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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 24, 2025

Dec 24, 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

minimum 30 div investment

the goal of this setup is to mitigate high-end contents' downsides

swap over to a life regen + Spirit Morior Invictus and spec into Zealot's Oath to recover ES constantly

add in Overwhelming Presence to freeze tanky things faster

NOTE THE PASSIVE TREE CHANGES FROM "Late Endgame"!

Equipment

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

Set 1

Set 2

Equipment Priority

BiS weapon is Spiny Talisman (huge base crit chance) - Maji Talisman and Fungal Talisman are also good
look for +%crit dmg bonus, +lvl skills, %att speed or "%gain onslaught on kill" (Perfect Essence of Haste)

your Morior Invictus (life regeneration) should also have SPIRIT
last mod can be anything, really - +life, %all ele res, %red crit dmg bonus against you

get a PURE ARMOR helmet (Ruinic Helm) with at least 1k armor (total) and at least "32% armor applies to ele dmg"

you NEED at least one roll of "%phys dmg leeched as life" (rings, gloves)

get some "+life regen" wherever you can to help with Zealot's Oath

to better compensate for Blood Magic, get an Ultimate Life Flask with:
PREFIX = "93-100% inc life recovered / removes 15% of life recovered from mana when used"
SUFFIX = "gains 0.25 charges per second"

anoint Overwhelming Strike (we manually allocate Desensitisation now)

Skill Gems

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 85

Dex 40

Int 60

Expand all

Shred

Lunar Assault

Pounce

Arctic Howl

Cross Slash

Savage Fury

Set 2

Herald of Ice

Lunar Blessing

Eternal Rage

Overwhelming Presence

Gem Priority

+38

add in Overwhelming Presence (with Morior Invictus (spirit))
with your extra Spirit, you can also add Cannibalism I (drop the jewel mod!) and Precision I or Precision II

Rakiata's Flow is worth the $$ for high-end maps and Pinnacle bosses - put it on Shred (replace Close Combat II)

Tul's Stillness is also a good pickup for high-end content - put it on Lunar Assault (replace Magnified Area II)
if you want more dmg but can't afford Tul's Stillness, use Cold Penetration, instead

I also think Garukhan's Resolve is better than Rakiata's Flow on Shred - once I have enough $$ to test it (and PoB is fully updated w Forced Outcome), I believe the play will be to replace Rakiata's Flow with Garukhan's Resolve
and then move Rakiata's Flow over to Lunar Assault (replacing Tul's Stillness / Cold Penetration)

for Pinnacle bosses, replace Ancestral Call II with Freeze in Lunar Assault

note the support gem changes on Herald of Ice - use these in conjunction with Dangerous Blossom (and Deadly Thorns), as well as (potentially) a Perfect Essence of Abrasion on your weapon to increase your AoE clear by a bit.
if you're lacking phys dmg (such as not having the Essence mod), this will not be as noticeable and you may just want to stick to the previous supports!

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:

NOTE THE BIG CHANGES COMPARED TO "Late Endgame"!
such as dropping Blood Rush

we have to shuffle around nodes due to adding Mind Over Matter (for Entwined Realities synergy)

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JEWELS

look for a Heart of the Well with:
"%inc ES from body", "%max all ele res", "%crit chance / bonus", etc

for rare jewels, you're looking for:
crit chance, crit dmg bonus, cold dmg, ele dmg, skill speed while shapeshifted, %ES

a Time-Lost Emerald or Time-Lost Sapphire in the socket next to Blood Magic provides OMEGA value with Entwined Realities - best stat is "Notables also grant %crit dmg bonus"
ensure that you have "Upgrades Radius to LARGE"
also allocate Projectile Bulwark and Cold Coat after doing this

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Entwined Realities NODES

Ancestral Bond:
Dimensional Weakspot, Stormcharged (change anoint, if necessary), Dangerous Blossom,Spirit of the Wyvern, Electrified Claw, Scales of the Wyvern

Blood Magic:
In Your Face, Prism Guard and Vengeful Fury via Entwined Realities
ONLY AFTER Time-Lost Emerald: Projectile Bulwark and Cold Coat

Mind Over Matter:
Touch the Arcane (AND ONE SMALL "5% gain Arcane Surge on Crit"!), Ruinic Helm, Sanguimantic Rituals, Calibration

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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) = at least +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 doesn't hurt!

Atlas Tree

Acts 1-3

Act 4+ (t4 supports)

Early Endgame

Mid Endgame [READ NOTES]

Late Endgame

HYPER Endgame

note that this is a MAX DIFFICULTY ATLAS

do NOT just allocate all the "%inc effect of explicit mods" nodes and think you'll be breezing through maps like you were before lmao

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)