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PoE 2 Build

[0.4] Woolie's WOLFMAN - Druid Leaguestarter

Druid

0.4 TLotD

Oracle

Starter

End Game

Verified

By Woolie

Updated on Dec 28, 2025

Dec 28, 2025

Build Overview

I'm a big hairy man IRL, therefore, I WILL NOT LEAD YOU ASTRAY WITH THE BIG HAIRY WOLFMAN BUILD RAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!

this guide will be CONSTANTLY UPDATED as I progress!

>> Follow my progress live over on my stream <<

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SKILL ROTATION

Single Target

-----------PRE Cross Slash (Act 1)------------

spam Shred (Bleed I > Rage I) and use Pounce (Fist of War I > Stomping Ground) and Savage Fury whenever they are off cooldown

----------AFTER YOU HAVE Cross Slash------------

open with Ferocious Roar to generate Rage, if you do not have Eternal Rage yet

pop Savage Fury whenever you remember to (ideally, at the start but it works whenever)

however, ALWAYS ensure that Lunar Blessing is active - it grants a MASSIVE damage boost

Pounce (to use Freezing Mark - THIS IS A REGULAR SKILL GEM, NOT A SUPPORT)
Lunar Assault until enemy is "primed for freeze" (blue circle indicator on them)
Arctic Howl on primed (60% freeze buildup for Rare enemies; 70% for Uniques) OR frozen enemy
if you froze them with Lunar Assault, still use Arctic Howl for its buff and Cold Exposure
Shred to generate Ice Fragments (use until the "Final Strike" occurs)
you should have time to do two full Shreds
Cross Slash to pop all Ice Fragments

repeat!

sometimes, Lunar Assault will freeze the target before you can Arctic Howl - this is not a big deal (if they're easily frozen, they're easily killed!)
still, remember to pop Arctic Howl on tankier enemies anyway due to its buff and Cold Exposure

Clearing

use Lunar Blessing whenever it's off cooldown
ENSURE YOU HAVE Prolonged Duration II SOCKETED FOR PERMA-UPTIME!
press dodge SLIGHTLY after Lunar Blessing to animation-cancel
if you do it immediately, you may cancel the cast entirely (you'll quickly learn the correct timing)
be sure to generate rage with Ferocious Roar beforehand, if you don't have Eternal Rage yet

then, just Lunar Assault and Pounce from pack to pack
Herald of Ice and Lunar Blessing do the rest

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CAMPAIGN CHOICES

Valley of the Titans (Act 2)
30% Increased Charm Charges Gained

The Venom Crypts (Act 3)
30% Elemental Ailment Threshold

Halls of the Dead (Act 4)
+5 Strength, Dexterity & Intelligence
%Resistance is fine too

Abandoned Prison [CHAPEL STATUE] (Act 4)
30% Increased Life Recovery from Flasks

Qimah - 7 Pillars (Interlude Act 2)
12% increased Cooldown Recovery Rate

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CRAFTING A WEAPON

I have a dedicated video to crafting a weapon for this exact build

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IF YOU'RE STUCK

remember, you're playing melee (lol), which means your WEAPON is your LIFEBLOOD - if it has low flat damage, that is almost certainly the reason you're getting booty blasted.
phys & cold damage are ideal but any damage type works in Acts 1-2
"+lvl melee skills" is also a VERY good stat to have (also rolls on gloves!)

either gamble for an upgrade OR buy a decent one off a vendor and "craft" it (read: also gamble) if you are in dire straits

and, obviously, buying an upgrade from a player is absolutely the easiest and most cost-efficient!

if you're having mana issues...

once you each mid endgame and have invested a bit of $$, you will swap over to Blood Magic and ignore mana entirely.

however, until then... do these in order (likely on steps 1 and 2 will be necessary, though):

get a Sapphire with "recover %max mana on kill"
socket Mark of Siphoning II in Pounce (for bosses)
grab "%phys att dmg leeched as mana" on a ring (Lunar Assault deals 20% dmg as phys)
you can also get life leech while you're at it
upgrade your mana flask (Lavianga's Spirits is expensive but nice QoL)

Strengths and Weaknesses

fast (attack and move speed)
big clear (perma uptime Lunar Blessing)
freeze everything (great defense!)
RAARAARAA AWOOOOOOO RAAAAAAGH

mana-hungry (until Blood Magic)
a bit squishy until a bit of $$ invested

Build Variants

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

~2 div investment

all gear should be hybrid Armor / Energy Shield
except pure ES boots (for Iron Slippers)

your weapon should have only Phys and Cold dmg and as high "+lvl skills" as possible
crit chance and crit damage are also very nice

once you finish your final Ascendancy, grab Entwined Realities and allocate Ancestral Bond (no downside), which allows for the allocation of a LOT of good nodes (details in "Passive Tree" section)

spec into Blood Magic whenever you want BUT ensure that you have a "recover 2% life on kill" Sapphire (or Heart of the Well)
one roll of "%phys att dmg leeched as life" doesn't hurt either! (rings, gloves)

Equipment

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

Set 1

Set 2

Equipment Priority

get at least +30 Spirit (Body or Amulet)

start looking for a good weapon - Spiny Talisman, Maji Talisman and Fungal Talisman are all good basetypes
stats to look for are: %phys, +phys, +cold, +lvl skills, +crit bonus & %attack speed

a cheap anoint to start with is Sundering
once you have some $$, anoint Overwhelming Strike (or Stormcharged but we are grabbing this later with Entwined Realities!)

Lavianga's Spirits is not necessary but helps a bit before Blood Magic

Skill Gems

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 55

Dex 30

Int 50

Expand all

Shred

Lunar Assault

Pounce

Arctic Howl

Cross Slash

Savage Fury

Set 2

Herald of Ice

Lunar Blessing

Eternal Rage

Gem Priority

+28

first Greater Jeweler's Orb should go on Lunar Assault

first 20% quality should be on Eternal Rage

if you have a bit of $, pick up Bhatair's Vengeance for Lunar Assault (replace Ice Bite II)

Passive Tree

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

main:

123

set 1:

set 2:

JEWELS

pre-Blood Magic, get a Sapphire with one roll of "recover 2% mana on kill" to pretty much solve all mana issues while clearing

once you DO have Blood Magic, swap out "%mana on kill" with "2% LIFE on kill"

other than that, you're looking for:
crit chance, crit dmg bonus, cold dmg, ele dmg, skill speed while shapeshifted, %ES

for STATS

simply get enough Dex to level Herald of Ice and then just alternate between Str and Int

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ASCENDANCY ORDER

The Unseen Path > The Lesser Harm > Forced Outcome > Entwined Realities

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HOW Entwined Realities WORKS

once you finish your final Ascendancy for Entwined Realities, you gain the ability to save a LOT of passive points by allocating Keystones and then gaining the ability to allocate all OTHER nodes in a radius around that Keystone without connecting them to your "regular" path on the tree.

Ancestral Bond (no downside) grants all of these for just ONE single point, each:
Dimensional Weakspot, Stormcharged (change anoint, if necessary), Dangerous Blossom,Spirit of the Wyvern, Electrified Claw and Scales of the Wyvern

unspec (temporarily) Sigil of Ice and Molten Claw with its small passives if you need the extra passives!

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Blood Magic SWAP

you can do this whenever you like but I'd recommend it as soon as you start to really "feel" the mana cost of things and are getting annoyed.

ensure that you AT LEAST have a Sapphire (or Heart of the Well) with "recover 2% LIFE on kill"
one roll of "%phys dmg leeched as life" (rings, gloves) doesn't hurt, either

once you have Blood Magic AND Entwined Realities, you can allocate In Your Face (still grab Primal Growth normally), Prism Guard and Vengeful Fury

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FORCED OUTCOME CRIT BREAKPOINT

Oracle's Forced Outcome node essentially grants you guaranteed crits BUT does-so by re-rolling the chance (think "Lucky") until a crit happens and, for each re-roll, it reduces the bonus dmg of the crit by 30%.

this means that if you use 4 or more re-rolls, you literally get ZERO extra damage from the crit

therefore, according to this chart, the optimal breakpoint is:
CRIT CHANCE (total) = 24-25%
CRIT DMG BONUS (total) = +400% (more is better obv)

at these numbers, Forced Outcome provides roughly 44% more damage

note that your BASE Crit Damage Bonus is +100% by default and getting "+x% to Critical Damage Bonus" (suffix on weapon) ADDS to this base value, with all OTHER sources of "%inc crit dmg bonus" MULTIPLYING it.

all-in-all, this means that, once we hit about 25% crit chance, we start primarily stacking crit DAMAGE, instead.
but more crit chance and/or damage doesn't hurt!

Changelog

12/12 - LEAGUESTART DAY WOO! all early gems & passive tree stuff has been added and also added a brief section on "Forced Outcome Breakpoint" in the Passive Tree section, for when we progress more

12/13 - added new build variant for act 4+ (t4 supports)

12/13 update 2 - added another variant for Early Endgame (buy Bhatair's Vengeance!)
also, Day 2 update vid is out

12/14 - made some sweeping changes to skill gems & passive tree in the "Early Endgame" setup
do NOT use Scarred Faith early on! (we may spec into it once we have a LOT more armor)

12/14 update 2 - added another variant ("Mid Endgame"; includes Entwined Realities tech) and added detailed section on solving mana issues. also continued to modify support gems and passives!

12/15 - added new "Late Endgame" variant with the swap to Blood Magic

12/15 update 2 - added info on BiS life flask (for Blood Magic), adding a Heart of the Well and using a Time-Lost Emerald and (finally!) updated Cross Slash supports lol (and swapped Mark of Siphoning II to Holy Descent on Pounce)

12/16 - added 6L supports to Shred, Lunar Assault and Lunar Blessing

12/16 update 2 - updated all gear in "Late Endgame" to match my current character (~20div spent)

12/17 - added Atlas Tree to "Late Endgame" variant

12/17 update 2 - added Rakiata's Flow to Shred (seems to be better than Garukhan's Resolve)

12/18 - patch just dropped and buffed Lunar Blessing; we no longer need to use Second Wind III (use Cold Penetration instead)

12/19 - added new "HYPER Endgame" Variant, including a swap to Morior Invictus (life regeneration), Zealot's Oath and adding in Mind Over Matter for some more Entwined Realities synergy!

12/21 - added gem swap info for Pinnacle bosses (replace Ancestral Call II with Freeze in Lunar Assault)

12/21 update 2 - added update vid 6

*BIG UPDATE* 12/21 update 3 - for Shred, swapped out Concentrated Area for Overextend AND Long Fuse II for Garukhan's Resolve (only "HYPER" Endgame variant!)

ALSO, for the "HYPER Endgame" variant (using Zealot's Oath) - optimized the passive tree start to gain dmg and save 1 point - special thanks to Kasey on Discord :)

*ANOTHER BIG UPDATE* 12/22 - swapped around gems again on Shred (final time for sure!) and updated Herald of Ice gems for Late / Hyper Endgame setups for a bit better clear. also added in Deadly Thorns. ensure you are running Elemental Armament III in Shred (Mid Endgame+)

12/22 update 2 - changed Cross Slash supports around a bit (swapped Elemental Armament II to Elemental Armament III and Cold Attunement to Heavy Swing)

12/23 - modified Cross Slash again, swapping Close Combat II with Culmination II

12/23 update 2 - adjusted Campaign variants' support gems (and ordering)

12/24 - FULL BUILD GUIDE IS DONE! enjoy & Merry Christmas!

12/28 - clarified various support gem info in the "HYPER Endgame" setup (Garukhan's Resolve, Rakiata's Flow, removed Tul's Stillness description entirely)