Video guide with mapping/bossing showcase:
Freeze Foes to DEATH! Avalanche Shaman Build Guide & Showcase - Last Epoch Cycle 1.1 (youtube.com)
Find the detailed itemization & skill trees in the build planner:
(Last Epoch Tools Build guide waiting for approval)
Pros / Cons
Pros
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High damage, melts rares and bosses
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Good AoE
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long-lasting (pre-emptive) damage areas, very good to clear arena echos
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Freeze all rares/exile mages/nemesis, sometimes bosses too.
Cons
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Needs ton of mana regen, during bosses you need to pace yourself and get melee hits in for more regeneration
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Avalanche has a slight delay, it’s better to cast at the edge of the screen when clearing the map.
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Not as tanky as other builds, e.g ward builds
How to get Damage
Skills
Avalanche
Cold conversion → boulder AoE for overlap → large boulders → base crit & small boulder proc → mana cost reduction
Warcry
Crit & Cold damage boost, Maelstrom stacks, Totem for bonuses and better buff uptime. Frailty stacks.
Thorn Totems
Maximum number, reduce mana cost/regain mana
Gathering Storm
mana regen on hit (improved by shaman passive) & maximum stack generation from hitting + minions
Maelstrom
perma frenzy/haste, chills. Procc’d from Warcry and chance on kill/getting hit. It’s not manually used, don’t put it on your skill bar
You can put Fury Leap for movement or Eterra’s Blessing for healing, or even Storm Crows to generate Storm Bolt stacks.
Items
Get Mana Regen! It’s your main bottleneck for total DPS. I play with something around 25-30.
Weapon
I prefer staff but you can go wand & shield, I might switch later. Spell crit chance will allow you to reach 100% crit on Avalanche. Shared cold penetration in suffixes.
Idols
Most important is cold damage per totem, you end up with a whopping 240% increased cold damage. Second affix should be proc avalanche boulder on spell cast.
Relic
either leech relic with Avalanche levels or Havar’s set relic (mostly for the shred armour)
Most important blessings are Spell Leech and Shred Cold Resistance.
Passives
Penetration > base spell damage > attunement. Mana regeneration is king also.
How to get Defense
Rares/exile mages/nemesis get perma-frozen!
Totems tank some hits, useful during boss encounters.
Items
You can use Titan Heart if you go Staff. lots of %health, 15% damage reduction.
Cap resistances, get health (flat and %) & endurance/endurance threshold.
at least one of:
Spell leech relic
Spell leech blessing
On your belt get the cleanse when using potion.
Passives
I don’t use resistances from totems because I find it rippy. It’s ok for shamans using Totems as their main skill, but not for a caster shaman in my opinion. Feel free to do so though
Endurance & Endurance Threshold (20 per Maelstrom stack!)
Mana cost as health in the Druid tree.
Could also go for health regen per 3 attunement at the end but meh.
Quality-of-Life
Passives
Conflux for increased AoE, better clear but I don’t think it makes boulders overlap more or overlap less.
Cast Speed while totem is active (not DPS increase because we can’t outsustain the Avalanche mana cost).
Totem Duration to cast thorn totems less often, and better uptime for Warcry buffs.