Frozen Fury: The Ultimate Tank, Frost Maul Werebear Druid Last Epoch Build Guide 

Be careful to update the planner then ;)

@@Jbpennes sure did, lmk if you find any mistakes? Haha

@@tridanium Ambush and warrior points are still there with 0 in Crater ;)

@@Jbpennes Should all be changed now, thanks for the quality control! lol

4/18?!

I went to college for Film/Multimedia/Graphic Design and worked as a wedding videographer for a number of years, but never any RU-vid content or anything. I stopped doing anything media related many years ago to get a “real job” but something just sparked my motivation recently and I dusted off my multimedia skills and been having so much fun just creating stuff. Overall I really appreciate the kind words!

@@tridanium RU-vid is the perfect platform for you, and any kind of video game is a good medium to express yourself. Keep it up! Even if its not Last Epoch, you'll find your home eventually!

This may be the exact comment I needed to hear, thank you, i hope i find a home here too

The fake comments bro I can’t 😂😂😂

Wym fake comments?

Thank you! There will be more to come

Glad you liked it!

Appreciate that bro! No plans on stopping here.

Appreciate it!

Thank you and have fun!

Glad you like it!

@@tridanium I have also a question is Entangling Roots a good build to swap for Fury Leap?

If you do that you're heading down the Cold DoT bear build, which is completely viable. I tried it for this build but it wasn't as impactful.

No problem, appreciate it

Exactly what I was going for, dying isn’t fun!

Thank you so much, I really appreciate it the kind words, received some negative comments on Reddit but waking up to this has me motivated me to keep going ❤

Thank you, I really appreciate it!

Thank you!

That's amazing, do you know who the streamer was? It makes me happy seeing people use it! No problem, welcome to bear world

I cannot remember, it was a random host from one of the streamers I usually watch.@@tridanium

@@xxganjaghostxx9239 np

It was Aaron from ActionRpg @@tridanium

Really?! What an honor, if he was rly using my guide haha

Definitely! I tried so hard to stay within the theme and keep certain gear. I might try a ward variation soon though.

Thanks for the sub and yes I definitely feel you. Compared to the Acolytes and Rogue's, Primalist crawl through all the content. Primalists and Sentinels definitely need a buff. Hopefully you enjoy!

Appreciate the comment, thanks!

Thanks, hope you have fun with it!

Thanks! Haha, let me know how well it fares in HC

Thank you so much! I'm a fan of Rax so that means a lot to me, welcome on friend!

Hey, thanks!

I hope you give it a shot!

You are the man!

I made the switch and never looked back!

Thank you! Yeah I spent a lot of time going down the rabbit hole you did as well. Maelstrom is kind of weak as a main dps spell, and other maelstrom builds work rly well by stacking other sources of damage like from gathering storm and tornado. I tried somehow converting the frostbite swarm blade build over to werebear but wasn’t the best. Then tried tinkering around with cold-dot bear and I just wasn’t feeling it. That is a great idea for fury leaps ambush, above 75-80% hp increased dmg would be nice since roar does tick. You can play around with those points, I only put them there because I want to make sure I 1-shot packs in the Arena before they can dmg me since they hit rly hard. You can add pts into warriors entrance is pretty good, or crater if you’re running into mana problems. We have so many more damage nodes in upheaval but our pts are limited. I tried experimenting with tempest strike to proc cold damage too but it doesn’t work and scoured the web and looked through every single unique in the game for an item that’d convert melee damage to cold or lightning damage to cold. Anyways hope you enjoy the build!

Glad you like it

@@tridanium definitely gonna try it 👍

It's not, since we don't attack that fast and rely mostly on jumping on our enemies to one hit them. It's just a bonus for cc

Thank you!

Thank you!

Lol, you’re right, just keep kermodes cage in your inventory at all times, or just don’t die for the whole day?

@@tridaniumYes, you just put on the unique, transform and change to the one you need for your build, it can just sit in your inventory

Thanks!

So my current setup doesn’t have too much issues but before this I’d take more skill points into rage oriented nodes. The starting or advanced variants might have that skill tree layout. Rage = Mana in werebear form and essentially we have a few options for Rage upkeep. First is Invigoration 4/4 which is on kill or boss hit, then frenzied strikes 2/4, you can put more of youd like but you’ll be sacrificing damage on a skill that isn’t your primary dps, and finally you have Rageborn 8/10 points gives you +3 rage on crit, o if you’re critting 100% of the time, which I currently am, you should upkeep 100% of the time. Then you have rage/mana cost reduction nodes. In the Upheaval skill tree Inexhaustible 2/3 which reduces cost by -4 and quarry maker will ADD +8 and you can take points out of that to try and help. Then in the fury leap skill tree, I used to have 4/4 points in crater for the mana cost reduction so you can probably take points out of ambush for that. I only had ambush for Arena runs really. So Werebear form converts all Mana and Mana modifiers to Rage and then reduces ALL mana regen by -100% so mana regen affixes simply do not work. It also drains mana by -5 unless. Passive points into Focused Wrath and Rancour help too. I should preface in the video this was the late game more advanced setup. The setup I had in my earlier levels and gear had a lot more mana reduction nodes and more focus on rage regen. I’ll be sure to put this info in the written guide. Thank you for the great question!

Cleaver solution is fine but would probably work better for a phys damage build. I did a low life variation that uses cleaver solution and it works very well there.

Np, and thanks! Nice and fun was what I was going for!

No problem at all, I feel honored to make it into the “background noise” category. I keep the music cuz I like the music, if you enjoy it too then that’s great. I’ll check out your suggestion, thanks!

@@tridanium Background noises sound bad xd. Its like i dont mind the content of the vid, id just tune in for the vibe. Cheers!

All good, thank you!

I played that build before I went to this one. It was fine, might be better single target than this. Settled on this build because I wanted more survivability and it did just that.

Yup, it gives Werebear a little more flair, and an option besides lightning. Hope you enjoy!

I feel you, the primalist classes are probably the slowest and hardest levelers. All of my friends who are playing Acolytes and Rogues are blazing through everything. This build gave it more life. They really need to buff Primalists and Sentinels. Good luck and hope you find less struggles lol.

I tested these and made a report on them in another comment, here is the copy n paste: "I believe you're talking about 'The Last Bear's Fury'. I didn't want to add another set item into the mix because you lose out on affixes and since we already have 2 set items in our setup I'd prefer not to add another. BUT, we leave no stone unturned so I just tested these on stream. It looks like it is a bit weaker in dps than our current gloves. Upheaval DPS looks like it drops around 100k, from 650k to 550k. The Last Bear's Fury gives us 4 lines of affixes whereas our current Legendary Stormhide Paws gives us 10 lines. The gloves by themselves may be too underpowered. The full set looks like it would synergize really well with the shattered lance set but set items in the game are underpowered in general right now since they have trouble scaling into lategame since they can't add affixes ontop like we can do with LP Uniques. I hope they'll buff set items soon because there's a lot of really cool item interactions out there that nobody want's to use because sets suck."

This is the literally the exact reason why I made this guide, I hope you enjoy!

I think thats something else tingling through spine. BEARS

Will make one soon

If you’re using any sort of health regen as one of your primary defense layers I’d highly recommend this build. Physical damage is perfectly fine and I’ve added pre-set variations and setups in the written guide for when you don’t have shattered lance yet. There’s other uniques that would boost phys damage pretty high and you can check those out but if you’re stacking health regen, this build is the way to go because regen by itself is underwhelming. The added dmg is what rly sets it apart. Happy smashing!

Thank you ❤🇪🇸

You’re so cool!

Great question, so EQ Bear is one of the Druid builds I did not play myself so I went and did my own research and looked up guides and videos for it to compare and although they may look like similar builds I see a few shortcomings from the EQ Bear. The 5 second cooldown for EQ really handicaps the build and slows down wave clear speeds and reduces overall dps. Along with the fact that it is not using health regen to scale dmg and def, and I dont see another mechanic that subs in for the lack of that defense layer, EQ Bear may be a little be less tanky than Frost Bear. I can't find any videos of the build going to higher corruptions and it doesn't seem to be very popular so it's quite hard to distinguish the actual power potential of the build but from what I can see, I believe our Frost Maul Bear will be better. We have cold damage scaling up to 3000% for our Maul, along with a very short cooldown of 2.5s instead of the 5s cooldown for EQ. Not trying to knock on that build too much, and may be interested in trying it myself. If you prefer fire damage and earthquakes then go for it!

@@tridanium Thx for your response. I saw you mention in the build guide comment section that Werebear is typically weak in single target dmg (which I agree), which is why I brought up the EQ Werebear, I think that variant is the strongest single target burst damage out of all the bears, but it definitely lacks clear speed compared to lets say this build as it can only clear things in a small area every 5 seconds. I guess what you could do is use upheaval for mapping then switch to EQ for bossing to min max. Btw, what is the tooltip dmg number on your upheaval in game? (I know the tooltip is not very accurate, but just was curious). As far as the EHP goes, the EQ bear plays Wings of Argentus body armor, but doesn't have enough points for Impervious on passive tree (you need 15 points in Shaman tree to unlock EQ), it doesn't play the time glass amulet (I guess it could), but it isn't dual wield, so you don't take 9% extra damage. It has a lot of leech but definitely less HP regen than the your build. Cheers

@@Justano_o Ah, I should look more into the EQ Build then, I'm curious to see the damage output of it and practicality in high corruption. Isn't upheaval apart of the EQ build? My Upheaval dmg tooltip is 114,500 before stacks 624,642 after full stacks and warcry. Yeah, i feel like defense is so important as a melee hen pushing corruption. Things just hurt so much! I am a little more intrigued on trying out EQ, may report my findings later.

It casts once but increases the damage by 30%, refer to 12:15 where I go over the interaction and the tooltip.

@@tridaniumoooh I missed that ! bro this build is the most fun I had ! and I'm just lvl 60, used your build from level 1, and was amazing to see step by step where it would go, and its so fun to just hulksmash hordes of enemies ! I got the white bear legy now at lvl 60 !

Glad you like it!

Go to the primalist specific idol merchant

Of course!

They indeed, did not fix it. I get stuck on stuff all the time. Wish you can turn a tiny bit or atleast slide off walls, if you hit a wall in rampage you're stuck on there with glue.

No, the Shattered Lance set can drop from the normal monolith and is the only item that you really need for this build. The others can be picked up along the way.

Helps build stacks, sustain rage, constant and consistent damage. The more stacks we have the more damage AND more survivability and stacks fall off transferring to new mobs or in downtime so to have a reliable consistent stack regenerator will keep damage and defenses up. The build feels very bad without attack speed and almost leaves Swipe useless if we don't have it so to keep Swipe up to scale. Crit multi and melee cold damage is fine to put it on there, I just find melee atk speed to feel a lot better for the reasons I stated. Feel free to experiment with different setups and personalize it for yourself. This is by no means a perfect build, just something that has worked for me.

@@tridanium one more question, in the Upheaval tree there is a node Brutish Engagement "20% more dmg to closer enemies", surely this would be better than the +8 added cold from Frozen Collision? I mean 100% more dmg to closer enemies is huge and when you're killing a boss you're as close as possible anyways

We want to take flat cold damage because we get up to 3000% cold damage increase. I don't remember how big of a difference was when I tried that node but I went back to Frozen because damage was consistent and high.

The angry white bears need love too! Check out the Endgame BIS variation in my guide on lastepochtools (link in desc of video). I have Frozen Ire in as the endgame BIS with melee atk speed and melee critical strike chance as the 2 priority affixes. Those 2 affixes are required on that weapon imo. The sucky part is that I bought around eight 2lp Frozen Ire's and none of them took those 2 affixes. I am now poor and am trying to farm back up to improve my gear. The video took so haven't had much time to improve the build since. Welcome to the frost bear family!

@@tridanium don't u think melee crit and melee cold or multi would be better on ire?

@@gianlucagarzarellidoria6182 those are both great options, I believe I listed those in the affix options in weapons on the written guide. Weapon melee crit chance is the most important since it is the single most crit chance you can get from an item and we want to high crit for rage upkeep and of course damage, so pretty important. The 2nd prefix option can be either: melee atk spd/melee cold dmg/melee crit multi. I prioritize atk spd at the top because It aids in single target damage which is lacking on this build, a little better rage upkeep but most importantly stack upkeep, since we have a lot of defense and damage coming from stacks we want to get those max asap. Since we’ll be running around dodging boss mechanics or rampaging around maps, we will lose stacks here and there and with high attack speed we can get those up quickly between mobs and boss mechanics. The other options definitely felt very nice in terms of of damage but the slow atk spd just doesn’t feel very good. It’s been awhile since I had that setup so maybe things have changed, I’ll try it out on another dagger tomorrow. I welcome you to try it out if you’d like and let me know. But this was my thoughts on that.

What about Apogee of Forzen Life instead of Frozen Ire?@@tridanium

It does give more melee cold damage but it doesnt really have any other stats for us so. Ire may have less melee cold damage but the increase cold damage is nice to have.

It’s currently sitting at 500 corruption atm but I started working on different builds, still Druid, but wanted to try something a little new for a sec. Just a small break from this build since I put a lot of hours into it already. Also pushing further requires some expensive gear and I’ve been failing the legendary crafts. Will definitely come back to this build and push its limits, just a small break right now. Druids need more love, hope they buff them

I see np dude keep up the great work, I know the tedious endless grinding can be taxing on the mind and the willingness to keep it going but glad you havn't dropped it completely, yea I agree there are lots of downs to druid but really nice seeing how this druid build you created can push pass 500 corruption so grats for blasting it this far!,@@tridanium

It depends. Since I’m not following a guide I’m constantly limit testing the build in standard but for a certain point didn’t die that much at all until a certain point at around 300 corruption, then I really had to focus on maximizing defense and dmg. Since it is a melee builds that relies on getting up close and personal, and tanking damage, so it can be scary to figure out what you can and cannot tank. I would definitely make adjustments here and there and tread lightly as I push harder content with this build but I believe it is definitely do-able. If you’re planning to take this build 1-60, it will be a little different than what you see in the gameplay since you won’t be focusing on hp regen without shattered lance. I haven’t taken this build into HC yet but did a lot of HC in POE and played a similar build with ground slam marauder in HC and it’ll play similar to that. Just take it slow and focus on all your defenses. To note, I did feel invincible and couldn’t die while running this build up until corruption 200-300.

@@tridanium awesome! I’m gonna work on farming some of the pieces and give it a go! Hopefully get to empowered monolith soon and start really cruising! Thanks for the response!

@@mikefinn2673 Np, and good luck in HC! Report back if you find success

There are a few 2h variants of the upheaval build. You'll have to forego the cold damage and health regen from my build though. Check out the Werebear Earthquake build for a seismic fire damage vibe. There's also a pure physical damage variant and a lightning variant utilizing a 2h weapon. For my cold damage variant you need the 1h sword. Look through the 2h weapons and see what can fit! Lmk if you have any questions, goodluck!

Good question. I haven’t tested that yet, but with the state of the merchant guild market right now, it may be impossible but I can test on offline mode.

@@tridanium it would be good to understand if the 1000+ build will be able to, or how much it will be able to

I might give it a shot, thanks for the feedback!

@@tridanium Thank you for the build, I really liked its gameplay. At the moment, I have all classes and subclasses except warriors) and your build is one of my favorites, but they are all small, running 100-200 meters deep. I would like to have a minmax for that build for 1000+

I don’t disagree with you, if you want insane damage look to Runemasters, Rogues or any Acolyte class. Primalist and Sentinels have a noticeable lack of ‘OP DPS’ builds. I focus on defense to push through higher tiers instead of dmg. This guide is mainly to give Druid enjoyers a playable and viable option for the late game. I really hope they buff Druids too.

Спасибо за просмотр!

I completely agree, but comparison is the thief of joy. You can play and succeed with Druid just fine, just don’t compare it to let’s say a warlock at 2k corruption. Developers day the game is optimized to cap out at 300-600 corr. Anything more is overtuned.

this build SHREDS

I’ve tried lightning and cold and lightning has a lot more dps where as cold is a lot more tanky. You can definitely make any of them viable so it depends on your play style, I just went cold because I haven’t seen too many on any meta guide sites

Forsure, hopefully they balance classes more

If you look at the endgame BIS version you'll see more damage and attack speed. But if you want even more damage and attack speed, you'll have to sacrifice survivability or something else.

@@tridanium got it, thanks alot

You can definitely level with this build! If you check the written guide on lastepochtools and check the starting gear variant and follow that, it should work for you for leveling. Your build will mostly focus on stacking HP and physical damage so scale and tbh slamming the ground is very fun when progressing. As for twink item uniques, i'd recommend stormhide paws since you can use them at level 6, and we use them into the lategame. Chimera's essense amulet is great since you should run into too much damage early in the game so the double damage is so nice or if you're not tanky you can use tears of the forest. These are just a few off the top of my head but I'm sure there are a lot of great early game options for leveling. I'm not sure if I have the skill progression correct on the stating variant, but i'd recommend tweaking the skills and passives before getting the shattered lance set and converting to cold. Goodluck on your adventures, welcome fellow teddy bear!

@@tridaniumI don't have the knowledge to transform your build into the leveling one. Would be quite nice if you could. But anyway thanks for that build I'll suffer while leveling and try to go 68 as fast as possible for the set I already have oc.

@@tridaniumI've been using 2 Cleaver Solution during the entire campaign process. I don't know if they are still relevant for Monolith... What do you think? :)

@@Jbpennes Cleaver Solution is a really good axe for a lot of builds. It’s good for lowlife werebear, spell based werebear, or any Druid class that relies on spells as well as melee. It’s a great axe. When I find the time, I could try working on a leveling guide, I can do a short written one real quick but a video may be difficulty since I’d have to start a fresh character.

@@tridanium I just arrived on Monolith, hard to guess what item base to choose while having the level to gather the ones on the planner ;) Looking forward to being 68 to start following the final build items..

🙏✊🫡

Simply for price. It is the most affordable 3 lp with stat lines we already want like atk speed and health regeneration. It’s not the endgame BIS, just what I was using at the moment

I believe you're talking about 'The Last Bear's Fury'. I didn't want to add another set item into the mix because you lose out on affixes and since we already have 2 set items in our setup I'd prefer not to add another. BUT, we leave no stone unturned so I just tested these on stream. It looks like it is a bit weaker in dps than our current gloves. Upheaval DPS looks like it drops around 100k, from 650k to 550k. The Last Bear's Fury gives us 4 lines of affixes whereas our current Legendary Stormhide Paws gives us 10 lines. The gloves by themselves may be too underpowered. The full set looks like it would synergize really well with the shattered lance set but set items in the game are underpowered in general right now since they have trouble scaling into lategame since they can't add affixes ontop like we can do with LP Uniques. I hope they'll buff set items soon because there's a lot of really cool item interactions out there that nobody want's to use because sets suck.

@@tridanium dude wrote a whole report 💪😂

@@traktor321 gotchu brother

We’re almost never in human form but it’s like 900 - 1k

@@tridaniumi just asked because i am thinking of utilizing the set effects on human form lol or even maybe other class.

You can definitely use it for other classes or builds. I just happen to be playing a Druid lol. I think it is one of the only few sets that are currently useable without too much drawback. Since it only requires 2 slots, you're only sacrificing 2 spots for additional affixes and the effect is good enough to offset the loss. It gives this build 3000% cold damage increase which you can't get from normal Legendries. I really hope EHG will make sets more viable. The effects are very cool and will lead to more unique fun builds.

No, good question, let me work on a quick level loot filter variation.

@@tridaniumgoated. I’ve been using the one you have already and it’s been pretty good leveling I think

Nice, good to know, thanks for reporting back!

Respectfully sir, you're the best, thank you for the comment lol, and thanks for the sub!

I haven't tried this build in HC myself so I can't guarantee anything but see as it is a tanky build, you don't have worry too much about dying. I'd make some changes and progress slowly.

It scales melee dmg AND adds 4 armor. I think I may switch it to 2nd or 3rd now but still value it high.

@@tridanium Thank you. i have two more question. Did your Swip scale dmg with cold? and last question which part is most important to gain that high health regen? (like Blessing or any item ?)

No, unfortunate swipe does not scale with the melee cold damage and I tried everything, from trying to trigger the cold tempest to chilling or converting damage back and forth. So right now it’s just to build stacks, and do damage while maul is down. Best thing to scale health regen easiest is: 1.) health regen and health regeneration while transformed idols are very good, but cost a lot in merchants guild 2.) base hp per second increase on gear (body armor has the highest value) 3.) increased health regeneration on gear (body armor has the highest value) 4.) the health regen blessing from the ‘ending the storm’ monolith 5.) make sure you have all your passives and skill tree pts as we get a lot on there and in our stacks 6.) after you’ve made sure you capped your resistances and endurance as well as over 2k hp, focus on shoving health per second an health regen into as many suffix slots as you can and as many idols as you can. 7.) health per second > health regeneration These are tips on how to increase health regen with no strict order. Just go down the checklist.

Also going back to your first question. I’d say health regen is more important than strength early, then you want str for armor later for mitigation. You’ll want to maximize your str, armor and endurance to mitigate getting 1 shotted.

@@tridanium wow, i am appreciated for your kindness. This is so great. Thank you alot.

What do you mean? The footage in the video clearly shows 400+ corruption

@@tridaniumyeah my bad ^^ awesome build thanks dude ^^ but how can you have 2400hp i only have 1400 and i have the same build xD

No worries bud. Try and take flat hp and %increased hp whenever you can on gear. Also, I'm level 100 and take Hideskin as well as other big HP passive points. Thanks!

I was wondering why they were never freezing lol. We can reallocate the pts in ‘Frigid Breath’ then as well. I saw they were getting stunned and assumed that was just the freeze, thanks for the info and yeah hopefully they patch that. It’s frustrating when things don’t work as intended.

@@tridanium Might want to keep "Frost claws" for the boost in cold damage though. "Totemic heart" doesn't seem worth it. Maybe allocate the points from shallow breath side into cleanse with "Purging shout" or more dps with the Maelstrom "Whirlpool" part. That also means you can move on or two of your passive for minion damage and health into raw dps, dropping the points in shaman and going full beastmaster passives. I think you'll get more bang for your buck that way, investing more into aspect of the shark or more points into boar heart. Just a few ideas I thought of while I was looking at the tree. If I've misunderstood anything let me know, always looking to improve buildcrafting :)

Great ideas! I put that point into totemic heart to keep warcry upkeep time 100% since it pulses, and while we're running around attacking sometimes we lose our stacks and warcry. I didn't think it'd be good on paper, but after trying it out, it feels very nice as I know there isn't any downtime in warcry. We do keep 'Frost Claw' the dmg bonus from it is amazing and the main reason why we use warcry. Investing into 'Whirlpool' suggests we may need to invest a whole skilltree into Maelstrom which we don't really have the space to fit. I would love to have consistent haste and frenzy in our build, and maelstrom is probably the best source of that, but for efficiency purposes we keep warcry and the haste of frenzy in that tree is too short so we mainly get frenzy and haste from our ring and boots. (I've made some changes in this tree since then and have been testing, will update guide once finished) The primary reason we have those 5 pts in the Shaman tree is for cooldown reduction for our 'Maul' ability so that we can spam. Dmg is a nice bonus. Since Ambush is only a single instance of 'bonus dmg on next attack', I figured it isn't reliable damage since we rotate between swipe and maul and we want that to procc on Maul. I would love to put more points into Boar Heart but I feel like we're tight on where we need these points. These were my thoughts on all the choices. Thank you for the suggestions, I'll take them into consideration when I'm tweaking and testing the build here and there. I already have a few changes I'm testing currently, will report back in the guide changelog. Thanks!

@@tridanium Thanks for the breakdown, helps understand why people choose to put points there. Looking forward to see future builds.

Yeah, I always look at other builds and see where they have their points and think "hmmm why did they put this here", the best builds are made from a collective idea.

Thank you friend, and welcome to the bear life!

@@tridanium damn I need that frost bear image 😭

@@palaceguard01 the one I used in my thumbnail? I can give it to you, I made it using AI lol

Couldn't agree more. Hopefully after this cycle we see some favorable changes.

If you're talking about Druids, then yes, they need buffs.

@@tridaniumYes, this build, this built type, Shaman, Druid... needs overhauls and Attunement, needs a buff or a overhaul.

@@insertnamehere4419 Swarmblade is pretty good though, not as good as the meta builds but for sure much better than Werebear

Sure is, all primalists won't compare to Acoluytes, Rogues and Runemaster meta builds. Swarmblade is good but i wouldn't say MUCH better than Werebear builds. But yeah, I mainly created this build as a niche primalist build for the werebear enjoyers. The more build options every class has to push late game the more enjoyable the ARPG is imo. Imagine a world where we all play the same build, that would suck.

Uncalled for as I can’t control what people say on the internet