Cold Primalist build suggestions

Primalist
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Hi All,

I’m keen to give Primalist a shot, I really like the cold/barbarian/bear type fantasy so I’m leaning towards Werebear Druid or Beastmaster. Just wondering if there are any builds that are still viable like this? I’m aware there were some cold werebear druid builds back around release and there are items built around that. Just wondering what other options there are. Not too keen on minion builds, unless it’s summon bear, but I don’t see any of those around. Not interested in avalanche or totems as a caster, would prefer melee and dual wielding or 2H with a high health/health regen build. Earthquake builds look good, but can they be done as cold somehow?
Doesn’t need to push high corruption, my goal on my characters has been just to kill Aberoth.

Thanks!

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Dual-wield shattered lance set with 1.5k+ HP regeneration per second.
For the second weapon, something with high added cold damage.
Maybe Frozen Ire sceptre with LP to also boost cold spell damage. If minions should play a bigger part in the build, Apogee of the Frozen Light.

The Yrun body armour for +30 cold damage, Call of the Tundra for health regen + cold damage. Should be more than sufficient for added cold damage.

Don’t mind that many skills have no cold conversion. As long as you have enough added cold damage from other sources, this is mostly irrelevant. If you can push health regen enough, you will have damage a plenty.

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https://www.lastepochtools.com/build-guides/frostquake-shaman-cold-damage-eq-regeneration

LETools is always your best chance at finding builds.

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Thanks heaps guys. Yeah I’m leaning towards shattered lance set. That Shammy build I just saw recently and looks interesting, just hope the budget version is decent because LP red rings and ravenous void won’t be cheap…

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Those are just defensive options. You can treat them as aspirational content. They’re not required and you can use alternatives and still have your build work fine.

Usually LETools build guides (as opposed to build links which are mostly youtube videos) are good at providing alternatives, but this specific guide lacks a little in that department. It’s true that it provides alternatives to gear, but it doesn’t really detail the preferred affixes for them, which most do.

Still, I’m sure you can use it as a base and make it work just fine. And if at some point you get stuck with something, you can post your build in the primalist category and people will help you fine tune it or provide you with alternatives.

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Thanks mate. Yeah would be nice if all builds had the format like maxroll do, they are laid out and explained so well, but obviously don’t showcase all builds. There’s some content creators I also follow for builds on youtube, just noticed there wasn’t much going on for Werebear apart from EQ/aftershock.

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Yeah, Maxroll’s guides are very well explained and detailed, but I find that they’re often not very well optimized. They are great for learning and for leveling guides, though. They really do explain things pretty well and offer lots of alternatives.

LETools guides (as opposed to build videos) are usually also pretty good in that regard (offering alternatives), though this particular guide sems to fail a little in this.

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For cold you can do a great minion based, Shaman/Spriggan form/ thorn build.

Twin wield Appgees of light for +6 minion skills and +40% minion multiplicative cold damage against chilled opponents.

Take thorn totems and make them cold
take storm totem and make it cold (use storm carved testament to proc it)
take gathering storm and take all the cold nodes (use the nodes in storm totem to tie storm totem to gathering storm)
Take spriggan form with the cold node and the ranged thorns for vines,
Take summon spriggan with all the cold nodes.

go thru the shaman passives to find all the shared chill., frostbite, cold damage and freeze rate multipliers.

Frozen eyes of formosis for the +300% ish freeze rate per chll stack (you will always have 3 chill stacks on everything) for minion against chilled.

Stack minion cast speed and totem cast speed everywhere you can find it. more hits means more freeze procs.

Cast cold thorns, cold vines, proc cold storm totem, with 2 cold sprigans and watch everything around you freeze from literally hundreds of cold procs.

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I’m not the one that was looking for a build, though. Also, he specifically said he’s not into minions or totems.

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fair.

my bad.

I was just very stoked on the build.

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Appreciate the suggestions. I’m not completely against minion builds, just not my preference. Enjoyed my bleed falconer but that doesn’t feel like a true minion build. Just something about spriggan and totems that doesn’t appeal much to me, but I may try one day… Shaman/spriggan does have some good cold options. Need more Werebear options! Hopefully next patch.

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Decided to go beastmaster. Turns out maelstrom is enough to satisfy the cold fantasy for me. Proccing through warcry for permanent frenzy & haste. Together with the various beastmaster aspects it’s sooo speedy and fun.
Decided to try the various minions while leveling and also enjoy those more than I thought I would. Had wolves and bear but eventually dropped bear for earthquake for bosses (wolves too strong). DOT EQ just does insane damage with divining totem. Only LVL 72 and the first harbinger melted in seconds.
I try to stick to a fantasy I had in mind but it’s hard to pass up certain skills that just delete everything haha. End up having more fun than way, and that’s why we play!

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I have a confession to make. I re-rolled another beastmaster SCF and randomly decided to try CookBook’s summon scorpion build and what an awesome experience it was! I usually stop at Aby but ended up levelling to 100 and comfortably farming 800+ corruption with sub-optimal gear.

Gonna level a shaman now and may try some totem/spriggan stuff you suggested. I may be pleasantly surprised. The minion builds are growing on me…

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The scorp build will be better… Just so you know. Freeeze builds in general got a big nerf in 1.1. But are still fun to play.

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Yeah that’s fine, just wana try something different. Storm totem with blizzard node is awesome so far for levelling. Loving the visuals. Combined with cold avalanche the damage is crazy. From what I’ve seen it will be defensive layer of shaman that I may struggle with when pushing corruption. My beastmaster was very tanky

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I think I’m now a minion/totem guy :laughing:
Last few weeks I’ve played around with various builds on my shaman - cold avalanche, frostquake, tornado, and finally totems… And storm totem absolutely slaps with that overtuned upheaval node. Killed Aby with average gear (no slams) in like 30 seconds. Avalanche was pretty fun (I like how it sounds like a mortar), earthquake is just too clunky, tornado melts my GPU instead of the enemies.

I think now that I’m older and my reflexes are slower, I’m enjoying using minions to take care of things whilst I focus on dodging mechanics and buffing/healing them. Might try Necro next!

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Yeah, Storm totem with upheaval node is kinda crazy!
Since I’m working on a shaman build myself, I have a few questions if you don’t mind.

What level of corruption are you comfortably grinding with your totemist savage ?

How did you solve the survivability puzzle (since primalist has less tools to mitigate dmg than some others) ?

I’ve checked your character profile on LEtools; what made you decide to use Ferebor instead of other options (like Tempest Maw or an exalted with a lot of minion damage (flat and increases)) ?

Do you find Warcry that relevant ? You’re not the first one to use it for that build and I’ve started with it but switched quickly because i’m spamming enough skills already. But I admit I miss the cleanse…

Here’s my work in progress : https://www.lastepochtools.com/profile/p3h4/character/Bataclan

I’m not pushing corruption yet; I prefer to stay comfortably around 400c, where most monsters are one-shotted. :stuck_out_tongue:

Some insights that can (maybe!) help you :

  • I find Tempest Maw really really good. With 2 LP, the ideal is flat minion spell damage (like I have) + Melee Damage (that I don’t). The melee damage helps the damage of Gathering storm bolts because of the node Tempest Weapon.
  • If you find a Coral Aegis with LP, “Shock attackers” on it is great to give even more flat totem damage (up to +18)
  • The belt Omen of thunder is great, probably best in slot!
  • I’ve switched warcry for Stormcrows. The idea is the nodes Wisdom of the storm + Arborist; which makes them buff totems instead of attacking, giving them +3 spell damage… It’s stackable, I have 2 crows and they cast it under a second. The only flaw is that most other nodes are useless since they don’t attack anymore.
  • I’ve taken the Rotten Core node in Thorn totem tree; the one that makes them pop on death (or when they are replaced by other totems). It’s a nice little aoe if your minions inflicts ailments on hit (Frostbite/Poison chances from Thorn totem + Tempest form in the passive tree of Shaman gives chill and shock chance for minions).

Anyway, if you have any advice for me, I’ll be glad to read it. It’s still a work in progress on my side. :smiley:

I know that I should switch to the relic Stormcarved testament; I’m waiting for a 2LP to drop…! I also need to shave the superfluo

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Hey happy to chat about it.

Haven’t been working on this build for long so I’m only at mid-500 corruption or so but everything is dieing very fast and it’s very comfy, can def push much higher and will.

I’ve chosen to invest a bit in health nodes and some health on gear and idols because the damage is just so high, got armour blessings as well. I do still get 1 shot a bit but I’m getting better at avoiding those. Also try cap your endurance and if you can spare the points, cornered beast is also good.

Warcry does a lot! Its awesome for applying frailty stacks and healing you, cleansing ailments, haste & frenzy, plus you get 100% increase crit for your totems. So the frailty is great for survivability, it applies 3 stacks very quickly (18% DR which is huge). My totems are pumping out around 10 Warcry casts before disappearing so they are constantly healing me if I stay close (each cast is applying frailty and healing). Only thing thats bugged and doesn’t work when placing the totem is Juggernaut.

Ferebor’s set gives a lot of base crit and helps you crit cap until you get more more crit on gear. Just last night I swapped it out though. Also got some decent slams last night. Shock chance on shield as you mentioned, cast speed on Julras gloves which applies it to minions, and flat melee on Arek’s bones.

Tempest maw is definately a good option. I like Arek’s bones for the armour shred and it gives a lot of flat melee which is good for tempest weapon as you said. If I get 2LP Julras I may try armour shred on that instead and run Tempest Maw. But Arek’s has more flat melee.

Minion damage % is important and I’ll be looking to add it through slams, just wanted to sort my crit and flat damage out first. And yes will be farming for omen of thunder.

Storm crows definitely a good option but I really don’t want to drop the utility that Warcry provides.

BTW shock chance gives a lot more than +18. If you have say 600% shock chance, that’s (600/10) * 2 = 120 flat damage.

I’d suggest getting another phantom grip for the crit and death rattle for the crit multi. Also want to eventually get crit multi nodes in storm totem when you have more +skill.

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Thanks for the reply!

Yeah, I miss the cleanse from warcry but other benefits were not useful for grinding monoliths, since everything is dying too fast anyway. But yeah, since some bosses takes around 10 secs to die (and can one-shot me), I should retry Warcry for the frailty and increase crit.

I will miss my crows ! Having one less skill to cast is lazy and I like it. But yeah, I realize i’m overspending on flat damage. Crows usually gives around 10 stacks of their buff, so it’s around a flat +30. It’s great but it takes a few seconds to pump up, and it’s a very high price for a skill spec. Lol, that’s a sad realization; I like crows. :frowning:

The Julras glove is a good idea! I’ve also seen a few builds with Raven Rise just for the +2 to totem skills, but that feels like a big waste of affixes.

For the shock chance vs shock attackers, I think you can’t slam shock chance on the shield but yeah, I know shock chance everywhere else is a great thing. I should try to get a bit more, but really, it’s the survivability the “issue”.

I have 0 endurance and don’t see how to make it useful without sacrificing a lot of what I currently have. It’s a great layer of defense but it’s so much investment. I’ll see how I can make it works, because it’s probably the solution.

And for deathrattle, I understand the value after the investment in crit chances elsewhere, but the less DoT taken and just pure stats is quite helpful. I’ve dismissed Ferebor because I have no int and prefer to go full attunement everywhere.

I’ll experiment a different setup with deathrattle and ferebor (and with crit chances/crit mult) and see how it goes. :smiley:

Thanks for the answer!

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Using Warcry in monos is still useful for the haste and frailty to prevent one shots, but yeah it means casting extra skills, personal preference I guess.

You can slam T7 chance to shock attackers on the shield which still gives + flat damage according to Fulgurite Core node :wink:

Yeah endurance can be hard to invest in… may be better to just go cornered beast if U can, I’m still experimenting. Endurance with ancestral base helm is pretty strong. Without the extra threshold, cornered beast is probably better.

Ferebor’s set has int on the ring, and death rattle has int on ot as well, so you can get up to 28% base crit without any investment which is huge!

Let me know how you go!

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