Bringing to you: 'The Aftershark' - Another Primalist Earthquake Build... Beastmaster! 0.8.2l

Primalist
1

Hello everyone. I’m Oeller and congratulation to be present at my first ever build guide. Please be considerate and give me suggestions for an possible improvements you may see.
I just wanted to share the build as I haven’t found anything similar. I’m still fairly new to the game (after 0.8.2) but the community is so great that I wanted to share my creation :slight_smile:

First, this is just another Primalist Earthquake build. Werebear earthquake is currently one of the strongest builds in the game but will probably see some changes in the upcoming druid rework. But contrary to the usual builds I chose beastmaster as my mastery and focused on earthquake’s aftershock instead of initial hit.

In the end I think this got a well rounded built providing good clear, good boss killing speed and decent survivability. All this as a true melee two-hand character standing in the middle of the enemies!

Some credits have to go to Alkamez as he inspired me by his ‘Aspect of the Shark’ stacking ‘Serpent Strike’ build (https://www.reddit.com/r/LastEpoch/comments/o2jtud/bm_2000_attack_speed_showcase_aspect_of_the_shark/). Initially, I was trying to build a bleed version of it with sweep but I was very unhappy with the result especially with respect to clearspeed.

Video and tldr

Concept

The general build idea is still based around ‘Aspect of the Shark’ stacking which is possible with a beastmaster talent from the highest talent tier. Although it reduces the effect by 60% (a less multiplier) we will be able to get more out of the Aspect through stacking of duration and effect modifiers. In general, the beastmaster has a talent providing one stack every 5 seconds and each stack gives 50% melee attack damage and 10% melee attack speed for 3 seconds. This is reduced to 20% attack damage and 4% attack speed per stack. The tree on its own provides 280% increased duration and 120% increased effect pushing it to 8.4 seconds and 44% attack damage as well as 8.4% attack speed per stack. This allows 2 to 3 active stacks. Duration and effect can and will be further stacked on equipment and idols. I will go into talents and skills more detailed later.

The build enabling talents now are ‘The Circle of Life’ alongside ‘Dragon Slayer’ giving a 25% chance to get a stack on Kill and when hitting a rare or boss enemy.

In his showcase Alkamez used the exponential potential of the attack speed scaling to keep up other 1k poisons with serpent strike to boss enemies. The resulting build was a great bosser but only decent for mapping (at least for me) as it is manly based on a single target skill. Furthermore he mostly utilizes the attack speed to stack poisons and only secondarily uses the provided attack damage increase to scale serpent strike without any other scaling sources.

Going Swipe as generator and earthquake with aftershock as clear we can utilize both components of aspect of the shark. The attack speed allows us a high mana generation while the attack damage scales the earthquake aftershocks along their many more multipliers provided by talents. But even Swipe itself will deal a good amount of damage. Nevertheless, the clear comes especially from the aftershocks.

The combination of the shark aspect and the aftershocks obviously lead to the name of the build: Aftershark

In the youtube video posted above I run a Mono at 289 corruption as well as a Shard (+14). More videos can be shared if requested. Tell me what you want to see!

In the following are general notes on skill talents and passives for people who don’t like to watch the long video (sorry. I provide some timestamps) but still want to understand the reasoning behind them:

Skills

  • Earthquake:
    Contrary to many builds we don’t go for the initial hit but the aftershock. While earthquake has a damage effectiveness of 350% the aftershocks only have one of 100% but we can get up between 5 and 6 aftershocks per earthquake use considering its talents. The general disadvantage is that aftershocks do not trigger on the initial earthquake target and each aftershock must be generated below a different enemy which in general disqualifies it for bosses. However, this problem will be solved! As a general note: We don’t want increase modifiers since Aspect of the Shark already provides a lot. Looking at the talents and the reaosn to pick them:
    • Crushing Wake: 60% more multiplier
    • Tremors + Magnitude: Pushing from 2-4 to 5-6 aftershock → potential 83% more multiplier (averaged)
    • Upheaval: 3 Hits over 3 seconds → potential 200% more multiplier
    • Unabating: 100% more damage + doubled duration → 300% more multiplier
    • Amplitude: Requirement for overlap on bosses!
    • Lethargy: Some slow; enables swipe’s more multiplier
    • Outbreak: Even more AoE
    • Divining Totem: Build enabling for bosses! Together with totems it allows aftershock damage in single target fights.
    • Optional: Shattered Earth (more clear; does not require a new target; is generated next to the old one) and Snowcrash (more Shark stacks for bossing; costs mana; requires more mana regeneration but gives more hit ant thus shark stacks for bosses)
    • Thorn totems: Build for maximum uptime of many totems while providing utility
    • Will not be cast but enabled by Thorn Totem on Hit Idol! With a high attack speed even a 5% chance gives enough uptime for bosses.
      • Forested expanse: 2 → 6 Totems
      • Grove Mind: One cast/trigger → 5 totems in a circle. Close to boss → Perfect for overlap!
      • Shred Armour: Obviously armour shred
      • Torrent of Thorns: More armour shred
      • Everything else just pathing and life
    • Note: Thorn totem must not be on your skillbar. You can use a unskilled Fury Leap instead.
    • Swipe: Generator and single target damage
      • Duality of Nature: As much mana generation as possible; path gives phys shred, and some unscaled bleed
      • Feline Hunter: Attack speed to get started!
      • Wild calling: More hits against bosses for more shark procs! They also scale with melee damage!
      • Culling: Equivalent to a 14% more dps; nice against endurance!
      • Trapper (optional): 60% more swipe dps; slow provided by earthquake
    • Warcry: Damage and survivability buff
      • Berserker + Brutality + Fury Strikes: 60% attack speed; 14 x 4 = 56 melee physical damage
      • Purging Shout: Ailment removal and QoL
      • Staggering Roar + Apprehend: QoL. Pulls enemies into your aftershocks
      • Jormun’s Wrath + Frigid Breath: Freeze instead of stun and 15% inc damage taken for up to 1.2s
    • Maelstrom: Utility king and MVP; requires gearing to work; but they don’t die!
      • Whirlpool + Calm + Sudden Gale: Autocasting provides permanent 6 stacks of Maelstrom if you have 13.5 mana gain per second. No cooldown recovery on gear allowed! At least 2 Mana regeneration prefixes at T5 required for sustain.
      • Windswept + Windfury: Permanent haste and Frenzy! 30% increased movement speed and 20% increased attack speed
      • Power of the Storm (optional): One additional hit every second for more potential shark stacks
      • Note: You can go wolves but they already died for me early on when pushing without investment in minion life

Talents

  • Picking up Shark talents for stacking, effect and duration
  • Otherwise: Life, general survivabilit, flat damage, leech and attack speed
  • Most important defensive talent: Aspect of the boar; 30% reduced damage taken (possibly its own multiplier as now other source available?); Will additionally be scaled by idols

Idols

  • Ornate Heorot: Thorn Totem on Hit (required) and boar effect (optional, defensive)
  • 1 Adorned Heorot: Shark duration (recommended) and boar effect (optional, defensive)
  • 1 Adorned Heorot: Aftershock on Hit (recommended) or shark duration and boar effect (optional, defensive)
  • Other slots: As required Grand Heorot and Large Nomad can have boar effect suffix, Large Nomad has % increased health prefix. Small Eterran can provide flat dodge as well as resistances

Equipment

Generally: Increases are not worth it. Because of the high number of shark stacks we already have a lot of increases and thus the increased stats on items are effected by a big diminishing return effect

  • Sword: Zweihander. Flat Damage, Penetration and high attack speed for 2-Hand weapon
    • Prefixes: Flat Phys and attack speed. Optional leech instead of attack speed. I prefer faster attacks
    • Suffixes: Probably best to get 50% less critical damage taken → no requirement for critical avoidance. Other affix is utility. Life on Hit or Chill. Chill reduces enemy attack speed and thus is a survivability boost. Also enables eqarthquake chill multiplier if selected.
  • Gloves: Wing Guards. We already scale increases, attack speed and flat damage alongside many more multipliers → no crits needed (and no affixes for it available). Base is great. Attack speed is great. and dodge is a nice addition.
  • Chest: Titan Heart for survivability or otherwise a chest with life suffixes and shark aspect effect prefix.
  • Ring 1: Siphon of Anguish. Resists, Leech, Leech Rate, MS are already nice to have. Doom provides in the best case (with effect) 20.8 increased damage taken. A stat group which is its own more multiplier. Only other source in this build is provided by the freeze of warcry.
  • Belt: Any rare with a lot of life and possible slot for mana regeneration. Shattered Chains is also a nice addition for the built. Some flat damage, armour and stun removal!
  • Other important affixes:
    • Ring 2: Possible slot for mana regeneration; second prefix can be strength, vitality or an increase, we don’t really care.
    • Boots: MS and vitality/strength
    • Amulet: Physical penetration and possible Slot for mana regeneration
    • Relic: Blood Catcher Base; Swipe prefix; Possible slot for mana regeneration; fraility on hit suffix for survivability
    • Helmet: Earthquake and Shark effect prefix!
  • Other affixes can be filled as required. Aim for at least 14 Mana regeneration. More feels smoother. My BiS setup will be provided as link in the comments.
  • Ideal Bases (in my opinion): Icewolf Helmet, Solarum Greaves, Bone Amulet, Silver Ring

Blessings

  • As required. Leech Rate is nice! Armour provides survivability. All Resistance as well. Endurance/crit avoidance can make gearing more easy. See build planer for my setups.

Feel free to ask anything about the build!

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