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Diablo 4 Build

Thunder God S4 1-100 Leveling + Endgame Full Progression (Human Lightning Storm)

Druid

Season 4

By Mordarim

Updated on May 11, 2024

May 11, 2024

Build Overview

The Thundergod human lightning storm build aims at providing you with a shocking experience capable of clearing all NM difficulties and bosses the game has to offer. This includes clearing 100 Nightmare dungeons, all bosses, all overworld content and doing everything at top speed. The biggest strength of this build is its ridiculous amount of AoE instantly clearing everything even around corners and walls due to not relying on projectiles. The boss dps is also absolutely insane and capable of melting anything that stand before you.

Build Variants

Uber Endgame 100

1-70 Leveling

70-100 Endgame Transition

100 INFINITE Spirit Perfect God

Aspect & Uniques

Uber Endgame 100

1-70 Leveling

70-100 Endgame Transition

100 INFINITE Spirit Perfect God

HelmHarlequin Crest

Chest armorUndying Aspect

GlovesUnsung Ascetic's Wraps

PantsTibault's Will

BootsAspect of Concussive Strikes

AmuletAspect of Retaliation

Ring 1Aspect of the Stampede

Ring 2Ring of Starless Skies

WeaponShepherd's Aspect

OffhandEmpty

Fix resistances and armor through gems in the endgame. It is NOT possible to cap it otherwise.

Skill Tree

Uber Endgame 100

1-70 Leveling

70-100 Endgame Transition

100 INFINITE Spirit Perfect God

Available

Spent58

Leveling Path

Paragon Board

Uber Endgame 100

1-70 Leveling

70-100 Endgame Transition

100 INFINITE Spirit Perfect God

How it Plays

Gameplay strategy

Channel Lightning Storm to the desired stage. (3 Lightningstrikes)
Use Earthen Bulwark to gain access to barrier, unstoppable, and proc the Vigilance passive for a DR buff.
Spam Lightning Storm by tapping the assigned button. DO NOT let it reach higher stages. This results in much less dmg.
Use Petrify to stun large groups of enemies or dangerous foes to increase your dmg against them for the duration.
Use Poison Creeper for AoE immobilize and poison, as well as to proc Clarity, a passive which improves your dmg and crit strike chance considerably.
Use Ravens to increase your critical strike chance vs bosses and stronger enemies and to proc Clarity
Use Wolves to proc Clarity.

What Weapon should I use?

2h for a MASSIVE increase to your dps. 1h+offhand can be used early for smoother gameplay but its much more favourable to use a 2h weapon once you get access to shepherd's.

What boot base?

Use boots with additional dash charges.

What gems to use?

ALWAYS get your resistances to 70% first! Afterwards, slot in skull gems for additional armor. The cap for armor is much easier to reach in S4, so make sure to not overcap it!

Video Guides
I always update the written guides first before moving to youtube video guides. Make sure to check out the channel!
https://www.youtube.com/@Mordarim

How it Works

The main strength of this build is its absolutely insane AoE and devastating single target damage, capable of melting steel and hearts alike. Literally. You are a commander issuing orbital strikes down on your foes, obliterating everything in its wake. Nothing survives. Even cockroaches stand no chance.

This, however, comes at a price. You are required to obtain Tibault's will in order to funktion at full efficiency. Your unstoppable status is also tied to Earthen Bulwark, which depends on resets throught he Symbiotik Aspect. Using this will recover huge amounts of spirit.

Scaling is done through companions and the Shepherd's Aspect, resulting in a 180%[x] multiplier. This is the absolutely best way to scale our dmg with uniques like Tibault's Will, Harlequin's Crest, and the Ring of Starless Skies scaling it even further.

Poison Creeper passively apply poison to bosses, resulting in near 100% uptime on them for a massive [x] multiplier through envenom. And we further increase the damage we deal through Clarity, which now increases the dmg we deal as well as the critical strike chance of the first core skill we use by a massive amount.

The build also includes a section without uber uniques and a section for lvling to ease you into endgame.

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 but clearing sucks.
Stage 2: 3 Strikes, very consistently able to hit targets at least two times. Unsung Ascetic's Wraps makes this stage the best stage to use.
Stage 3+: Only used for BIG Aoe or Worldbosses. Worldbosses get hit by all strikes at the max stage, resulting in the most amount of dmg.

Lightning Storm DOES NOT scale with attackspeed!! The channel speed is only affected by the base attackspeed of a weapon, meaning 0.9, 1.0 or 1.1. Additional attackspeed aquired on gear does nothing. This also only affects the channeled version, which is by far the worst playstyle. Tapping is key, which provides you with 55 strikes compared to only 37 strikes when channeling with a 1.1 speed weapon. The 55 strikes are the same for all base weapons!

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.

Spend 50 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Iron Feather in the Eagle tree.
Spend 100 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Overload in the Snake tree.
Spend 100 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Calamity in the Wolf tree.
Spend 75 Druidic Spirit Offerings to unlock Wariness in the Deer tree.
Finish all trees.
Pick up Avian Wrath for a MASSIVE 30[x] mutliplier on crits in the Eagle tree.

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.

First a quick look at Resistances. Those 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% through special gear and consumables.

This change makes Resistances incredibly valuable, especially when pushing higher Nightmare Dungeon (70+) **. Druids get a bit of all resistance through the skilltree and the paragon board, however it is not even close to enough to cover all your needs. This makes gearing a bit more difficult than other classes. Make sure to use your **Jewelry gem slots to cap your resistances first before switching to skull gems in the longrun.

Crafting Elixiers is a valid way to free up another affix on your gear, especially as a druid that does not get many free resistances but does get a lot of free armor and reduced damage taken.

Armour is still incredible and MUCH easier to get maxed out on a druid than a lot of other classes, especially now with the higher Item Power allowing for a much higher base value. Total Armour is much less impactful now given the hardcap for armor to reach 85% total physical reduction is at 9230 Armor. This lets us use just one to get to cap. Aspect of Disobedience is also much less mandatory now allowing you to use a different defensive aspect on your armor or slap on a unique if you happen to want to use an additional one. CAP YOUR ARMOR once you start facing Lvl 100+ enemies!

And lastly Damage Reduction. DR is now a different beast. Its insanely strong given the reduced availability of it. Enemies are now much less likely to oneshot you regardless of if you have some or not, but if you do, you will feel it immediately! Druids gain access to a ton of free DR through the paragon and skilltree, allowing you to omit it on gear while still feeling incredibly tanky.

Maximum Life is especially goated now. Cap you armor and resis and slap on as much max life as possible. Its the best defensive stat by a fair margin (after DR) and should be used on any piece of gear you can get it on if its not losing you too much dmg.

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 Harlequin's Crest AKA 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.

This build further features multiple unique items, each being more powerful than the last. Unsung Ascetic's Wraps basically double your damage, Tibault's Will provides you with another massive multiplier and spirit recovery and Ring of Starless Skies is another uber unique to increase your damage output and reduce the cost of your lightning strike. All of those can be replaced early with aspects but should be your BIS items once you get into endgame farming.

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.

Leveling

During leveling we won´t be able to get free spirit through Tibaults Will. This makes for a rather painful early experience until you get some spirit per sec on your gear, which is new to season 4. It might sound like nothing but it will help MASSIVELY, expecially when you run out of spirit and can´t basic attack. This will be gamechanging for the class and allow for much, much, MUCH smoother leveling.

The basic machanic of the build at 40 changes due to access to Tibaults Will, before that we are not going to use Earthen Bulwark. Instead we are going to use Earthen Spike for spirit recovery and Lightning Strikes for actual dmg. However, because of the companion changes we are also able to use them to high effience because they scale directly with our gear, resulting in good dmg throughout the 1-70 bracket. At 70 you should be able to start farming duriel, which will enable you to get the Will and transition into the actual godbuild.

Check the Perfect Storm Infinite Spirit chapter for the final evolution.

Perfect Storm INFINITE SPIRIT

Once we reach the Pit we will be able to masterwork our equipment. A crucial moment in the lives of the Lightning Storm Build. This is the moment we all have been waiting for, the evolution into godhood. Masterworking the spirit per sec affix on your boots as well as your chest, and making sure it is a greater affix will provide you with 12+11 spirit per sec, a whooping 23 spirit of recovery. Now, this might seem like very little but we are also combining this with the resource cost reduction affix on the weapon, which lowers the 16 spirit cost lighting strom to only 8. Giving the maximum amount of lightning strikes we can cast by tapping is around 55-56, we will need 440 spirit in 20 sec. This is equivalent to 22 spirit per sec, which we comfortably reach with the new affixes. We are FULLY SPIRIT SUSTAINED. Any fluctuations can be comfortably covered with the additional point of spirit regen as well as the perfect storm node.

We are now going to switch to the Aspect of Concussive Strikes on boots because we are at this point spirit sustained. We will also switch to the Perfect Storm Keystone, providing us with up to 44% MORE dmg while being completely spirit sustained.