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One-pet Scorpion / Serpent Strike Poison/Bleed Beastmaster Build Guide

Posted by Game_Collider on May 28, 2024
Last updated on July 13, 2024

Overview

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This is a melee non-crit build designed primarily for monolith and arena farming, adjusted for patch 1.1 (See Endgame section)

Key features:

  • Endurance Threshold up to 4k Health during fights while staying on place via interaction between the nodes Slither of Serpent Strike, Sleet-Footed of Maelstrom and the Foot of the Mountain boots' passive;
  • 80% total damage reduction before armor mitigation while staying on place;
  • 50% total damage reduction before armor mitigation while moving;
  • 70-80% dodge chance while moving depending on stacks of Maelstrom;
  • the chance for a "second life" from Aurora's Time Glass every 20 seconds;
  • additional 40% damage reduction of poison, necrotic and void damage coupled with additional raw damage increase after using a potion from Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs;
  • additional burst damage from volatile zombies when mobs need to be killed fast;
  • insanely good pet survivability on high corruption maps and against T4 bosses from the weapon's abilities.
  • the gear used for build is not hard to farm or get on the market for modest prices, only boots with 2 LP take some time to get and you do not need the amulet with LP, a simple version fits well.

Why Singularity?

The build uses Wing Guards gloves, which give up to 200 dodge rating and up to 40% increase in attack speed, consequently increasing the number of applied poison stacks. But, having in mind that two-handed weapons have an inner higher raw damage and the build boosts physical damage further, that 1-cell idol greatly boost built-in melee damage multiplying it by 1.2.

Pros & Cons

Pros

A solid melee non-ward build that can reach high (900-1000) corruption zones and farm there, having good damage mitigation scaling because of its percentage calculation.

A very strong arena farming because of massive AoEs and facetanking of bosses.

It has many layers of defences: frailty, chill, slow on mobs, 60% endurance covering all HP pool, 80% to dodge, large HP pool and the effect of "second life".

Very good maneuverability because of good ground speed, Fury Leap and Lunge.

Pleasant gameplay on gamepad, first of all because you do not have to constantly use Fury Leap (which is not working properly on gamepad).

You can use dual-pet combination with a few adjustments, removing Fury Leap completely from the bar.

Cons

It is not a lazy-gameplay style build because it demands what army men call "battlefield awareness".

You should actively press buttons and understand on what dodge level the character is at the moment, when you should move and when you should stay, watch for mana's level.

The build is played without crit avoidance affixes (yes, I have one idol with them, but because it is the only idol I have that provides 9% HP increase), so you should prioritize mobs to strike first: a rule of thumb - ranged mobs first.

It is not a boss killer, you have to pay respect to boss' mechanic and execute it. But T4 Julra usually is killed before she casts her 4th big Aoe.

It demands unique items to function properly, first of all body armor Titan Heart, amulet Aurora's Time Glass and weapon Lethal Concentration.

Gameplay / Mechanics

How to play the build?

A usual algorithm is:

  • Jump/Lunge at enemy,
  • Cast Warcry to summon 4 stacks of Maelstrom,
  • Use Maelstrom and receive another 4 stacks via the node Beneath The Waves 3/3 in Maelstrom's tree,
  • Do damage and keep up stacks of Maelstrom between 12 and 16 via Warcry or another use of Maelstrom, but watch for the mana's level.
  • BE CAREFUL! As I do not use any crit mitigation affixes because of Serpent Venom 1/2, ranged targets should be prioritized to put the venom on them first and after that damage melee mobs, when they come close. Be mind of ice goliaths casting an avalanche on you, that can crit before you reach them, so or jump at them or avoid. A rule of thumb is to strike first.
  • Use potions to trigger the relic's ability when mobs use poison, void, necrotic abilities to receive an additional damage mitigation and summon zombies.
  • If the amulet's ability triggered, play safely.

Mobs to prioritize

  1. Any ranged mobs
  2. Fire-fenixes and ice-bats (be careful of their dot fire and ice aoe, jump at their sides and kill fast)
  3. Bug-riders, shooting blast arrows
  4. Ice goliaths, casting avalanche (not falling boulders)
  5. Cobras, making poison twisters.

Resistances

As you can notice covered all resistances except Void. But resistance to void is only needed when doing with Orobyss or in arena. For the former I have 3 2-cell idols with 2-3 Vitality and 17% resistance to void and put them instead of 4-cell horizontal idol and 2-cell idol with resistance to Necrotic damage, for the latter the resistance to void is not needed so much.

Dodge scaling and Endurance Threshold interactions

The interaction between the ability of Serpent Strike increase the character's dodge rating, while using it, and the boots Foot of the Mountain ability to convert dodge rating to Endurance Threshold (ET) is the main defensive mechanism of the build.

During the fight when you start using Serpent Strike, the node Slither 3/3 starts working building up your dodge. You can reach the dodge ceiling (80%) just with 8 stacks of Maelstrom. When you stop moving, all the received dodge rating converts to Endurance Threshold (because of the boots' ability), which cover up to 6k health. If you just stay on place and spam Serpent Strike, casting Maelstrom, your ET also increases.

So mapping comes down to the decision, when you should move around the mobs and when you should stay on place.

  • If there are a lot of mobs, for example on arena, you should move around them, summoning zombies to clear packs.
  • If there are few mobs(less than 5), you can stay on place, tanking damage.
  • if you have ticking dots on the character, its better stay on place and let endurance provide additional 60% damage mitigation for all HP pool.
  • You can mildly face tank bosses abilities staying on place, especially if they are of necrotic, void and poison origin, after using a potion, but some abilities can one shot your anyway (like T4 Julra's big AoE or Orobyss' big blue crystal smash) on high corruption maps(above 500).

Few words about gear

Weapon

The spear Lethal Concentration is better then another poison-themed spear, Draalsting, for more minion-inclined builds, where the most part of damage comes from pets. It has more base attack damage (78 vs 49), also increases your melee damage up to 210%. The both affixes greatly increase leech effect, because it comes from melee damage. It increases minion damage up to 210% and, the main part, it provides them a great survivability, because 8% of their poison damage leeched as health. And they do a lot of poison damage because of maxed out Viper Fangs 10/10 and Rattlesnake Rattlesnake 10/10 in the Beastmaster class tree and the node Claws of the Forest 7/7 in the druid class tree.

The weapon's LP should be used for increased SuffixDamage Over Time for Minions, PrefixMelee Damage Leeched as Health as primary affixes.

Affixes to consider:

  • SuffixAll Attributes - Serpent Strike has a dual-scaling origin (Strength, Dex), Vitality is the third best stat to scale to boost character's damage because of the node Spirit Viper (after Poison Penetration and Increased Aspect of Viper Effect), Harmony needs for mana pool and also boosts Maelstrom. Only Intellect is used slightly by the amulet, when it summons ward.
  • PrefixParry Chance - the affix works beautifully on two-handed weapons because T6 and T7 affixes have more % (T6: 15-18 and T7:18-22) than on 1-handed weapons. That means, when you tanking damage, staying on place, on average every 5-6 hit can be parried. When you move, for example, having > 12 stacks of Maelstrom and dodge chance is close to 80%, mobs can break through dodge on average on every 5th hit, T7 Parry Chance =20% decreases the probability of being hit by additional 4%, so on average only every 6 or 7 hit can reach the character. There are a lot of different magic effects, that are considered as hits and can be parried. Also Parry can ignore corruption levels: all mobs and bosses, on 100 corruption level or 1000, have the equal chance that on average every 5th their hit could be parried (if you have T7 parry = 20%).
  • SuffixPoison Penetration and Minion Poison Penetration : the current setup displayed has, if my calculations are right, 86% poison penetration, which means, taking in mind the fact about monsters do not have any resistances, except rare cases, the character and the minion deal 86% more damage multiplicatively.

Body armor

The Titan Heart provides damage mitigation with two-handed weapon, melee damage increase and boost to health and armor.

Primary affix:

Affixes to consider:

Gloves

The Wing Guards provides huge bonuses for the build: up to 40% increase of attack speed, up to 200 flat value of dodge rating and additional chance to gain haste from attacks which stacks with the bonus from Hawk Wings 3/10.

The gloves does not let us deal critical strikes, that's why the idol Singularityis used.

Primary affixes:

PrefixDexterity - boosts damage from Serpent Strike, provides dodge rating.

SuffixHybrid Health - greatly increases health.

PrefixMelee Damage Leeched as Health - boosts the percent of leech effect from the melee damage dealt. You can consider take it if you are unlucky with crafting the leech effect on the weapon.

Affixes to consider:

PrefixStrength - boosts damage from Serpent Strike, increases armor value, boosts scorpion's damage and health.

PrefixExperimental Armour applies to Damage over Time- provides mitigation from damage over time and additional armor

SuffixIncreased Leech Rate* - leech Rate determines how fast your leech applies. 3 seconds is baseline. So, for example, with 30% Leech Rate your Leech would take 2,307 seconds (Base Leech Time/(1+Leech Rate); 3/(1+0,3) = 2,307

*IF you have it on gloves you can consider to take another blessing from the monolith "Black Sun", for example flat HP bonus up to 70.

Belt

The belt Vipertail provides additional slow effect on mobs, summons additional pet, gives more dodge rating.

Primary affix:

PrefixExperimental Volatile Zombie on Potion Use: the affix has a great synergy between overall increased minion damage that the build has, relic's special ability andHunter's Emanation 3/5

Here few words about zombies: despite the fact it has only 3 potion slots, you can summon zombies at any time, because potions drop very often, even when you fight a single boss.

Affixes to consider:

SuffixHybrid Health- greatly increases health.

SuffixDodge Rating, SuffixDodge Rating - the build is hungry for dodge rating to sustain comfortable levels of dodge chance.

Also you can consider any resistances your current setup is lack of.

Helm

Artor's Legacy provides additional skill points for minions, a chance to chill enemies on hit reducing their attack speed by 6% by stack up to 18%, additional attack speed.

Primary affix:

Affixes to consider:

Rings

The ring Ribbons of Blood greatly boosts minion's survivability and also increases health up by 10%.

Primary affix:

Affixes to consider:

Relic

The Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs gives raw 64 HP points (4ViT*6+40 with max base values). Its second base passive do nothing as the build does not use health regeneration because of the body armor. Its another negative affix can hurt if using potions without hitting mobs, because leech effect easily overcomes the negative health drain.

Damage mitigation from the relic let survive through poison, void and necrotic damage, especially dots. Also it provides the opportunity to facetank some bosses, for example the Emperor of Corpses if use a potion before his large AoE and stay on his sides.

Additional necrotic damage is ~ T6 affix with flat damage increase, which boosts leech effect.

Primary affix:

Affixes to consider:

Amulet

The amulet Bleeding Heart is a good start unique amulet for that build. It is common and its LP1 version drops with the probability of 31.29%, so you can easily find it or buy on the market.

It provides attack speed and health leech from all the damage you dealt, damage over time included(but not your minion's damage). The health regeneration decrease affix is not important for the build because it does not use it.

The amount of bleeding it put on the character from using spells (casting Maelstrom) is negligible and easily can be compensated with the amount of health leech the build has.

Later in the game you can consider another amulet, more rare, Aurora's Time Glass. Its marginal utility rises along with the increase of the level of corruption (above 500), where monsters and bosses start to deal a big amount of damage and one-shot you more often. Basically, the amulet provides a "second life chance" every 20 seconds, its ward effect scales well with the amount of health you have, it also provides a flat health increase and additional attack speed.

It can be farmed only in the monolith "Age of Winter" from the nodes with special rewards, while Bleeding Heart is a common drop and can be farmed everywhere.

Some rough calculations:

Bleeding Heart with 2 legendary potential drop chance according LE tools: 6,01%, so mathematical expectation of the number of mobs to kill before the amulet drops is 1/(6,01/100) = 17.

Aurora's Time Glass with 1 legendary potential drop chance according LE tools: 6,12%, and reroll chance 80% has total probability of 6,12% * (100-80)% ~ 1.2%. The tomath expectation in this case is ~ 83 number of attempts to complete special nodes to get the amulet.

Affixes to consider:

SuffixHealth - provides flat value of health increase that consequently boosted by the percentage increase from the class tree, armor and idols.

PrefixPhysical Damage - provides the increase of spear's melee physical damage boosting health leech value.

SuffixChance to Shred Armour on Hit - with high attack speed that allows to make, on average 4 attack per second, you can reach a relatively high number of stacks of shred armor. For example, tier 5 affix with good roll can provide 20 stacks on average, which increase extra physical damage taken by 37% from your and your pet melee attacks.

SuffixChance to apply Frailty on Hit - if you do not have it on gloves or relic you can consider this affix as a good damage mitigation tool in your arsenal.

Skills

Passives

Stat Priorities

Equipment

Where to get the equipment:

LP - legendary potential. The probabilities listed here adjusted for reroll chance of unique items.

Ribbons of Blood - the monolith "Fall of the outcasts" from the boss. LP1 drop chance is 31,29%.

Vipertail - the monolith "Fall of the Empire" from the nodes with special reward, also it is a common world drop. LP1 drop chance is 34,51%.

Wing Guards- the monolith "Ending the Storm" from the nodes with special reward, also it is an uncommon world drop. LP1 drop chance is 16,29%.

Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs - the monolith "The last Ruin" from the nodes with special reward, also it is a common world drop. LP1 drop chance is 39,68%.

Foot of the Mountain - the dungeon "Lightless Arbor Dungeon", final boss. The boots drops only from T2-T4 versions of the dungeon with the probabilities:

Tier 2: 20%, Tier 3: 35%, Tier 4: 45%. The LP1 version drop chance is 28,32%.

So the total probability to acquire LP1 version from T2 dungeon is 0,20*0,2832 = 0,05664~5%, from T3 dungeon is 0,35*0,2832 ~10%, from T4 version ~13%.

Titan Heart- the monolith "Blood, Frost, and Death" from the nodes with special reward, also it is an uncommon world drop. LP1 drop chance is 23,42%.

Lethal Concentration - the monolith "Reign of dragons" from the nodes with special reward, also it is an uncommon world drop. LP1 drop chance is 24,26%.

Artor's Legacy - the monolith "The Black Sun" from the nodes with special reward, also it is an uncommon world drop. LP1 drop chance is 19,06%.

Bleeding Heart- the monolith "Age of winter" from the nodes with special reward, also it is a common world drop. LP1 drop chance is 31,29%.

Aurora's Time Glass- the monolith "Age of winter" from the nodes with special reward. LP1 drop chance is 6,12% * 20%~ 1.2%.

Singularity - random world drop.

Blessings

Timeline
Blessings
The Age of Winter
Fall of the Outcasts
The Stolen Lance
Blood, Frost, and Death
Fall of the Empire

Build Variants

Leveling

Leveling 0-65

  1. Set up the game on your computer
  2. Create Primalist character
  3. Load leveling filter and setup it. The link to the filter in the Loot-Filter section of the guide.

While leveling to 20 level try to prioritize spears with PrefixMelee Attack Speed, PrefixMelee Damage Leeched as Health, PrefixMelee Physical Damage.

The attack speed and leech health you can also get on gloves. On boots you should aspire to get a good bonus to PrefixMovement Speed.

On pieces of armor it is advisable to get some SuffixHealth and resistances, especially to void and electricity, because there are lot of mobs on the early levels of the game with this type of damage and Nemesis also does electric damage. Also you can try to get one or two PrefixMinion Damage on belt, gloves, any accessory.

When you get Serpent Strike on the 20 level you should prioritize also PrefixDamage Over Time. Also you can pick Primal Serpent 1/1 in it till you get

Vipertail to get additional minion (both they do not stack).

Till you get the second class and Scorpion (30 level) you can go with wolves and raptor, they provide good support.

As for other skills, you should pick Juggernaut 1/1 and Breath of Eterra 1/3 in Warcry to have an ability to heal yourself. Then you can develop the skill in the direction of Fury Strikes 2/3.

Skills to put on the panel to develop:

Warcry(10 level),

Serpent Strike (20 level),

Summon Scorpion(30 level),

Maelstrom(35 level).

Early unique items that can help:

Keeper's Gloves (summon bees), Fighting Chance(good melee damage bonuses), The Kestrel(+1 level to Serpent Strike, good buff to movement speed),

Draalsting(+1 level to Serpent Strike), Carcinization of Momentum (this ring can be a replacement to turquoise ring as a second main ring).

Also you can consider Zerrick's Greed or Zerrick's Guile (this one is really good) until you get Wing Guards and Vipertail with good rolls.

Endgame

!!!! Patch 1.1 Notes !!!

I have researched patch notes and the changes to Serpent Strike and Maelstrom are :

  • 7% increase of DPS from physical attacks with 8 charges of Maelstrom, 14% increase -with 16.
  • The changes to Slither 3/3 have the consequences that dodge rating from it lower by 30% without charges of Maelstrom(~ minus 13% dodge chance), by 20% lower on 12 charges (~ minus 7% dodge chance).
  • The new changes to Sleet-Footed 3/3 allow it to outperform the old one, if you have base added dodge rating >= 526.

What to do in the patch 1.1?

  1. Min tier5 of SuffixAll Attributeson the weapon (better even tier 7);
  2. Tier 7 of PrefixDexterity on the gloves, in total you can get additional 12 dexterity which can increase dodge chance by 2% additional;
  3. Reach Vitality = 50 and r edistribute one point from Sapping Coils 1/2 to Shattered Immunity 1/3.
  4. To compensate for the changes in dodge rating calculations, the build need around 250 flat dodge rating additional.
  5. You can adjust dodge chance, putting points in and out Hawk Wings 3/10.

The ways to customize the build:

  • You can consider Zerrick's Guile as an alternative to Vipertail. The belt have been changed in the patch 1.1 and now provides huge bonuses to the build.
  • You can swap an exalted turquoise ring for Carcinization of Momentum. The ring is perfect for the build, it provides up to 12 PrefixVitality, all attributes and armor bonuses. Also it allows you because of Swiftness do not have boots with PrefixMovement Speed affix - at 100 level you speed will be over 30% which is enough to avoid any aoe.

  • As the build uses endurance to its full potential and can reach damage mitigation up to 76% before armor counted, it progress very well through the corruption levels. Because damage mitigation is calculated in percents and not in absolute values, as you move from corruption level to another level, the damage done by mobs after damage mitigation will increase less and less (from 100 to 200 corruption - damage increase by 150%, from 1000 to 1100 - by 110% ). So improvement of the build is the function two variables F(improvement) = (Health, Armor), with Health is a more desired, because it can protect from dots and has synergy with the amulet.
  • Optimizing affixes, get T7 Health on rings (135 flat health ~ T6 15% Health Increase), the aim to reach a comfort zone of ~ 4k health.
  • The idol Ornate Heorot Idol with 10% increase of the Aspect of the Boar ~ 1% increase of total damage reduction.
  • Incorporate armor shredding to the build if you have a high LP gloves or amulet.

If you have any questions write them under the guide or I stream by the evenings +6GMT twitch.tv/Game_Collider. Thanks for reading.

Loot Filter

Loot-filter for endgame:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/loot-filters/view/aBZ6yPB4

Loot-filter for leveling 0-65:

https://www.lastepochtools.com/loot-filters/view/rBrd8PAp

How to install loot filter.

  1. Go to the Link
  2. Click Export at the top & click Copy to Clipboard
  3. In-Game: Go to Settings - Gameplay - Manage Loot Filters
  4. Click the Green Plus at the top
  5. Paste Clipboard Contents

FAQ

Video

Changelog

  • Minor changes
  • Minor changes
  • Changes according to new findings
  • Changes according to new findings
  • Edited FAQ section
  • Minor changes in FAQ section
  • Added Leveling section
  • Added Leveling section
Show More
  • added video
  • added video
  • Added loot-filter for leveling
  • Minor changes
  • Minor changes
  • Added updated loot filter for end game
  • Updated for 1.1
  • Minor corrections
  • Minor corrections
  • Added patch 1.1 adjustments in the Endgame section
  • Added patch 1.1 adjustments in the Endgame section
  • Minor changes
  • Updated values for total damage reduction values in the 1st section
  • Added endgame variant with Frenzy Totem
  • Added endgame variant with Frenzy Totem
  • Added endgame variant with Frenzy Totem
  • Added endgame variant with Frenzy Totem
  • Minor changes
  • Minor changes
  • Some minor adjustments
  • Some minor adjustments
  • Added equipment section
  • Added additional description to items
  • Added gloves descriptions, adjusted planner for new idol and blessing.
  • Added gloves descriptions, adjusted planner for new idol and blessing.
  • Added amulet description
  • Added amulet description
  • Fix headers
  • Build guide was published

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