Thunder God 1-70+ Leveling - Giga Chad Lightning Storm

The Thunder God levelling guide aims at providing you with a pleasurable experience while electrocuting enemies with powerful lightning strikes created by the massive Giga Chad Diablo 4 druid.

Gameplay strategy

1. Channel Lightning Strom to the desired stage.
2. Spam Lightning Storm.
3. Weave in Windshear for Spirit.
4. Use ravens as a passive damage tool or when you are out of spirit but need more damage.
5. Use Earthen Bulwark ONLY when you need the unstoppable or shield.
6. Use Blood Howl on cooldown. Restores spirit and health!

What Weapon should I use?

Use a 1h + offhand for much smoother gameplay and better attack speed. 2h weapons make this build hit a bit harder later but will also it more sluggish. Massive upgrades with 50+ipower are still worth it during levelling.

The main features of this build are its incredible AoE, great single target damage, really good range and flexibility in how to approach encounters. Given the static nature of Lightning Storm we are bound to rely on multiple layers of defences which come in form of Earthen bulwarks shield and Blood Howls life recovery. Both of which are further enhanced through the Spirit Boon Bolster, allowing you to nearly always run around with maximized fortify.

Season 2 also offers you with great vampiric powers like Undying, giving you an additional source of life recovery and Metamorphosis, which is an additional source of unstoppable, allowing you to later drop Earthen Bulwark for Poison Creeper, further scaling your damage.

Lightning Storm Mechanics

Lightning Storm comes with the Enchanced Lightning Storm upgrade, which allows you to keep stages after channelling the skill.
Each stage increases the number of Lightning Strikes by one but the area in which those can occur also increases. To maximize the damage we deal we need to think about the stage we are at and drop off the counter if necessary for single target damage.

Stage 0: 1 Strike, only used for channeling! NEVER stay at this stage.
Stage 1: 2 Strikes, always hits one target with both strikes. This provides you with the most consistent single target damage!
Stage 2: 3 Strikes, only large bosses get hit by all 3 consistently
Stage 3+: Only used for Aoe or Worldbosses

Unlocking Spirit Boons & Progression

The Druid class gains access to the Spirit Boons, allowing you to pick a total of 5 Boons acting as passive buffs to your character. Each Spirit provides you with 1 choice each. The 5th boon can be unlocked by offering 100 Druidic Spirit Offerings to each animal spirit. This boon can be used to unlock a 2nd passive bonus at a spirit of your choice.

To unlock this class feature, you will need to complete a questline starting in Túr Dúlra, Scosglen. Clear the Stronghold located here to progress the quest and start unlocking the Boons after completing it.

1. Spend 25 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Scythe Talons in the Eagle tree.
2. Spend 75 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Bolster in the Wolf tree.
3. Spend 100 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Calm before the Storm in the Snake tree.
4. Spend 75 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Wariness in the Deer tree.
5. Finish all trees.
6. Pick up Avian Wrath in the Eagle Tree OR Energize in the Wolf tree if you are struggling with spirit generation OR Iron Feather for more Health.

Defenses and Resistances

Season 2 changes how Defences work, with Armor only mitigating physical damage and Resistances mitigating each respective element.
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%.

This change makes Resistances incredibly valuable. The best way to fortify your defences during levelling will be gems in your jewelry, which provide you with resistances when socketed here. Going to hell? Slot in fire res. Fighting a ton of druids? Lighting res. Progressing through the swamp? Poison and shadow res. Keep that in mind when levelling. After you reach Level 70 you should aim to bring all your resistances to 70%!

Each World Tier also penalized you with a resistance debuff! World Tiers III & IV now apply -25% and -50% to Resistance to All Elements. World tier IV overwrites World Tiers III!

And lastly Damage Reduction. This stat works on all damage types and is a great choice at each stage of the levelling process. Damage reduction while injured is especially great due to its incredibly high value, resulting in a ton of effective health when combined with maximum health.

Additionally, you will be able to access Health Recovery when casting skills due to vampiric powers and the druid passive tree. 6% maximum health per cast is not something that should be overlook! Combing this with life on kill on your gear and in your weapons gems slot through skulls will make you extremely tanky.

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 Coreskill Damage or Damage to close enemies. They now work as increased damage.

Critical strikes are however still useful! A critical strike will now always deal 50% more damage. Meaning a 100 damage hit will now deal 150 damage. Because of Earthen Might you are guaranteed critical strikes whenever it procs. This makes critical strike damage a valuable stat despite it being an increased modifier now.

Vulnerable saw the same treatment with a 20% more multiplier. 100 damage will increase to 120. However, it is much harder to maintain it on enemies, making it a low priority stat. We want to apply it, but it won´t be the biggest increase to your damage anymore.

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 …

This makes level to your skills INCREDIBLY STRONG. A Shako tops every single item in the game now, but due to its rarity we can´t guarantee one on the build, making Godslayer Crown the more obtainable option. Willpower
is also much more important now due to its natural more multiplier behaviour. We also want to stack as much Damage to distant and Damage to close as possible. This has to do with legendary node Thunderstruck.

Thunderstruck changes your close and distant damage modifiers to act like more multipliers without taking them out of the increased damage bucket! Those stats now doubledip!

Strom Skills deal bonus damage equal to x20% of the total amount of your Damage to Close and Damage to Distant bonuses.

This damage can also crit and be affected by vulnerable as well as other more multipliers! And incredible buff to the consistency and scaling of this build!

Attackspeed is also a valuable asset to your damage scaling, with the frequency of lightning strikes being affected by it. Additionally, DO NOT HOLD the button for lightning storm but tap it instead! This allows you to never progress the stages of your lightning storm above the level you currently want it to be! Hold it only for when you want to increase the stage level.

Transitioning into Endgame

Make sure to check out my Thunder God Endgame 50-100 - Giga Chad Lightning Storm Build Guide once you reach around 70 for a full paragon board, endgame aspect setup and additional information on the playstyle, skill rotation as well as skill setup.

Link: https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/fa10391d-2082-4ad6-a3a1-670d16417f81?tab=paragon-board

Leveling Plan and Tips for Season 2

Tips

1. Compare your items regularly. Your defenses are much more important now!
2. Make sure to spend your renown boni! Season 2 unlocks everything. If you do not have your renown finished, do it while you are leveling.
3. Do not by anything from vendors. Costs way too much early on.
4. Dismantling might not be the best way to go anymore with season 2 due to how gear works in higher tiers. Low quality gear will automatically drop as material!
5. Do not imprint your weapon early! Waste of aspects. But still, use your aspects. Your will see more than enough in T3 or higher.

Leveling Plan

1. Finish the seasonal quest ASAP.
2. Stay in the overworld and do overworld stuff. Seasonal event, whispers for gold and mats, Legion events all got massive buffs! Helltides will also be great in T3. Do those and you will never be short on materials and gold.
3. Dungeons are a bit better exp but you will miss out on vampiric powers, materials, gold, and fun.
4. Avoid Nightmare dungeons until T4.

Build list

Druid

1. Thunder God 1-70+ Leveling - Giga Chad Lightning Storm:
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/ddf1abf4-8eaf-4ef5-96e8-c5a1d25ca650
2. Thunder God Endgame 50-100 - Giga Chad Lightning Storm Build Guide:
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/fa10391d-2082-4ad6-a3a1-670d16417f81

Sorcerer

1. Meatballmancer - 100 Exodia Fireball build:
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/ab48922a-b756-4ca8-b318-5adf67a03ae7
2. Frost Witch 1-100 Leveling + Endgame Full Progression (Blizzard, Frozen Orb, Ice Shard):
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/debf7082-a8eb-4d8e-bf21-c2d9cadab769
3. Frost Witch 100 Endgame MinMax Blizzard Build - 100NM, ALL Bosses:
   https://mobalytics.gg/diablo-4/profile/2ca243f3-a3b0-4f9a-ae02-aa8db0633a5c/builds/c5cb6a49-1cac-4904-ad9c-09cb61ab9254