Hey everyone this is Thyworm with a new build for Last Epoch, the Spriggan Slapper. If you are enjoying Last Epoch content, consider subscribing. Let’s start with the build philosophy.
[build philosophy]
The Spriggan is a shapeshifting form, just like werebear or reaper form. Out of all the available forms, it’s not used often at all, which is why I’m excited to try a build for this. It’s a build that is great when you’ve played a few characters I would say, and want to try something totally different. As a starter build, this probably isn’t an awesome idea, as there are some gear requirements. Big shoutout to QuietForMe, who streams at Twitch, as he’s sort of a spriggan master and provided me with a lot of great information.
The Spriggan is basically a summoner, and there are a few options. I went for big, scary, poisonous vines which slap the enemy and these things do a lot of damage. We are accompanied by another spriggan and a pack of wolves. While shapeshifted, you can’t use regular skills, so you’re rather limited as to what you can use, so we went ice thorns for defense.
Much later in the game, you can be a permanent spriggan, if you own the unique designed by QuiteForMe, the Legacy of the Quiet Forest, which has mana regeneration while in Spriggan Form as a stat. Normally, you don’t regen mana, just like with werebear, and as soon as you run out of mana, you transform back into human form. This unique is therefore vital to our build.
Some of the pros. The Spriggan is very tanky, able to withstand a lot of damage due to natural defences. It’s a summoner playstyle, at least this build is, which I personally like. The damage output is very decent as well, with the giant vines.
The cons. No movement skills, which means you can get swarmed by enemies or are simply too slow to avoid an aoe attack. Pretty big drawback. It’s a deceptively complex playstyle, because there are a lot of things you need to take into account. You get an entire new skill set in spriggan form, you have to manage spriggan and human form, you need to keep your companions alive, there’s a lot to do.
By the way, I’m streaming as well, on Twitch, every Monday, Thursday and Saturday 8PM CET. You can get a bunch of advice over there or in the discord, so hop in. I’ll help you out with any questions you might have.
Let’s see what the main stats are that you want
[WISH LIST]
We’re looking for attunement, minion melee damage, minion attack speed and some protections. Attunement scales incredibly well with all your skills and with the vines as well that you summon as a spriggan. All our minions, including our vines, do melee damage, so both increased and added melee damage is very strong. Protections are easy to get as a primalist, so we’re taking that route.
Let’s look at the passives
[passives]
Take 8/8 natural attunement, for that attunement. Take 1/6 gift of the wilderness and then go for the other minion stats over here. 6/6 primal medicine, for minion damage but mostly for that potion effect which really helps in the arena. Take 5/6 Ancient Call, for added health, increased health and revival speed for companions. At later levels, come back here and take 5/5 berserker, for the damage reduction at low health, because that has saved me a few deaths for sure.
We then move to druid to unlock the Spriggan. Take Soul’s attendant, for mana and attunement, both are very useful. And I took 7/8 woodlore, as this is a very good defensive passive node. That gives you enough points to unlock spriggan form.
For our mastery, we go Beastmaster, as it provides us a lot more benefits than the druid mastery.
Take 5/8 savagery, for minion melee damage. Take boar heart, granting the aspect of the boar which provides 15% reduced damage taken and enhance this with 5/5 porcine constitution, to bump that number up to 30%. Take 5/5 call of the pack, for health, companion health and healing when companions use an ability. This happens a lot for our wolves, which howl. The chase, 8/8, is a pretty amazing node, for attack speed, movement and revive speed. It’s underestimated, but revive speed is super important in arena, unless you’re willing to let your companions die. 5/5 axe and claw is added melee damage, pretty amazing. Our minions need some survivability, just like us, so 10/10 hawk wings does a pretty good job there. And Avian shelter, 10/10, gets your minions to the glancing blow cap, which helps so much. My wolves survive high waves of arena for a long time after I completed this node. And finally, take force of nature, for another wolf.
Skills are up next
[skill specialization]
We start with Spriggan form of course. I started out to the left, with 5/5 thick tendrils, increasing vine damage and then transformed those into great vines, giving them massive health, DPS and attack range. I would take ¾ tree sap next, as this slows the enemies when they’re hit with the vines, which ensures they remain in range for some additional slapping. As a spriggan, you can summon totems as well, and those hurt, so take 5/5 reinforced totem and get to spiked totem, turning the healing totems you’d normally summon into thorn totems. It uses the skill tree from thorn totems here, which is a great synergy. Finally, take defences, pretty much mandatory, 5/5 skin like bark, for 300 armor and protections. This makes you very tanky.
We are a spriggan, but we got a little spriggan sister as well, as a companion. The main purpose of this spriggan is some CC, because she casts entangling roots. Take 5/8 arboreal vitality, and then go for biomancer to have her cast entangling roots, and then take 4/4 barbed roots for increased damage. The barbed roots are not mandatory, you can take duration or spriggan health instead, which might be the better choice. The same is true for the bottom left, with 2/8 floral ascendance, 2/2 vale barrage and vale assault. Your spriggan pet casts a lot of green bolts, which really looks cool, but it’s not very effective. I appreciate the eye-candy however.
Then, our much more useful companions, the wolves. We got 4 of them. One from the unique amulet the fang, one from our mastery and one from a passive node. First, make the wolves howl, granting attack speed buffs to everyone around them, including you and all the vines. Take 2/5 on the hunt, just to get to 3/3 call of the wind, just to get to 2/2 battlecry. This node gives the wolves a 4% chance to cast howl when it hits a rare enemy or a boss. This seems like not much, but we have 4 wolves and this procs all the time. And it procs when we need it, when fighting strong enemies, a boss or a rare. That’s why I didn’t take victory howl and snarl, because I don’t need the howls after a kill, I want them during difficult fights. Instead, I went to summon more wolves, so I went 2/5 lupine endurance, just to get to ¾ wolfen recovery, which actually helps quite a bit, this much regen. Take 3/3 earthborn for armor and health leech, and finally pack hunters, increasing the companion size once more. To help the wolves survive, I took 4/4 canine agility, granting dodge.
I mentioned it already, but the summon totem skill from spriggan form makes use of the thorn totem skill tree. We’re taking the usual forested expanse, the eternal forest and the grove mind, to summon 5 totems at once in a ring. We then invest in poison, so go 2/5 memories of eterra, and take 5/5 venom tipped thorns, for 100% poison chance. 3/3 lasting affliction increases poison duration and nightshade briar makes totems hit a poisoned enemy harder. I didn’t go poison clouds, as I like my framerate as it is, which isn’t all that great to begin with, in this build. Our final point goes into totemic wisdom, reducing mana cost significantly.
Our last skill is ice thorns, because it can be cast when you’re being hit, and there’s really nothing else we can take in spriggan form. So go ¾ dagger thorns, just to get to 2/2 bramble armour and 4/4 spell thorns. You now have a 40% chance to cast ice thorns when hit. We turn ice thorns into a defensive spell, so take 1/3 anemophily, to get to thorn shield. This grants us armor and cold protection. We increase those numbers by taking 5/5 bark shield, and we increase the duration by taking 3/3 eternal protection. Our final point goes in bulb shield, for the recast chance.
Time to look at the gear.
[Gear]
My gear is nothing special, as usual, and everything can be found in the tunklabs description. There are however 2 uniques that are required to pull this build off. The first is the Legacy of the Quiet Forest, which grants mana regen while in spriggan form and a bunch of protections. This means that you can stay in spriggan form permanently, as long as you don’t cast too many spells or summon too many vines. The other unique is the Fang, which allows you to summon wolves up to your companion limit. My companion limit is 5, so I can summon up to 5 wolves, and they’re all howling. The fang also provides a very decent amount of minion melee phys damage. And minion stun immunity is actually huge.
The rest of my gear are mostly defenses, making me glancing blow capped, giving me protections and a bunch of minion stats. Get some minion health, some minion dodge and minion damage. Attunement remains a big stat to invest into. The pebbles femur, a necromancer wand, works really well for this build, grating minions over 100% increased melee damage. Make sure you take turquoise rings, for those additional minion stats.
Tunklabs:
[Levelling]
You can level any way you like until you get the spriggan form. It would make sense to go with a few companions, as you would already collect gear that would benefit this build, but it’s not required.
As soon as you unlock Spriggan Form, it becomes important that you get a bit of mana. During the campaign, you will be unable to sustain spriggan form, because the unique the Legacy of the Quiet Forest isn’t available until you reach level 50. You need to balance spriggan form and human form, and the more mana you have, the longer you can stay in spriggan form.
Finally, the play style during end game
[play style]
Here’s the build in action.
There’s actually a lot of stuff to take into account.
Most importantly, your own mana. You need to know when you’re about to transform back to human form, so that doesn’t surprise you. You need to manage your mana ideally, so you don’t transform back at all, in late game.
You can make use of a few skills in spriggan form. There’s the root wall, which taunts enemies. It’s rather useful, especially combined with a few great vines. The root taunts enemies, and the vines slap those enemies. The vines have their own aggro range as well, especially if they’re off-screen. They lure enemies and once again, slap them. Summon healing totem actually summons thorn totems and because of the poison mechanic, even without investing anything in damage over time, these things do a lot of damage, especially when summoned around a boss. Don’t use the RMB, ever.
During the campaign, you just run around planting vines. In the arena, you need to combine your different skills to be able to survive. Taunt when needed, group them up and plant vines, and of course dodge attacks and stay safe yourself.
You need to take care of your companions as well. Move them away from poison and void spikes, using A. Use them wisely, because they are very valuable. Your wolves really buff up everything when it matters most, including the thorn totems. Thorn totems with attack speed is pretty ridiculous and it kills the toughest of monsters fast.
The spriggan is definitely something completely different and despite its unconventional playstyle, it might be something you enjoy. It’s certainly an undervalued character.
I hope you have fun with the build and that the guide was useful. Thanks for watching and making it to the end. See you all soon! Bye bye.
