read this guide as much as you want, the real knowledge and experience will come from you getting out there and trying out the build for yourself. Don’t be afraid to try a different version of the passive tree, or even some new skill gems. Everyone has their own way of playing. This is just a good starter. So no more stalling. It’s time to Rip and Tear!