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Earth, wind, lightning, and ice: these are the elements a Shaman calls upon in Last Epoch. The Shaman is the Primalist's version of a magic user, enhancing their already potent physique with the power of the storm. Shamans tear through enemies like a tornado, striking like lightning and with the crushing weight of a landslide.
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Unleash the beast with this minion-focused Primalist subclass.
You're not quite as elementally attuned as a Mage, but you'll still benefit from buffs that enhance elemental-based damage (specifically cold and lightning damage). But if you're worried that the Shaman doesn't offer the same hands-on brutality as the Beastmaster or Druid, then don't worry: you'll still wield a big stick to do most of your damage.
Shaman Strategy
The biggest difference between a Shaman and a Beastmaster is your primary attribute, which switches from Strength to Attunement. You'll also be stacking external sources of damage rather than stacking buffs when encountering a boss.
Attacks with Tempest Strike will be more than sufficient to deal with most enemies. Once you encounter a boss, throw down Storm Totem and a Tornado to stack damage over time. ‘
What makes the Shaman a fun class is just how mobile it can be. Tornado can offer a movement speed buff, while your Storm Crow’s Crowstorm ability will turn it into a teleport that deals lightning damage in a wide area. The two combined allow you to flip around the map leaving lighting and tornados wherever you go.
Shaman Skills And Passives
Unlike the Beastmaster, a Shaman will have to do some skill respeccing before settling on your final five skills. Gathering Storm can be a useful stop-gap skill, but this build will instead focus on Tempest Strike as your primary attack.
Summon Storm Crows will eventually become your traversal skill, while Summon Storm Totem and Tornado are your stacking damage sources. Finally, Warcry provides you with the same consistent buffs as always, but with a little added mana efficiency thanks to it scaling with your Attunement stat.
Don't be afraid to despecialize a skill once a better one becomes available. Although you'll lose some skill points, you'll quickly gain them back thanks to the catch-up experience gain mechanic.
A lot of the skills this build will be using don't unlock before you have to start choosing skills to specialize. For that reason, you can specialize in Gathering Storm and Summon Thorn Totem in the very early game. Both of these skills scale with Attunement, and although this build won't use them forever, they'll certainly get you to level 10 without issue.
This build is intended for leveling only and will only discuss skills, passives, and items until level 60 (about when most people will beat the main campaign). Although each skill is described to level 20, you almost certainly won’t get all of them that high before the end of the campaign.
Tempest Strike
Tempest Strike can be tricky to use in the early game, but once you’ve placed a few skill points into reducing its mana cost, it can outpace any other melee ability the Primalist gets.
To make Tempest Strike into our main attack, we're going to dump the first four skill points into Ancestral Swiftness. This will cut Tempest Strike's mana cost in half, which we'll further reduce with Warm Shelter. This removes the cold spell attack from Tempest Strike but also increases its attack speed. Picking up Resurgence of the Land finally makes Tempest Strike into a net gain of mana every time you use it.
After that, focus on improving your damage with Windfury Force and Firm Grip, and then wind your way down the right side of the tree until you get to Devastating Whirlwind. The previous skill node, Ceaseless Typhoon, causes your Tempest Strike to cast Tornado and improves that Tornado's damage. This will synergize with your Tornado skills, too!
Summon Storm Crow
Your next skill will be your permanent minion companions (an important thing to pair with your Primalist passive skill Tempest Bond) and will eventually become a potent traversal ability.
Start with Shocking Display, then two points into Thundering Strike, and then unlock Sky Passage. Now your Storm Crow's Crowstorm ability will teleport you wherever you activate it. You'll then want to grab Expansive Pulse and then two points into Thunderous Blast to improve Crowstorm's damage and cooldown.
After that, fill out the rest of Expansive Pulse and Thundering Strike before redirecting to unlock Storm Breath and Shatterbolt for even more damage.
Warcry
Warcry starts out merely stunning and knocking back enemies, but it eventually becomes a damage buff, an enemy debuff, and a huge movement speed buff. Start off unlocking Juggernaut, then Berserker, Brutality, and Fury Strikes. Once those are all accounted for, redirect to Staggering Roar for a little extra knockback, then Kinetic Scream and Hastily Advance for that all-important haste buff.
Energized Charge keeps that haste around longer and makes Warcry cost less mana. If you don't feel the need for speed, you can put fewer points into Energized Charge to put more into Frailty to keep enemies from being so mean.
You'll be casting this spell on cooldown to keep your haste up and to keep enemies stunned.
Tornado
Tornado offers stacking damage over time, crowd control, and best of all, yet more movement speed. Start with Aspect of the Storm, then Storm Dervish, and finally, Swift Wings to keep Aspect of the Storm for as long as possible. We don't really need anymore attack speed, so just one point into Storm Dervish should be sufficient. Finish the right side off with Gust of Renewal before we move onto the left side.
Lasting Storm improves the duration of Tornado, but Debris is what makes Tornado really kick. Following that, Churning Chaos and Trail of Storms improve the frequency of Storm Orbs created by Tornado, further improving this spell's awesome power.
Summon Storm Totem
Alongside Tornado will be Storm Totem to improve this build's stacking damage further. Cast this alongside Tornado to clear entire screens or to simply improve your DPS as you wail on a boss with Tempest Strike.
Start going down the left side with Static Field, then once that's maxed, unlock Fulgurite Core for additional lightning damage. Overstimulation will also cause a slow debuff on everyone hit by lightning. Stormrider improves your movement speed (a recurring theme with the Shaman) and Exploit Weakness improves your other sources of damage so long as the enemy is shocked.
After that, head down the right side of the tree with two points into Lightning Rider and Storm's Reach, then finish the skill with four points into Intensity and Thunder Totem.
Primalist Passives
You'll actually spend a bit more time on the Primalist passive tree than other builds as there are a few important nodes that should be fully unlocked before moving to Shaman. To start, Natural Attunement improves your most important stat, Wisdom of the Wild improves your overall damage, and Tempest Bond provides an enormous damage boost so long as you have a minion summoned (ie. your Storm Crows).
Those three are the most important passives. Two points into Hunter's Restoration provide a bit of health but are mostly just necessary for unlocking the tier 10 skill nodes. Elder Branch can be a huge boon to your Storm Totem's damage, so put as many points as you can here before moving to the Shaman tree.
Shaman Passives
There are relatively few nodes you'll need to worry about in the Shaman Tree, but they all deserve to be maxed. Shamanic Infusion improves your Attunement and also penetrates enemy resistance, so it gets a full eight points. Ditto Sky Warrior for more damage overall and a 10 percent cooldown reduction on your Storm Crow's Crowstorm (say that five times fast).
Lagonian Wrath gives you a flat increase to your base damage, while Earthern Supremacy provides yet more Attunement and protection from enemy stuns. Rune of Awe provides a massive increase to your base damage, and Elemental Shrines once again boosts Attunement.
You'll likely have rolled credits by the time you've unlocked Elemental Shrines, but if you manage to gain more levels than average, you can start unlocking Dervish Rhythm of Thunder, Thunder Strike, and Conflux. Or you can put points into the Primalist tree nodes Elder Branch and Ancestral Weaponry.
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Shaman Items And Affixes
Now that you have an idea of what skills to unlock, it’s time to talk gear. When you’re out hunting for drops, here are the affixes you should keep an eye out for.
For more on how to craft items in Last Epoch, check out our crafting guide here.
- Attunement
- Physical Damage
- Spell Damage
- Minion Spell Damage
- Increased Physical Damage
- Increased Lightning Damage
- Minion Lightning Damage
- Movement Speed
- All Resistances
- Armor
- Health
- Health Regen
- Damage Leeched As Health
- Minion Damage Leeched As Health
- Chance To Apply Shock
Attunement is your primary attribute that increases the damage dealt by all your skills and also increases your minion’s health. Most of your damage is physical and lightning, with your minions doing exclusively lightning damage, so look for modifiers that increase those damage types.
Spell damage will help out with everything but Tempest Strikes’ melee damage portion, but it will increase the damage of the tiny tornados and shock waves that Tempest Strike produces. It will also increase the damage of your regular Tornado ability.
The rest is pretty standard for a Primalist subclass. Movement speed is always nice, resistances, armor, health, and health regen will keep you alive. Look out for damage leeched as health as Shamans have very few sources of life leech through skills.
Basic Items
If this is your first playthrough of Last Epoch, you’ll have to use whatever you can find. That said, you should especially look out for these basic items for crafting purposes.
Name | Intrinsic Bonuses | Reason |
|---|---|---|
Forest Cowl | +36 Armor +10% to 16% increased Health Regen +10% to 16% increased Mana Regen | The increase to mana regen is really helpful, especially early on when Tempest Strike is so expensive mana wise. |
Darkwolf Pelt | +84 Armor +32% to 64% increased Physical Damage +32% to 64% increased Minion Physical Damage | This helm provides both damage and armor, but it only drops later in the campaign. |
Avian Garb | +38 Armor +1 to 4 Attunement | Avian Garb can also roll with an Attunement bonus, providing you a double blast of your primary stat. |
Shamanic Garb | +136 Armor +2 to 6 Attunement +36% to 60% increased Minion Damage | Same as Avian Garb, but with more armor and increased minion damage. Only drops later in the game. |
Oak Sceptre | +21 Melee Damage +10 to 17 Spell Damage +15% to 35% increased Minion Damage | Since you'll be dealing about as much spell damage as melee damage, this scepter is a great fit. |
Ornate Sceptre | +25 Melee Damage +25 to 30 Spell Damage +25% to 60% increased Elemental Damage | Same as Oak Sceptre, but you're sacrificing minion damage for added elemental damage. Works with Tempest Strike. |
Bearded Axe | +42 Melee Damage 24% to 50% increased Minion Damage | The minion damage bonus can really bring your Storm Crows' power up, but it takes both hands to wield. |
Root Staff | +19 Melee Damage +7 to 9 Spell Damage -3 Mana Cost for Spell Skills | A good early weapon to pair with Tempest Strike since it reduces your mana consumption. |
Bandit Shield | +19% Block Chance +215 to 275 Block Effectiveness +25% to 60% increased Physical Damage | If you find a good one-handed weapon, the Bandit Shield can help provide some defense and offense at the same time. |
Sage Antler | +8% to 19% increased Physical Damage +8% to 19% increased Minion Physical Damage | Increased your physical damage, but your minions only deal lightning damage. Best to use it early in the game when you haven't unlocked Storm Totem yet. |
Living Seed | +1% to 2.4% of Damage Leeched as Health on Hit +1% to 2.4% of Minion Damage Leeched as Health on Hit | A better choice than Sage Antler, Living Seed provides much-needed life leech in a build that otherwise doesn't have much. |
Personal Items And Uniques
These items are exceedingly rare, but if you come across one of them, you should probably use it.
Name | Description |
|---|---|
Swaddling of the Erased | These gloves provide a big boost to all attributes, making them great for pretty much all classes. |
Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding | Exceedingly rare, but a fantastic belt for almost any class. |
Chains of Uleros | You'll have to learn how to use potions after they're converted to ward, but the damage boost is nice. |
Advent of the Erased | Incredible movement speed and haste on top of it. Doesn't provide stat boosts, but you'll be so fast you won't care. |
Tempest Maw | You're unlikely to find this unique until near the end of the campaign, but if you do, this is a very good one-handed axe. |
Cleaver Solution | You won't get much out of the Strength or Intelligence boost, but the damage and +1 to all skills more than makes up for it. |
Hazelroot | The great thing about this oak sceptre is that it increases your spell damage per 3 Attunement. This lets it work well into the mid-game. |
Culnivar's Claim | Massive lightning damage makes this incredible to use with Tempest Strike. Just be aware that this doesn't affect your Storm Totem or Storm Crow, and it doesn't show up until much later in the campaign. |
Cave Druid's Root Staff | A great early-game staff to use while Tempest Strike is a bit expensive mana wise. Also provides +1 to skills. Found in Welryn Outskirts in the Imperial Era |
Solar Deserter's Renegade Shield | Another great early-game item, the melee damage is and movement speed buffs are both groovy. Found in Ulatri Highlands in the Divine Era |
Idol Affixes
As with everything else, you’ll have to use what you can find if this is your first playthrough. But if it’s not, or if you’ve been lucky enough to find a lot of idols, these are the affixes you should look for.
- All Resistances
- Health
- Health Regen
- Physical Damage
- Lightning Damage
- Increased Minion Cooldown Recovery Speed
- Increased Minion Lightning Damage
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How To Play Your Shaman
Your general strategy is pretty much the same as most Primalist builds: hit the bad guy until they die. When Tempest Strike isn’t enough, throw in Tornado, Warcry, and Storm Totem to out DPS your enemy. Use Crowstorm to traverse the map or to vaporize mobs.
A few more pointers:
- Crowstorm gets extremely powerful and can wipe out entire groups of enemies at once. Use it to traverse the map, kill mobs, and defeat bosses too.
- Try to keep casting Tornado every three seconds or so. This will keep Aspect of the Storm up for a constant movement speed boost.
- Storm Totem should appear at every boss encounter, or if there are just too many enemies on-screen to deal with at once.
- If a boss deals too much damage for you to approach, keep your distance and keep casting Tornado and Storm Totem to whittle their health down. It might be slow, but it's safer than using Tempest Strike against a dangerous boss.
Next
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