Last Epoch Druid Build Guide: Physical Spriggan
Mar. 27, 2023Last Epoch Druid Build Guide: Physical Spriggan
In thisLast Epoch Druid Build Guidewe’re going to be covering a casterDruid Buildthat focuses on the use of permeant Spriggan Form and utilizes several Physical skills.Last Epochhas very deep customization options for its passive trees, and Skill perks, that can be difficult to navigate. In this Build Guide, I’ll explain how to get the most from thePhysical Spriggan, a great starter build. So if you’ve been struggling to find a good Druid Build, then this Guide is for you.
ThePhysical Sprigganhave a set of alternative skills that replace standard skills, with other ways to trigger them. You can proc all of Maelstrom, Thorn Totem, and Entangling Roots, on top of Spriggan Form’s skills. Building all these skills as physical damage spells enable stacking of armor shred, and physical resistance shred. Additionally, it stacks Maelstrom on yourself, and bleed on enemies, adding more layers of damage that help kill bosses much faster.
Stacking Maelstrom grants both Haste and Frenzy, increasing cast speed and movement speed greatly. At the same time, each cast of Spirit Thorns in Spriggan Form gives back 6 rage and 15 ward. So casting Spirit Thorns rapidly helps sustain your health and mana, without costing mana to cast. Added to the damage reduction you get from Beastmaster tree and Aspect of The Boar, it results in greater defense and tankiness.
This build gets additional defense from the Spriggan companion healing, life leech on crit, capped critical avoidance, and stun avoidance. You can simply stand still in poison pools and keep spamming your Spirit Thorns. While tanking both damage over time and direct damage from the boss, you will barely notice your health drop. But there is also the option of a speedy getaway if things get out of hand.
In short, this Last Epoch Druid Build starts either with building Maelstrom stacks in human form and then transforming into Spriggan Form. Or starting with the Spriggan Form straight away. You then proceed to place totems from a safe distance, drawing enemies’ aggro. Totems act as a meat shield between you and your enemies. Plus debuffs enemies with Armour Shred. While totems are active, your Spriggan Form gains a massive cast speed increase, helping you cast Spirit Thorns rapidly, to build Maelstrom stacks faster.
Upon reaching six stacks of Maelstrom, you gain Haste and Frenzy, Increasing Movement Speed by 30%, and 20% Cast speed. Additionally, it increases the Maelstrom DoT itself, which is important. Maelstrom has the same physical and Attunement scaling as our direct spells, so you have good damage.
After casting Spirit thorns five times, you summon a Vale spirit, with up to a maximum of four, in twenty casts. The Vale spirit shoots projectiles at enemies, dealing little extra damage. Summoning all four Vale Spirits causes the next hit to consume them, and proc Entangling Roots. Entangling Roots in return buffs you and your totems with flat physical damage, and flat spell damage for eight seconds. It also applies five stacks of shred to enemies’ physical resistance, increasing damage from all sources.
Meanwhile, your Spriggan companion provides you and your totems with constant healing, and a very significant Base Crit Rate buff. Such a buff is very crucial because it’s not easily accessible from other sources.
In this section, we’ll take a look at what Skills should be on your Skill bar to make this Last Epoch Druid Build work. All five skills we will use are considered mandatory, but they are easily accessible, and you get the most out of their power by mid-game. We will pick skills from the base Primalist class and the Druid Master Class.
This spell unlocks after a Primalist character gets to level four, and is either the first or second skill we specialize in. It starts summoning one Totem with each cast, until you get theGrove Mindnode later. The mana cost of summoning totems is great in the early game, and you can only cast two totems. This will give you a hard time using it as a main leveling skill early on. Therefore, I recommend delaying the specialization in Summon Thorns Totems to level eight, when the second specialization slot opens. You can specialize in Ice Thorns first, then refund it later after unlocking the Spriggan Form.
To reduce mana deficiency with Thorns Totem, we start with 2/5Totemic Wisdom.We make our way towardsGrove Mindby taking 2/4 inForested Expansewhich increases the maximum Totems we can summon. Then proceed with 3/4Eternal Forest, increasing totem duration and health, and finally 1/1Grove Mind. That enables you to summon the maximum number of Totems once cast, and position them around the enemy.
If you struggle with mana due to the increased mana cost that comes withForested Expanse, we can solve it by getting one or two points inMemories of Eterra.In all cases, we need 3/3 inMemories of Eterraby the end of this branch and pushForested Expanseto 3/4. Afterwards, we go through the left side of the tree, making our way towardsArmour Shred. Start with 1/4 in Ancient power, and 2/3 Impale, which are filler nodes. Then go all the way into 5/5Shred Armour, which ensures every hit of Thorns Totems to remove 100 armor from the enemy for four seconds.
This spell unlocks after a Primalist character gets to level twelve, and is either the second or third skill we specialize in. In some cases, we can level up with Maelstrom in the early game. But again, it has mana issues, and will likely give you a headache to balance it out. So it’s better to stick to leveling Ice Thorns, and delay the Maelstrom specialization until at least level 20.
At first, we need to rush towards theCyclonenode, to convert Maelstrom damage to physical damage. So we take 2/4Whirlpool,2/3Sleet-Footed,and 1/1Cyclone.Afterwards, we aim to get the Frenzy and Haste buffs, so we take the north path. Get 1/5Turbulence, 2/4Calm, 1/1 inWindsweptand 1/1Windfury.
Now increase the duration of Maelstrom by maxingWhirlpoolat 4/4, then get more AOE by maxingTurmoilat 5/5. Finally, we getTurbulenceto 4/5, so now we are at a total of 20 points. If you get an extra point from affixes on gear, you can maxTurbulenceto 5/5. It’s a good node, because we build so much Attunement anyway, and it gives a massive damage bonus to Maelstrom.
This spell unlocks after allocating 10 passive points into the Druid tree, which is roughly around levels 25~30. This depends on how fast you clear the prerequisite quests for master trees. You should Respec Ice Thorns and specialize in Spriggan Form at once, as Spirit Thorns upgrade your damage three times as much.
Spriggan Form is a caster stance that gives the Druid four new spells and locks him from using all standard skills. It replaces mana with another decaying resource named Rage, which converts you back to human form once depleted. There are ways to reduce the decaying rate of Rage, and there are ways to regain rage, to virtually stay forever in Spriggan form. On top of this, Spriggan Form gains the following bonuses:
The Alternative skills of Spriggan Form are:
Unleash several homing projectiles in front of the caster, which can spread to hit several enemies or shotgun one enemy. That’s the main damage-dealing spell in our Spriggan build, and the main way to sustain our Rage and health. We need a massive amount of cast speed and stun avoidance to be able to spam Spirit Thorns non-stop.
It summons a Totem that heals you and your allies, and with proper nodes, it becomes Thorn Totem simultaneously. This Totem benefits from the Thorn Totem skill tree, in addition to healing. You also get a massive Totem duration increase from the Spriggan Form tree, as well as summoning speed. So overall, it smooths out the Totem summoning, and help you get all benefit from two skill trees on one skill.
Vines are small minions you can summon to deal melee damage to inflict poison on enemies. They are used in DoT and minions builds, and I generally don’t recommend them in Physical Spriggan form.
It gives a barrier that adds 30 Armor and reflects some damage to attacks. After the shield expires, it bursts to deal AOE damage. You can use it for a slight damage boost, or ignore it. In all cases, we don’t invest in nodes related to Thorn Shield.
To build a Spriggan Form tree, we need to first get Spriggan skills to proc our normal skill. We do so by gettingSpirit Vortexnode for Maelstrom,Spiked Totemfor Summon Thorns Totem, andValetidefor proccing Entangling Roots. To reach them quickly, we shall go to 1/3Rose Meadow,1/3 Ancestral Call, and 1/3Spirit Vortex. Then we go the other way, and put 4/4Totem Warden, then 1/1Spiked Totem.
Next, we can rush through 3/3Spiritwhispererand 1/3Valetideto get Entangling Roots as soon as possible. Otherwise, we can delay Valetide, and improve our Spirit Thorns and Maelstrom first. We can get 1/4Branch Storm,and finish Ancestral Call at 3/3 first, before going forSpiritwhispererandValetide.
Regardless of what you prioritize, we will put two extra points inSpirit Vortexto complete 3/3, for faster and more reliable building up Maelstrom stacks. Finally, we are left with three points to put in the tree. We can use it for either, more damage on Spirit Thorns, to help proc Entangling Roots faster or to get more AOE. So the choices are:
This is the fourth spell we specialize in for this Last Epoch Druid Build, and we unlock it after allocating 15 points in the Druid tree. Use it to summon a companion Spriggan outside of Spriggan Form, and it persists even after you transform your Druid into a Spriggan. We build the Spriggan companion into healing and buffing, so it helps sustain your health and increases your damage.
So we start with 1/5Arboreal Vitality,and 1/1Creeping Roots, which enables Spriggan to cast Ensnaring Roots. Take 1/1 inProtective Roots, for the Spriggan to cast the roots towards you, and finish with 4/4Garden of Nourishment. This enables the Spriggan to heal you, and your totems 800 health every cast of Ensnaring Roots.
For buffs, we put 3/5 intoAura of Life, which is a prerequisite for 2/3Aura of Kinship,and 4/4Aura of Retribution. These last two nodes grant all allies in the area a flat spell damage bonus and an 8% base critical chance. The base critical is the most important source of crit buffs in the build and a major source of our damage.
We can spend the last four points however we see fit, for instance, 1/4 inAura of Loyalty, and 1/1Aura of evasion.This grant you and your minion a little more survivability. Then push 2/5Arboreal Vitalityand 1/5Warding Bark.
The last spell in our arsenal, which you will unlock after spending a whole 35 passive points into Druid tree. This will be around character level 50~55, so it will be right when you are ready to enter mid-game. The importance of Entangling Roots is Shredding Physical Resistance fromShredding Vines, and getting flat spells and flat physical damage (to minions) fromWild WeaponsandBlooming Magic.
Start with 2/5Shredding Vines,and go through 1/3Nourshiment Surge, 1/2Wild Weaponsand 1/5Blooming Magic. This gives a small buff for starters, and then we get the nodes that turn Entangling Roots into circle mode and enable it to cast from Totems. It makes for smoother gameplay and makes sure you always hit all enemies even from afar. Go through 1/4Entrapped, 1/3Reclamation, and 3/5Noxious Grasp, which is a filler node. Now get 1/1 inOvergrown Garden, and 1/1Rooted System. Then finish the tree by filling all left nodes to 5/5Shredding Vines,2/2Wild Weapons,and 5/5Blooming Magic.
An alternative is to forgo the flat spell and physical damage to minions. Instead, you shall give your Spriggan companion more defense and cast speed fromFrenzying Thorns.So we go with 5/5Shredding Vines,2/4Entrapped, 1/1Inescapable Thicket, 5/5Frenzying Thorns,and finally, 1/1Bramblewood Wardens.
Figuring out how to spend your points in the passive tree is one of the most important parts of making a Build in the Last Epoch, and generally, it takes a respec or two before getting it right. In this section, I want to show you how I’ve set this up for maximum performance.
You start with the Primalist tree by default, which requires you to spend 20 points in, to unlock the master class trees in this Last Epoch Druid Build. So, put 8/8 inNatural Attunement,as all our stats scale with Attunement. Then add 5/5 inHunter’s Restoration,for some health and health recovery. Finally, fill 6/6 inWisdom of the Wildfor Spell damage and 1/8 inTempest Bond. That’s all we need from this tree, so we move on.
Once you reachThe End of Timeand get to master the Druid class, you start investing in this tree. We will spend a lot of our points here, and we will find very good stats here, such as generic Damage, more Attunement, Reduce Rage decay, Crit Avoidance per Attunement, Flat Spell damage, Crit Chance, and Leech on Crit. These passives will shape the offensive side of our build.
7/7Primordial Resonanceis where we start, which gives a generic Damage stat. The generic Damage affects every kind of damage, be it direct or DoT, spell or melee, physical or otherwise. So in several cases, it will double dip in many forms of damage. In other words, 35% generic damage is still better than 49% Physical or spell damage from other nodes.
Continue with 7/7Druidic Prowess, and 5/5Focused Wrathfor Attunement, extra generic damage, and reduce rage decay. These are 19 points, so you want to add one extra point anywhere, to unlock the fifth column of passive. I put it in 1/7Chitinus Plating, then proceed to put 5/5 inBush Stalker.It adds Critical chance, and health leech on Crit hits, which help a lot in sustaining Spriggan’s life.
Get 10/10 inHarmonious Wisdomto unlock the Crit Avoidance perk, which ensures you cap your Crit Avoidance. Then get 1/5Woodland Beings,which is prerequisite to 1/1Natural Duality.This one gives your companion a lot of health and gives you a lot of Armor and generic Damage. Now we have reached a good breakpoint, we can start investing in other trees. If you take this build over level 80, you can come back later to add 10/10Ragebornto gain a massive Crit chance increase and 10/10Eternal Naturefor flat spell damage. Or you can max 7/7Chitinus Platingfor massive defense.
This tree gives you more Attunement, Penetration, and much-needed utility as Cast speed. So before the endgame, we need 8/8Shamanic Infusion,1/8Silent Protector, and 5/5Totemic Fury.
The Beastmaster cover the main defensive side of our build, so we build it by the time we get to the endgame. It gives much-needed tankiness, in form of damage reduction.
We kick it off by 8/8Ursine Strength, for a multiplicative 16% damage reduction. Then proceed with 5/5Boar Heart,for granting Aspect of The Boar, which adds 15% damage reduction at base value. Now add 1/1 inArtor’s Loyaltyand 1/5Call of the Packto unlock the next column. Then finish with 5/5 inPorcine Constitutionto add 75% health generation, and an extra 15% damage reduction to the Aspect of the Boar. These passives cut the damage your character takes to almost half, and allow you to do much tougher content.
In this section we’ll be covering the type of equipment that you want to aim for in this Last Epoch Druid Build, and what stats you need on them.
The first thing you’ll want is a good weapon that ideally gives nice stats. The best stat for this Last Epoch Druid Build isflat-added spell damage, it increases the base spell damage, which gets multiplied by all other modifiers. For this reason, the best weapon to use in our build is theTwo-handed Staff.The one-handed weapons have a lot less base Spell compared to the two-handed staves, and using shields or catalysts doesn’t compensate for it. There are several good base weapons to craft:
You can settle on any base, and aim to craft the best sub-stats possible. For two-handed staff, there are no great suffixes to roll, so we focus on maximizing the output from the Prefixes. The following Prefixes are in order from highest damage impact to lowest:
You can’t get more than two Prefixes, so we try to get the top two and max them to tier 5. However, if we get an exalted item with exalted tier (T6 ~ T7) Prefix from the lower damage ones, it’s most likely viable to use.
For suffixes, the most useful ones areIncreased Stun Chance, Minion Physical Damage,orMinion Spell Damage.But they are not necessary.
For Armour stats, we have these priorities by endgame (around level 70):
That covers most stats you need from a Last Epoch Druid Build, leaving only a few ones to pick from other sources. We need Leech for example, and we can only get that from some item bases such asAncestral Crownin the Helmet slot, orLiving Seedin Relic Slot. In the Body Armor slot pick either,Ancestral Garbfor defense, orGreatwood Coatfor offense. For Belt, pickPlated Beltfor extra Armor, if not, then any other random Belt will do.
For Boots, I recommend using ones with resistances, to free up some suffixes for more impactful stats. So I’d pick eitherHeoborean BootsorSolarium Greavesfor boots. While on Gloves you have a wide variety of great bases, as you can get resistance from eitherCrusader GauntletsorOutcast Glovesat the cost of less Armor and no offensive stats.Engraved Gauntletsgive high Armor and much-desired Endurance. WhileNoble Glovesgive Cast Speed, andSolarum BracersCrit Chance. So you have to balance your choice with the sub-stats you have.
Accessories have a similar item base variety, as you can pick between several defensive or offensive stats. Feel free to experiment. Note that we don’t use any “Crit Avoidance” stat on our equipment, because we get maximum Crit Avoidance from the passive tree.
Idols are a good way to augment your character, and for this particular Last Epoch Druid build, we have several options to build towards. Either use a set of 2 Grand Heorot Idols(3×1), 2 Ornate Heorot Idols(4×1), and one Large Nomad Idol(1×3). Or a set of 2 Huge Nomad Idols(1×4), 2 Large Nomad Idols(1×3), and one Grand Heorot Idols(3×1). In both scenarios, you are left with a slot for one small Idol(1×1), and either Humble Eterran Idol(2×1), or Stout Lagonian Idol(1×2).
You can get these unique stats from idols, so pick idols that have one prefix and one suffix from the list:
Prefixes:
Suffixes:
Prefixes:
Suffixes:
Prefixes:
Suffixes:
Prefixes:
Suffixes:
Finally, for a small idol and 2×1 idol, just pick whatever resistances you are missing, or get an extra crit chance.
Example build in build planner:https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/wBEO3e9A
This Last Epoch Druid Build doesn’t rely on any unique items to function, so it’s viable in all game modes. Whether you play in Multiplayer, single-player, or even solo, you can build Physical Spriggan with minimum effort. It’s a very solid build with strong defense and offense, and can clear most content up to the endgame. I recommend it as a starter build, that helps newer players.
You get high ranged damage, and combined with stun chance, you clear entire waves before they even get close. But the build isn’t lacking when enemies are in close range. Maelstrom’s damage over time is a great bonus to help clear melee content even faster.
However, Physical Spriggan does depend heavily on the Spriggan companion staying alive. This is because it gets a lot of buffs from the Companion, and both damage and survivability drop once the companion dies. In harder content, that has massive AOE, the companion may die. Your situation can become very dangerous quite quickly. So sometimes you need to sacrifice your offensive stats to increase your companion’s defenses.
Finally, Physical Spriggan is very friendly to Controller users. You spam one button to shoot an auto-aimed, piercing projectile. So you don’t have to worry too much when it comes to positioning or manual aiming.
Hopefully, thisLast Epochbuild gets you ready to take on the masses as a Physical Spriggan! If you enjoyed this build be sure to check out ourLast Epoch: 10 Reasons To Be Excited For This Upcoming ARPG.
Be sure to check out ourLast Epoch Multiplayercoverage, and keep an eye out for future Builds and Guides. You can pick upLast Epoch on Steam!
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