Last updated on Nov 30, 2023 at 20:30by AaronActionRPG
This is the perfect leveling guide for new players wanting to start with Druid!This page will cover everything and anything you could need to know about leveling the class,including which skills to use, what stats to prioritize, and what uniques are useful early inthe game.
1.
Introduction
This Druid mastery leveling guide is designed to get us started in the rightdirection with your new mastery, by offering a simple skill setup to assist uswhile we play through main story act of the game and begin the Monolithendgame. We have chosen a set of skills and passives that create an effectiveand yet simplistic play style that can rapidly push our character to level 70and complete the main campaign.
This build is a brawler on the battlefield, using 
Swipe and
Werebear Form to charge into packs of enemies. This build assigns theskill trees for 
Fury Leap and 
Warcry as two great utility skillsas we level up towards unlocking our Werebear form. Once our transformationskill is unlocked, our utility skills will be converted into Maul andRoar. With all of our skills transferring into Werebear perfectly, wehave added a companion to our last skill slot to provide a supportive aurawhile we fight. This companion can be activated for a heal, but otherwise keepsus buffed up and ready to brawl.
2.
Druid Leveling Passive Trees
Class PassivesSkill Passives
PrimalistBeastmasterDruid
SwipeFury LeapWarcryWerebear FormSummon Spriggan
2.1.
Primalist Passive Tree
Primalist is our base class to start this character off with, our goal inthis passive tree is to gain some critical stats that will be useful all theway to level 70. We start with Primal Strength, this node is going togrant us the main stat of Strength and some increased Health Regeneration.Strength is going to be used in the majority of our damage skills and grant usa bonus to Armor for each point we have. Next, we want to pick upHarmony of Blades as soon as possible so we can dual wield two meleeweapons. After that we will select the node Hunter's Restoration to addto our Health pool, but also grants us some rejuvenation of health every 3seconds like a mini heal that stays on us permanently. Lastly, we are going toselect Survival of the Pack to boost our Melee damage and grant us someHealth leech for this melee focused build.
Now that we've completed our the Passive Tree for Primalist, we will be movingon to our Mastery Passive Trees. For this build specifically, we will befocusing a lot of our points into the Druid Passive Tree, as our chosenmastery. This tree will synergize well with our Werebear skills and provideus with powerful boosts to help us with the leveling process.
2.2.
Beastmaster Passive Tree
The Beastmaster tree contains several nodes that will help us while we playthis brawling build. Ursine Strength is the first node we are going toheavily invest in, this node grants us Strength and a flat Damage Reductionfrom nearby enemies. Next, we are going to put 3 points into the bottom pathwayon the tree, starting with Savagery then Ambush andLamprey Teeth. These nodes will focus on amplifying our Melee attackswith added damage, a chance to Aspect of the Shark and Health leech. Now, weare going to on the another unique Aspect to the Beastmaster: Aspect of theBoar. We will be putting points into Boar Heart and the node right afterit, as shown in the image above. These will allow us to gain a defensive aspectwhenever we are hit. This is will complete our points in the Beastmasterpassive tree.
2.3.
Druid Passive Tree
This passive tree will contain the majority of our points. We will betargeting nodes that will increases our damage and survivability, but also ourfourth skill: Werebear Form. This is a transformative skill that we will use tobrawl with, it is based on rage and has set decay while you are in this form.One of the main components we need from this tree, is the ability to augmentour rage decay allowing us to stay in Werebear form for longer periods.Spirit Warden and Primordial Resonance are going to be our firstchoices, adding damage, health and mana. However, each of them also has a bonuspassive when we put 5 points into them. The important one is underSpirit Warden, this grants us our rage/mana cost of any skill to beadded to as health to our character - a pseudo-heal. Next, we takeDruidic Prowess for the raw stats. Then Focused Wrath andRancour, these two are going to help keep us in our Werebear formlonger - very important. The next two nodes are Wind in the Leaves andBush Stalker. Lastly, we will be making a heavy investment intoAspects of Might for the raw strength increase, but also the bonusmodifier of adding Melee damage per strength that our character has. This treeis now complete.
2.4.
Swipe
This is our DPS skill: a wide melee attack that can strike multiple enemiesin front of you. This skill is scaled off of Strength, Physical/Melee Damage,Area of Effect and Attack speed. We will be spamming this skill while in andout of our Werebear form, as it carries over into both. We will be taking twomain pathways through the Skill tree, the first is on the left hand sidebuilding up our Damage, Area of Effect, Health Leech and finally, a killthreshold. This path should be taken and completed first. Then we will move onto the lower pathway, take the nodes that grant us Aspect of the Panther.We keep this skill as a basic physical attack without many modifiers, focusingon our ability to increase its damage through simple gear affixes like Strengthand Physical/Melee damage.
2.5.
Fury Leap
This is a traversal skill for us to begin engagements or retreat whenneeded. This skill is scaled off of Strength, Physical/Melee Damage, Area ofEffect and Movement affixes. We will start in the skill tree by taking theupper pathway to the Aspect of the Mantis, this allows us a short reset ofthe skill when we control how far we jump. Next, we want to getWarrior's Entrance for the bonus damage buff after we land at ourtargeted location. Lastly, we want to head towards Gravity, taking theimmunity node Heorot's Protection just off the pathway.
2.6.
Warcry
Warcy is transformed to become a healing and buffing shout for us, this usesa lot of nodes so pay close attention to the skill tree. This skill is scaledoff of Physical/Spell Damage, Area of Effect and the Attunement stat as it istechnically a spell. We will start by taking the lower left pathway towardsBreath of Eterra, then the path through the Berserker node andthe other nodes after it to amplify the Berserker buff. Then we can take theupper part of the skill tree to lower the cooldown with Shallow Breathand Apprehend to pull mobs towards us just like Fury Leap.
2.7.
Werebear Form
Werebear Form is a key component to our build, not only does it amplify ourdamage and survivability, but it helps take this build into the mid-game as wegain several new skills to use. Swipe and Warcry will be thesame while our Druid is in Werebear form or not. Then we use the nodeSkull Crusher to benefit Maul by allowing it to use ourFury Leap's skill tree, augmenting its ability. Next, we takeUrsine Heart and Frenzied Strikes to gain as much Rage aspossible while we attack to stay in Werebear Form infinitely. Rampage isthe final skill granted to us in Werebear form and is a fantastic traversalskill that can really speed up your movement around the battlefield. Remember,we will be limited here on points in our skill tree due to the skill not beingfully leveled.
2.8.
Summon Spriggan
The amazing Spriggan; this pet carries a powerful aura that we augment asmuch as possible to be with us and active at all times. We are going to focuson the lower pathway of the tree first, adding skill nodes likeAura of Life, Aura of Kinship and Aura of Retribution. Theseare going to all be apart of our companion's Aura that will passively beapplied to us at all times. Next, we use the upper pathway to target somedefensive capabilities and help our Spriggan with their survivability.
Image courtesy of Last Epoch Tools
3.
Mechanics and Playstyle
This is a brawling build and is very much about crashing into your enemieswith 
Rampage or Fury Leap to start off every fight. We then buffup using our Warcry ability and start to spam Swipe. After youhave unlocked Werebear Form you will incorporate Maul into yourfighting, but for the most part this is simply about Swipe. We havebuilt in lots of Health leech and Healing abilities to keep you standing nomatter how many foes you are facing and with Swipe's decent AoE andKill Threshold, you should be cutting down the mobs fairly easily.
4.
Gearing and Affixes
We are going to target weapons' for dual wielding, swords or axes, the restof our gear will be straight forward filling in the slots with the recommendedlist of Affixes below. You should aim to upgrade your gear using a loot filterto highlight the gear you need with the right affixes. This game also carries asubstantial crafting system where you will be able to augment pieces of gearyou find with either strong affixes or craft new one you can add to an emptyslot. There is a deeper look at the crafting system in the link below.
| Attributes | Offensive | Defensive |
|---|---|---|
| Vitality Strength | Melee Damage Physical Damage Damage while Transformed Physical Penetration Melee Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Multiplier Melee Attack Speed | Armor Resistances Melee Damage Leeched as Health Health on Kill Health on Melee Hit Health Regen |
4.1.
Useful Uniques
As you go through the game we will come across many uniques, while the majorityof low-level uniques should be set aside for leveling alts (Yay, for unlimitedstash space), we will want to keep our eyes out for these specific items toassist with the build. While none of these have huge build changing affixes themajority of them are similar very good items you can scale easily with. One ofthemes you will see with these uniques is Movement speed, this affixaccelerates gameplay even just from being able to go around faster thebattlefield.
If you happen to come across the unique one-handed sword 
Humming Bee, thiswill likely be your best options for a weapon until we find something we cancraft with higher values in our 40s or 50s. Despite its level, this unique weaponcarries some great damage and attack speed buffs for our Swipe, anddon't forget that extra Movement speed.
As for some unique armor pieces to keep an eye out for, the
Peak of the Mountain and 
Prism Wraps, both offer some nice boostsaround Critical Strike Chance. These can really push our DPS up noticeablyhigher. Add in Legendary Potential and you have some great items to keep foralt characters.
Another great unique for this build, is the 
Chimaera's Essence.This amulet is fantastic as our Werebear Form counts as a transformation,granting us the damage boost from this amulet. It also has many other valuablestats for our build besides the damage, so keep your eyes out for one.
One of the best unique belts for Physical builds is the 
Thorn Slingerwith its extra skill point for all physical skills and increase to potions.Don't leave this one on the ground if you come across it.
As for a great unique ring that can be used for any class to boost ourjourney through the campaign is the 
Arboreal Circuit. This level 1 ringboasts two valuable stats for our build. The Movement speed actually beats outa lot of other stats in the early game, simple from the amount of time you savemoving around in the world.
Speaking of Movement Speed, we must talk about unique boots - particularlythe 
Advent of the Erased. These boots can grant our Minions haste,while this chance is small - it can happen on every kill and with a max roll of11% it can trigger quite often. To opportunity to have a free haste casted onour Minions is great, regardless of our level.
Lastly, are two elemental uniques that can assist this build with a lot ofdamage, but also grant us some Health leech from the relic slot is:
Tome of Elements and 
Stormhide Paws. These two are great additionsif you come across them, especially the gloves which, if you have a goodLegendary Potential slot, can become an endgame item even with its lowlevel.
Despite the lower level of these uniques, they are quite valuable and canhelp push you that much faster to level 70. These can all be expanded intofantastic items if found with Legendary Potential for any future levelingneeds. Good luck hunting and may your luck be high!
4.2.
Idols
Idol slots are gained through the campaign, unlocking small bonuses andunique affixes for the player to discover and augment their builds with. The Idol screenconsists of a grid system for the player to fill out with different sized idols,eventually filling in every part of the grid. As the Idol shape increases (1x1, 1x2,1x3, 1x4, etc.) the stronger an affix you might find for your build.
The target Affixes we want to look for in our Idols are:
- Increased Health
- Health
- Increased Melee Damage While Transformed
- Resistances
- Elemental Resistance While Transformed
5.
Progressing to Endgame
We have several options for your next step in the Endgame. Take some time tohave a look at the Druid Endgame guides listed below:
Lightning Swarmblade BuildBleed Swarmblade Build
6.
Changelog
- 30 Nov. 2023: Guide added.
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