So… kinda new to all this and I’m a bit confused. I wanna do upheaval but with the cold tag. It says, under Glacial Cascade, that " base physical dmg is converted to cold. Consequently, this dmg scales with increase to cold dmg but not to physical dmg." So the question is - if I have a + physical dmg in my passive or items, does it no longer work on upheaval? If so, is it better to just keep it physical dmg?
+X damage always is added to skills (as long as its valid for the specific source. e.g. Melee or Spell), regardless of what damage type a skill does.
But %inc. physical damage would no longer have any effect on the base damage of the skill.
But %inc. physical damage would still affect all the +X physical damage that you added to the skill from other sources.
1 Like
So to dumb it down - go for it? xD
Go for it!
The only difference is that the Base damage and any ‘Adaptive’ Damage (e.g. +Melee Damage without a spell school mentioned) will now scale with Increased Cold Damage instead of Increased Physical Damage. If you’re going for a Cold build, that means you’ll eventually want to get more of cold modifiers anyway and it shouldn’t be a problem.
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/wBEbWrjo this is more or less what I wanna try. Basically, jump in dealing lots of dmg, warcy pull and freeze everyone and then smash them with upheaval while bear is helping with his dmg 
No idea if it’s gonna work but seems for to me.
Sorry for the delay, have been writing this whenever I hit a loading screen
A few remarks:
I like the overall jist of the build: Slap the bee-jesus out of everything you encounter. The Crit & Phys choice combo really well with the Armour Shred, so overall it’s pretty strong passive-wise.
The only thing I’ld change in the passives is to get the points from Druid and put them into Shaman for the extra damage and Leap Cooldown, and in base tree, Hunter’s Restoration doesn’t scale well, so I’ld go Primal Medicine to turn your pot into a Bear heal, as you didn’t pick up Eterra’s Blessing. If I could, I’ld also pick up the Berserker points for extra damage (and thus leech) + Dr when <35% HP. Maybe the 5 points in Shaman can go here if you prefer.
I’m also tempted to drop Life in the Wilderness in Beastmaster to 1/8 (just for Bear Endurance) and then pick up Dragon Slayer & Feeding Frenzy at the bottom. Take the 3 points from Hunters of the Deep, go 5/5 Circle of Life & 5/8 Ocean Maw and with the 2 extra points taken from Druid, that should be enough. You’ll need a bit more Endurance from gear this way, but that should be manageable once you hit Monoliths.
As for the skills:
- Fury Leap: Dump Ambush Predator and go for Violent Upheaval instead. If you’re going for crits, the extra Multiplier is a nice pickup along the way.
- Frenzy Totem: Pretty decent choice here, just not sure why you split points over Reach & Revitalizing Totem
- Summon Bear: Wounded Prey doesn’t do a lot if you don’t have some Bleeds going on. Otherwise pretty decent choices.
- Upheaval: I don’t think the Shatter will do a whole lot of damage for you. I would actually drop the entire Freeze branch and go for more damage. Mantle Strike + Crust Rupture for the crit damage, anything bottom right for the damage. Glacial Crash is great for any 2H, as it’s basicly 80% more damage (Penetration reduces the enemy resistance calculation into negative), and you can go either Mace for the area + base item stun stuff, or Axe and apply some bleeds that still scale with increased physical damage (just not +Melee damage) The path to Hindering Tremors is also possible if you want to swap the Bear for something else later on, but with Bear tank, you might need the range.
- Warcry: The only real mistake you made in the build, I think, is taking Apprehend (the pull) when the Cold conversion removes the Knockback and thus the pull as well. I would drop the Cold branch entirely and focus on Ferocity, Juggernaut and maybe go into Berserk.
Overall, for a first build, I’ld rate it a solid B+.
My suggestion would be more like this, then you can just jump in, Totem → Warcry → Wreck stuff and gear purely for the phys crits and if you like, stuns. Get a Frailty on neck or relic instead, it’ll be more reliable than the Warcry thing.
If you want to go full Cold Upheaval, I actually made a pretty strong Upheaval Frostbite Druid once, but it relies on a few uniques together to really work well.
- I was debating over Druid - Shaman, maybe I will go the with the Shaman node.
- Yeah might do the Primal Medicine just for the bear dmg cuz he doesn’t really take much dmg anyways (for now lol)
- The Berserker… well, ideally I wouldn’t want to go <35% hp but maybe it’s a good idea as a last save thing?
- I really like the Vitality… maybe I could sacrifice the 7 Druid points, 3 from Hunter of the deep and 5 from the critical bite and do it that way?
Fury Leap - yeah, it might be more dmg overall, did the Ambush cuz it looked like a nice starter, killing most easy mobs with it.
Frenzy Totem - would you rather go full Revital?
Bear - it was more for the speed buff but yeah, he kills things before he stacks bleed so I might put it in area so he can hit more things easier
Upheaval - I really wanted to go with a cold theme, silly as it sounds xD, but if it’s less dmg I might reconsider…
Warcry - Actually it still pulls them together so either it just loses the knockback or it’s a bug but as it is now, I use it to pull them closer so me and the bear can apply dmg easier.
If, by any chance, you got the build saved somewhere I would love to have a look D
Also thanks for all the tips <3
1If you want the Vit, I’ld take the 5 back out of Shaman & 2 from Circle of Life to get the 7 for your Vit/Endurance Threshold. I’ld keep the leech on crit for a crit build, especially if you are stacking the Vitality buffer.
Frenzy Totem it really depends if the area is enough or not.
If you really want a cold theme, I’ld honestly suggest a different minion (Scorpion or Sabertooth) and then you can still decide on Cold Upheaval or something like Serpent Strike
The old build I first gave to Boardman21 to make a vid of, but it’s 0.8.4: Airowird's Frostbite Winter Warrior | Build Guide | 0.8.4G
I’ll check later this weekend what its 1.0 variant would be, but servers are doing fine now in EU, so I’m gonna play some first
Edit: (@Vodzu)
Had a quick look as I was having a snack, the biggest differences are the boots giving pen instead of more effect, and the Fury Leap tree. For Fury Leap you’ll want the utility; Panther Strike, Heorot’s Protection, Crater, then down to Battle Bloom for the defensives, Lagon’s Wrath to finish off some extra hits to apply Frostbite.
You can run an Axe for the extra bleed chance on the base weapon to convert untill you have Morditas, but it’s not as common a drop, so I suggest running another build first. You need to Spear’s leech to combo with Titan’s Heart which will give you a significant survival and DPS boost.
1 Like