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Diablo Immortal revealed today that their next class that will be available, is the powerful Druid! Now, I know what some of you might be thinking: this isn’t the first time Druid’s been a playable character in a Diablo game. This is the third time, in fact. As someone who has actively played all three, and enjoyed them to some degree, I have to say, I think I like the Immortal version the best.
It changes up the game in some fresh ways, while keeping the stuff that player expect from a Druid experience in Diablo Immortal. Nature magic? Check. Cool animal companions? Check. Shapeshifting? Double-check. We’re going to go over it briefly today, with my personal thoughts about the class coming to the game in July.
What can the Diablo Immortal Druid do, anyway?
While the Blood Knight is my favorite class in Diablo Immortal, Druid certainly comes close. It’s never really been one of my top-tier classes to play in any Diablo game, except perhaps 3, because I love poison creeper builds. However, this version of the Druid is more aggressive, more intense. You don't have to wait long, either, as the Druid comes to Diablo Immortal on July 3, 2025.
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Somewhere along the line, the Druids of Sanctuary had a disagreement, which ultimately led to a rift. I won’t spoil their story for you, because it’s worth experiencing in game, but the two sects of Druids definitely have differing opinions on how to deal with the problems plaguing Sanctuary as a whole.
Diablo Immortals’ Druids have quite a few fresh, new attacks compared to what you’ve seen in previous games. There are new summons, new attacks, and honestly, they were a blast to try out in-game. Below is their suite of attacks and a brief description.
Primary Attacks
- Ferocious Strike: Slam your staff down to attack an enemy, and enemies nearby (they take 25% of the damage)
- Ultimate: Fang and Claw: Enhance Ferocious Strike, swinging with massive bear claws. Also grants a damage absorb shield.
- Landslide: Conjure jagged rocks along the ground in a line that hit nearby enemies.
- Ultimate: Nature’s Wrath: Landslide is enhanced, conjuring slabs of rock that rain down on enemies. Also grants a damage absorb shield.
Skills:
- Circle of Life: Creates an AOE heal on the ground for you and your allies.
- Earthquake: Creates an earth-shattering tremor at target location, knocking enemies into the air.
- Fire Tornado: Summon a tornado of fire that pulls enemies in while it’s active. Also inflicts Burned for a DOT.
- Rabid Might: Roar that inspires and invigorates, increasing maximum Life of you and nearby allies. Also prevents CC effects temporarily.
- Raven Swarm: Transform into a flock of ravens and fly to a location, dealing damage to enemies when you arrive. You are untargetable during flight.
- Stag Charge: Turn into a stag and perform 3 leaps, each dealing damage. The first two inflict Slow, which does stack. The final hit knocks enemies airborne.
- Summon Grizzly: Temporarily summons a Grizzly Bear that deals damage and stuns enemies. It can also smash the ground to knock enemies up.
- Summon Oak Sage: Summons an Oak Sage to fly to a location and self destruct. This immobilizes enemies and deals damage. Passive: Summon one Oak Sage for every 3 Primary Attacks that hit an enemy, up to 3.
- Summon Wolves: Command your wolf companions to pounce when activated, which causes a Bleed and damage. Passive: Summon 2 wolf companions to fight alongside you. They come back after a time if defeated.
- Surging Stone: Make spikes of rock erupt to damage and inflict Bleed on enemies. This also triggers a knockup.
- Thorn Armor: Grants you and your allies Thorns for a limited time, which deal damage and inflict Slow.
- Werebear: Transform into a Werebear, which has a stacking damage reduction, and a separate set of skills.
- Werewolf: Transform into a Werewolf and dash forward to attack immediately, marking the targets. Marked enemies take extra damage when dropping below 50%. Also has a new set of skills.
I love Druid's skills in Diablo Immortal, with my personal favorites being Raven Swarm, Stag Charge, Fire Tornado, and Werewolf. Frankly, Stag Charge should have been renamed Stag Stomp, though, or Stag Hop. The class has tons of CC, is incredibly mobile, and has a lot of flexibility in how it deals damage. There will no doubt be plenty of build options.
I’m glad that the Druids in Diablo Immortal have new, interesting summons, alongside the familiar Wolves, and a couple of solid transportation moves. You can also, of course, enhance and adjust these skills using Essence Transfer. Think of it as something similar to Legendary Aspects in Diablo 4.
A few noteworthy ones are Ash Monger (Fire Tornado also unleashes an expanding ring of fire), Snarling Face (Lunge - Werewolf now causes you to backstep first. If you hit someone, you do a huge follow-up uppercut), and The Yawning Maw (Summon Grizzly is now a flaming bear).
Diablo Immortal’s Druid almost had some very different summons and forms
Before I got hands-on with Diablo Immortal’s Druid, I also joined some other journalists to chat with Ryan Quinn (Senior Narrative Designer), and John Yoo (Lead System Designer), to chat about the upcoming class, and what makes it special. Interestingly enough, it almost had some pretty interesting new summons and forms.
I asked about what inspired the team to use forms like Stag, and Raven, among some of the other changes. The Diablo Immortal developers wanted this Druid to have powers and abilities that haven't been seen before, which makes sense.
They were playing around with it, trying to get something different for the summoned pet as an example, that ultimately became Wolves. One of the forms that were experimented with, were Wild Boars. Imagine having wild boars instead of wolves; I love the idea. John Yoo opened up about this:
“I’ll tell you, we tried some really goofy things like for instance, the wolves that we have, the dire wolves, at first, we tried making them Dire Boars, to try and be a little bit different, and not follow the same path, but that didn’t really end up working out.”
The Diablo Immortal team also experimented with other transformations for Druid, other than just the typical Werebear and Werewolf. Those are iconic, but what if they could’ve been different? John Yoo revealed in the interview was a baffling, but hilarious choice:
“We did a lot of different test studies about the different transformations. Like at some point we even had a seal form so that in terms of like, the visuals, our art team gave us a seal, and we were like, ‘Oh my goodness, what would that thing even do?’ but you know, us trying to push the envelope. Obviously the seal didn’t make it, but the Stag and the Raven did.”
How does the Druid play in Diablo Immortal? Is it worth trying out?
I adored playing the Druid in Diablo Immortal. Their cooldowns had decent timers, and all the abilities were fun. Personally, I tried to keep one or two summons, one movement ability, and then a spell ability on the bars at all times, but there’s a lot of flexibility. They really excel at knocking enemies airborne, so if you’re playing in a group with ground targeted AOE, you can devastate groups of enemies.
Heck, they can do it solo with the powerful Fire Tornado, too. You can use their movement powers to tag enemies, and lead them around to create huge packs, knock them up, and slaughter them with great ease. It was way more fun than I’ve had with a Druid in quite a while.
It's incredibly satisfying to knock up a group of enemies, set a Fire Tornado on them, and then crush them with regular attacks. Equally, it's just as fun to stomp through with Stag form, shift to Werewolf, and shred lines of enemies with ease.
Final Thoughts
The Druid in Diablo Immortal is a really interesting class. It has a lot of the familiar DNA that you would expect, but with enough fresh, new abilities that make it stand out and stand up on its own.
Unfortunately, there were things I missed out on, in the original preview time, like the Druid Origin Mission, but I did spend plenty of time playing one at a low level, and max level. It felt good either way, and I think fans are really going to enjoy this new iteration of Druid; perhaps it will inform some changes for the Diablo 4 version!
The Druids of Sharaval, that appear in Diablo Immortal are more chaotic than their cousins in Scosglen. They're more reckless and aggressive with their powers, which is probably why I enjoyed playing as one so much. They're more brutal, but still well in-tune with nature. They're going to be a big hit when they launch on July 3, 2025.
