The Druid is a new, versatile hybrid class added in The Last of Druids update in PoE 2. It blends melee, ranged, and spell casting abilities. Druids provide dynamic combat options that reward tactical form-swapping and elemental synergy.
1. Druid Class Overview
The Druid is a hybrid Strength/Intelligence class introduced in Path of Exile 2 update 0.4.0 – The Last of the Druids. This class revolves around instant shapeshifting using Animal Talismans, allowing seamless transitions between spellcasting and feral combat. Druids weave elemental magic in Human Form, then transform into powerful animal forms to capitalize on those effects. Druids have access to three animal forms.
- Bear – Rage-based, high-impact melee and fire damage
- Wolf – Fast, cold-focused burst damage with pack mechanics
- Wyvern – Hybrid melee/ranged elemental combat with corpse consumption
The class currently has two available Ascendancies in early access: Shaman and Oracle.
2. How the Druid Class Works in PoE 2
Druid Class Inventory
The Druid is designed around fluid combat rotations, constantly shifting between Human Form and animal forms to chain elemental setups with brutal attacks. The Druid class combines spellcasting and animal-form attacks to continuously buff damage and control.
Step-by-step Druid Gameplay Flow
Success with Druid depends on seamlessly combining Human Form spellcasting with Animal Form attacks to maximize damage, crowd control, and mobility.
- Begin encounters in Human Form: Use Human Form to cast nature and elemental spells, such as Volcano and Thunderstor,m to apply elemental effects and set up damage multipliers.
- Apply elemental effects to enemies: Focus on spreading elemental ailments and area damage before committing to close-range combat.
- Shapeshift instantly through skill usage: Use animal-form skills to shapeshift instantly, as form changes are directly tied to skill activation rather than manual swapping.
- Switch into Animal Form to capitalize on effects: Exploit applied elemental effects using animal-form melee, movement, or ranged attacks for higher damage output.
- Chain multiple form swaps in one rotation: Swap between Human Form and animal forms multiple times within a single combat sequence to maintain pressure and maximize damage scaling.
- Adapt roles dynamically during combat: Function as a melee fighter, ranged attacker, or spellcaster depending on positioning, cooldowns, and enemy behavior without locking into a single role.
Using this approach allows the Druid to maintain constant momentum, control the battlefield, and scale damage efficiently through hybrid combat rotations.
3. Animal Talismans
Animal Talismans are a new weapon type added in Path of Exile 2’s The Last of the Druids update. They’re two‑handed weapons that let you shapeshift into animal forms and grant the basic attack for that form as a usable skill. Equipping one lets you instantly transform into the associated animal when you use that form’s attack skill.
- Bear & Wolf: These are available immediately once you obtain your first Animal Talisman early in the campaign.
- Wyvern Form: This form becomes available once you obtain and use skills tied to Wyvern, such as Rolling Magma and Wing Blast — unlocking its skill tree.
3.1 How Animal Talismans Work
Animal Talismans function differently from conventional weapons. They grant shapeshifting abilities and form-specific basic attacks that interact with the Druid’s skill tree and resource systems.
- Weapon Type: They are unique martial weapons (two-handed) for any class.
- Form Selection: Equipping a talisman lets you choose its base animal form (e.g., Bear, Wolf, Wyvern).
- Basic Attack: The talisman grants you a specific basic attack skill for that animal form.
- Shapeshifting: Using shapeshifting skills transforms you into that animal, unlocking its unique abilities, resources (like Rage for Bear), and skill tree.
3.2 How to Get Talisman Weapons Early
Acquiring a Druid Talisman early helps you unlock shapeshifting and hybrid attacks faster. Even if you start with a different class, you can gain access to powerful animal forms and skills right from the beginning.
- Choose any class and skip tutorials: Begin the game with your preferred class and skip the tutorial to save time.
- Find the first chest with a skill gem: In the first zone, locate the chest containing a skill gem. This gem can be used to farm gold.
- Use the respawn checkpoint trick: Each time you respawn, the skill gem in the chest respawns. Open the chest repeatedly to accumulate multiple gems.
- Collect and sell skill gems: Gather enough (around 10) and sell them for gold.
- Kill the first boss – Defeat The Bloated Miller to gain extra gear or sell drops for additional gold.
- Buy Druid Talismans and gear: Use the gold from selling skill gems and drops to purchase the Talisman and early useful equipment from the vendor at Clearfell Encampment.
3.3 Unique Animal Talismans
Unique Animal Talismans give extra bonuses that enhance shapeshifting combat. They can improve damage, elemental effects, or support minions, allowing you to customize your Druid playstyle.
- Amor Mandragora Changeling Talisman: Focuses on presence-based control and Rage scaling, rewarding extended fights and positioning.
- Fury of the King Ashbark Talisman: Fire-focused; converts Bear’s physical damage into fire, boosts flammability, and generates Glory automatically.
- Hysseg’s Claw Familial Talisman: Supports minion-focused setups while allowing shapeshifting.
- The Flesh Poppet Vicious Talisman: Copies enemy modifiers on shapeshift for unpredictable, high-risk combat moments.
4. Human Form
When not shapeshifted, Druids stand in Human Form, casting nature and elemental spells to control the battlefield. These spells often remain active even after you change forms, so planning and setup are key.
- Use the elemental spells and combine them with your animal powers.
- Switch back to human, cast a normal spell.
- After that, cast the primary skill to turn into an animal.
4.1 Human Form Skills
Human Form skills focus on setting up elemental effects, creating terrain, and supporting animal forms.
- Volcano: Drops a small volcano that erupts with magma projectiles, synergizing with nearby slams or other abilities for extra eruptions.
- Thunderstorm: Summons lightning strikes that make enemies wet, enhancing shock/freeze and boosting elemental setups.
- Entangle: Creates vines that slow and bind enemies, growing stronger and dealing damage with water/storm effects.
- Tornado: Summons a moving storm that damages enemies and triggers lightning synergies.
- Thrashing Vines: Summon vines that slam nearby enemies, growing stronger when you cast this skill in water.
These spells give you battlefield control before and while you shapeshift.
5. Bear Form
Druid Bear Form Gameplay
Bear Form is the most tanky and brute‑force transformation, perfect for players who enjoy heavy melee combat and fire effects. Bear uses Rage as its primary mechanic, which is generated and consumed by its abilities. The best animal form you can take is Bear because it provides DPS combos, helping you against most bosses.
- Use his primary skill, Maul, to turn into a bear.
- The bear’s slam can trigger a volcano’s explosion.
5.1 Bear Form Skills
Bear Form Skill
Bear Form in Path of Exile 2 uses fire damage and big and heavy slams, so choosing the best skill is essential. Below are all the Bear Form skills in Path of Exile 2.
- Furious Slam: Shapeshift into a Bear and slam the ground with great force, causing a pair of shockwaves. It can spend rage to create a larger shockwave that leaves behind Jagged Ground.
- Ferocious Roar: Changes you into a Bear in defiance, immediately gaining rage if there are enemies nearby and empowering subsequent attacks to break armour.
- Walking Calamity: Build Glory by gaining rage while already at maximum rage. When you have maximum Glory, roar to the heavens to bring them down upon your enemies. Meteors rain down around you, and you gain fire damage and rage generation.
- Rampage: Allows you to charge forward while slamming the ground repeatedly. This generates rage with the opening roar and consumes it as you continue running.
- Maul: Changes you into a Bear and swipes with your claws. This allows you to generate Rage on hit to power your stronger attacks.
6. Wolf Form
Druid Wolf Form
Wolf Form prioritizes agility, cold damage, and pack mechanics. Wolves thrive on rapid engagement, marking, and freezing enemies. The wolves prefer attacking the next marked enemy. You deal more damage when you have more wolves. However, this form is not suitable for a boss fight, as there are no enemies to mark and kill.
- Call down the power of the moon and turn into an Arctic Werewolf with Lunar Blessing.
- Your wolf pack expands when you kill marked enemies.
- Mark the enemy, kill, and summon as many wolves as possible.
- Use the Cross Slash ability to deal with this, as it allows you to jump backwards and do a double slash.
6.1 Wolf Form Skills
The Wolf channels the energy of the Moon itself into a flurry of ferocious attacks. Execute fast and cold-infused attacks to dominate the enemies in combat while in Wolf Form.
- Lunar Assault: Shapeshift into a Werewolf and swipe with your claws, projecting an arc of moonlight and ice forward in a crescent.
- Cross Slash: Leap backward as you gouge the ground with both claws. Hitting a marked enemy with both gouges activates the mark and causes additional shockwaves. Ice Fragment pulls into the location where gouges cross and explodes immediately.
- Lunar Blessing: Off your rage to the moon to gain a blessing, gaining bonus cold damage, attack speed, and movement speed for yourself. Your wolf attacks call down Moonbeams on hit while the buff is active.
- Arctic Howl: Execute a cold-infused warcry that can apply Freeze to nearby enemies. It also allows you to buff your summoned Wolves.
- Pounce: Leap towards an enemy and mark them. You summon a wolf to fight alongside you upon killing the marked enemy. The summoned wolves will attack the marked foes in combat.
7. Wyvern Form
Wyvern Form Gameplay
Wyvern form combines feral melee with ranged elemental attacks and corpse consumption. You can feed on enemies when they are dead on the ground. Consuming corpses grants Power Charges.
- The Power Charges are required to upgrade attack speed, spell intensity, and elemental damage.
- The blue marker allows you to devour corpses even before they die.
- Wyvern works with human-form spells like Volcano and Thunderstorm to create elemental combos.
7.1 Wyvern Form Skills
You get both melee and long-range fire or lightning attacks to use in combat to dominate the enemies while in Wyvern Form.
- Wind Blast: Launch yourself backwards with a powerful wingbeat that knocks back enemies. Enemies primed for heavy stun will be stunned, release a shockwave, and have a chance to grant you a power charge.
- Devour: For each enemy or corpse devoured, you regenerate life and gain a power charge. If the target is far enough away, you will leap to them and damage nearby enemies when you land.
- Oil Barrage: Spit oil at enemies, creating an oil ground where the projectiles land. It consumes power charges if possible, instead of channeling a sustained barrage of electrified oil that does not create oil ground.
- Flame Breath: Fly high in the skies and rain down a stream of fire on your enemies.
- Rolling Magma: Launch bouncing magma projectiles along a straight path, dealing fire damage, and can interact with volcano setups.
- Rend: Jump forward towards enemies and slash them. It charges up your wings with Lightning when consuming Power Charges.
8. Druid Ascendancies
Druid Ascendancies
Path of Exile 2 offers three Druid Ascendancies, but only two are available during early access. Ascendancies are distinct from your main character class, offering unique paths for power. Each Ascendancy has its own tree where you spend Ascendancy Points for powerful bonuses. Both paths strongly influence how your spells and animal forms synergize.
- Oracle: Best for players who enjoy precision, crit scaling, and maximizing damage windows.
- Shaman: Best for sustained chaos, heavy melee‑spell hybrids, and more forgiving gameplay.
8.1 Shaman Ascendancy
Shaman is all about Rage and using it to give you elemental destruction. This Ascendancy focuses on turning your animal form resources into devastating AoE spells and enhancing offensive output. This ascendancy is excellent for builds that mix Bear melee power with elemental spells and sustained damage.
- Enhanced Rage generation
- Increased elemental damage scaling
- Better synergy with Runes and Idols (toolkit modifiers)
8.1.1 Shaman Passive Skills
Shaman Passive Skills
The passive skills in Path of Exile 2 offer permanent buffs from a massive skill tree, earned by leveling up, that enhance your character’s stats, damage, and defenses. Below are some of the passive skills of Shaman Ascendancy in Path of Exile 2.
- Sacred Flow: It grants you +40 to spirit for each of your empty charm slots.
- Avatar of Evolution: It allows you to convert 5% physical damage into cold, fire, or lightning damage.
- Wisdom of Maji: Gain the benefits of Bonded modifiers on Runes and Idols.
- Turning of the Seasons: Enemies in your presence have Exposure. You gain 10% of damage as extra damage of a random element.
8.2 Oracle Ascendancy
This ascendancy excels for players who prefer planning their rotations, lining up elemental effects, or exploiting layered interactions between spells and animal forms. Oracle is particularly effective for scaling mechanics that reward precise timing, critical hits, and careful positioning, giving the Druid a high skill ceiling and potential for massive damage spikes.
Pair with Wolf and Wyvern setups for maximizing critical damage and layered effects, as well as hybrid spell-melee rotations for calculated bursts.
8.2.1 Oracle Passive Skills
Oracle Passive Skills
Oracle Ascendancy grants access to over 130 additional passive nodes, allowing you to customize your Druid build with unique effects that enhance damage, survivability, and utility. These passive skills unlock powerful synergies when combined with shapeshifting and elemental abilities.
- The Lesser Harm: Enemy critical hit chance against you is unlucky. Damage from enemies hitting you is unlucky.
- Unarmed Heartwood: It grants you +1 to the maximum number of summoned totems. However, the totems die 6 seconds after their life is reduced to 0.
- Forced Outcome: Grants Critical Hits under specific vision-aligned conditions.
- Harmony Within: Hit damage is taken from mana before Life if your current Mana is higher than your current Life.
9. Best Druid Builds
Druid Cutscene
Your build determines which animal forms you prioritize, how you combine Human Form elemental spells with shapeshifting attacks, and which Ascendancy provides the best synergy. Druid builds can focus on raw melee damage, burst cold damage, hybrid spell-melee rotations, or minion-support strategies.
By selecting the appropriate Skills, Talismans, and Ascendancy, you can tailor your playstyle for boss fights, crowd control, or high-speed clearing, ensuring that your Druid excels in both solo and group gameplay.
- Shaman Bear Druid Build: It focuses on clearing the battlefield with Rampage. Best suited for bossing and can use Pounce from Wolf. Equip talismans like Fury of the King Ashbark for fire conversion.
- Frost Wolf Oracle Build: It focuses on good CC, single-target DPS crit scaling. It features very fast combo gameplay. Use Lunar Blessing and Arctic Howl to buff yourself and summoned wolves. Equip talismans like Flesh Poppet Vicious to boost physical damage and crit synergy.
- Wyvern Elementalist Build: It focuses on melee–spell style with shock, ignite, and exposure. Prefer using skills like Wing Blast, Devour, Oil Barrage, and Flame Breath. Chain Human Form spells like Thunderstorm and Volcano with Wyvern attacks for maximum effect.
