Really fun and good Build Guide.
End end game lvl 97: Beastmaster, Level 97 (LE Beta 0.8.5b) - Last Epoch Build Planner
Early empowered monolith lvl 88: Beastmaster, Level 88 (LE Beta 0.8.5b) - Last Epoch Build Planner
Loot Filter: The Zookeeper.xml (46.7 KB)
My Second Indie Gaming Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPBEo38iPrA7bKH7PI6dLuw
It’s a straightforward build really, but very satisfying, because your minions crit a ton, and it’s fun and engaging to play.
Thanks to @Llama8 for the help on the forum tags below.
Intro
Hello lovely people, Thyworm here with another extensive build guide for Last Epoch Patch 0.8.5. If you enjoy Last Epoch content, consider subscribing, it really helps me out, and I’m making a lot of Last Epoch content for you to enjoy. I have a second channel too, with indie games, so check that out. You can find the written guide, this script, on the forum. Timestamps are available. And the build is available in the Last Epoch Build Planner. See the description for all of this.
I levelled this character from scratch in solo self found, and put around 30 hours into it. These are honest build guides, with no cheating going on, to give you a fair take on a build. Overall, it’s a fun minion build that comfortably runs 200-ish corruption and tier 3 dungeons and tier 4 arena. Tier 4 dungeons is another beast though, I couldn’t pull that off, either with Julra or Soulfire Bastion. The build just isn’t tanky enough for that amount of incoming damage.
I made a few snapshots of the build as well, which I will share. I saved my character after completing the regular monolith, so you know my gear when I just started doing empowered timelines. I then left SSF, dove into my stash and equipped additional upgrades, as well as simply keep playing for better gear, and I managed to create a really solid end game character. I will be covering the final version, level 95, but feel free to check the build planner for both, to get a good indication what you can expect at different stages of end-game.
Pros
It’s a 1-button build, with 4 autocasts
It proves that minions can actually survive higher corruption, if built correctly
You fight next to your minions, so it’s an active playstyle
It has really smooth levelling after you become a beastmaster
It’s a good Good boss killer, with high DPS uptime from minions
It has Decent survivability
It has Good performance in terms of framerates
Cons
Not very controller friendly, because you don’t want to self cast the companion abilities
Bit of a rough start with just minions. You’re also fairly slow while levelling, without any movement skills.
The transition to empowered timelines gets your minions killed quite a bit, until you get better gear
Build is not a speedmapper. It’s not slow, but it’s not the fastest build on the market.
Build Requirements
You don’t need any special items to make this build viable in regular monolith, meaning you have a lot of time to get some uniques, if you’re a new player. For empowered timelines however, and generally just level 95+ content, there are some uniques you really want to have. Artor’s Legacy, the helmet, gives you 1 more companion, which is a straight up damage multiplier of course. I used Death Rattle for a long time, a crit multiplier, but that also lets your minions take more damage. It’s a worthy trade-off at lower levels. At higher levels, it’s not sustainable, and you want to swap to The Fang, the amulet giving you wolves up to your companion limit, as well as giving your minions stun immunity. It saves you points in the wolf skill tree too. Ribbons of Blood is a great item for leech, and it makes minions immune to crit. We’re relying on minion leech to have them survive, so increased leech rate is amazing. And Eterra’s Path I feel is simply hard to beat. Minion movement speed is huge quality of life, and there’s a decent chunk of health on those boots too.
Then, the build philosophy
Build Philosophy
This build is very, very straightforward. We summon a bear which taunts away enemies. We have a raptor because it’s cool, and because that raptor does massive damage. And we fill up the zoo with wolves, 4 of them. Their howl buffs every other minion, as well as yourself. A frenzy totem, turned into a sloth totem, provides you some haste, and it provides the minions a bunch of stats, as well as slow down the enemies. And swipe, finally, is our mana generator, we leech life with it, and it has culling strike for bosses. It’s well-rounded, all-purpose build, you can’t go wrong, and I feel it’s a more solid build than necromancer builds with skeletons, because your companions are much tankier, as are you as a beastmaster.
Here you see my small army on a regular dummy. Lots of numbers, but it ranges from 50k to over 100k per hit and you can see this is a lot of hits per second. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to half a million DPS or even more, on a single target. On the boss dummy, still very acceptable numbers, between 20-30k.
Defences are coming from a decent health pool, aspect of the boar in late game, and overall tanky stats on the beastmaster, as well as leech. Minions leech too, they’re stun immune, and crit immune. And the higher level you are, the more defences minions get, don’t forget that.
So, what do you need in terms of stats? Here’s the wish list.
Wish List
In terms of defences, make sure to get res capped of course, and get 100% crit avoidance. As soon as you get into the second island of the monolith, it’s really required, I would say. Early on, you can use the woven flesh for easy crit avoidance. The blessings in the monolith can help a lot here too, as well as idols. Furthermore, you want health, leech maybe and that’s about it. Make sure to get minion health.
In terms of offence, we’re scaling strength. It gives armor and minion scaling. You want to get minion leech, so they don’t die. This doesn’t work at low levels by the way, because the minions don’t do enough damage, but as soon as you hit the breaking point, and the minions start critting, this works like a charm. I take also generic minion damage. And armor shred is a big one here, because we’re physical damage minions. Shredding armor increases damage to enemies massively and is worth investing into, especially because we deal a lot of attacks.
You don’t care about mana, because we gain mana anyway, and we’re always out of mana, no matter how large our pool is. It’s fine.
Let’s look at the skill specialization and skills we’re using
Skill Specialization
I will not discuss each point invested, but instead focus on the most important nodes. You can see everything in the build planner yourself. And please check out both planners for some of the nuances there too.
Summon Wolf
Let’s start with summon wolf. You want to path towards Pack Hunters ASAP, because it gives you an additional companion. And depending on whether you got the unique the claw or the fang, you should either go to safety in numbers, because that lets you fill up the companion limit with wolves, or you have those uniques, and then you don’t need this node. Once you have all your wolves, I would fill up Legendary bite. The stun and crit and more damage are very good. Then 3 points in Savage Hunters, for even more damage. Finally, once you get the Fang unique amulet, you take the howling nodes. These are good, because it means your wolves are consistently howling, which is very important for our crit chance, later down the line when we get to Summon Frenzy Totem. And howl is just a big DPS increase for everyone affected.
Swipe
Up next, Swipe. This is purely a utility skill in our build. Damage isn’t important. First, you path towards duality of nature, so you can sustain the autocasts. Then, take Feline Hunter, because attack speed means more mana. Then I would path towards Culling, for culling strike at 14%, great for bosses. Fill up Wengarian Reach, so you have more AOE, meaning you hit more enemies. Finally, you just fill up the tree like in the planner, or you put your own spin on it.
Summon Raptor
Then, from being a beastmaster, you get summon raptor. The order here really doesn’t matter a lot, just do whatever you want. We’re building this thing with full damage though, because we need him to do tons of damage, so he leeches a lot of health. That is how the minions survive. Scent of blood might be a strange choice, but getting a source of bleed is super easy, barely an inconvenience, and 50% more damage is extremely strong, against bleeding targets. Ravage is there for the crit, that is a lot of crit, and a lot of crit multi.
Summon Bear
Then summon bear. I first took all the crit nodes on the left, once again synergizing with crit. Then the swipe nodes on the right, so the bear does some AOE for clear. And then the final points in some more health. Once again, full damage bear.
Summon Frenzy Totem
Finally, Summon Frenzy Totem. This skill you ideally get 22 points in. You can get +2 to frenzy totem on a relic. It’s very achievable and they show up as bright green on the loot filter. First you path to symbol of haste, because this gives you haste for 3 seconds when you summon the totem, and this is huge quality of life. The build is really rather slow up until this points, and the movement speed helps a lot. Then, Bestial frenzy is 20 flat minion damage, which is nuts, because from this base damage you have all the crit scaling. And then a very important node, Lead the Pack. This gives the wolves’ howl when it is used a 250% crit chance to everyone affected by howl. As soon as you have flat crit damage for minions on your chest, and you have this node, and you have your wolves howling most of the time or even constantly, your minions are crit capped and your damage is now through the roof. It might take some time to reach this point, and your build does plenty of damage without everyone critting, but as soon as you reach this point, the build feels extremely good, your minion just rip enemies to pieces, and they leech massive amounts of health in the process too. This is when the build really comes together. Furious cry refreshes all companion abilities, including howl, so that’s great. This drains mana of course, but we fill it up with swipe. And finally, the final points go into sloth totem, because in my opinion by now you don’t need frenzy anymore. I’d rather take some defences, and slowing enemies down is a life saver. It provides armor shred too, which is another mechanic we’re using for the minions.
Time to look at the passives.
Passives
I will just highlight a few interesting decisions, as most of this is rather straightforward, given what I already told you before.
In the base tree, take Primal strength, for strength. Follow up with Survival of the pack, for that leech. Fill up Hunter’s restoration for some health, and take 1 point in Primal Medicine. The 6 points in Ancient call you take much later, at around level 80 or so, once you got all the damage nodes done.
Then, beastmaster. Ursine strength, for strength and less damage taken. You take aspect of the boar, and its upgrade porcine constitution, for 30% less damage taken. At very high level once again, level 90 or so, you take primal strength to proc the aspect of the boar when you’re attacking, instead of only when you’re taking damage. Axe and claw is great, for flat damage. Cry of the lynx, 5 points, for some crit and 5 second duration. This gives you aspect of the lynx, giving you and minions 100% increased crit chance, and also 100% stun chance. With the stun chance of the wolves, this isn’t bad actually. This aspect activates when you use a companion ability, which is pretty much all the time. Maybe you don’t even need 5 points, just make sure it’s always up, this aspect. Follow up with Serrated claws, for crit multiplier, which is great of course. Force of nature is mandatory, plus one companion. That’s another wolf right there. Ancient might, more flat damage, great. And strength. And then there’s finally a whole Aspect of the Shark line with one point in savagery, just to get to ambush, just to get to rending maw. Aspect of the shark gives 10% attack speed, only to you, normally speaking, and it activates if you hit a target. Rending Maw gives armor shred as well, shredding 100 armor on each hit. Hunters of the deep gives your companions aspect of the shark, so now they shred armor, on every hit. Insane. Don’t forget Lamprey Teeth, for that juicy leech. You take circle of life, 1 point, to get to ocean maw, giving aspect of the shark 120% effect. That means the buff goes from 10% attack speed to like 22% attack speed, and I think armor shredding now shreds 220 armor per hit, but that’s really hard to verify, honestly. In-game, at least. The duration however is worth it either way, to make sure your minions never run out. Because the thing is, only you can proc the aspect of the shark. You need to attack something. And you’re not always able to, so duration is great. Then, the final min max nodes. Call of the pack is flat health for you and your companions, really strong for end game. Life in the wilderness shares your endurance with minions. It’s not much, but it helps. And vitality is nice too. And that’s it.
Then, also very important, Gear
Gear
As per usual, my gear is okay on the build planner at the end of the regular monolith, level 88, and really quite good in the end end game build planner, level 95. The tier 5 flat minion crit chance is mandatory at some point. This will cap your minion crit with everything going on. Get +2 frenzy on the relic. Get the uniques I talked about. The rest is just very decent exalted items. Ideally you get turquoise jewelry, for additional crit multiplier, but it’s more important you stay alive. The minions already do tons of damage. It’s important to realize that your 1-handed weapon is just a stat stick, so use it like that. I prefer a shield personally, for extra tankiness. You can opt for a beefy 2-hander too, if you want.
Idols
For idols, you have a lot of options really. At the levelling and early monolith phase, it’s much more viable to use larger idols with stats like minion attack speed, minion crit chance, minion physical damage, that sort of thing. You will see the results. At total end game, I got rid of all of that, and just filled it up with health and resistances, because your minions at this point attack so fast, and crit for so much damage, it’s really not necessary to give them 15% attack speed. I’d rather get tankier for higher tier content.
Blessings
For blessings, I’m pretty much taking all the resistance blessings, because I don’t want to deal with resistances. It’s really nothing special, just check the builder. I’m not even capped on grand resistances, just because I can’t be bothered to grind all of them.
Loot Filter
I created a loot filter from scratch. Big warning, use this at your own risk. This is once again the same filter I used last time, and I tweaked it even a bit more. I used this thing myself in Solo Self Found, meaning I’m quite confident in it. I levelled all the way to level 91 using this filter. Let me walk you through it. I recolored idols for you with affixes you want. I made flashy green all the affixes that give you levels for the skills you’re using, like Frenzy Totem, and also the flat minion crit chance is green, because it’s so vital for the build. Then there are hide rules which kick in at higher levels, making sure no low-level stuff drops anymore. Use at your own risk. The loot filter shows normal items till level 10, it hides all non-primalist gear except uniques, set items and exalted items, and it shows mostly weapons with minion melee damage on it. And then there are more colors for all your other loot, starting at the bottom with yellow and gradually getting stricter all the way to purple. At some point, I put a level cap on those rules, so yellow items will show up until a certain character level, and then not anymore. This is true for all colors.
Play Style
Here’s the build in action.
Once again, it is really straightforward. You can take quite a beating yourself. Your minions can stand in AOE no problem, they hardly ever die, if at all. You’re all one peachy, leeching family, the zookeeper and the zoo animals, I’m really not sure what else to tell you about this.
Levelling
Talking about Levelling for a bit. The very start is slow, and minions die a lot, but as soon as you have the beastmaster mastery, some levels, a bit of gear, and some skillpoints in the minion skills, it really ramps up fast. So don’t be discouraged if your wolves get annihilated at level 15. It’s normal, unfortunately. The build will start to feel better and better though, all the way till 200 corruption, so that’s worth something. The one exception here can be the swap from regular to empowered monolith. Depending on your gear, you may be around level 78 or so, you may have 1000 health, and your minions may not be that strong, and they may not be crit capped. This is a point where your minions start dying again, but just remember to give them more health, more damage, level up so they get more defences, and try to get the flat crit on the chest. Might be a bit rough, but they will improve quite a bit, quite fast.
Let’s talk some Monolith modifiers
Monolith
Generally, the only thing I would avoid is giving enemies crit avoidance, because we’re a full crit build, and crit avoidance takes a lot of damage away. Maybe more so than this, I would avoid giving enemies more than 150% damage or so, because while at 200 corruption your minions can leech through regular damage, they do die once you put a 200% damage modifier on the enemy. So if you got the choice, give the enemies health, resistances (which we shred anyway), and other defensive stuff. Your damage output can easily handle tanky monsters. That was my strategy at least, and it worked fairly well.
I spent at least 30 hours grinding it out, levelling to level 97, plus the additional time writing a guide and recording and editing a video. A guide like this easily takes 40 hours to make, which is why I don’t release so many of them. Once again, I had a lot of fun creating this build, all the way from scratch to finish. I do hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like, toss a sub to the channel because I create more extensive guides like this, and finally, thanks for watching. See you soon, love you all, bye bye.
time to look at the build planner again !