Diablo 4 Druid BuildLionheart's Zero to Hero Cataclysm

https://www.reddit.com/r/D4Druid/comments/1irhdro/potential_bug_with_druids_mj%C3%B6lnic_ryng_causing/

I found a potential bug which makes additive Lightning Bolt Damage, which are those that you temper on legendary gear and from Electrocution glyph, to be worthless despite Mjölnic Ryng stating "Cataclysm receives your Lightning Bolt benefits."

Fortunately, multiplicative Lightning Bolt Damage is working correctly.

• Charged Atmosphere passive: Correctly increases Cataclysm damage by 10%[x] per rank.
• Aspect of Electrified Claws: Correctly increases Cataclysm damage by 40%[x] (in ring slot with maximum roll).
• Runeworker's Conduit Aspect: Correctly increases Cataclysm damage by 15%[x] per 100 Willpower.

The consequence of this is that tempering Lightning Bolt Damage affix is worth nothing, and it is also unnecessary to maximize the Willpower requirements for Electrocution glyph.

Minimum Requirement The minimum requirement for Cataclysm to be a viable main attack Skill is getting its duration to exceed its cooldown by at least 2 seconds reliably using a combination of the following options. This enables Cataclysm to snapshot various buffs indefinitely by chain casting.

Optimal

• Equip Mjölnic Ryng to get additional Endless Tempest ranks to extend the Cataclysm duration.
• Equip Shroud of False Death to get additional Endless Tempest ranks to extend the Cataclysm duration. There is a bug in Shroud of False Death that provides additional Cataclysm duration for free.
• Temper Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction on Amulet and Ring.
• Equip Tempest Roar and Stormshifter's Aspect to add 5 Cataclysm ranks and reduce its cooldown.

Sub-Optimal

• Equip Mad Wolf's Glee to add up to 7 Catalysm ranks and reduce its cooldown. You lose the powerful damage buffs provided by Shroud of False Death.
• Imprint Hectic Aspect on pants. You will lose a damage-oriented utility aspect.
• Equip Flickerstep to reduce Cataclysm cooldown by evading through enemies. It is unreliable as you will drop Cataclysm if there are no enemies around. You also lose Willpower, Maximum Life and a damage-oriented utility aspect on legendary boots.
• Equip Airidah's Inexorable Will with GA Ultimate Cooldown Reduction. You lose Willpower, Maximum Life and an offensive aspect on legendary ring.
• Imprint Vehement Brawler's Aspect to add 2 ranks to Cataclysm and reduce its cooldown. You lose a more powerful offensive aspect.
• Equip Zec rune to reduce Ultimate Cooldown. You lose a rune slot for a major damage multiplier.

Recommendation for Starter

• Get a Mad Wolf's Glee with 7 ranks to Werewolf Skills. Higher Cataclysm ranks lead to lower cooldown.
• Get a Mjölnic Ryng with 1 GA Endless Tempest and Masterwork crit at least twice to get 6 or more Endless Tempest.
• Imprint Hectic Aspect on pants. As you are constantly casting Maul, your cooldowns will regularly reduce. You will need to be careful to only refresh Hurricane when it is going to expire so that Hectic Aspect has higher chance to reduce Cataclysm's cooldown. Make sure to temper Hurricane Duration on gloves, pants and boots so that Hurricane is on cooldown less often. You will need Hurricane Duration anyway to make your Cataclysm snapshotting process easier.
• Temper Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction on Amulet and Ring and hope for high rolls. Do a few Pit runs and see if your Cataclysm chain casts are successful. Masterwork for more cooldown reduction if required.

Recommendation for Pit Pushing

• Once you obtain a Shroud of False Death, which provides more Cataclysm duration than expected due to a bug, the chain casting should mostly be successful.
• Then, to replace Hectic Aspect in favor of a damage-oriented utility aspect reliably, you will likely need to triple Masterwork crit on Mjölnic Ryng to get 7 Endless Tempest, and if it is still lacking, you will need to Masterwork crit on ring Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction.

Cataclysm Duration and Cooldown Calculator Before committing resources to temper and masterwork your gears, you might want to use these formulas to check if your Cataclysm duration and cooldown have met the minimum requirements. If you have already crafted your gear and equipped them, then just check the in-game tooltips for the duration and cooldown values. Make sure to cast Hurricane to activate Stormshifter's Aspect.

Cataclysm Duration

• Cataclysm's base duration is 12 seconds with Prime Cataclysm.
• Calamity Spirit Boon provides 35% duration bonus.
• Endless Tempest passive provides 5% bonus per rank.

Without Shroud of False Death:

• Cataclysm Base Duration x (100% + Calamity Bonus) x (100% + 5% x Endless Tempest Ranks)

With Shroud of False Death:

• Shroud of False Death is bugged and provides extra duration on top of the 1 Endless Tempest rank.
• Cataclysm Base Duration x (135% + Calamity Bonus) x (100% + 5% x Endless Tempest Ranks)

Cataclysm Cooldown Retrieve the value from the table below. Usually, you are either at rank 17 with Mad Wolf's Glee or rank 10 with Shroud of False Death.

Cataclysm Base Cooldown Skill Rank Base Cooldown 1 60.0 2 57.0 3 54.0 4 51.6 5 49.2 6 47.4 7 45.6 8 44.4 9 43.2 10 42.0 11 40.8 12 39.6 13 39.0 14 38.4 15 37.8 16 37.2 17 36.9 18 36.6 19 36.3

Final Cooldown with Cooldown Reduction:

• Base Cataclysm Cooldown x (100% - CDR Source 1) x (100% - CDR Source 2) x (100% - CDR Source 3) etc.

If you are starting off with non-masterworked gear, you can use this to get your final 12/12 masterwork CDR:

• If non-GA: CDR Value at 0 MW x (145% + 25% per MW Crit)
• If GA: CDR Value at 0 MW / 150% x (195% + 25% per MW Crit)

Minimum Threshold for Successful Cataclysm Snapshot Check that Cataclysm duration exceeds cooldown by at least 2 seconds to be safe.

Numbers listed below are based on baseline 3 passive ranks.

Lightning Storm

• Earth Spike is used to acquire Resonance buff to empower Lightning Storm's damage by 18%.
• All 3 Companion Skills are used to acquire 3 stacks of Clarity buff to give Lightning Storm a 45% damage multiplier and 45% increased Critical Strike Chance.
• Earthern Bulwark provides Barrier, Unstoppable and Fortify to activate Aspect of Retaliation damage multiplier. Beside self-casting it, NeoQue rune frequently auto-casts it, and whenever either occurs, Backlash 12% damage buff and Vigilance 21% damage reduction buff are activated. Unstoppable is useful to avoid being interrupted by Crowd Control while channeling Lightning Storm.

Cataclysm

• Maul is cast constantly to stay in Werebear form and replenish Fortify to maintain Overpower damage at the maximum at all times. Overpower damage changes dynamically with the sum of current Life and Fortify. Maul is great for speed farming because you can cast it while moving without being locked down, unlike Skills such as Pulverize.
• Earthern Bulwark is used to acquire Resonance buff to empower Cataclysm's damage by 18%, and to activate Backlash and Vigilance.
• Blood Howl is a Defensive cooldown used to activate Backlash 12% damage buff and Vigilance 21% damage reduction buff. Especially for speed farming, the cooldown resets frequently, 1 second for each kill, due to Enhanced Blood Howl.
• Cataclysm is the main attack Skill. You can move around and do anything once it is cast until it expires. Chain cast the next Cataclysm while the previous is ongoing to carry over all the snapshot buffs.
• Hurricane is used to activate Stormshifter's Aspect, which provides +5 ranks to Shapeshifting Skills. By equipping Tempest Roar, Storm Skills also receive these Skill ranks, including Cataclysm, which buffs its damage and reduces its cooldown.

For speed farming:

• Shred is used only as a mobility Skill to teleport to enemies, cover long distances quickly and potentially teleporting through walls, which is great for Undercity runs and some dungeons with many walls.

For Pit pushing:

• Pulverize is used to reliably activate Ancestral Guidance 40% damage multiplier buff by spending 75 Spirit. Primal Pulverize also decreases enemy damage by 20%.

FAQ Q1. Why is Blood Howl used instead of Debilitating Roar? Blood Howl has lower cooldown and cooldown reset potential on kills with Enhanced Blood Howl to maintain high uptime of Backlash and Vigilance buffs. Especially for speed farming, you will find Blood Howl cooldown resetting frequently.

Q2. Why is Enhanced Earthen Bulwark not picked for Unstoppable? What if I get Crowd Controlled? Cataclysm build is naturally tanky in Werebear form with high Maximum Life and damage reduction. Raheir Mercenary will break you out of Crowd Control every 30 seconds. You also have Impairment Reduction from Paragon nodes to recover quickly. Even if you get Enhanced Earthen Bulwark, you can only use it every 16 seconds.

Q3. Why not 3 points in Heart of the Wild for 9 more Maximum Spirit to buff Ancestral Fortitude? 9 more Maximum Spirit is worth about 2% damage multiplier when you already have over 230 Maximum Spirit. It's not an efficient way to spend 3 Skill points.

Q4. Why are there no points in Nature's Reach for Pit pushing? Monsters have extremely high Life in high tier Pits and you will find yourself fighting mostly in melee range as you want to pull-in enemies into a dense pack for more effective AoE damage. You will also be in melee range when fighting the boss to allow Cataclysm twisters to hit the boss frequently. Therefore, Nature's Reach is mostly inactive.

Q5. Why 3 points in Defensive Posture and 2 points in Natural Fortitude for Pit pushing? Feel free to reallocate the 5 points if you wish. They are picked because damage reduction and Fortify generation are actually useful for doing more damage. When enemies damage you and you lose Life and Fortify, you also lose substantial Overpower damage (additive Overpower damage from Life and Fortify, 50% inherent Overpower damage multiplier based on current Life %, Survival Instincts legendary node). You want to take less damage and restore Fortify quickly to keep yourself at maximum Life and Fortify. Alternatives are:

• Ancestral Fortitude if you lack Resistance to All Elements.
• Heart of the Wild for about 2% more guaranteed damage. Being able to keep Life and Fortify at maximum probably has more impact.
• Bad Omen for better Electrocution glyph 20% damage debuff uptime. Runeworker's Conduit aspect, 4 Charged Atmosphere and 1 Bad Omen should be sufficient already even in AoE scenario because Lightning Bolts also have a small splash radius like Cataclysm's lightning strikes.

Q6. Why Preserving Blood Howl for speed farming? The 15% Attack Speed is a minor benefit to attack faster, reduce Evade's cooldown faster and move faster. Feel free to reallocate it.

Lightning Storm

• Deer Gift of the Stag and Wolf Energize provides Maximum Spirit and Spirit generation to make channeling Lightning Storm last longer before having to cast weaker Spirit generating Earth Spike.
• Deer Advantageous Beast grants 15% Movement Speed, an invaluable utility stat for leveling.
• Eagle Scythe Talons grants 15% Critical Strike Chance to improve damage and 15% Lucky Hit Chance to trigger Wolf Energize more frequently. Swooping Attacks is not recommended because it causes Lightning Storm to be less Spirit efficient.
• Snake Overload poisons enemies, especially Distant enemies, to trigger Envenom Critical Strike Damage multiplier.

Cataclysm

• Deer Gift of the Stag increases Maximum Spirit by 40, which buffs Ancestral Guidance substantially.
• Eagle Iron Feather increases Maximum Life by 30%, which increases additive Overpower damage from Life and Fortify substantially.
• Eagle Avian Wrath provides 40% Critical Strike Damage multiplier, which is always active with Cataclysm's 100% Critical Strike Chance.
• Wolf Calamity extends Cataclysm duration by 35% to make it easier for consecutive Catalysm casts to overlap.
• Snake Overload poisons enemies, especially Distant enemies, to trigger Envenom Critical Strike Damage multiplier and Aspect of the Changeling's Debt's damage multiplier.

FAQ Q1. Why Snake Overload? Aura of Siphoning Witch Power already poisons enemies. For speed farming, it is advantageous to poison Distant enemies as you approach them to activate the massive Envenom Critical Strike Damage multiplier and Aspect of the Changeling's Debt's 130% damage multiplier so that they can be killed even before they come into the aura's range. The 1% Lucky Hit Chance for Poison damage to summon a Lightning Bolt is negligible.

Q2. Why not Snake Calm Before the Storm to reduce Cataclysm cooldown? For an unknown reason, Calm Before the Storm's Lucky Hit effect appears to work on a per cast basis, instead of the usual per hit basis. Despite Cataclysm and Hurricane being Nature Magic Skills and hitting enemies frequently, the Lucky Hit cooldown reduction events trigger very rarely. If Cataclysm has 62% Lucky Hit Chance, this means that Calm Before the Storm has 62% x 10% = 6.2% chance to trigger at least 1 time per Cataclysm cast. Conversely, when you use other Nature Magic Skills that can be cast rapidly without a cooldown such as Storm Strike, you will see the cooldown of Cataclysm reducing regularly. Unfortunately, you want to stay in Werebear form to maintain huge damage multipliers, and Maul is not a Nature Magic Skill to use Calm Before the Storm.

Q3. Why not Snake Masochistic for more healing? Similar to Calm Before the Storm, Masochistic is conditioned on Lucky Hits, which makes the healing negligible from Cataclysm Lucky Hits. Triggering Lucky Hit healing from Maul is unreliable. You already get substantial healing from Aura of Siphoning and The Cycle Witch Powers, which are boosted tremendously by Willpower Healing Received.

Lightning Storm Use magic and rare runes that are easily accessible at low levels. You may use any other runes before the following ideal runes are dropped.

• PocLum to refund 50% Spirit when channeling Lightning Storm to keep it going for as long as possible. Once your Spirit sustain feels comfortable, you can switch to PocChac to spawn Lightning Bolts for more damage. Temper Lightning Bolt Damage on your gear's offensive slots for a significant power boost. Replace Poc with Nagu if you are lucky to find it. With all 3 Companion Skills equipped, you will generate offerings frequently.
• NeoQue to frequently cast Earthen Bulwark to gain Barrier, Unstoppable, Backlash damage buff and Vigilance damage reduction.

Cataclysm Baseline

• IgniXan to make Cataclysm do guaranteed Overpower and Critical Strike, making it possible to use all available options to scale Overpower Damage, and eliminating the need to stack Critical Strike Chance. Igni's substantial 500 offerings generated after charging it for 6 seconds overflows Xan and provides a maximum of 50% damage multiplier.

Speed Farming

• BacJah to Teleport when you Evade to cover great distances and across walls. BacJah is great for easier content such as Helltides, Headhunts, Nightmare Dungeons, Undercity, Dark Citadel or even Pit 100 when your damage is high enough. Wear a pair of boots with Attacks Reduce Evade's Cooldown inherent affix to Evade even more frequently as you constantly Maul and use other Skills.

Pit Push

• FeoQax to make Cataclysm consume all current Spirit to boost damage by up to 100% before overflow. It is important to keep Spirit at maximum right before casting Cataclysm to maximize this buff, as well as Ancestral Guidance buff. Feo's substantial 1,000 offerings generated upon being Crowd Controlled overflows Qax and provides a minimum of 250% damage multiplier.

FAQ Q1. Why not Bac rune to gain offerings instead of Feo? From a damage potential perspective, Bac rune generates offerings in steps of 5, hence it cannot create a large overflow. Overflow happens when a large number of offerings is generated in an instant, which Feo and Igni does. This means you are losing out on a substantial damage multiplier by overflowing Xan or Qax.

From a convenience perspective, Bac rune requires you to run around for quite a bit of time before the required offerings are generated. For the time spent running around, you could have used that same time to run around and scout for an enemy or environmental hazard that can Crowd Control you to trigger Feo rune immediately, as well as gather up enemies for Soul Harvest.

Q2. Why do my rune buffs randomly drop sometimes? Suddenly I get no orange damage numbers, or my damage numbers become very low even if they are orange. I'm sure my Cataclysms casts are overlapping. Qax and Xan buffs can only be attached to 1 active Skill at a time. Qax and Xan buffs can be "stolen" by other Skills if Cataclysm lightning strikes or twisters do not grab the buffs as soon as the buff icons appear. The common culprits are Hurricane, Earthen Bulwark and Blood Howl that cast very quickly without having a "global cooldown". Some common scenarios:

• You cast Pulverize, triggering IgniXan and acquiring Xan buff icon, then you spam cast Hurricane, causing Hurricane to hit an enemy and stealing Xan before Cataclysm can hit an enemy.
• You spam cast Shred to teleport to an enemy across the wall, triggering IgniXan and acquiring Xan buff icon, then a second cast of Shred steals Xan before Cataclysm can hit an enemy.
• You get hit by a Crowd Control effect, trigger FeoQax and acquiring Qax buff icon, then you spam cast Hurricane/Pulverize, causing Hurricane/Pulverize to hit an enemy and stealing Qax before Cataclysm can hit an enemy.

To minimize the risk of rune buffs getting stolen from Cataclysm, ensure that the other Skill casts are spaced out at least 0.5 seconds apart to give Cataclysm enough time to grab the buffs. For boss fights or other single target fights, the rate of Cataclysm hitting a target is much lower than in AoE scenario. To be very safe, space out the Skills 3 seconds apart, enough to maintain Werebear form.

Also, for an unknown reason, when moving from floor 1 to floor 2 to boss room, Qax buff can get deactivated. Xan buff appears to be unaffected. If you notice your damage is still orange but decreases substantially, quickly get hit by a Crowd Control effect to reactivate FeoQax.

Q3. Please explain the math behind FeoQax IgniXan rune combo? Qax and Xan grants extra damage multipliers if you can generate a lot of offerings in an instant.

• Qax gains 0.25% more damage multiplier on top of its base 100% bonus per 1 offering overflow.
• Xan gains 0.1% more damage multiplier per 1 offering overflow.

For speed farming, the runes pre-filling process is skipped. Feo would always start from 0 offerings and overflow by 1,000 minus Qax's minimum required offerings, while Igni can overflow 500 offerings if Xan's filling to 99% is executed perfectly.

• FeoQax IgniXan maximum damage potential: (100% + 100% + (1,000-400)x0.25%) x (100% + 500x0.1%) = 525%, or a 425% damage multiplier.

For Pit pushing where you would do runes pre-filling to fill Qax and Xan to 99% before the Pit run, you can cause all Feo and Igni offerings generated to overflow.

• FeoQax IgniXan maximum damage potential: (100% + 100% + 1,000x0.25%) x (100% + 500x0.1%) = 675%, or a 575% damage multiplier.

By doing the extra runes pre-filling step before each high tier Pit push, you would gain at least 675% / 525% = 128.6%, or a 28.6% damage multiplier for free.

As a side note, the Spirit that Qax consumes actually counts towards Ancestral Guidance's 75 Spirit spent activation condition of the 40% damage buff. There is a bug where after Qax consumes Spirit, from then on, the 5-second Ancestral Guidance buff lasts much longer beyond 10 seconds, including for Shred/Pulverize casts. It could be because Qax consumes 100% Spirit, much more than the required 75 Spirit, and the Ancestral Guidance buff somehow gets an extended duration. This is a benefit since you have a much longer buffer between consecutive Shred casts to maintain Ancestral Guidance.

Cataclysm has an interesting property where once it has snapshotted the first Qax buff, future Qax buffs will still stick on to Cataclysm, causing Cataclysm to absorb Qax buffs whenever they are reactivated, consuming all Spirit and triggering Ancestral Guidance. This means you can potentially drop a Spirit spender like Pulverize and take another support Skill like Debilitating Roar, assuming FeoQax can trigger reliably during your Pit run (i.e. you get Crowd Controlled frequently).

Lightning Storm Use Witch Powers that are easily accessible from the vendor at the Tree of Whispers after doing seasonal quests.

• Hex of Flames and Shaken Soul to apply Vulnerable debuff on enemies for 20% damage multiplier.
• Aura of Misfortune to weaken enemies. Prioritize getting to Rank 5 to boost Movement Speed.
• Twilight Warding to get more Barrier for survivability.
• Hex of Shattering to weaken enemies.
• The Cycle for Poisoning damage and healing.
• If you are lucky enough to discover Piranhado, use it to pull in enemies.

Recommended Leveling Order 1. Aura of Misfortune Rank 5 to boost Movement Speed by 15%. 2. Hex of Shattering Rank 8 to guarantee Critical Strikes on Headrotten (seasonal enemies). 3. Hex of Flames Rank 7 to enable extra AoE damage on Critical Strikes. 4. Shaken Soul Rank 10 to allow non-Eldritch Witch Powers to apply Vulnerable, which speeds up Vulnerable application at the start of combat. 5. The Cycle Rank 5 to increase Poisoning damage and healing. 6. Twilight Warding Rank 12 to reflect enemy projectiles. 7. Save up Restless Rot for the Witch Powers and Occult Gems used for Cataclysm build.

Cataclysm

• Soul Harvest to grant 1% Willpower per stack of buff and enable Friend of the Bog gem. The %Willpower goes into the same bucket as %Willpower on gear, not a separate multiplier like Friend of the Bog gem. You can gain up to 64 stacks of buff.
• Aura of Siphoning to enable Friend of the Bog and Voice of Stars gem, enable Aura Specialization 35% Critical Strike Damage multiplier, and provide healing of 1% Maximum Life per 0.5 seconds when at least 1 enemy is in the aura. The healing is substantial as it is buffed by Willpower Healing Received. Each point of Willpower provides 0.075% of Healing Received. For example, with 5,000 Willpower, you get 375% Healing Received, which increases Aura of Siphoning healing to 4.75% Maximum Life per 0.5 seconds.
• Aura Specialization to grant 35% Critical Strike Damage multiplier when fighting Close enemies within the aura, which happens often especially for tougher enemies and bosses. There is a bug in the tooltip that shows additive damage, but it is actually a multiplier.
• Purging Touch to grant 40% damage multiplier only when Voice of the Stars gem is equipped to tag Cataclysm as Eldritch.
• Force of Will to grant up to 100% Overpower Damage multiplier by killing enemies to accumulate buff stacks. Once Cataclysm is cast, it will snapshot this buff. Unfortunately, non-Cataclysm Skills may consume this buff (such as Provocation passive guaranteed Overpower, Enhanced Pulverize guaranteed Overpower, 3% natural Overpower Chance). This leads to some inconvenience during the Cataclysm snapshotting process because once the buff is up, you don't want to cast any other Skill that might accidentally Overpower and consume the buff.
• The Cycle for massive healing and enable Friend of the Bog gem. When you touch one of the flowers, you heal for a base of 10% Maximum Life at Rank 5. With 5,000 Willpower and 375% Healing Received, that is boosted to 47.5% Maximum Life.

Recommended Leveling Order 1. Purging Touch Rank 10 to make the damage multiplier apply to all enemies. 2. Aura of Siphoning Rank 10 to activate the healing effect. 3. The Cycle Rank 5 to get the maximum healing effect. 4. Force of Will Rank 4 to give you 1 extra buffer in case you accidentally Overpower before you cast Cataclysm. 5. Soul Harvest Rank 9 to refresh the buff duration if you are near any enemy. 6. Purging Touch Rank 20 to get the maximum damage multiplier. 7. Aura Specialization Rank 10 to enable the Critical Strike Damage multiplier effect. 8. Soul Harvest Rank 20 to allow longer downtime before the buff is dropped. 9. Aura Specialization Rank 20 to enlarge the aura. 10. Force of Will Rank 20 to reduce the kill requirement. 11. Aura of Siphoning Rank 20 to complete the list, since the Poisoning damage is negligible.

FAQ Q1. Why not Decay Augmentation? After a recent patch, Decay Augmentation no longer works with Cataclysm via Voice of the Stars gem. Even before the patch, the amount of Poisoning damage was much less than advertized on the tooltip, making it a sub-optimal choice.

Q2. Why not Vengeful Spirit Servant or Piranhado? The Cycle is a Growth & Decay Witch Power that contributes to Friend of the Bog activation requirement. Vengeful Spirit Servant and Piranhado are not and requires you to sacrifice 1 non-Unique Witch Power slot for another Growth & Decay power, which there are no other useful ones to choose from. Moreover, The Cycle's healing potential is exceptional to keep your Life topped up.

Lightning Storm

• Hungering Void rare gem: Pulls in nearby enemies for improved AoE damage.
• Wicked Pact magic gem: Boosts Hex of Flames and Shaken Soul.
• Heart of Anima magic gem: Boosts Aura of Misfortune, Twilight Warding and Hex of Shattering.

Recommended Gem Crafting Order A total of 4 Fugitive Heads are required. 1. Craft Heart of Anima magic and socket it. (1 Fugitive Head required.) 2. Craft Wicked Pact magic and socket it. (1 Fugitive Head required.) 3. Craft Vulture Talon magic and socket it. (1 Fugitive Head required.) 4. Craft Heart of Anima magic. Unsocket Vulture Talon. Craft Hungering Void rare and socket it. (1 Fugitive Head required.)

Cataclysm

• Friend of the Bog provides a substantial damage boost from increasing Maximum Life by 10% (which increases additive Overpower Damage) and Willpower by 8% multiplicative. There is a bug with the Willpower multiplicative buff that grants another 8% increase proportional to the amount of %Willpower on your gear.
• Voice of the Stars enables Cataclysm to benefit from Witch Power buffs by tagging it Eldritch, Growth & Decay and Psyche. The Witch Power is Purging Touch, that provides a 40% damage multiplier to Cataclysm. The gem also provides another 10% damage multiplier for Ultimate Skills.
• Hungering Void rare gem: Pulls in nearby enemies for improved AoE damage.

Recommended Gem Crafting Order Assuming you have crafted the Lightning Storm gems, a total of 5 more Fugitive Heads are required. 1. Craft Vulture Talon magic, Toadling's Wish magic, Pointed Finger magic. Unsocket Wicked Pact. Craft Vile Phylactery rare. Craft Friends of the Bog legendary and socket it. (3 Fugitive Heads required.) 2. Craft Elder Sigil magic, Wicked Pact magic, Phantom String magic. Unsocket Heart of Anima. Craft Raging Enigma rare. Craft Voice of the Stars legendary and socket it. (3 Fugitive Heads required.)

FAQ Q1. Why Hungering Void instead of other options? Pull-in effects are great for Cataclysm especially for Pit pushing because each Cataclysm lightning strike has only a small splash radius. This disadvantage is very apparent when you fight hordes of small spider enemies and see that they die slowly because the lightning strikes are hitting 1 spider at a time. Furthermore, pull-ins are great to gather up enemies to maximize Soul Harvest stacks. Hungering Void is great as it provides an unconditional pull-in effect every 8 seconds.

If you wish to retain having a pull-in effect at your disposal, the alternative is to equip Airidah's Inexorable Will ring and socket an alternative Occult Gem. However, the opportunity cost is very high as you will lose the following massive damage boosts and utility on a regular legendary ring:

• 890 Maximum Life GA.
• 17.4% Resistance to All Elements, which means you have to sacrifice an affix on another gear, or Skill Points, to cap Resistances.
• 40% damage multiplier from a legendary aspect.
• Less frequent pull-in because Airidah's pull-in triggers twice upon casting Cataclysm, and Cataclysm's cooldown is lengthy unless you equip Flickerstep (and equipping Flickerstep has another long list of opportunity cost).

But gain:

• Slightly more Willpower from Airidah's %Willpower affix. Note that this affix goes into the same bucket as other %Willpower from gear and Soul Harvest.
• A few seconds removed from Cataclysm's cooldown since Airidah's Ultimate Cooldown Reduction affix can be a GA, but not a legendary ring's Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction tempered affix.
• 5.7% damage multiplier by equipping Wicked Pact gem instead to boost the damage multiplier of Purging Touch Witch Power from 40% to 48% (148%/140%=105.7%). Although Wicked Pact's tooltip states a 25% Eldritch Witch Power boost, the actual value on Purging Touch's tooltip shows 48% instead of 50%.

If you don't need a pull-in effect, then equip Wicked Pact as the next best option.

Lightning Storm Affix Priority Hold on to gears for the following slots with the priority affixes even if you find a higher item power gear. For all other slots, prioritize Willpower and Maximum Life affixes.

• Gloves: Ranks to Lightning Storm provides substantial damage boost.
• Boots and Amulet: Movement Speed is essential to move quickly, hunt down more enemies and reach objectives faster, improving leveling efficiency.

Weapon Type Any two-handed weapon is preferred for lower attack speed, slower rate of Spirit consumption and easier upkeep of Lightning Storm channeling.

Cataclysm Affix Priority

• Legendary weapon: Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage > Willpower > Maximum Life >>> Overpower Damage
• Legendary armor: Willpower > Maximum Life
• Legendary amulet: Envenom = %Willpower > Resonance = Quickshift > Defiance > Maximum Resource = Maximum Life
• Legendary ring: Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction > Willpower > Maximum Life
• Mad Wolf's Glee: Ranks to Werewolf Skills > Maximum Life
• Tempest Roar: %Willpower >> Maximum Resource
• Mjölnic Ryng: Endless Tempest > Over 90% aspect > Movement Speed while Cataclysm is Active > Willpower
• Shroud of False Death: All Stats > Maximum Life

Masterworking: Willpower vs Maximum Life

• Full Maximum Life Masterwork: 1 GA triple crit Maximum Life Shroud of False Death, 1 GA Willpower 1 GA triple crit Maximum Life gloves/pants/boots/ring.
• Full Willpower Masterwork: 1 GA triple crit Willpower Shroud of False Death, 1 GA triple crit Willpower 1 GA Maximum Life gloves/pants/boots/ring.

Willpower Masterwork has about 10% more damage than Maximum Life Masterwork.

Maximum Life Masterwork has about 13,000 more Maximum Life than Willpower Masterwork. If you have 48,000 Maximum Life with Willpower Masterwork, changing to Maximum Life Masterwork would give you about the equivalent of 20% damage reduction.

My recommendation is full Willpower as 48,000 Maximum Life is already quite tanky. It's ok to have a mix of Willpower and Maximum Life crits to save cost.

Masterworking: Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage This effect is snapshot throughout the duration of the first Cataclysm cast and future chain casts. This means that if you have lesser than 100% chance, there could be some occasions when you do only half the damage for the whole Pit run. It is not a deal breaker to have less than 100%, just a quality-of-life upgrade to have 100%.

• For speed farming, hope for the best and roll at least 45.5% at 0/12 Masterwork to achieve 100% on triple Masterwork crit.
• For Pit pushing, if you can tolerate the inconsistency and annoyance, you could instead Masterwork Willpower for approximately 5-10% damage multiplier and fish for a perfect Pit run that activated the effect.

Masterworking: Amulet Always triple crit Envenom. When your gear is almost maxed out, it gives about 4% more damage than triple crit %Willpower.

Masterworking: Cataclysm Cooldown Reduction and Endless Tempest My default recommendation is triple crit Mjölnic Ryng GA Endless Tempest as the starting point to achieve at least 2 seconds more Cataclysm duration than cooldown for reliable snapshotting.

• If your legendary amulet and ring have poor Cataclysm CDR temper rolls, then you'll have to crit on ring CDR. Stick with triple crit Envenom on amulet.
• If your legendary amulet and ring have good Cataclysm CDR temper rolls, then you don't need to crit on ring CDR, and you may even be able to reduce to double crit GA Endless Tempest.

To check if your numbers meet the thresholds, refer to the previous section "Minimum Requirements to Transition from Lightning Storm to Cataclysm" for the formulas. Or use my "Damage Calculator for the Math Inclined" Google Sheets.

Masterworking: Shroud of False Death All Stats is comparable to Maximum Life for damage. However, prefer All Stats as the Intelligence provides some Resistance to All Elements (and Strength provides some Armor when optimizing using 3 GA pants).

Weapon Type Two-handed weapons are ideal because Cataclysm's damage cannot scale with attack speed. One-handed weapon and totem trades weapon damage for attack speed (1.1:0.9 ratio), but the faster attack speed has no value for Cataclysm. There are also no powerful Offensive aspects to justify the use of one-handed weapon and totem.

Even Doombringer mythic unique one-handed sword's triple crit GA %Maximum Life would struggle to keep up with a regular legendary two-handed weapon. Unless you try to fish for a successful Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage activation on the totem, but this would give you only around 10% damage advantage based on my calculations.

Two-handed mace is the ideal choice for its inherent 392.7% Overpower Damage, additive damage is very inefficient. Realistically, just get any 0.9 weapon speed two-handed weapon with GA Willpower and Maximum Life and try to get a good roll on Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage temper.

Armor and Resistance With the following enchantments and Paragon Board, you will be overcapped on Armor and be close to 70% Resistance to All Elements with Elixir and Incense.

• Temper %Armor on pants. Any roll is fine as you will be overcapped on Armor.
• Enchant 1 Armor and 1 Resistance to All Elements on gloves and pants. The alternative affix on gloves is additive damage and it is weak for Cataclysm.
• Enchant Resistance to All Elements on ring.

Towards end game, you may obtain even more powerful items.

• Obtaining a Shroud of False Death with GA and Masterwork All Stats will give you more Intelligence to push you closer to 70%.
• If you are lucky to get a 3 GA Willpower, Maximum Life and Armor gloves/pants/ring, you can instead temper Maximum Life on pants and be at around 968 Armor.
• If you are lucky to get a 3 GA Willpower, Maximum Life and Resistance to All Elements gloves/pants/ring, you can reallocate 4 Resistance to All Elements magic nodes on Paragon Board to Willpower or % Total Armor.

Damage Tempers Lightning Bolt Damage is currently bugged and doing nothing with Mjölnic Ryng. The current optimal setup is:

• Temper Maximum Life on amulet, which is worth up to 566% additive Overpower Damage. Note that this is using Defensive temper category, not Offensive. If you have unfortunately already used Offensive category, then temper Overpower Damage.
• Temper 2 Damage to Close/Distant Enemies on gloves/ring, or 1 on two-handed weapon since it has double value, to cap Thunderstruck bonus at 60% Storm damage multiplier without having to use Earth and Sky glyph. Headhunter glyph is then used to get 90 more Willpower, worth roughly 5% damage multiplier. Damage to Close is preferred for Pit pushing.
• Temper Overpower Damage on the remaining slots.

Utility Tempers Temper Hurricane Duration. The longer the duration of Hurricane:

• The longer you can run around to gather enemies for a solid Soul Harvest at the start of a Pit run.
• The higher the chances of Hectic Aspect lowering Cataclysm cooldown, as long as you are careful to cast Hurricane only when it is about to drop. This is useful when you need Hectic Aspect as your gear is not amazing yet.

The alternative utility tempers are not really more useful.

• Chance for Crowd Control effects are not useful because your Cataclysm is already constantly Stunning enemies with Aspect of Electrified Claws.
• You're not relying on Barriers for survivability, so Barrier Generation is not useful.
• Hurricane Size could be useful if you find your Hurricane duration to be comfortable. It helps to apply its 20% damage reduction debuff to a larger area. However, you are already pulling enemies into a tight pack, so the default Hurricane radius should be sufficient.

Boots and Movement Speed Highly prefer Attacks Reduce Evade's Cooldown by 1.5 Seconds inherent affix on boots. This allows you to move faster by following this rhythm while speed farming: 3 Mauls and 1 Evade.

These are your sources of Movement Speed:

• Heightened Senses passive provides 9% Movement Speed with 3 points, or 12% with Shroud of False Death.
• Legendary boots provide non-GA 33.4% Movement Speed that can be enchanted, and 11.6%-18.1% Movement Speed that can be tempered.
• Mjölnic Ryng provides non-GA 23.2%-36.3% Movement Speed, or GA 48.8%.
• Temporary 4% buff from 1 Digitigrade Gait if you equip Shroud of False Death.

You would have:

• 77.2% Movement Speed with 3 Heightened Senses, max boots enchant, min boots temper, min Mjölnic Ryng.
• 96.8% Movement Speed with 3 Heightened Senses, max boots enchant, max boots temper, max Mjölnic Ryng.
• 112.3% (capped at 100%) Movement Speed with 4 Heightened Senses, max boots enchant, max boots temper, GA Mjölnic Ryng. At this point, you can consider changing temper to Evade Cooldown Reduction to travel even faster. This allows you to Evade every time you Maul 2 times, instead of the usual 3 times.

FAQ Q1. Why not Flickerstep? It is unreliable for Cataclysm buff snapshotting as you will drop Cataclysm if there are no enemies around. You also lose substantial damage from missing Willpower, Maximum Life and a damage-oriented utility aspect (e.g. Exploiter's Aspect) on legendary boots.

Q2. Why not Airidah's Inexorable Will? You have a net gain of about 35% damage multiplier by replacing Airidah's Inexorable Will with a legendary ring, as long as you still can meet the Cataclysm duration and cooldown requirements. Refer to Occult Gems FAQ Q1 for more information.

Q3. Why not enchant 3 Resistance to All Elements and fill up Armor in the Paragon Board? You can do that, but you may not reach 1,000 Armor cap and you will lose much Willpower to path to the Armor nodes on the board. Refer to Paragon Board FAQ Q3.

I don't believe in giving recommendations based on gut feel instead of using quantitative facts. Thus, I have crunched the numbers in a damage analysis spreadsheet. The following are my findings.

Willpower Willpower is the most efficient stat for damage partly because it appears in the Cataclysm damage formula 3 times (cubic scaling instead of the usual linear scaling with other stats). Willpower provides: 1. Skill Damage being Druid's Core Stat. 2. Additive Overpower Damage. 3. Lightning Bolt Damage with Runeworker's Conduit Aspect, which buffs Cataclysm damage with Mjölnic Ryng's unique effect.

Lightning Bolt Damage Please refer to the section "IMPORTANT: Potential Bug with Additive Lightning Bolt Damage". At the current moment, Lightning Bolt Damage is not working correctly with Mjölnic Ryng due to a bug, which makes this stat worth 0.

Maximum Life Maximum Life is approximately 25% less efficient than Willpower for damage.

• Every 1% of extra Life you have relative to your Base Life of 400 at Level 60 translates to 1% additive Overpower damage.
• Every 1% of Fortify you have relative to your Base Life of 400 at Level 60 translates to 1% additive Overpower damage. For example, with 50,000 Maximum Life, you get:
• Up to (50,000 - 400)/400 = 12,400% additive Overpower Damage when you are at full Life.
• Up to 50,000/400 = 12,500% additive Overpower Damage when you are at full Fortify.
• That makes a total of 24,900% additive Overpower Damage. You get another 50% Overpower Damage multiplier based on your current % Life. This is why when you Overpower, your damage becomes enormous numbers. When you already have so much Maximum Life, adding more Maximum Life leads to a small relative increase in additive Overpower Damage.

Maximum Spirit Maximum Spirit is comparable to Maximum Life for damage. Maximum Spirit increases damage via Ancestral Guidance. To put it in perspective, if you have a Tempest Roar with 23 Maximum Resource, and with that your Maximum Spirit is 241, and then you get a better Tempest Roar with 31 Maximum Resource GA, the 8 extra Maximum Resource translates to (100% + 249%) / (100% + 241%) = 102.3%. It's a 2.3% damage multiplier, which is quite small.

Additive Damage All other additive damage that are not multipliers such as Damage, Critical Strike Damage, Overpower Damage, Vulnerable Damage that you find on gear, Paragon Board and Glyph bonuses are very inefficient for damage. The reason is that they are added to the same bucket as the massive additive Overpower Damage granted by your large Maximum Life pool. The following values change depending on your current stats, but as a rule of thumb, 5 Willpower is worth around 70-80% additive damage.

Lightning Storm Only aspects that are guaranteed to be learned by clearing dungeons are used so that the build does not depend on drop luck. The following description assumes the aspects have minimum roll as obtained from dungeons.

Offensive 1. Aspect of Retaliation: Large 70% damage multiplier that depends on Fortify. Earthen Bulwark will constantly keep Fortify replenished. 2. Aspect of Inner Calm: Moderate 8% damage multiplier. Triple bonus is activated often during tougher fights when you stand still and channel Lightning Storm for more than 3 seconds. 3. Edgemaster's Aspect: Minor 5% damage multiplier damage boost when starting Lightning Storm channel at full Spirit. 4. Overcharged Aspect: Adds some AoE damage to Lightning Storm, useful when enemies are stacked up.

Defensive 1. Aspect of Disobedience: Keep Armor high for Physical damage reduction. 2. Aspect of Mending Stone: Extends Earthen Bulwark's short base duration of 3 seconds by an additional 6 seconds and replenishes the barrier from kills. Earthen Bulwark is regularly auto-cast by NeoQue runes.

Others 1. Aspect of Shared Misery: Spreads Immobilize to multiple enemies to activate Lightning Shock 21% increased damage taken. 2. Wind Striker Aspect: 8.5% increased Movement Speed to cover more ground quickly. 3. Aspect of Voracious Rage: Restores 15% of Lightning Storm's Spirit cost on kill such that it is almost unnecessary to cast Earthen Spike to regenerate Spirit.

Cataclysm General 1. Runeworker's Conduit Aspect: Scales Lightning Bolt Damage with Willpower, which in turn scales Cataclysm damage with Mjölnic Ryng. This single aspect can provide over 10 times damage with high Willpower. The Lightning Bolt periodic strikes also helps to apply Electrocution glyph 20% damage taken debuff on a small number of Close enemies. 2. Aspect of the Changeling's Debt: 130% damage multiplier in two-handed weapon slot. It's active only when you are in Werebear form and the enemy is Poisoned. If you Shapeshift to Werewolf, Cataclysm's damage drops unless the enemy is Crowd Controlled, but you would also lose many other damage multipliers by not being in Werebear form. 3. Aspect of Electrified Claws: Grants Cataclysm a 40% damage multiplier when paired with Mjölnic Ryng. The aspect causes any Lightning Bolt to Stun the enemy. Surprisingly, Cataclysm itself inherits the Stun capability due to Mjölnic Ryng. This is useful for survivability as the enemies can't attack when stunned. For speed farming, Stunned enemies take 12% more damage due to Natural Disaster passive. For Pit pushing, the Stuns quickly make enemies Unstoppable to activate Exploiter's Aspect's 45% damage multiplier. A minor benefit for bosses is that they get staggered quickly to activate damage multipliers from Electric Shock, Natural Disaster. 4. Stormshifter's Aspect: Grants 5 ranks to Shapeshifting Skills when Hurricane is active. Most importantly, this affects Cataclysm due to being tagged as a Shapeshifting Skill by Tempest Roar. This boosts Cataclysm's damage and reduces its cooldown.

For Speed Farming 1. Aspect of the Unsatiated: 60% damage multiplier in amulet slot that applies to Cataclysm due to being tagged as a Werewolf Skill by Tempest Roar. 2. Wildbolt Aspect: Pulls in Distant enemies periodically and makes them take 10% more damage, which is useful to grab straggling enemies when you run across the map quickly. Other damage-oriented utility aspects such as Aspect of Concussive Strikes and Exploiter's Aspect don't work well because enemies die very quickly. An alternative is Hectic Aspect to reduce cooldowns, but don't rely on it to reduce Cataclysm cooldown to make snapshots successful since the aspect picks a random Skill to reduce cooldown.

For Pit Pushing 1. Aspect of Apogeic Furor: For Pit pushing when you would cast Cataclysm more than 7 times, this aspect provides around 9-10% more multiplicative damage than Aspect of the Unsatiated on average. (Approximate average of 175% / 160% = 109%.) The cooldown reset is a minor bonus. For speed farming Pit in 2 minutes, you would only cast around 4-5 Cataclysms, making this aspect less ideal. 2. Exploiter's Aspect: As described above, this turns Stunning and making enemies Unstoppable from a disadvantage into a substantial 45% damage multiplier advantage.

FAQ Q1. Why not Vehement Brawler's Aspect? It provides 2 Cataclysm ranks. If you don't need more Cataclysm cooldown reduction, this aspect provides a relatively small damage boost, mainly because the damage multiplier only lasts 8 seconds after casting Catalysm, but the cooldown is much longer.

Lightning Storm While waiting for the items to be available for you to transition to the more powerful Cataclysm build, boost your Lightning Storm damage as you get Paragon points.

• Prioritize getting Ancestral Guidance and Heightened Malice legendary nodes for large damage multipliers.
• Get Damage to Close and Distant Enemies before moving towards Thunderstruck legendary node to boost its damage buff.
• There are no other useful legendary nodes for this build, so finish up with Constricting Tendrils board to get more Resistance to All Elements.

Cataclysm The Paragon Board is designed to maximize Willpower and Maximum Life since these are the most efficient stats to boost damage. Damage Reduction and Impairment Reduction are also picked. Additive damage, Intelligence, Dexterity and Strength are minimized. You will easily activate all rare nodes once you obtain Shroud of False Death.

Legendary Nodes 1. Ancestral Guidance: 40% temporary damage multiplier after spending 75 Spirit, but more importantly enabling Maximum Spirit damage scaling for Ultimate Skills. 2. Lust for Carnage: 50% Critical Strike Damage multiplier that works with Cataclysm due to Tempest Roar tagging it as a Werewolf Skill. 3. Survival Instincts: Up to 45% damage multiplier in Werebear form, and up to 25% Overpower Damage multiplier. 4. Thunderstruck: Up to 60% damage multiplier for Storm Skills if you have sufficient Damage vs Close/Distant stat.

Glyphs The following glyphs are used. Any additive damage provided by the glyphs are negligible and are avoided in favor of getting more Willpower. This is the re-optimized setup due to Lightning Bolt Damage bug. 1. Spirit glyph in Starting board: 15% and 14.2% Critical Strike Damage multiplier. 2. Dominate glyph in Lust for Carnage board: 15% damage multiplier on Overpower, 20% Overpower Damage multiplier. 3. Keeper glyph in Survival Instincts board: 15% and 10.4% Non-Physical damage multiplier, 54 Willpower, 545 Maximum Life. 4. Headhunter glyph in Ancestral Guidance board: 10% damage multiplier vs elites, 10% damage multiplier, 90 Willpower. 5. Electrocution glyph in Thunderstruck board: 20% damage multiplier when hit by Lightning Bolt, 10.4% Lightning damage multiplier.

Use the following glyphs instead if you want to retain your existing Lightning Bolt Damage gears because you have spent a lot of resources to craft them. You can try to optimize by reallocating some inefficient nodes in Ancestral Guidance glyph left side area to pure Willpower nodes elsewhere since you do not need Electrocution glyph's Lightning Bolt Damage due to the bug. 4. Electrocution glyph in Ancestral Guidance board: 20% damage multiplier when hit by Lightning Bolt, 10.4% Lightning damage multiplier. 5. Earth and Sky glyph in Thunderstruck board: 10% and 10.4% Nature Magic damage multiplier, 117.7% Damage to Close Enemies to cap Thunderstruck bonus at 60% Storm damage multiplier.

Beyond Paragon 218 At Paragon 218, you should be able to fill up all the important nodes. The rest of the points as you level up to Paragon 300 will go into maximizing Willpower. Prioritize filling up the Willpower nodes for Headhunter glyph in Ancestral Guidance board, which doubles each normal Willpower node from 5 to 10.

FAQ Q1. Really? Don't get the additive damage that the glyphs provide? Yes, avoid them. Willpower scales very well for Cataclysm. As a rule of thumb, 5 Willpower is worth around 70-80% additive damage.

Q2. Why not Heightened Malice? Tempest Roar allows Lust of Carnage to be used with Cataclysm. It has a better multiplier than Heightened Malice.

Q3. Why not get the Armor nodes at the top of Survival Instincts board and more Armor nodes to replace the %Armor tempered affixes on pants for Maximum Life? If you find a perfect 3 GA Willpower, Life, Armor pants, you can do that and be at 968 Armor. If you are willing to sacrifice Willpower nodes, then swap them for Armor nodes to reach 1,000 Armor.

Q4. Are there any more ways to squeeze out more Willpower from the Paragon Board? Please let me know if you find it!

Lightning Storm and Cataclysm Pick Subo for Hired Mercenary.

• Seeker reveals all enemies on the minimap, an extremely useful quality-of-life upgrade.
• Share a Drink provides an ample supply of Health Potions for boss fights.
• Explosive Charges and Thrillseeker reduces the cooldowns of all of your Skills on a 22-second cooldown. The cooldown reduction can be substantial when enemies are grouped up and the Explosive Charges hit multiple targets for 0.5 second reduction per enemy hit.
• For Cataclysm build, do not rely on this cooldown reduction to guarantee that Cataclysm can be chain cast to retain snapshot buffs. However, if it does trigger, you are rewarded with a slight damage boost due to having improved uptime on Catastrophe 15% damage multiplier for 8 seconds upon casting Cataclysm.

Pick Raheir for Reinforcement Mercenary.

• Bastion provides a Crowd Control breaker and damage shield when you are hit by a Crowd Control effect on a 30-second cooldown, a great survivability tool.
• For Cataclysm build, when you are in the process of snapshotting Qax rune that requires you to be hit by a Crowd Control effect, once the damage shield bubble appears, you know that you should have triggered Qax buff.

FAQ 1. Why not some other mercenary choices? Feel free to pick others. I personally like the cooldown reduction that Explosive Charges and Thrillseeker provides.

Always keep elixir and incense buffs active. They are very cheap to craft. Elixir for Lightning Storm 1. Elixir of Precision II: 6% Critical Strike Chance and 35% Critical Strike Damage provides the most damage. 2. Elixir of Resourcefulness II: 20% Resource Cost Reduction and 25 Maximum Resource if you run out of Spirit frequently.

Elixir for Cataclysm 1. Elixir of Fortitude II: 20% Maximum Life provides the most damage, approximately a 15% damage multiplier. 2. Elixir of Resourcefulness II: 25 Maximum Resource provides the next most damage, approximately an 8% damage multiplier. Refer to Cataclysm Buffs Snapshotting Process section to get information on how to snapshot this Elixir effect.

Incense for Both 1. Reddamine Buzz: 750 Maximum Life provides the most damage. 2. Soothing Spices: 10% Resistance to All Elements and 150 Armor. Your Resistances will be very close to 70%, while your Armor will be overcapped. 3. Blessed Guide: 100 Willpower provides the most damage.

1. Start the Pit run. Ideally you have 40 stacks of Force of Will from the previous run.
2. Upon spawning in the Pit, cast Hurricane immediately to trigger IgniXan. If IgniXan gets filled to 100% and you gain Xan buff, let it be.
3. Quickly run around to gather up as many monsters as possible. The Hurricane will not consume rune buffs because the buffs were missing when it was cast.
4. Use Maul to stay in Werebear form for more defenses. If Xan buff is active, do not hit any enemies or you will lose the buff. Otherwise, you can hit enemies with Maul, but you can only afford to Overpower 1 time with Maul, which consumes Force of Will's 1 of 2 charges. (3% inherent Overpower Chance and Provocation buff.)
5. If IgniXan's offering is too empty such that the eventual Earthen Bulwark cast will not be able to fill it to 100%, then cast Blood Howl and fill it up as close to 100% as possible.
6. (Optional if you are using FeoQax instead of BacJah.) While running around, prioritize getting hit by any Crowd Control effect (e.g. elite elemental effects, environmental hazards like barrels, poison plants, ground spikes) to trigger FeoQax. You can tell when Raheir Mercenary's damage shield appears. You must get Qax buff before Hurricane drops, otherwise for speed farming, skip it and live with lower damage for the run.
7. Stand in the middle of the monster pack and cast Earthen Bulwark to get Resonance buff and as many Soul Harvest stacks as possible. You will also get Xan buff if you didn't get it previously.
8. Xan and Resonance (and Qax if used) buffs are ready, so immediately cast Cataclysm. You should see a flurry of orange damage numbers, indicating a successful snapshot.
9. Do the gameplay loop.
10. When fighting Pit boss, if you want to retain 40 stacks of Force of Will for the next Pit run, try to avoid Overpowering by attacking empty spaces to stay in Werebear form but not hitting the boss.

1. Go to any location with monsters and kill 40 to get maximum Force of Will Witch Power stacks. The stacks persist even if you change location.
2. Equip TamQax runes. Assuming you started with 0 offerings, cast Pulverize 15 times to get to 375/400 offerings. Then equip FeoQax.
3. Equip IgniXan runes. Cast Pulverize repeatedly to get to roughly 80% offerings. The 20% gap is left for Hurricane later.
4. Teleport to Cerrigar. The Qax and Xan runes offerings persist even if you change location.
5. Drink an Elixir of Resourcefulness II to gain 25 Maximum Resource.
6. Start the Pit run.
7. Upon spawning in the Pit, cast Hurricane immediately to bring IgniXan as close to 100% offerings but not exceeding. IgniXan will be overflowed by Earthen Bulwark later. If Hurricane accidentally filled up IgniXan, reset the Pit run.
8. Quickly run around to gather up as many monsters as possible. The Hurricane will not consume rune buffs because the buffs were missing when it was cast.
9. Use Maul to stay in Werebear form for more defenses. The only Skill you can use is Maul because other Skills will cause IgniXan to overflow prematurely. You can hit enemies with Maul, but you can only afford to Overpower 1 time with Maul, which consumes Force of Will's 1 of 2 charges. (3% inherent Overpower Chance and Provocation buff.)
10. While running around, prioritize getting hit by any Crowd Control effect (e.g. elite elemental effects, environmental hazards like barrels, poison plants, ground spikes) to trigger FeoQax, which buffs the next Skill that hits a target. You must get Qax buff before Hurricane drops otherwise you will miss snapshotting Stormshifter's Aspect buff to Shapeshifting Skill ranks. Recasting Hurricane is undesirable as it will mess up IgniXan overflow. If you fail to get Qax before Hurricane drops, reset the Pit run.
11. Once you get Crowd Controlled, which you can tell when Raheir Mercenary's damage shield appears, you will get Qax buff. If you still don't have sufficient nearby enemies for Soul Harvest, you have time until Hurricane drops to gather them. You can Maul to stay in Werebear form; Maul is a Basic Skill and will not consume Qax.
12. Once you have sufficient enemies nearby, stand in the middle of the enemy pack and cast Earthen Bulwark to get Resonance buff and as many Soul Harvest stacks as possible. The ideal case is to have 64 monsters nearby to achieve the maximum stacks of Soul Harvest. This Earthen Bulwark cast will overflow IgniXan.
13. Xan, Qax and Resonance buffs are ready, so immediately cast Cataclysm. You should see a flurry of orange damage numbers, indicating a successful snapshot.
14. Drink an Elixir of Fortitude II to gain 20% Maximum Life. Ancestral Guidance buff, which benefited from the 25 increased Maximum Resource from Elixir of Resourcefulness II, has already been snapshot by Cataclysm, whereas Maximum Life dynamically buffs Overpower damage.
15. Do the gameplay loop.
16. When moving from floor 1 to floor 2 to boss room, if you notice your damage is still orange but decreases substantially, get hit by a Crowd Control effect to reactivate FeoQax.

Snapshot As long as the buff is present when Cataclysm is cast, it is captured for the full duration of Cataclysm even if the buff drops off, and also rolls over to subsequent Cataclysm chain casts. 1. Qax rune: Increased damage for the next non-Basic Skill based on resource spent. 2. Xan rune: Guaranteed critical strike and overpower for the next Skill. 3. Resonance passive: Bonus damage if the next Skill is a Storm Skill cast after an Earth Skill. 4. Stormshifter’s aspect: Only the increased damage component from the temporary +5 buff to Cataclysm skill ranks when Hurricane is active (with Tempest Roar equipped to tag Cataclysm as a Shapeshifting Skill), but not the reduced cooldown component from increased skill ranks. If you drop Hurricane and cast the next Cataclysm, the cooldown for this Cataclysm will revert to the longer cooldown without the temporary +5 ranks. 5. Ancestral Guidance legendary node: Only the damage buff based on current Spirit when Ultimate Skill is cast. If you cast Cataclysm at 0 Spirit, this cast and subsequent chain casts will not be buffed. Elixir of Resourcefulness II can be used during the snapshot process. 6. Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage weapon temper: Upon casting Cataclysm, if you succeed the roll, the entire Cataclysm and subsequent chain casts will capture the double damage buff. The reverse is true if you fail the roll, then the entire Cataclysm has no double damage. 7. Force of Will Witch Power: You don’t need to refresh the kill counter for the 100% damage buff to carry over to subsequent chain casts of Cataclysm.

Dynamic Damage fluctuates throughout Cataclysm duration depending on whether the buff is active or not. 1. Backlash passive: Increased damage for 5 seconds after casting a Defensive Skill. 2. Innate Debilitating Roar skill: Increased damage for 4 seconds. 3. Nature’s Reach passive: Increased damage if your current distance from target is Distant. 4. Feral Aptitude: Increased damage while Healthy. If you cast Cataclysm while not Healthy, your damage will dynamically be buffed once you restore to Healthy. 5. Quickshift passive: Increased damage after acquiring buff stacks by shapeshifting. 6. Ursine Strength key passive: Increased damage in Werebear form and while Healthy. 7. Catastrophe: Increased damage for 8 seconds after casting an Ultimate Skill. 8. Ancestral Guidance legendary node: Only the damage buff for 5 seconds after spending 75 Spirit. 9. Survival Instincts legendary node: Increased damage in Werebear form, full Life and based on Life and Fortified Life percent difference between you and target. You will notice a significant decrease in damage when you activate target dummy damage and let it hit you to 1 Life remaining. 10. Overpower damage from Life and Fortified Life: Life and Fortified Life provides inherent additive Overpower damage, and up to 50% multiplier based on your Life percentage. These bonuses are dynamic, such that even if you cast Cataclysm at 1 Life, once you restore all Life and Fortified Life, your damage will rise back up. 11. Mending passive: The increased Maximum Life (and Maximum Fortified Life) in Werebear form dynamically contributes to Overpower damage. Cast Cataclysm in Werewolf form then shapeshift to Werebear form to gain the buff. 12. Aspect of the Changeling’s Debt: Increased damage to poisoned enemies in Werebear form. Even if Cataclysm is cast in Werewolf form, as soon as you shapeshift to Werebear, the damage buff is activated. 13. Willpower and Soul Harvest Witch Power: Increased damage when you gain more Soul Harvest stacks.

If you are math inclined and want to find out what your theoretical damage output is or want to quantify the impact of a gear upgrade, consider using my damage calculator on Google Sheets. My recommendations are based on this spreadsheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1subR7araDFFO3MjbYXzprgu58pfutSaQgdWD3pUnEA8/edit?usp=drive_link

The damage formulas used are based on the research done by Sanctuary Discord community members and also based on my own testing especially for Season 7 mechanics. https://maxroll.gg/d4/resources/in-depth-damage-guide

19 Feb 2025

• Updated Paragon 300 Cataclysm Pit Push Skills and Runes based on further testing. FeoXan IgniQax has issues because while gathering enemies for Soul Harvest, Igni will easily recharge for 500 offerings and cause Qax to reactivate when casting Earthen Bulwark, wiping out the larger pre-filled damage multiplier. Therefore, revert to FeoQax IgniXan and Pulverize setup. I will test more to see if FeoQax is reliable enough to trigger Ancestral Guidance to drop Pulverize for a support Skill.

20 Feb 2025

• Updated Witch Powers, Occult Gems, Gearing (Part 2), Cataclysm Snapshotting Process sections to remove information about Soul Harvest bug, which has been fixed in the recent patch.
• Corrected an error in Gearing (Part 1) section about the minimum roll for Chance for Cataclysm to Deal Double Damage tempered affix to reach 100% with triple Masterwork crit.

21 Feb 2025

• Added FAQ to Runes section on why Cataclysm sometimes randomly lose Qax and Xan buffs, and how to mitigate it.
• Updated Elixir and Incense and Cataclysm Buffs Snapshotting Process sections to include a technique to snapshot Ancestral Guidance buff with 25 more Maximum Resource using Elixir of Resourcefulness II.
• Updated Minimum Requirements to Transition from Lightning Storm to Cataclysm section to include formulas to check Cataclysm's duration and cooldown.

22 Feb 2025

• Updated Runes section with a recommendation to use BacJah for easy content speed farming.

24 Feb 2025

• Updated Paragon 218 Speed Farm runes from FeoQax to BacJah for easy content speed farming.

26 Feb 2025

• Updated Gearing (Part 2) section FAQ Q2 to quantify the damage gain from using a legendary ring in place of Airidah's Inexorable Will.
• Updated recommended Amulet temper to Maximum Life as it provides the most damage.

27 Feb 2025

• Updated List of Buffs that Cataclysm Snapshots section to clarify that Willpower and Soul Harvest Witch Power are dynamically applied to Cataclysm damage.
• Updated Gearing (Part 2) and Paragon Board sections for lucky players who found 3 GA Willpower, Maximum Life and Armor gear to consider tempering Maximum Life instead of % Armor.
• Updated Gearing (Part 2) FAQ to address a common question about Masterworking Envenom or %Willpower.

2 Mar 2025

• Updated Cataclysm Buffs Snapshotting Process section to correct errors in rune names and to improve the clarity of the steps.
• Updated Runes (Part 1) FAQ Q2 to provide more details on why rune buffs randomly drop off and how to mitigate it.

4 Mar 2025

• Updated Runes (Part 1) FAQ and Cataclysm Buffs Snapshotting Process to describe the need to refresh Qax rune buff when transitioning between Pit floors.

5 Mar 2025

• Updated Gear Stats, Gearing (Part 2), Paragon Board sections to add the recommended temper affixes after testing that additive Lightning Bolt Damage is still not working as of patch 2.1.3.

7 Mar 2025

• Added Damage Calculator for the Math Inclined section.

9 Mar 2025

• Made a minor adjustment to Paragon 300 Pit Push build variant's Skill Tree, to move 1 point from Bad Omen to Defensive Posture for more damage reduction and Fortify generation to keep Overpower Damage high. Also updated Skills section FAQ to address this change.
• Updated Gearing (Part 1) to suggest how to min-max the Paragon Board if you are lucky to acquire 3 GA gears.

10 Mar 2025

• Updated Cataclysm Buffs Snapshotting Process section to improve the flow. Pit pushing process has been updated to allow Maul, which is used to stay in Werebear form for more defenses, to hit enemies with no risk of consuming Xan buff accidentally.
• Updated Gearing (Part 1) and (Part 2) sections to provide more information on Willpower vs Maximum Life Masterworking.

11 Mar 2025

• Added a full tutorial video.
• Simplified the Cataclysm duration formula with Shroud of False Death in Minimum Requirements to Transition from Lightning Storm to Cataclysm section.
• Made a minor tweak to Paragon 218 Speed Farming and Paragon 300 Pit Push Skill Trees to reallocate Bad Omen after testing that Lightning Bolts also have a small splash radius to apply AoE Electrocution glyph debuff. Updated Skill section FAQ to address this change.