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Earthquake Werebear Druid Last Epoch Build

Earthquake Werebear Druid Last Epoch Build

Extremely powerful Melee build that utilizes Bhuldar's Wrath to trigger Earthquake ability for extra AoE Damage

Earthquake Werebear
Primalist/Druid Build

Updated for Patch 1.0
 

Build notes:
November 15, 2022
-Build created
February 27, 2024
-Updated for Patch 1.0

 

Build Overview

Earthquake is a powerful Melee Skill available to the Druid Class. With a proper setup, it creates 3 strong explosions, each more impressive than the previous one. Thanks to the Unique weapon called Bhuldar's Wrath you can trigger this Skill with any of your Movement abilities every 5 seconds, which allows you to ignore the Mana management or extra cooldown from the Skill Tree. Conveniently enough, one of the main Werebear Skills, Maul, counts as a Movement Skill, which makes up for great synergy. It doesn't deal as much damage as Earthquake, but it's strong enough to deal with lesser enemies on its own.

While that ability is on cooldown, you should spam your Swipe Skill to Shred the enemy's Armor with every Hit. You can improve its DPS by getting Items with Elemental Damage, Critical Strike bonuses, and extra Earthquake levels. You will have no problems maintaining the Werebear form - with every Maul, you will also summon 3 Vines that generate Rage for you. Being in that Form makes you extremely tanky on its own, as it provides lots of Health, Armor, and Health Leech with Critical Strikes. Rampage allows you to quickly move across the map making it a well-rounded Build to quickly farm Monoliths and Bosses. 

You can also view the full build on the Last Epoch planner here: Earthquake Druid Build

For the defenses, this build utilizes:

  1. Tons of Armor and Health from Werebear Form;
  2. High Health Leech;
  3. Aspect of the Boar from Beastmaster Passive Tree;
  4. Automatic Thorn Shield 

You can also check our other Last Epoch builds and character guides

 

 Pros
 Build mechanics involve great burst damage on a relatively short cooldown, which works amazingly well against Bosses and Rare enemies in the Echos. 
 It's very tanky thanks to the high Armor values and strong Health recovery. As long as you can fight your opponent, you will be Leeching tons of Heath. 
 One of the Werebear abilities, Rampage, allows you to quickly rush in a specific direction for an unlimited duration, which makes this a great mobility tool to quickly rush through the Echos. 
 All your Mana costs will be paid as a Rage instead. With all the Vines summoned, it's impossible to run out of Rage. 
 Cons
 Build requires level 76 and a certain easy-accessible Unique Weapon to show its true potential.  
 You won't have any Vines when you enter a new area, which can be a bit annoying to manage. You can enter the Spriggan Form and summon them manually to counter that. 

 

Passive Skill Trees

Primalist
Primalist Skill Tree (20 Points)

Notable Passives:

You will need to spend 20 points in the first Passive Tree to unlock more advanced options. In the first branch, put all your points into Primal Strength which will give you a solid amount of Strength and Health Regeneration. Hunter's Restoration grants you a lot of Health and a bit of extra healing every few seconds and unlocks the Survival of the Pack. That node is very important as it gives you Health Leech from your Melee Attacks and improves your Damage. Putting 1 Point into Gift of the Wilderness will give you a bit of Health and unlock other Passive Trees. 

Druid
Druid Skill Tree (55 Points)

Notable Passives:

Putting 5 points into Primordial Resonance will give you a very powerful bonus that grants 10% Elemental Penetration while Transformed. Thicket of Thorns is very important for your defense as it has a quite high chance to automatically cast Thorn Shield on you when you take a hit. Rancour stops the Rage decay when you are out of combat, so you don't have to worry about it all the time. Bush Stalker improves your Critical Strike Chance and grants you additional Leech with Critical hits once you invest 3 Passive Points into it. The Aspect of the Might makes your Strength more effective by adding an extra 1% of increased Damage per that Attribute. Rageborn improves your Critical Strike Chance, which is very important for a build that relies on them to deal Damage. Extra Rage generation is negligible as you will be on full Rage anyways. Chitinous Plating and Hideskin are there to improve your durability significantly.   

Beastmaster
Beastmaster Skill Tree (23 Points)

Notable Passives:

Passives from this Mastery Tree provide amazing defensive options at a low cost of investment. The Aspect of the Boar granted both by Boar Heart and Primal Strength gives up to 30% damage reduction, which is also further boosted by the Ursine Strength, which gives you an additional 16% reduced damage taken from nearby enemies. Ambush is a very potent Damage-increasing Passive, but it's hard to synchronize with your main skills, so just a few points put into it are enough. 
ShamanShaman Skill Tree (15 Points)

Notable Passives:

You will need to invest at least 15 Points into the Shaman Skill Tree to unlock the Earthquake Skill. The best way to do it is by taking the Ancient Stones Passive that grants you increased Damage and a Chance to Stun your enemies. Putting remaining points into Tempest Form will grant you a bit of Health and a Chance to Chill.

You can get insanely tanky with just your Passives. They grant you a lot of Health and ways to recover it. They also make your Strength attribute more effective. Druid's Rage decay Passives remove the stress of constantly gaining Rage while out of combat. 

 

Skills

Note: Left-Clicking on any of the ability trees below will open the full-size version in a new window. 

Earthquake

Earthquake - the main feature of this Build. By default, it causes you to slam the ground for one big explosion and create aftershocks for a short time after that.
The Specialization Tree will apply to the Earthquake triggered by your Unique Weapon. Seismic Tide is a very powerful notable that changes the functionality of the Skill. Instead of small aftershocks, the Earthquake erupts three times, which also unlocks better scaling possibilities. The trigger from your Weapon bypasses the increased cooldown from the Staggering Force Passive. 

earthquake

Werebear Form

Werebear Form - this Skill turns you into a Werebear. You get access to new Skills, improve your durability, and change the Mana costs of Skills into Rage costs.
Thanks to the specific Passives, such as Tremor Slam and Skull Crusher, you can benefit from your regular abilities. The Bringers of Storms converts your Physical Skills into Elemental type, so you can scale them alongside your Main Skill. 

Wearbear Form

Summon Wraith

Upheaval - this is one of your supportive damage Skills. It deals Damage in a short distance ahead of you and applies various ailments. 
It will be triggered automatically upon every Maul cast thanks to the previous Skill Tree. It deals decent damage and thanks to the Ice Peaks Notable it can apply the Chill effect, which is a required condition for the biggest damage boost on your Earthquake. 

Upheaval

Spriggan Form

Spriggan Form - this Form turns you into a forest Spiggan being. It's focused mostly on casting Spells so you won't be using this Form at all, but you can benefit from the Passives it grants.
Bulb Growth and all Notables on its path greatly enhance your Thorn Shield and give it a chance to recast itself after it expires. Garden of Rage is the most important here, as it's your main way to sustain Rage in your Werebear Form. You will be automatically summoning Vines with the Maul Skill in your Werebear Form. You can optionally enter the Spriggan Form and cast all 12 Vines when you enter a new instance, to make your Rage management easier. 

Spirggan Form

Fury Leap

Fury Leap - it's the main traveling skill of the Primalist Class. This Skill causes you to quickly leap long distances and deal Damage in the area where you land. 
Thanks to the Skull Crusher Notable from Werebear Form Tree, those Passives will also affect the Maul Skill. The most important one is Rise, as it will automatically spawn Vines for you. Gravity is a great utility Notable that pulls enemies closer to you every time you use Maul. 

Fury Leap

 

Items

Stat priority:

With this build, you deal all three types of Elemental Damage, but the most important one is the Fire Damage for your Earthquake. It also scales very well with the Strength, thanks to the Aspects of Might you get a total of 5% increased Damage for each point of that attribute. You will need some Critical Strike Chance on your gear to reliably deal Critical Strikes, and of course, Critical Strike Multiplier to boost their damage significantly. Getting some Cooldown Recovery Rate is very helpful as all your damage is gated by short cooldowns. As for your defense, try to get Critical Strike Avoidance capped to reduce the chance of getting killed with a single hit. Other than that, stack Health and Armor, while also getting various Resistances. Health Leech makes a great defensive tool that allows you to simply tank all the incoming damage that doesn't one-shot you. High Movement Speed in your Boots makes your farming smoother and more enjoyable. 

  1. Fire Damage
  2. Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier 
  3. Elemental Damage 
  4. Critical Strike Avoidance 
  5. Health 
  6. Resistances 
  7. Armor 
  8. Movement Speed 

Recommended Unique Items: 

 

Bhuldar's Wrath
  • +(65-90) Melee Fire Damage
  • +(200-400)% Chance to Shred Armour on Hit
  • 100% Chance to use Earthquake after using a Non-Channelled Movement Ability every 5 seconds
  • Earthquake is Converted To Fire
  • 100% of Armour Shred Chance Converted to Ignite Chance for Earthquake

Bhuldar's Wrath - it's a necessary Item to fully make this build work. Thankfully it's very easy to farm by killing Bosses of the Spirits of Fire Timeline. You still have to pay the Mana cost of the triggered Skill, that's why its important to use the Werebear Form. Armour Shredding is very strong at increasing the damage you deal, you can apply it with your Maul and Swipe attacks. 

Logis Hunger
  • +(2-3)% Fire Critical Strike Chance
  • (5-8)% of Fire Damage Leeched as Health on Crit
  • (50-80)% Increased Leech Rate
  • +(2-3)% Minion Critical Strike Chance
  • +2 to Fire Minion Skills

Logi's Hunger - this Amulet gives an incredible amount of base Critical Strike Chance and improves your Leech. The base Implicits of the Bone Amulet are one of the best out of all Amulets, as they grant you a lot of Physical and Necrotic Resistance. It also drops from the same Boss encounter as your Weapon.

Mourningfrost
  • (40-100)% increased Melee Fire Damage
  • (40-100)% increased Melee Cold Damage
  • 40% Chance to gain Haste for 1 second on Hit
  • 40% less Damage Taken While Moving
  • +1 to Fire Melee Skills
  • +1 to Cold Melee Skills

Wings of Argentus - you will have to be a bit lucky to obtain this Armour from the Empowered Stolen Lance Timeline' Boss encounter, but it's very worth it trying. You will be Moving almost all the time, which will give you a huge Damage Taken reduction. It also gives you a lot of DPS, as a direct Melee Fire Damage increase, and indirectly by boosting your main Skill level. 

Throne of Ambition
  • You gain a stack of Ambition when you hit a boss or rare enemy (1 second cooldown)
  • 2% more Fire Damage per stack of Ambition
  • 2% more Cold Damage per stack of Ambition
  • 2% more Armour per stack of Ambition
  • 20 Maximum Stacks of Ambition
  • You lose all stacks of Ambition if you go 4 seconds without gaining a stack

Throne of Ambition - this Idol is one of the best items you can get to fight long battles. It requires a bit of ramp-up before you get the full benefits, but it's really hard to get better stats on a single Item. It also happens to drop from the same Boss as the previous Unique Armour!

Idols:

It's recommended to get the Throne of Ambition unique Idol, as it's very powerful. In 20 seconds of the fight, you can accumulate up to 400% increased Fire Damage and Armour! Other than that, try to get as many Grand Heorot Idols which will grant you an increased Critical Strike Multiplier while Transformed modifier. Fill the remaining slots with Idols that boost your Life and grant missing Resistances or Armour. 

Recommended Blessings:

  • The Black Sun: this Timeline has plenty of good choices, but the best one is the Critical Strike Multiplier. You can also lean on the defensive side here, and grab Health or Leech Rate.  
  • The Age of Winter: you can get many great defensive Blessings here, most notably the % increased Armour one. 
  • Spirits of Fire: a very powerful Blessing awaits you there. Chance to Shred Fire Resistances will greatly improve the Damage you deal, but you can also opt for the increased Fire Damage or flat Armor. 
  • Reign of Dragons: Blessings from this Timeline will greatly help you by covering the Resistance you lack on your gear. Critical Strike Avoidance is the most important one to cap. 
  • Ending the Storm: you can get a lot of Lightning Resistance in this Timeline's Blessing. Increased Stun Chance is also very useful, it will make your Boss fights much more enjoyable. 

 

END NOTE

This is the beta version of our Earthquake Werebear Druid Build for Last Epoch, which makes great use of Bhuldar's Wrath Unique Weapon. We had amazing results with the final form of this Build, and we can attest you won't be disappointed with it. If you enjoy high bursts of damage and don't like to worry about mana management, you have to try out this Build! Future Patches can change the performance of this Build, we will keep our eyes on it and update this guide accordingly to the game's growth. 

Pictures used in this article are the intellectual property of Eleventh Hour Games