Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build Guide - Shaman
Feb. 28, 2024Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build Guide – Shaman
In this Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build Guide we’re going to be covering a Primalist Build that focuses on leveling from 1-50 as a Totem character. As a Beginner Primalist Build, it uses basic abilities mostly, and relies on absolutely zero Unique items, so it’s designed to work on a new account, Solo Self Found, or a first character atlaunch. The Mastery of choice for leveling Primalist is Shaman, focusing on summoning Totems and dealing Lightning Damage.
Last Epochhas very deep customization options for passive trees, and Skill perks, that can be difficult to navigate. In this Build Guide I’ll explain how to get the most from this Build, which works great quick start guide. So if you’ve been looking for a Primalist build, that’s fast to clear, then this Guide is for you.
The Primalist is a hybrid class, that has a focus on summoning minions and dealing direct damage. So Primalist Builds can go either way: dealing direct damage and having minions buff you, or dealing minion damage while buffing your minions. In this Primalist Beginner Build, we get a taste of both worlds. The Shaman Mastery allows players to get buffs from minions, and have minions be buffed by the player.
With theStorm Crow Skill, the player may getAspect of The Crow, which adds flat lightning damage to all skills. This buff can stack, and Crows may also grant this to your totems, for more damage. In return, Crows get a portion of the player’s lightning damage increase. In a similar fashion, you and your crows have a chance to shock enemies; while Storm Totem and Crows deal even more damage to shocked enemies. There are also passives that gives lightning damage to both the player as well as minions, so you can start to see the general concept of the Primalist Build.
This Last Epoch Primalist Shaman is the fastest leveling Build I tried (on a timer)in Solo Self Found. There are more optimized Builds out there, but this is a very simple and straightforward one. It also has the advantage of range, and having meat shields between enemies and yourself. You can cast Totems at the very edge of the screen, and they draw aggro immediately. This keeps you pretty safe while you hang back.
After summoning your totems, you may buff them further with other skills such asWar CryorEtterra’s Blessing. You can choose to spec into either, as the last slot in our skills is optional. War Cry can convert into a totem, and be put down from a distance between totems, without the player getting into danger.
We use Storm Crows as a traversal and movement spell, it can also teleport Crows with you. It scales with Cast speed, so it can be very smooth to cast, but has a short range. Use it to close gaps, move away from danger, or just shorten distances.
Finally, you can use Gathering Storm as your spammable skill, to get on-hit effects. Or if you really know how to manage your mana, you may switch to Avalanche.
In this section, we’ll take a look at what Skills should be on your Skill bar to make this Last Epoch Primalist Build work. Not all five skills in this build are mandatory, and some can be replaced in some situations. But as a starter build, you have limited access to skills for the most part. That’s why we pick almost everything from the base Primalist class, and only complement it with the Summon Storm Totem from the Shaman sub-class.
This is a new skill introduced in version 1.0, it unlocks at character level two and can be specialized immediately. It’s a hybrid melee and spell skill, until we fully convert it to a ranged spell. It have low mana cost, and with the right nodes and passive points, we use to regain more mana than we spend. So it play as a battery for other skills, and use to apply on-hit effects. It may also help with damage and some Health leech at low levels.
Using Gathering Storm, whether the melee or spell version allow character to build “Storm Stacks”. At intervals, character consume one Storm Stack and hit an enemy with “Storm Bolt”. You may modify the skill to build stacks faster, hit more enemies, and get your minions to build stacks for you. There’s also ways to enchant your Storm Crows AOE capability.
Start at 1/4Looming Clouds, 1/1Lightning Strike Twice, and 1/1Lagonian Diplomacy. These nodes enable Gathering Storm to be pure ranged Spell, and have 20% chance to double cast Storm Bolt. You may also fill all 4/4Looming Cloudsat endgame, for a decent chance to hit two enemies instead of one, but that’s not necessary.
Next is 2/2Cloud of the Horizonto hit enemies on longer range with Storm Bolt. Then 2/5 or 3/5Friends of the tempest, which enable all lightning minions to grant you Storm Stacks. The stacks granted by minions stops after you have 15 stacks, so investing full points to 5/5 here is not pretty useful.
Another branch where we allocate points is 4/4Wings of Lightning, which grants your storm crows AOE. This is done through chaining their basic lightning attack to more enemies. So we allocate 1/3Windfury Blows, and 3/4Island Cleaver. These are totally useless nodes for spell version of Gathering Storm, but necessary to reach Wings of Lightning node.
You get this skill very soon after you start at character level 4 and use it immediately, even before specializing. By default, you may summon up to two totems, each will have fire thorns in the surrounding area. You’re able to modify the maximum number of totems and change their behavior if needed.
Summon Thorn Totem suffers an identity crisis though, and is something that’s not a fully single target, nor full AOE. If you try to make it a full single target, it loses all AOE. So the adequate solution is increasing the number of totems, and summoning them in a ring around the target. This takes around 6 nodes to get and increases the mana cost tremendously. So you have to spend even more points (more than 6) to reduce mana cost. So you are left with only a few points to increase Totem damage modifiers.
To increase mana efficiency with Thorns Totem, we start with 3/5Totemic Wisdom. Then 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, then finish with 1/1Grove Mind. This will summon all totems at once with one cast. Now a good way to refund some of the totem mana cost is 3/3 Memories of Etterra, for mana gain when a Thorn Totem dies or gets replaced.
Now for the damage, we aim to convert Thorn Totem to Ice. Converting allows modifiers such as elemental damage % to boost Thorn Totems. We go down on 1/3Torrent of Thorns, 2/4 OnAstral Winds, 4/5Winterwood, and 1/1Pillars of Heorot. These give different stats, from chance to double cast, to more spell damage multiplier, and flat added damage.
Later, if you can sustain a very high mana level, refund one point fromWinterwood, and put it inFrosted Expanse. You can takeFrosted Expanseto 3/4, or even to 4/4 if you get “+level to Thorn Totem” stat from gear.
You unlock Storm Crows after spending 15 points on the Primalist tree, and we turn it into our movement skill. We also specialize in nodes that grant buffs to us and our totems. For the remaining points, we increase the crow’s own damage.
Summon Crows is a companion summoning skill, which summons crows up to the companion limit, so two crows by default. These crows use lightning Blast, a lightning spell that has a chance to chain to other enemies. You can modify the behavior of your crows to stop attacking and only spam buffs. Or you could give them a higher chance to attack additional enemies for more AOE. Or even turn them into healers. There is a lot of room for experimentation here, but I’ll explain my recommendations for this Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build.
Start with 2/5Shocking Display, 2/3Thundering Strike, and 1/1Sky Passage. These five points in three nodes enable Summon Storm Crow to be a traversal skill, you can use to disappear and reappear at the target location. It also works as an AOE spell that hits enemies and deals lightning damage.
Now we get a lightning damage buff from Aspect of the Crow, which grants players and totems flat-added lightning damage per stack. So allocate 1/3 Avis, 3/3 Aspect of the Crow, and 1/1 Wisdom of the Storm. The aspect of the Crow has a 30% chance, so you will get an average of 1 stack from each Crow every 3 seconds. This means Aspect of the Crow might stack up to 9 or 10 stacks on yourself, for +30 lightning damage. This is very strong.
Wisdom of the Stormenables Crows to grant one stack of Aspect of the Storm to a nearby ally every 10 second, so it’s a small buff. However, if you allocate 1/1 Arborist, you make them stop attacking, and just spam Aspect of the Storm on totems non-stop for the massive buff. I prefer leaving it out in the Leveling version of this Primalist build.
For damage, allocate 1/3Storm Breathand 5/5Fulminating Caw, to give crows lightning damage modifier. The modifier is based on 150% of your lightning damage increase. With this node, a lot of passives and stats on items would double dip in buffing yourself and crows.
For endgame, there are several nodes worth adding for damage, such asShatterbolt, alongsidePincers, orCharged Feathers.
Summon Storm Totem is the signature skill of the Shaman and unlocks immediately upon choosing the Shaman mastery. It fits our Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build, as well as all Totem builds that go the Shaman way. It summons a single totem that casts Lightning Storm, that Repeatedly strikes around a target area with bolts of lightning. Lightning Storm is an AOE spell, that helps clear dense enemy waves.
You may modify the storm totem tree in many ways, mostly to deal more damage or buff your Shaman.
The most potent damage branch of the tree is going the Crit route. So start with 3/4Lightning Raider, 3/3Direct Current, and 3/3Power Shunt. These give Cast speed, base crit chance, and crit multiplier respectively. That’s half of our passives spent.
The other branch we pick relies on shock chance, and adding bonuses against shocked enemies. So go with 2/3Static Field, to add shock chance to the Storm totem, and then face the tough choice. There are five potent nodes here, that require 16 passive points to allocate them all. Meanwhile, we only have 10, 11, or at max 13 points if we get “+level to Storm Totem” on gear. So which way to go?
One Branch with two nodes focuses on buffing the player, giving them 40% Movement speed and 45% Lightning Damage. The movement speed is the biggest bonus here, as it allows moving way faster between enemy packs. So it helps clear enemies faster and progress faster, which makes the build a smoother experience. While Lightning Damage helps you and your crows deal more damage. If you want these full bonuses, allocate 4/4Stormriderand 3/3Grounding Conduct.
On other hand, the other branch gives the storm totem a lot of damage potential. It gives a massive 45% damage multiplier and 24% more Crit chance against shocked enemies. This condition is easily met, since all our skills have a chance to shock. In reality, you would have a lot of shock stacks on most enemies. So this branch boosts damage majorly. You need to allocate 3/3Exploit Weaknessand 4/4Press Your Advantage.
Finally, 2/2Fulgurite Coregives flat added lightning damage to your totem, based on shock chance the player has. This is the least important node in our Primalist leveling build, as shock chance on player stats is not a top priority. You have many sources of shock on your totems and companions, this however doesn’t count towards the bonus.
These are your options, and you have to pick 11 of these 16 so ideally drop Fulgurite Core plus one node, or partially drop several. Usually, Fulgurite Core and Grounding Conduit have the least effect on overall damage. WhileStormriderhas no effect on damage, but still affects clear speed, so the choice is yours.
This last slot is flexible, you can specialize in Warcry, or Etterra’s Blessing, or something else. I pick Warcry for simplicity, due to its strong buffs to all: player, companions, and totems.
We can simply convert Warcry into a totem, which we can be placed in the middle of enemies. This way, the player doesn’t have to get too close to the enemies and totems to use it. Warcry also grants Crit chance increase, can knock back enemies (or pull them), and grants haste.
We aim to convert it into a totem as soon as possible, so start with 2/4Staggering Roar, 1/1Kenotic Scream, 2/5Eviscerating Howl, 1/1Shallow Breath, and 1/1Totemic Heart. These are 7 points that turn into totems, increase cooldown recovery, add a spell hit to Warcry, and inflict Bleed on enemies.
Now complement these bonuses with 1/1 Hastily Advance for Haste after Warcry hits enemies. Use 1/1 Apprehend to pull enemies instead of knocking them back. Pulling is a very useful Crowd Control tool, and also sets up enemies for AOE fromStorm Totem.
For an extra buff, we get 2/4 Deep Roar, an AOE increase and a requirement for the next node. Then pick 4/4Battle Cryfor a crit chance to every ally in the Warcry range.
By endgame, you are left with five extra points, which you can allocate in 4/5Energized Charge, and 1/1Raging Frenzy. These give players longer duration of Haste, and similarly long Frenzy buffs.
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. 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 from the get-go.
Note this is not the final tree for an endgame Shaman build, with players having very limited access to items early on. This results in relying on passive nodes for everything, and even picking passives that could be respecced later for optimal damage output. But it’s a very good starting point overall, with the 66 points we get from leveling from 1-50.
Primalist is where you start by default and have to spend 20 points here to unlock specialization trees later. So put 8/8 inNatural Attunement, for Attunement stat, and resistances. Attunement is a stat that scales damage of all our skills, be it the player’s, companion’s, or totem’s skill. It also increases the mana pool and affects some other aspects of the build.
Put 2/6 inGift of the Wildernessfor a bit of health and minion health, and to unlock the third column. Now place 6/6 points inWisdom of the Wildfor player and minion spell damage. Finally put 4/8 inTempest Bond, for lightning, cold, and physical damage increase (doubled when you have an active minion).
These are 20 points, and while these are some decent nodes a Primalist build may use at endgame, as a leveling build, we skip these for now. We may return to them later on, but now we move on to the Shaman tree.
8/8Shamanic Infusionis where we start, it’s a very potent Attunement and penetration bonus. The penetration here applies to Physical, Sold, and Lightning resistances, on both your character and your minions (including totems). So it’s a wide buff to every damage this build deals.
Get 1/8Silent Protector, to open the way to 5/5Totemic Fury, which gives a very nice cast speed boost. Then go for 10/10Storm Bringer, a lightning damage bonus for you and your minions, in addition to Lightning Resistance. This node effectively gives 50% lightning damage to you, and 125% lightning damage to your storm crows. The reason is that we give storm crows 150% of our lightning damage increase.
Now get 5/5Avatar of Thunderfor adding flat lightning damage to all your spells and your minions’ spells. Next is 8/8Rune of Awe, which grants you and your minions flat spell damage. And 8/8Elemental Shrinesfor more Attunement and mana regeneration. And at one point, get 5/8Tempest Form, to enable your Gathering Storm to regain mana when on cast, turning it into a battery.
This wraps up the 71 points we get access to up to level 55. However, by endgame we get 42 extra points, so we have a lot of potential to improve our build still. There are nodes such as 8/8Ascendant Circlewhich can end up giving 160%-192% spell damage. This bonus scale with how many active totems you have at a given time. And getting 8/8Silent Protectorfor easy access to armor bonus and mana regeneration.
As a leveling build, it’s hard to precisely measure every single stat and compare them to each other. So producing a priority list is a bit tough, especially with players relying on very random drops early on. There’s no proper way to farm equipment, and you shouldn’t waste a lot of time comparing items at this stage. If you know what you are doing, the whole leveling to 50 process might take around five to seven hours.
The rule of thumb for gearing this Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build up and getting it running is to use a staff with a high spell damage and a Totem Damage bonus. Such as theShamanic Staff, which may get up to 47 spell damage, and 87% Totem damage. It requires a character level 46, but will carry you throughout the rest of the campaign and into the endgame. After that, you will be able to get the more potentHorned Staff, which grants additional levels to all minions’ skills, including totems.
If you are lucky and get an earlyHalvar’s PledgeSet item, it might work as a decent upgrade.
For sub-stats on weapons, an easy stat is lightning damage %, for double dipping on your character and your crows. Otherwise, Crit and Spell damage stats are very solid options that boost your own damage greatly. Or you could go for cast speed if your mana sustain is big enough.
The most impactful stat on suffixes is Minions Spell Damage, which come from “Minion Melee Damage & Minion Spell Damage” , and add flat values. This can get up to +31 at Tier 5, which is very good bonus. Other nice stats is kind of defensive ones, such as chance to chill, chance to blind, and chance to slow. Finally, a chance to shock can translate into more damage bonus on storm totem, if you allocate the appropriate node on the storm totem tree.
We don’t have access to a lot of uniques, sets, or Exalted items during early game for this Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build. So all we pick are rare items, with a couple of useful stats, and naturally, we prioritize resistances on Suffixes. Each act of the campaign has enemies with certain damage types. We get high resistance to cold and lightning naturally, from the passive tree. So we need to focus on other types we lack.
Movement Speed has a high impact on clear speed, especially in a minion build where we move more instead of stopping to cast. You can get Movement speed on prefixes on boots.
The main stat for Primalist is Attunement, which gives 4% damage per point to all our skills. In addition to increasing mana, so it’s an easy investment. However, there are more impactful stats out there, such as Lightning Damage, and +level to skills you use. There is also Cast speed for Totem on Helmet and Body Armour, Minion Damage on Relic, and Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance on body Armour. Shared Increased Spell Damage, and Shared Lightning Damage are two stats that roll on Body Armour and Helmet as well. So you have a wide variety of options to boost damage.
Lightning penetration, Crit, or Minion damage on Prefixes. Resistance or Health on Suffixes. Minion bases such as Turquoise Amulet, and Turquoise Ring are easy picks.
You barely get any idols early on in the game, that’s why we don’t rely on them a whole lot. At the start you are restricted to Idols with two slots, then three slots, and the third and fourth slots come much later.
That means we should only use generic, none-class Idols up to a point, such as Humble Idol, and Stout Idol. On these Idols, pick resistances, lightning damage, Attunement, or anything useful.
Later on when you unlock Ornate Idols, get “Cast Speed for Totems”, or “Critical Strike Chance for Totems”. You may also get “Chance On 10 Or More Mana Spent To Cast Lightning At A Nearby Enemy” on Adorned Idol. You may get “Chance to gain Haste for 3 seconds when you Summon a Totem” on Grand Idol.
This Last Epoch Primalist Leveling Build is a suitable pick if you prefer a hybrid build that relies on both minions and player damage. The main defensive advantage is not getting hit, because totems and minions stand between you and the enemy. You spend less time casting spells and focus on summoning while on the move.
It’s one of the fastest builds to level for a new character and can scale very high in endgame. Shaman has access to very good passives and skills, while being able to scale damage in several ways. You get strong buffs that affect both minions and yourself. It also shines as a solo found character, because it requires minimum investment to work.
For more Last Epoch Builds be sure to check out nextLast Epoch Necromancer Build Guide: Flame WraithandLast Epoch Druid Build Guide: Physical Spriggan.
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