Druid Bleed Swarmblade Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.0)

Our base class is the Primalist, which acts as a generic caster, brawler, or companion summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Primalist, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Beastmaster, Shaman and Druid. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Primalist Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the other Mastery Trees.

For this build, we will be picking Druid as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points in the Druid Passive Tree. Our Passive Points will be targeting nodes to increase damage while transformed into Swarmblade and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 6 points into Gift of the Wilderness: Increases our Health and Minion Health.
• 5 points into Hunter's Restoration: Increased Health and Health restored on hit every 3 seconds.
• 1 point into Primal Medicine: Increased Minion Damage and a portion of healing potions applied to minions.
• 1 point into Primal Strength: Strength and Health Regeneration, but we mainly take this to unlock the next node.
• 2 points into Survival of the Pack: Increased Melee Damage and Melee Life Leech for us and our minions.
• 6 points into Ancient Call: Added Health, Companion Health and faster Revival Speed.

Our base class is the Primalist, which acts as a generic caster, brawler, or companion summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Primalist, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Beastmaster, Shaman and Druid. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Primalist Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

For this build, we will be picking Druid as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points in the Druid Passive Tree. Our Passive Points will be targeting nodes to increase damage while transformed into Swarmblade and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 8 points into Ursine Strength: Gain Strength and Damage Reduction.
• 8 points into Feline Bond: Added Dodge Rating for us and our Minions, as well as increased Companion Revive Range
• 5 points into Boar Heart: Grants us Aspect of the Boar when hit by a melee attack.
• 8 points into The Chase: Increases Minion Attack and Cast Speed, Minion Movespeed and increased Companion Revive Speed.
• 2 points into Porcine Constitution: Aspect of the Boar grants additional damage reduction and health regen.

Our base class is the Primalist, which acts as generic caster, brawler, or companion summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Primalist, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Beastmaster, Shaman and Druid. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Primalist Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

For this build, we will be picking Druid as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points in the Druid Passive Tree. Our Passive Points will be targeting nodes to increase damage while transformed into Swarmblade and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 7 points into Chitinous Plating: Increases our Endurance and Armor.
• 5 points into Spirit Warden: Added flat Health and Mana.
• 5 points into Druidic Prowess: Added Strength and Attunement, as well as +1 to all our stats.
• 5 points into Thicket of Thorns: Chance to cast  Thorn Shield when we are hit, as well as increased Armor.
• 4 points into Focused Wrath: Increased Damage while transformed and, more importantly, reduced Rage Decay.
• 5 points into Wind in the Leaves: Increases both ours, and our minion's, Attack and Cast Speed.
• 1 point into Rancour: No Rage Decay when out of combat. Take note, using abilities will count as combat.
• 6 points into Piercing Gale: Cold Penetration for us and our Minions, but we take this node for the 6 point bonus, adding Attack and Movement Speed for Locusts.
• 8 points into Force of Nature: Adds Physical Damage for melee and spell damage for us and our minions.
• 10 points into Hideskin: Adds Flat Health and gives additional Endurance Threshold based on our Maximum Health.
• 5 points into Impervious: Increases our Damage Reduction.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

We want to spend as much time as possible in  Swarmblade Form. When we are in this form, we command our horde of Locusts and Squirrels to soften the enemy, applying Bleed that we consume to create a high damage Locust Swarm to annihilate enemies.

Due to the passive Bloodlust Swarm, we will get unbelievable amounts of increased damage from consuming all Bleed stacks. This node is the keystone of the entire build, allowing the build to consistently reach over 1,000 stacks consumed on Bosses, adding over 30,000% Increased Damage. Therefore, any other Increased Damage modifiers are very low priority, as they stack additively with this bonus and are extremely low impact. We instead focus on survivability for us and our minions, as well as stacking as much Bleed as we can, as fast as possible.

• 1 point into Wasp Flight: Increases our Attack and Cast Speed.
• 5 points into Death by a Thousand Wings: Increases Bleed chance from Armblade and Dive as well as the Locusts' Bleed Chance.
• 1 points into Bloodlust Swarm: The most important node in the entire build. This is what lets us reach the absurd damage numbers on Locust Swarm.
• 2 points into Slashing Spiral: Increased area for Swarm Strike, Locust Swarm and our Locust's Melee attacks.
• 4 points into Neverending Drove: Increased Locust Swarm Duration and hit damage for Swarm Strike.
• 2 points into Locust Agility: Added flat Dodge Rating and Armor for us and our Locusts while we are in Swarmblade form.
• 3 points into Grand Colony: Increases the maximum amount of Locusts we can have, and how many Locusts each Hive can spawn.
• 3 points into Plague of Locusts: Adds more damage for Locust Swarm, which applies multiplicatively to the Increased Damage multipliers.
• 3 points into Vampiric Mandibles: Leeches a portion of damage dealt by Locust Swarm. This heals us for a ton while we have a high damage Locust Swarm active
• 1 point into Viper's Call: This makes our Armblade Slashes adopt the nodes from the  Serpent Strike skill tree.

If you do not have the four extra levels to  Swarmblade Form yet, you can remove up to a point from each of the last 3 abilities listed, and up to one more from Plague of Locusts.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

We mainly use  Werebear Form to cover us temporarily whenever  Swarmblade Form's rage runs out. We are only briefly in this form until the ability to transform back is off cooldown, so we want to make sure we are tanky during that time and have Locusts already spawned when we transform back, thanks to the Barrage of the Swarm node.

In Werebear, we have access to  Rampage, a channeled movement ability,  Maul, an AoE attack, Roar, which Stuns and knocks enemies backwards, and  Swipe, which operates the same as the normal Swipe skill.

• 5 points into Territorial: Increased Area for Roar and Maul.
• 5 points into Enrage: Rage and Health gain for each enemy hit by Roar.
• 1 point into Barrage of the Swarm: Lets you swap directly back to  Swarmblade Form and spawn Locusts for each enemy stunned when you transform back.
• 4 points into Ursine Heart: Add Endurance and Endurance Threshold while in Werebear Form.
• 4 points into Invigoration: Health and Rage gained on kill or when you hit a rare or boss enemy.
• 3 points into Bloodthirst: Increased Bleed Chance while in Werebear.

If you do not have the extra levels yet, you can remove points from Bloodthirst.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

Our only permanent minions, which we double and transform into Squirrels thanks to the Unique Helmet,  Herald of the Scurry. We focus our points on helping keep them alive, maximizing how many of them we get, and increasing how many Bleed stacks they can apply to enemies. Between some Minion Health mods on gear, leech effects from gear and passives, and increased Revive Range and Speed, the Squirrels end up being surprisingly easy to keep alive.

• 1 point into Canine Agility: Added Dodge Rating for our Squirrels and us.
• 4 points into Serrated Claws: Increased Melee Bleed Chance for our Squirrels.
• 4 points into Crippling Wounds: Increased Bleed Duration for our Squirrels and Chance to Slow on hit or when hit.
• 1 point into Safety In Numbers: Addes an extra wolf, which becomes two bonus squirrels.
• 3 point into Lupine Endurance: Increased Health for the Squirrels.
• 2 points into Wolfen Recovery: Flat and Increased Health Regen for your Squirrels.
• 3 points into Earthborn: Flat armor and Physical Damage Leech for your Squirrels.
• 1 point into Pack Hunters: Adds an extra wolf, which becomes two bonus Squirrels.
• 5 points into On the Hunt: Adds Attack Speed and Movement Speed for our Squirrels.

If you don't have the 3 extra levels for the skill yet, you can remove 2 points from Earthborn and 1 point from Lupine Endurance.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

This skill, as well as  Maelstrom are not super important to the build. You can play this build with just the first three skills specialized and it will be 90% as effective. However, since the Armblade slash in  Swarmblade Form can benefit from the  Serpent Strike tree, we gain a few small, but noticeable, bonuses from speccing into the tree as well. We gain a Kill Threshold, Armor Shred, and we can pump a bit of extra Bleed stacks from our own attacks. However, the vast majority of Bleed stacks will be generated by our minions.

• 2 points into Slither: Added Dodge Rating whenever we use  Serpent Strike.
• 5 points into Gouging Spear: Increased Bleed Chance.
• 1 point into Swirling Carnage: Added Bleed Chance for each stack of  Maelstrom.
• 3 points into Hydra Strikes: Increased Attack Speed.
• 5 points into Corrosive Venom: Armor Shred chance.
• 3 points into Culling Point: Adds an 18% Kill Threshold.
• 2 points into Devour Prey: Health gained on kill or crit.
• 1 point into Primal Serpent: Adds a chance to summon a temporary minion when we kill an enemy or hit a rare or boss.

If you don't have the extra levels yet, you can take 1 point out of Slither and Primal Serpent.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

As stated previously, this skill is not super important to the build. We run it simply for the passive chance to trigger on kills, adding a bit more damage. You will not directly cast this ability, as the rotation between forms is already enough button presses and you don't spend any time in Human Form to cast it anyways.

• 4 points into Whirlpool: Increased Stack Duration.
• 4 points into Turbulence: More damage for  Maelstrom.
• 5 points into Gathering Storm: Chance to cast  Maelstrom on kill, which is how we generate any stacks at all.
• 2 points into Calm: Reduced Mana cost.
• 1 point into Windswept: Grants Haste whenever you have 6 or more stacks.
• 3 points into Sleet-Footed: Added Dodge Rating per  Maelstrom stack.
• 3 points into Turmoil: Increased area for  Maelstrom.

You can remove the point in Windswept if you don't have the extra point from gear yet. If you get extra points from something, you can put them into Turmoil for a larger Maelstrom.