Hey everyone this is Thyworm with a revisited build for Last Epoch, the Werebear Druid. If you are enjoying Last Epoch content, consider subscribing.
I already made a build guide for this and there is hardly anything that changed, so consider this video an add-on, where I explain the differences. The area’s that were altered are the passives and gear. Everything else is the same. It’s still a very viable arena build, it’s super tanky, it’s not the fastest but surely a very solid monolith runner, and we’re a polar bear now, just because we can.
Original video: https://youtu.be/El1dNpFX35o
Time stamps:
0:53 — Wish List
1:00 — Passives
3:11 — Gear
4:51 — Playstyle
*** TunkLabs Gear: ***
If you want to discuss this build in more detail, you can find me on my Discord. Feel free to join, link is in the description down below. I’m also streaming on Twitch, every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, 8PM CET. We run a very beginner-friendly stream over there and I’ll answer all your questions about Last Epoch.
I’m skipping a lot and we’re diving directly into the wish list.
[Wish List]
You’re looking for protections, health leech, and some health. Of course you get glancing blow capped and crit avoidance capped as well.
Then, the passives, which were completely overhauled.
[passives]
We take 6/6 Gift of the wilderness, for flat health. 7/8 natural attunement is nice, because attunement scales well and gives elemental protections too. Take 1/8 primal strength, just to get to 6/6 survival of the pack, for a lot of leech and some melee damage. Once you reach high level, the new passive node berserker is definitely worth an investment, taking 30% less damage on low health is a life saver in the arena.
We go into the druid tree, where we take 6/6 blood claws, for a lot of leech. 3/10 barkskin is nice for the flat health and then go 8/8 woodlore, for vitality, health and poison protection. This node gives you a lot of bang for your buck. Take 8/8 spirit claws for some added physical damage to your attacks.
Then, we get to a bit of a balancing act on critical strike. You need to be 100% crit strike to maintain your mana in werebear form and the way the skills are specced, this means that when you’re not fighting, you should be at 60% melee crit strike rating. Then, once you swipe once in bear form, it should go up to 100%. It depends on your base crit, which is largely determined by your weapon, so your results may vary a bit, but just take a polearm with a bunch of crit and this should be okay. For me, I require 9 points in this node and then 8/8 Ursine Maw and 2/8 Soothing Slaughter, just to get 60% melee crit. My final nodes are protection nodes, 6/6 Oaken Form and then 4/8 Briar Guard, which I will fill up once I get more levels.
We take beastmaster nodes too. Take 1/8 in savagery, just to get to 1/8 Ambush, which gives you aspect of the shark, increasing melee damage by 50% and attack speed by 10%. Decent buff for 2 points of investment. Then, take 8/8 Ursine Strength, for strength and flat health, and then 5/5 boar heart, for aspect of the boar, which has you take 15% less damage for 5 seconds when hit. We increase that to 30% less damage taken, by using 5/5 porcine constitution.
We skip skills, check the original video, really nothing has changed. And we move to gear.
[Gear]
A lot of new gear got added since our last build in 0.7.6, so we’ve upgraded a bit. I’m glancing blow capped making use of the set glancing blow affixes. I’m crit avoidance capped, making use of idols and gear. We equipped Kermode’s Cage, so we can be a polar bear, which just looks cool. I really enjoy the design of this unique, as it is truly unique and very original I feel, and it’s not a bad item either to have. A crafted rare can be much better. You can also equip the unique, shapeshift, and then equip another armor. The game still thinks you’re a polar bear, even without wearing the unique. It’s because the game never checks in between if anything changed after casting a spell. Especially on long lasting DoTs, this can really hurt your build if you don’t understand that concept. I might make a small video about it, because it’s quite interesting and potentially a bug.
Other gear is mostly defensive. The new stuff like the icewolf pelt and the solarum bracers are nice and synergize well. You definitely want a polearm, for the implicit crit and then you want to craft it with more flat crit strike and added melee phys damage, for optimal results. Attack speed is good too. Chimera’s essence is a big boost in DPS, and I like the item a lot. It’s a very common unique drop.
Idols give me crit avoidance and physical damage and some more crit chance.
Once again guys, I’m not running optimal gear, because I want to make builds that work with average gear, so you don’t have issues in end-game if you don’t have super good gear. As you get a better understanding of the game, it’s not difficult to create better gear for this character, but for now it works really well.
I’ll link my gear in a tunklabs url as well.
[Levelling]
[play style]
Here’s the build in action.
Nothing in terms of levelling and play style changed. There’s a cool set, specifically made for a werebear that you can level with if you have it. It should be good. And the build apart from that is as straightforward as they come really. You might even say it’s boring. But I enjoy it, being a polar bear, swiping enemies, tanking every enemy. It’s great for arena, it’s great for hardcore too, as dying is really a challenge.
If you have any questions guys, once more, easiest way is to hop in the Discord or the streams, Twitch, every Monday, Thursday and Saturday 8PM CET.
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.