This is the Rotation and Gameplay page for the Wolf Companion Build. To navigate to the other pages of this build, use the buttons below.
Rotation and Build Mechanics
Get started on your Wolf Companion Adventure with information on rotation, or go deeper with advanced information on skill explanations, gameplay mechanics, and available playstyle options.
Rotation
- Keep Wolves on cooldown, cast on priority enemies.
- Petrify dangerous enemies to stun and apply a Critical Strike damage debuff.
- Blood Howl to heal and increase attack speed.
- Innate Debilitating Roar for the damage buff and damage taken debuff on enemies.
- Shred and Maul as a builder/spender filler to fish for Pack Leader resets of Wolves.
Mechanics and Gameplay
The primary source of damage for the Wolf Companion build is naturally Wolves.
Wolves are Companions that are out and active; they attack and can be attacked and tank for you. Their Active Skill grants them Unstoppable and make them leap onto your target for high damage. Each active Wolf makes a separate attack.
Wolves excel at single target, and with Storm’s Companion, will do periodic shouts of Storm Howl for minor area of effect damage.
Summon Count and Modifiers
Base Wolves starts with 2 Wolf Companions:
- One With Nature adds one.
- Aspect of the Stampede adds another.
- Moonrage Aspect adds up to three more.
- Probably a bug, Shroud of False Death gives +1 to all companion counts, even without One With Nature. Likely fixed soon™.
Wolves gain the Werewolf Tag and apply Rabies with Aspect of the Alpha, and gain the Storm Tag with Storm’s Companion. This means scaling with appropriate modifiers.
Companions inherit all your Stats. For example, your attack speed bonuses will improve your Companions’ attack speeds. Even in odd ways like Shapeshifting Attack Speed Gear Affix; if the player is in Werewolf form from casts of Shred, then wolves attack faster because of the Werewolf Attack Speed modifying the player, and that attack speed is shared to the wolves. Likewise for other stats like Critical Strike Chance, and Lucky Hit Chance.
Shepherd’s Aspect increases Companion damage for every active Companion. Because of One With Nature, Ravens and Poison Creeper do not need to be on your bars; they’re passively out and counting for Shepherd’s Aspect. Seasonally, this also includes Witchcraft Power Summoned Firebats, Poison Frogs, and Pirahnadoes.
Spirit Wolves summoned from the Ceh Rune also count for total Shepherd’s Aspect. These are also Summons and will scale with some Companion modifiers.
Wolves Cooldown
The lowest any Skill can get for cooldown reduction is 75%. For Wolves, that means 2.75s (75% of base 11 seconds). After 75%, any further sources will not be beneficial. This is achievable through Cooldown Reduction sources such as:
- Companion Efficiency – Wolf Cooldown Temper
- Paragon Nodes like Ferocity
- Generic Cooldown Reduction Gear Affixes
Spirit Boon Pack Leader resets Companion Skills as a Lucky Hit on Critical Strikes.
- We can guarantee Critical Strikes in late endgame just with masterworked Heir of Perdition and Ring of Starless Skies. Seasonally, the Grow Witch Power also guarantees Critical Strikes after casts of Ultimate Skills.
- Lucky Hit comes from the same items, paragon nodes in Untamed, and from Storm’s Companion.
Enough sources of Critical Strike and Lucky Hit and we all but guarantee resets before even the 2.75s cooldown, but it’s important to have that cooldown reduction anyways for redundancy or dry spells of Lucky Hit, especially against push bosses.
Supporting Skills
- Maul and Shred are the builder/spender between casts of Wolves. This combination will:
- maintain shapeshifting buffs like Quickshift and Heightened Senses.
- Shred is a fast and cheap Core skill that will trigger Tam quickly,
- The alternation between Werebear builder and Werewolf Spender will give periodic Petrify cooldown reduction from Inner Beast.
- Spending Spirit with Shred will keep Ring of Starless Skies and Ancestral Guidance buffs up.
By player preference, you can instead play Claw and Primal Pulverize if you would like. It will be a little less efficient in spender volume, but have a bit more cleave and damage reduction.
- Blood Howl gives periodic attack speed and healing.
- Innate Debilitating Roar is a damage reduction debuff on enemies and a short damage buff for the player.
Ultimate and Key Passive
- Petrify will stun enemies and place a Critical Strike Damage taken debuff on them.
- One With Nature gives the passive count and passive attacks of any pet, even if not on the Skill Bar. This is important for Shepherd’s Aspect and allows use of other Skills on top. This and the damage multiplier for Companions puts this Key Passive ahead for this build.