S5 Andariel Stormclaw Cataclysm Build 1-100 Earthspike Leveling + Endgame Full Progression

The Andariel Stormclaw Cataclysm a relatively simple build but also immensely satisfying to play at the same time. It received massive buffs in S5 and THE Druid comfort build, becoming grannies favourite force of nature, devouring all that is before you. Fast movespeed, smooth enemy targeting, unrivaled survivability, great single target dmg and top tier audio visual feedback due to earth spikes sunder sound. Speaking of which, this build is based on utilizing the crone staff in combination with the natures fury keystone to enable you to unleash an immense amount of basic attacks. It looks and plays phenomenal. We are also going to utalize multiple uniques, including the new Ring and Cataclysm to become the God of Nature.

Gameplay strategy during leveling

1. Cast Claw. Delete.
2. Cast Earthen Bulwark on cooldown to shift back and forth. You also get to enjoy constant unstoppable uptime and MAX LIFE barrier.
3. Cast Catacylsm to wreck havoc and trigger the new MjÖlnic Ryng for x100% dmg on everything. Keep in on cooldown.
4. Cast Hurricane for 20% less dmg taken.
5. Cyclone Armor to push back enemies once you are stuck inbetween critters. Otherwise, never use.

Maul
Cast Maul inbetween Claws to prevent the Wildheart Hunger buff from falling off inbetween packs.

What Weapon should I use?

Crone.

The Greatstaff of the Crone converts Claw to a Stormskill. It also allows Stormstrike to be cast everytime you cast Claw. This combined with the Nature's Fury Keystone allows you to proc Earth Spike with the Seismic-shift Aspect as a high dmg line nuke.

The Symbiotic Aspect further resets the cooldown on Earthen Bulwark giving us 100% uptime on it while also providing us with fortify. This also allows us to benefit from Quickshift since we are constantly switching between the human and werewolf form.

We will lastly utilize the new Tempers for Cataclysm cooldown in combination with the Fists of Fate and Spirit Boons to achieve 100% uptime on Cataclysm. This will further provide us with near 100% Vulnerable uptime on everything as well as 100% uptime on 100% more dmg due to the new MjÖlnic Ryng.

Leveling

For Leveling make sure to use any source possible until you find your Staff of The Crone. S5 introduced a chance to find uniques at the gambler, in helltide chests and basically every single activity in the game. Just roll 2h staff and loot chests to grab it ASAP.

Before that, use the Seismic-shift Aspect with Earthspike. It does not add a cooldown anymore, making it incredible and possibly the best way to lvl a druid now. Please check the lvling section for a setup.

Defenses and Resistances

Season 4 changes a lot of things. This warrants a bit of an extended explanation when it comes to defences. This will heavily affects how we gear in terms of DR, which is now MUCH more impactful. Each % increase is rarer but the dmg scaling of enemies takes this into account, making single increases in the paragon board or on gear insanely strong. Increases on gear however can only be obtained on Uniques or through aspects, so keep that in mind.

Keep your gear updated to not fall behind in Armor. Make sure to upgrade it once you feel like you are taking too much damage from regular enemies. Always compare the gear you are wearing to the gear you pick up!

Resistances now have a hard cap at 70%. Meaning a 100-damage elemental damage hit would only deal 30 damage. We can further increase this cap with maximum resistance. Endgame elixirs provide you with additional 6% to one element. The 100-damage hit would now be reduced by 76% to 24, which is 20% LESS damage taken than before. This cap can be increased to 85% which is done throgh Tyraels Might.

This change makes Resistances incredibly valuable, especially when pushing higher Tier Content. Druids struggle a bit with that but we are using a ton of legendary gear, making it possible to grab additional resistances through tempers and affixes before grabbing a Tyraels Might.

Crafting Elixiers is a valid way to free up another affix on your gear but I personally much prefer armor elixiers or dmg increasing ones.

Speaking of which, Armour is still incredible and MUCH easier to get maxed out. The higher Item Power allows for a much higher base value. One Total Armour affixes now also provides you with enough to get you to 9230 Armour, which translates to 85% reduced physical damage taken vs targets level 100+.

And lastly Damage Reduction. This stat works on all damage types and now a lot rarer. We get it through a lot of sources, making us, the chads of nature, incredibly tanky. Grab any you can find. This combined with a 60-80% max life shield we will have 100% uptime on makes you invincible. A juggernaut. THE WALL. Please let us equip shields. In every slot.

Unique List and how to obtain them

S Tier | Greatstaff of the Crone - Mandatory for the build to work. Can be obtained in WT1 and WT2 through all activities. Make sure to roll gloves at the gambler since you will be able to find them through this in S5. Same is true for helltide chests. It allows you to become the force of nature incarnate. Find it. Use it. Love it.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Lord Zir and Echo of Varshan

S Tier | Mjölnic Ring - Doubles your dmg. All your dmg. Login.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Grigoire

S Tier | Wildheart Hunger - 60% more dmg dealt. All your dmg. Tedious to keep up between packs but worth it.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Lord Zir

UBERS:

S Tier | Harlequins Crest - This Uber Unique will now also provide you with a ton of Amor which makes it a great choice for any build in the game. The effect provides you with 4 Ranks to all your skills and 20 DR which is absolutely amazing. We get tankier and get access to more dmg, but we can go also use the additional max life and expecially the additional cooldown reduction to lower catalysms CD even further. Overall the best helmet.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Duriel, Andariel, all tormented bosses

S- Tier | Andariels - Be careful who you call ugly in previous seasons. This item is absolutely insane now. 30% attackspeed, around 450 life on hit, 80 all stats, 10% maximum poison resist and 666% flat poison res to cap you all in one item. It gives you access to incredible sustain, deletes the threat of poison dmg from the game, gives you a TON of attackspeed on a defensive slot and provides you with a massive 40k poison nova which constantly trigger through your high lucky hit basic attacks. Its just insanely good. But it lacks CDR which is needed for Catacylsm. If you can get things sorted, slap it on instead of Harlequins. It will be better for AoE and slightly ahead single target dmg.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Duriel, Andariel, all tormented bosses

S+ Tier | Tyraels Might - The defensive monster. BIS on nearly all builds in the game, offering you 17% movementspeed, 7.5% MAX RES TO ALL ELEMENTS & 60% Resistance to all elements as well as 20% DR. On top of that we will also get access to a barrage of divine projectiles which we will basically always fire due to 100% uptime on Barrier. A defensive monster that fixes elemental resistances for the druid class.
☠️Target farm Bosses☠️- Duriel, Andariel, all tormented bosses

Scaling your Damage

Season 2 also saw some big changes to how you are going to Scale your Damage. Crit Damage and Vulnerable Damage are now all added into the same bucket as all other damage increases like Damage to chilled. They now work as increased damage.

Critical strike are however still useful! A critical strike will now always deal 50% more damage. Meaning a 100 damage hit will now deal 150 damage. Critical Strikes are basically 50% more damage for free.

Vulnerable saw the same treatment with a 20% more multiplier. 100 damage will increase to 120. We want to apply Vulnerable for additional dmg.

The calculation for this is now as follows:

(Base damage) x (Willpower modifier) * (increased damage) x (crit multiplier if crit [static 50%]) x (vulnerable multiplier if vulnerable [static 20%]) x (more multiplier 1) x (more multiplier 2) x (more multiplier 3) x …

Dmg to close on the Staff of the Crone completely takes care of the Thunderstruck paragon node since its capped at 60%. The staff now provides you with 348 - 400% dmg to close which is at worst 69 and at best 80 %. No matter the roll, it will now always cap it. This frees up a ton of tempers on our gear! Given *Natures Fury inherits the **Storm skill tag onto Earthspike, we will always benefit from storm dmg as well as storm crit strike chance. Both a perfect options for tempers on Rings, Amulets and Gloves.

Now to truly benefit from the new MjÖlnic Ryng we will need A LOT of CDR. On Paper. But Due to Fists of Fate we are looking at enough lucky hit chance to reduce the cooldown of cataclysm below the duration of itself very easily through Calm before the Storm, a spirit boon effect gained for free. This ensure double dmg.

Wildheart Hunger boosts also greatly boost our dmg, all of it alongside Fists of fate. This makes sure we can scale andariels poison dmg which in turn helps immensely with dmg and with AOE, which this build very much needs. Cataclysm also scales through all those methods, resulting in decent AOE.

S5 Changes

1) New Unique MjÖlnic Ryng
Affixes

• • • [10.0%] Resistance to All Elements
    • [10.0%] Shadow Resistance
    • [99-135] Willpower
    • [6.0-8.0]% Critical Strike Chance
    • [16.0-25.0]% Movement Speed while Cataclysm is Active
    • [1-2] to endless Tempest (Druid Only)
      Power
      While Cataclysm is active, you gain unlimited Spirit and deal 40-100% increased damage.

2) New Tempering Recipe Ultimate Efficiency - Resource

+X% Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction (5-10%, 7.5 - 15% on ami)
+X% Lacerate Cooldown Reduction
+X% Petrify Cooldown Reduction
+X% Grizzly Rage Cooldown Reduction

3) Willpower:
Now gain 25% more increased Skill Damage from their primary Core Stat.
Gain 1% increased Skill Damage for every 8 primary Core Stat, reduced from 10 primary Core Stat.

4) Cataclysm
Lightning Strike rate is doubled.
Now more consistently hits enemies with its lightning strikes.

5) Earthen Bulwark
Previous – Rocks surround you for 3 seconds, granting a Barrier that absorbs 45% of your Base Life in damage.
Now – Rocks surround you for 3 seconds, granting a Barrier that absorbs 45% of your Maximum Life in damage.

6) Cyclone Armor
Non-Physical Damage Reduction increased from 10% to 15%.

7) Vigilance
Damage Reduction increased for each Skill Rank from 5% to 7%.

8) Seismic-Shift Aspect
No longer adds a cooldown to Earth Spike.

9) Thunderstruck Legendary Node
Now has a maximum bonus capped at 40% 60%.

10) Protector Glyph
Damage Reduction increased from 10% to 15%.

Build list

Sorcerer S5

1. Exodia Meatballmancer S5 1-100 Leveling + Endgame Full Progression (Fireball)
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/ab48922a-b756-4ca8-b318-5adf67a03ae7

Rogue S5

1. Victimize Heartseeker 1-100 Leveling + Endgame Full Progression (Victimize, Heartseeker, Smoke Grenade)
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/509ed177-cad7-48f5-99eb-c46a3d1d11e5

Druid S5

1. Sundering Cataclysm Storm Claw Endgame Full Progression (Earth spike, Claw, Stormstrike)
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/80240270-466f-48e7-8988-1904c7839d0e