Dual-Form Ward Generator Druid Build Guide

More Ward at times than the game can display on your health bar!

30K-60K HP lets you "facetank" almost all content

Very safe against bosses

Very safe for Hardcore

One of the best builds to push the Endless Arena

Has defensive layers against all damage types and ailments

Can virtually take on all map modifiers—no need to choose which maps you can play!

Easy transition of skills from leveling the character with Crackling Assault Werebear

Accessibility - requires only 2 active skills to play

Low single target damage and damage against bosses

Getting your ward up when first entering a map can take a few seconds

Ward, unlike Health, ticks down and therefore requires constant upkeep with skills

Rare uniques like Throne of Ambition and Plague Bearer's Staff are relied on to push the build to the max

As I mentioned, the main focus of the build is to have an incredibly large health pool (see video for demo) by generating as much ward as possible with Leaf Barrier. Let me first explain the mechanics of that specific interaction and how we make use of it, and then explain how we manage to build damage on the build.

Ward Generation

Leaf Barrier gives you Ward equals to your armor each time you enter Spriggan Form. This means that we want to scale this ability in 3 ways:

1. Have as much Armor as possible
2. Have as much Ward Retention as possible
3. Enter Spriggan Form as frequently as possible

Let's start with number 1. We scale Armor's effectiveness with %Armor, Strength and miscellaneous nodes like Thicket of Thorns 5/5. (Strength only scales our melee damage and we already get an additive %armor increase from it, so don't worry about too many of those affixes on your gear.) The last item which improves our Armor that we aim to get is Throne of Ambition. The main source of our Armor then comes from Thorn Shield. It is further scaled in effectiveness with all the nodes we invest in on the Spriggan Form tree (see tree below). Because Thorn Shield is a spell that has to be cast, we further scale our Armor/Ward by increasing our Cast Speed.

When it comes to our Ward, PrefixIntelligence provides 4% Ward Retention per point. As a Primalist we get little else from it. Ward Retention can further be found on items like the Opulent Focus. The main source of our Ward Retention comes from using Frostbite Shackles which allows us to scale our Ward Retention with our Cold Resistance.

When it comes to number 3, the obvious answer is to have as much SuffixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed and PrefixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed While Transformed as we can get on our gear. This is crafted on our Boots and Belt and then Helmet respectively. We also use Ancestral Garb and Opal Ring. This reduces the cooldown of our transform abilities to 3-3.5 seconds. Which means we use Leaf Barrier every 6-7 seconds.

The next piece of the puzzle is Roar of the Woodland which gives +4 seconds to all stacks of Thorn Shield on us when entering Werebear Form. This allows us to keep a higher number of Thorn Shield stacks on ourselves at a given time, which translate into Ward when we enter Spriggan Form again.

This basically dictates the main tempo and rotation of our build: every 3.5 seconds we shift between Werebear Form and Spriggan Form.

It's also worth noting that aside from our raw health pool, we also have 83-85% damage mitigation from armor and fairly high damage over time reduction with the right items as well as consistent cleanse.

Dealing Damage

First let me describe how we build our non-reflect damage, as if you rely on thorn damage alone you will do virtually no damage to bosses.

The main problem with making this build work is finding a way to deal (non-reflect) damage. This is because we spend half the time of our rotation in Spriggan Form, and all we do in that form is cast Thorn Shield which is very hard to scale damage on, as almost all of our points on the Spriggan Form tree go into building Armor. Therefore to make this build do damage you need a way to deal damage both in Werebear Form and Spriggan Form. The best way I found to do that is with a combination of Cold DoTs, ailments like Frostbite (which can also be applied with Thorn Shield) and spell damage.

Frostbite Shackles gives us a chance to apply Frostbite on hit. The Druid Passive Tree also holds additional ways to scale Frostbite and Cold damage like River Spirits 5/7 and Piercing Gale 6/8. We use Werebear Form's Crackling Assault 5/5 as the main form of applying Frostbite and other Ailments. We also take Wisened Claws on the Werebear tree to increase our spell damage while in Werebear Form.

Maelstrom is the main source of our damage, and because we want to have high Attunement—which I'll get to why when talking about Reflect Damage—we can scale its damage by a decent amount by speccing into Turbulence 5/5 once we have at least 60 Attunement. The way we generate Maelstrom is with Warcry and Whirlpool 4/4 which is going to be cast 2-3 times each cycle of our 7 second rotation (depending on whether or not you have Shallow Breath 1/1). We also take Power of the Storm 1/1 which gives us another passive way to cast lightning bolts around us that apply ailments. Maelstrom also provides Frenzy and Haste.

Warcry gives us additional cold damage, a way to apply Chill and a way to Cleanse ourselves of Ailments with Purging Shout 1/1 while in Werebear Form.

Break Yourself Upon My Body (Reflect Damage)

OK, and now to the most fun and silly part of the build.

Last Epoch has a few ways to build reflect damage, but in reality there is only one way that is actually effective at doing so. Which is using the unique shield Thornshell. Thornshell doesn't provide a lot of flat reflect damage, instead it multiplies all of your base reflect damage by 5-9% for each point of Attunement you have. So at, let's say 60 Attunement, with a max roll Thornshell, your flat reflect damage does 540% more damage. This is why I told you before that you want to have fairly high Attunement.

By itself that wouldn't benefit us all that much, except that because we already try to get as many stacks of Thorn Shield at once as we can, and because we have access to Briar Shell 5/5 on the Spriggan Form tree, this build already specializes at stacking flat reflect damage. When fully geared and with 60+ Attunement, monsters that hit you can take 30-40K damage per hit. All you have to do is stand in place and watch as every monster that hits you goes poof as it vanishes from existence.

The limitation of reflect damage, obviously, is that enemies actually have to hit you. This means that certain enemy types, like bosses and some monsters that mostly use damage over time, cannot be consistently damaged with thorns.

A note on Reflect Damage: it is considered an independent type of damage and is calculated separately. Therefore it cannot be increased by general %damage modifiers unless directly specified, like in the case of Thornshell.

Optional 5th Skill

When it comes to your 5th skill you have a couple of options.

Summon Storm Crows is what I recommend you use when beginning to gear up. The Crows provide you extra Ward Retention from Ornithology 5/5 (80% with 2 Crows). They can also act as Ward generators with the use of Goodberries and Silverberries if you choose to go Low Life with the build, which is an option at the beginning when you're just starting to run Monoliths. If you are choosing to go Low Life(ish), get Last Steps of the Living from Formosus ASAP (50% drop rate). We only take Berserker 5/5 if using Last Steps' together with Exsanguinous. Otherwise we can't stay at <35% health.

The problem with Storm Crows at higher difficulties is that they die too often, take too much of an investment and aren't as good as the other options once we have enough Ward Retention going.

Eterra's Blessing is what I do recommend you use as your 5th skill. Rosebloom makes Eterra's Blessing cast with each cast of Thorn Shield. Purge is amazing for us as it solves many of our damage over time and ailment problems. Ancestral Renewal 1/3 makes it so that your Healing Totem is summoned automatically (which provides you cast speed). And Safeguard 5/5 gives us additional Ward Retention and Poison Resistance.

How to Play

As I mentioned, the gameplay involves a 7 second rotation:

1. When you enter Spriggan Form you cast Thorn Shield on yourself* nonstop until the cooldown of Werebear Form is up
2. When Werebear Form is up, you transform
3. Upon entering Werebear Form you use Rampage** nonstop until the cooldown of Spriggan Form is up again
4. When Spriggan Form is up, you transform and start the rotation again

* Make sure to keep your cursor away from your Healing Totems so that Thorn Shield is not cast on them instead of you! Also, if using Eterra's Blessing Healing Totem is summoned automatically.

** Roar is used automatically in this build. You may want to wait for the 3rd Roar while in Werebear Form before transforming into Spriggan Form to prioritize damage over ward.

The transition from our leveling build into the final build is quite smooth as most of our skills remain the same with a few alterations. The reliance on Ward instead of Health only becomes viable for us when we start doing Monoliths, and implementing Spriggan Form into the gameplay rotation too early would only slow us down.

The leveling build is based on an endgame build I call "Electric Werecar," where we use Rampage and Crackling Assault as the main damage ability to do lightning damage around us while charging forward.

Rampage, being a movement ability, literally allows you to move through each map of the campaign as fast as it takes to run that distance in a straight line. And the damage from the lightning bolts is good enough to kill most enemies around you as you simply run past them to the next objective. So we get constant kills and XP with virtually zero downtime. (This in my opinion is the fastest way to level a Druid.)

A note about leveling: You really don't need any special gear until you finish the campaign. And white items with enough Forging Potential can carry you until you get to Monoliths.

Starting a New Primalist

The most important thing is to find or craft raw SuffixHealth on all pieces of your gear and to take most of the early Health nodes on your Passive Tree—don't worry, as respeccing those early nodes later is very cheap. Also make sure to craft PrefixMovement Speed on your boots. Don't worry about any other resistances or defense. You just need health and healing.

1. When you're starting a new character as the Primalist, look for a 2H weapon with added melee damage (PrefixMelee Cold Damage, PrefixMelee Physical Damage etc.) and SuffixHealth On Melee Hit. Remember you can also craft those if you have the affix shards. Use the Summon Wolf active and Swipe until you have access to Maelstrom at level 12
2. Use Fury Leap to move through the map faster
3. Any rings that can improve our movement speed are great for leveling. Look for Silver Rings and use Arboreal Circuit if you have it
4. You want to start leveling Warcry in your second skill slot once you get access to it
5. When you unlock Maelstrom, slot it into your first skill slot and start leveling it together with Warcry
6. Look for a staff with high spell damage (Sacrificial Staff) and craft either PrefixDamage Over Time, PrefixCold Damage or PrefixSpell Damage on it
7. Maelstrom is now your main damage ability. Use Tempest Strike on your bar for when you run out of mana between casts of Maelstrom. Reserve Warcry for when you are surrounded by enemies and need to stun them and heal
8. When you start getting points for Maelstrom, spec at least 2 points into Healing Winds 2/3 before anything else as you're going to need the sustained heal in the early game
9. Once you have a couple of points into Whirlpool on the Warcry skill tree, that allows Warcry to create stacks of Maelstrom, you can start using Warcry offensively
10. Remember to keep crafting more SuffixHealth on your gear as you level up
11. After you unlock your Druid specialization and your third skill slot, slot Werebear Form into it and start leveling it. You can replace Warcry on your bar with Werebear Form at this point
12. Here's a quick tip about Werebear Form: you can jump over certain terrain with the use of Maul. This allows you to create quite a few shortcuts in many areas of the game
13. Once you unlock Unending Storm 1/1 on the Werebear Form tree—which removes the cooldown off of Rampage—you want to start using Rampage as your main damage ability and run through the entire map with it as enemies around you die to the lightning bolts. Also at this stage of the game we want to spec into Power of the Storm and Energized on the Maelstrom tree which passively casts more lightning bolts around you
14. At this point you'd want to look to upgrade your staff to a higher damage one. You can always buy one if you didn't get any good drops
15. As our 4th skill, we pick up Summon Spriggan for extra healing, spell damage and crit avoidance. (See Early Leveling build in the Build Variants section)
16. At this stage the build is very strong and all you have to do is use Roar and Rampage to run to the next point on the map while almost all enemies around you die. In fact, this build is so good at running through the map that at some point you're going to find yourself underleveled. At which point it can be a good idea to run some of the maps that have higher enemy density a few times to get a few extra levels—at least if you are playing on Hardcore and you can't afford your character dying
17. The first suitable map for XP farming is Necropolis of the Deep in the Imperial Era. After that, it is recommended to farm some XP in Heoborea between The Heoborean Forest and The Wengari Fortress, as The Wengari Fortress holds a boss fight that is very dangerous and the next area holds an even more dangerous boss. If you are not playing on Hardcore however, dying might not affect you much. Another area that is excellent for target farming after Heoborea is the three maps on Lagon's Isle, and in fact I recommend that you complete all the quests in that area for a hefty XP bonus
18. When you get level 50, you can start leveling up Spriggan Form for when we make the transition away from the leveling build. It won't be of any use until then, but we don't really need our 5th skill anyway until that point
19. You can also spec into Swipe for the ability to use Summon Spriggan's heal in Werebear Form
20. Aside from the possibility of needing to do some XP farming, the rest of the campaign plays out much the same
21. Kill Majasa to finish the campaign, and start progressing through Monoliths. You can now continue to the Endgame section of this guide

*Remember that the game now allows you to directly buy certain items from other players!*

Mapping and Gameplay

Characters with this build can start pushing corruption on Empowered Monoliths fairly early on, as you can start generating very high amounts of ward (10-20K) with a few basic items. You just need decent cooldown reduction and ward retention. Resistances only become important when approaching 200 Corruption or so (as we have such a large base health pool).

I wouldn't worry much about which map modifiers to pick—the build should be able to handle all of them at once. When you're just mapping, most of the time is spent running and there's not a great risk that requires you to keep your ward especially high. You therefore only need a couple of casts of Thorn Shield to keep your ward at a safe number and can run the rest of the time. While in Werebear Form most of the time you're just using Rampage anyways, so you basically just need to chart the most geometrically efficient course of straight lines to your objective and keep charging forward.

Once you have a fairly large Reflect Damage on you and enemies are starting to get more tanky, it might be better while in Werebear Form to only use Rampage once and stand still the rest of the time so that enemies can hit you better (and take damage).

When you get to very high Corruption levels or Arena waves, where you actually start to feel like you're taking damage, you can swap Shallow Breath 1/1 and Eviscerating Howl 2/5 for 3 extra points into Deep Roar 4/5 on the Warcry tree. As the ability to use Warcry to freeze enemies can help you survive by staggering them.

If you still find yourself dying, you can change your Thornshell to something like Thornshell if it has more Cold Resistance and less thorn damage. If you absolutely have to, you can also change Thornshell for Opulent Focus, but it would reduce your general damage by quite a bit and slow down the gameplay. From my experience, that shouldn't be necessary until something like wave 900 on the Endless Arena.

Once you have Thornshell and 400%+ Ward Retention, the build and items you use remain the same no matter the situation. There is only one exception to that: for boss fights we change our weapon and off-hand for

Plague Bearer's Staff as it shortens the length of the fight, and we generally have more than enough survivability to ignore most mechanics, even with the Staff equipped.

Early Monoliths Progression

1. First, get to Blood, Frost and Death as early as you can. Kill Formosus (the Timeline end boss) until he drops Last Steps of the Living (50% drop rate)
2. At this point you can immediately change your skills and passives for the Storm Crows + Low Life variant (see Build Variant section), or wait until you have a couple more items, like Opal Ring and and SuffixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed affixes
3. Whichever is the case, your next priority is to rush towards finishing up all Timelines and unlocking Empowered Monoliths. (Trying to target-farm any item at this point is kind of a waste of time)
4. Generally, nothing at this stage should be able to kill you if you keep your ward up. But you can get a little bit of Necrotic Resistance for the Emperor of Corpses fight if you want to be sure
5. Meanwhile, keep gearing up. Get SuffixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed affixes, Opal Ring and Opulent Focus ASAP. Look for a decent wand, ideally with PrefixCast Speed too
6. Once you unlock Empowered Monoliths, immediately go and start farming Blood, Frost and Death for Frostbite Shackles. (You can use Grand Grip of the Lance)
7. Congratulations! Your build is now officially online
8. Start itemizing for all resistances and for Ward Retention (with Cold Resistance). Once you have 300-400% Ward Retention without your Summon Storm Crows, you can change your 5th skill for Eterra's Blessing
9. The next priority is to get any Thornshell. Use Grand Binds of Sanctuary while doing that, target-farming The Black Sun
10. You should already be using Ancestral Garb at this point, but finding a high %implicit Oracle Amulet is very important for our defense.
11. Plague Bearer's Staff can improve your DPS against bosses. Target-farming for it can compete with trying to get Hazelroot with Legendary Potential but it might be worth it to get the Staff at this point. Keep in mind that we only want to use Hazelroot if we have 30-40% Cast Speed on it. So it's better to farm for Hazelroot later in the game for it to have a higher chance to drop with LP. There are only 9 unique staves in the game at the moment, so using Rune of Ascendance to try and get Plague Bearer's Staff has pretty good odds
12. You want to farm Throne of Ambition from God Hunter Argentus (The Stolen Lance Timeline)
13. Always level up Advent of the Erased and Dedication of an Erased Primalist as soon as they drop for you, as if they roll good affixes they can be a big upgrade—especially the boots!
14. Hopefully, it won't take you too long to find Plague Bearer's Staff. We only use it situationally and therefore the next main upgrade for our damage is a Thornshell with 8-9% "Increased Flat Damage Reflected." If you get any Thornshell with Legendary Potential, you want to try and imprint SuffixAll Resistances on it. It's important to have an exalted shield ready in your stash for that reason. Even getting SuffixCold Resistance or SuffixElemental Resistance on your Thornshell is good and you should keep it for an option to get more defense
15. At this point, one of the only things left is to farm for Hazelroot with LP. The priority is to get 30-40% PrefixCast Speed on it. So you want to have exalted sceptres with that affix ready in your stash
16. Advent of the Erased provides much needed defenses for us, so if you didn't get a good one at this point it's worth target-farming for it. You want ideally as much damage over time reduction on it as possible and SuffixIncreased Cooldown Recovery Speed

Early Leveling:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/loot-filters/view/KBgvKRQa

Early Monolith Itemization:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/loot-filters/view/pA6KxDQv

What Do You Mean When You Say, "More Ward Than the Game Can Display on Your Health Bar?"

Last Epoch at the moment has a limit of 65,500 Ward that it can display on the ward bar above your health bar. (See video for demonstration.) Once you go above 65,500 Ward, you get a new ward bar that resets the number. So having 70,000 Ward actually displays as: 4,500 Ward. I'm going to assume it's there for arbitrary reasons, as the number 65,500 is a strange one. And the devs probably never thought any character would be able to reach that threshold! While some Acolytes were able to situationally get that much ward, I am probably the first person to pinpoint exactly what that limit is.

Is It Necessary to Have Any Unique Items to Start Playing This Build?

No. The build is strong enough even without any uniques. And you can start doing Empowered Monoliths without a single one. The first uniques that we are trying to obtain in the build also have a guaranteed drop rate and are very easy to get early on.

When Should I Switch From the Early Leveling Build?

Technically, you can keep using it as long as you want. It's based on another endgame build which uses Eterra's Path and Spriggan Form's Garden of Rage to keep up your rage in Werebear Form. So you get 100% uptime on Ravage. I would suggest switching to the Storm Crows + Low Life build once you get a few of the basic items we need before unlocking Empowered Monoliths.

Can I Play This Build With Only My Mouse Hand for Disability Reasons?

Yes. When fully automated, playing this build would only require 2 active skills, in addition to your movement key. Even using your potions is unnecessary as this build relies solely on ward, not health.

How High Can You Take This Build?

Probably as high as you want, baby! (At least as long as you have enough damage to actually kill the monsters.) If you play carefully, you can easily use this build to get to wave 1000 on the Endless Arena (which is the current highest score). And you can keep scaling up the survivability of this build by prioritizing ward over damage. And while currently the game doesn't have any hard enrage mechanics, reducing your damage will make all content take longer to complete. Also, considering that this build is practically a melee build, and that a lot of your damage comes from getting hit, at the absolute highest difficulty, the game would slow down even further by the need to disengage from monsters and regenerate your ward.

Can You Facetank All Boss Abilities in the Game With This Build?

Almost all, but not quite. Julra's rotating void beams at T4 was too much damage even with 60K HP with the void resistance shred they apply. I did however implement Eterra's Blessing with Purge into the build since I last tested it. So the cleanse might be enough now to stand in it while in Spriggan Form. Her "big boom-boom attack" on the ground is very easy to ignore and you can tank it freely. (It only does 7-8K damage with resistance cap.)

Did You Try Any Other Variations of This Build?

Yes! (See the build's video.) I tried going Low Life melee Maul build and using the Summon Storm Crows for Armour Shred, either with Arek's Bones or Chronostasis. I couldn't make it work past the early endgame.

I also tried using minions like Summon Thorn Totem and Summon Bear. Crit-Bear wasn't bad but wasn't amazing. Retaliatory Thorns Bear was pretty good but created insane desync and was unplayable in online mode. Thorn Totems I couldn't make work—but somebody else might.

Have You Seen The Build Variant by Freeya37?

Yes. Freeya37 used my build and changed it to focus more on spell damage with Maelstrom and Gate Staff. They then broke the Arena record on Ladder with the build (like I said would be possible).

I updated the Variants section with a similar variant if you're interested to see how it looks like (see above).

I don't necessarily think that variation is better. The DPS is still not amazing and you lose a lot of defense. It's only faster when fighting bosses (but not necessarily safer). Unfortunately, they also removed their video so we can't see how their variation of the build plays out. It also would have been nice to get credit. You can check their take on it here if you're interested:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/build-guides/the-almost-immortal-druid-dual-form-with-thorn-shield-and-maelstrom