Frostbite Swarmblade Druid Guide
Last Updated:July 10, 2024|Changelog
The Frostbite Swarmblade Druid shapeshifts into the fearsome Swarmblade Form. This astonishing metamorphosis serves as the catalyst for unleashing relentless Frostbite Damage Over Time with each Melee attack and Spell cast, Freezing foes in the process. This Frostbite Bug Form invites you into a thrilling fantasy of embodying a walking Tornado, delivering unmatched prowess to vanquish enemies.
This is a Melee build that spams Armblade Slash but scales Frostbite Damage. Its Damage primarily comes from proccing many Tornadoes casting Storm Orbs and Storm Bolts. The build has good tankiness and can scale it much higher with Legendary Items. It also gets access to constant CC thanks to its high Freeze Rate Multiplier.
While this setup doesn't require any Uniques to function, Snowdrift and Frostbite Shackles dramatically bolster the build's potential. That being said, both of these Uniques are easily acquired.
Overall, the Frostbite Swarmblade Druid is a great build suited for all content in the game, even in Hardcore. The ability to scale Dodge easily, to Freeze enemies constantly and its super high Damage output really make this build great defensively and offensively. If you are looking for a fast hitting Melee playstyle with insane Damage this build is perfect for you!
This article assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Druid Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- Tanky
- Strong CC
- High Damage
- Great Scalling Potential
- Limited AoE
- Sustain Tied to a Unique
- Occasional Rage Management
- Melee Suffers Against Certain Enemies
Skills
Swarmblade Form
You proc multiple Tornadoes with the Windfury Strikes Node. Frost Bites converts all Poison Chance to Frostbite while in Swarmblade Form. Chitin Sleet Storm increases Damage and CC thanks to the Freeze Rate Multiplier and its synergy with Snowdrift. Viper's Call lets your Armblade Slash use the Serpent Strike Tree. Endless Pressure provides Rage sustain. Water Strider provides stacks of Maelstrom.
Alternative Skills & Tips
Passives
Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives on the first half of all Masteries regardless of the one you chose.
- Shamanic Infusion unlocks Tornado. Get those 5 points as soon as possible.
- Rageborn is mandatory to sustain Rage. The build suffers greatly from Rage sustain before you unlock this Node.
- Harmony of Blades enables you to Dual Wield. You can't equip a Melee Off-Hand without this Passive.
- Druidic Prowess and Harmonious Wisdom provide Attunement, which greatly increases your Damage thanks to the synergy between Chitin Sleet Storm and Snowdrift.
- River Spirits and Shattered Heavens provides Damage via Cold Damage, Frostbite Chance and Freeze Rate Multiplier.
- Rancour helps with Rage sustain, especially during downtime between Echoes.
- Ursine Strength and Impervious provide a lot of tankiness with their Damage Reduction.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
The Frostbite Swarmblade Druid shapeshifts into Swarmblade Form and Dives in Melee range to spam Armblade Slash, proccing many of his different abilities. Make sure you are familiar with enemy mechanics to know when to use your Support Skills to stay alive. Pay attention to their telegraphed attacks!
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Shapeshift into Swarmblade Form.
- Dive on Cooldown to stack as many Maelstrom stacks as possible and benefit from all the Buffs they provide.
- Attack with Armblade Slash, proccing multiple Tornadoes attached to you.
Mapping
- Dive into packs of enemies and rush to your objective.
- Let the Frostbite ticks kill enemies as you leave Storm Orbs behind you and work your way to the next pack to optimize your Rage sustain.
- Dispose of dangerous enemies first, as you should Freeze them easily and prevent their devastating attacks.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
- Use Dive and Evade to dodge telegraphed Boss attacks.
Advanced Skill Tips
Learn more about how to maximize your gameplay in the Build Scaling section of this guide.
Gear
Gearing in Last Epoch revolves around finding Items and then using the powerful Crafting System to enhance them. As long as an Item has Forging Potential left, players can upgrade or modify their Affixes up to Tier 5. However, the powerful Exalted Tier Affixes are drop only and can't be modified by players.
Using the correct Item Bases allows you to make use of their amazing Implicits, this is fundamental for gearing efficiently. Combine Implicits, Passives, Idols and Blessings to cap your Resistances and other defensive layers, while fitting as much Health related Affixes or Endurance Threshold into your gear as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Blessings of your build while gearing. Finish up by farming Uniques with Legendary Potential and Sealing Affixes into Exalted Items to unleash all of your build's power!
Here are the Stat Goals for this build:
- Capped Resistances
- Capped Critical Strike Avoidance
- Capped Endurance
- 3000+ Health
- 30% - 40%+ Armour
- 500% - 600%+ Freeze Rate Multiplier
- 600%+ Frostbite Chance
- 200%+ Melee Attack Speed
- 85+ Attunement
- 80% - 90%+ Movement Speed
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with four valuable T5 Affixes. The Defensive rolls on T5 Suffixes are very important at this stage as they can easily cap all your Resistances when combined with Item Implicits, Idols, Blessings or Passives. Get Weapons with T5 Melee Attack Speed and Chance to Poison on Hit as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Pick up an Avarice from the early Campaign quest Erza's Ledger. This provides you with Leech for Health sustain.
Milestone 3
Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and %Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Aim to get Level of Swarmblade Form and Level of Tornado to further invest into their respective trees.
Milestone 5
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and look for any Idols that can help you cap all your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Keep an eye for Large Nomad Idols with Elemental Resistance While Transformed or Grand Heorot Idols with Chance to Poison on Hit. Your goal is to have items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20.
Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 set up with Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes.
Milestone 2
Look for Snowdrift in the Spirits of Fire Monolith Timeline by targeting Unique Boots Echo Rewards or using Rune of Ascendance. They enable you to scale your Frostbite Damage further by giving you Cold Penetration from Freeze Rate Multiplier. Thankfully they are easy to acquire.
Milestone 3
Farm Frostbite Shackles in the Blood, Frost, and Death Monolith Timeline by defeating Formosus the Undying. It is a Rare drop but will greatly enhance the power of your build.
Milestone 4
Farm Bleeding Heart in The Age of Winter Timeline by targeting Unique Amulet Echo Rewards. This is your main source of Health sustain as you benefit from the Leech with your Damage Over Time.
Milestone 5
Farm Vipertail in the Fall of the Empire Timeline by targeting Unique Belt Echo Rewards or using Rune of Ascendance. The stats it provides synergises very well with the build both defensively and offensively.
Milestone 6
Get as much Attunement and Elemental Damage Over Time to scale your Damage further. Remember that Attunement gives you a tremendous amount of power and CC thanks to Chitin Sleet Storm and its synergy with Snowdrift.
Milestone 7
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance.
Milestone 1
Continue upgrading your gear with T7 Exalted items and begin farming all your Uniques with Legendary Potential. Look for Nemesis encounters in Echoes to add Legendary Potential or Legendary Affixes to any Unique with the Egg of the Forgotten.
Milestone 2
Farm Throne of Ambition in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. It's a rare drop from God Hunter Argentus so it might take a few tries to drop. This Idol is great for increasing your Boss DPS and survivability.
Milestone 3
Get two Yrun's Penance with Legendary Potential. Obtaining these enables the transition to Aurora's Time Glass, as they provide Cold Damage Leeched as Health.
Milestone 4
Farm Stormcarved Testament with Legendary Potential by fighting Lagon in the Ending the Storm Timeline. Only use it if you manage to get Attunement on it.
Milestone 5
Frostbite Shackles with Legendary Potential is your next goal. Since it is a farmable Boss drop, it is only a matter of time until you find one!
Milestone 6
Keep target farming until you get Legendary Potential on all of your Uniques.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and in the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all your Empowered Blessings and find all your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Nihilis not only provides amazing Offensive and Defensive stats, but also Movement Speed! Get the best rolled one you can find.
Milestone 4
Seed of Ekkidrasil is a great addition to the build. This item makes you incredibly tanky since Damage Dealt to Mana Before Health affects Rage when you are transformed.
Milestone 5
Keep farming until you get the maximum Legendary Potential you can find on all of your Uniques.
Milestone 6
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental Items that you might craft, trade or find! The possibilities are endless! Good luck with the chase!
Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Check our Unique Item & Set Farming Guide and learn how to get them!
Want to know more about Legendary Items? Check our Legendary Guide!
Blessings
Completing a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate lets you choose one of several randomized Blessings from its unique pool. Their benefits are permanent and persist even outside of the Monolith of Fate.
Empowered Blessings are a fundamental part of all builds, so getting the correct ones for each is key.
The sooner you reach Empowered Monolith, the faster you can start farming your desired Blessings!
Normal Blessings are not important as they are eventually replaced by Empowered Blessings. However they can still be a great source of Resistances, Critical Strike Avoidance or Life Leech for your build early on.
Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:
Echo of Solarum
Weight of the Abyss
Resolve of Humanity
Survival of Might
Maw of Artor
Protection of Heorot
Resolve of Grael
Winds of Frost
Body of Obsidian
Embers of Immortality
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
Reaching Empowered Monolith unlocks all the level 100 Timelines and the ability to farm Empowered Blessings. Unlike Normal Blessings, these need to be farmed until you get the desired ones for your build. It is extremely important to get this set up as fast as possible to free up affix slots on your gear. Remember, the more value you get from your Blessings, the easier it is to craft efficient gear!
These are the core Combat Empowered Blessings for this build:
- Start with Grand Echo of Solarum for the Void Resistance.
- Farm Grand Survival of Might to cap your Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Grab Grand Maw of Artor to increase your Damage output.
- Grab Grand Weight of the Abyss for a boost to your Damage and CC thanks to Snowdrift.
- Finish up by getting Grand Body of Obsidian for the huge amount of Flat Armour it provides.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Sight of the Outcasts is valuable to help you find Large Nomad Idol with %Health Prefix and Elemental Resistance While Transformed Suffix. As another option, you can also use Grand Pride of Rebellion to find Grand Heorot Idols with Chance to Poison on Hit Prefix and Poison Resistance or Physical Resistance Suffix.
- Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Lastly, take Grand Right of Conquest to find more Boots for Snowdrift with Legendary Potential, which are a crucial part of the build.
Learn how to farm Blessings fast with our Advanced Monolith Strategies.
Idols
Idols grant your character bonuses when equipped in the dedicated Idol Container. Unlock all the slots of your Idol Container by completing the Campaign and some of its Side Quests. Remember that some Idols are Class specific and you won't be able to equip them with other non-compatible Classes.
These are the Idols recommended for this build:
- Find 3 Large Nomad Idol with %Health Prefix and Elemental Resistance While Transformed Suffix.
- Find 2 Grand Heorot Idols with Chance to Poison on Hit Prefix and Poison Resistance or Physical Resistance Suffix.
- Throne of Ambition provides Multipliers for both Cold Damage and Armour. You can farm it in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. It's a rare drop from God Hunter Argentus.
- You might need extra Resistances out of your Idols early on, so keep an eye for anything useful until you get your final setup.
Other useful Idol Affixes
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Learn how to be efficient with Idols with our Advanced Idols Setups Guide.
Build Scaling
The Frostbite Swarmblade uses permanent Swarmblade Form and stacks Melee Attack Speed to proc as many Tornadoes that cast Storm Orbs and Storm Bolts. It deals Cold Damage Over Time by applying stacks of Frostbite. This build also has good survivability thanks to the defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Frostbite Chance: The more Chance you have, the more Frostbites you apply with each hit.
- Bleed Chance: The more Chance you have, the more Frostbites you apply since it gets converted due to Frostwyrm's Fury.
- Poison Chance: The more Chance you have, the more Frostbites you apply since it gets converted due to Frost Bites.
- Frostbite Duration: Extending their duration allows your Frostbites to deal Damage for a longer period of time, increasing your sustained Damage. It is an effective Multiplier of Frostbite's Damage.
- Freeze Rate Multiplier: Snowdrift lets you use this stat to scale Cold Penetration. It adds a tremendous amount of Damage.
- Melee Attack Speed: The faster you attack with Armblade Slash the more Tornadoes you proc.
- Elemental Damage Over Time: This powerful Prefix has some of the highest numerical values of any offensive Affix in the game. Make sure to prioritize it.
- Attunement: Tornado gains 4% Increased Damage per point of Attunement. You also gain a tremendous amount of Freeze Rate Multiplier thanks to Chitin Sleet Storm, providing you with Damage via Snowdrift.
- Throne of Ambition: Provides an insane DPS boost, especially while fighting Bosses.
- Grand Weight of the Abyss: Provides another source of Freeze Rate Multiplier, giving you extra Cold Penetration thanks to Snowdrift.
- % Increased Damage: Any extra source of % Increased Cold or Damage Over Time is welcomed.
- Movement Speed: Reduces the reaction time needed to react from attacks. The faster you move, the faster you can get out of danger!
- Ursine Strength: Grants 16% Damage Reduction against Nearby enemies.
- Melee Attack Speed/Dodge Rating: This build obtains insane Dodge with minimal investment. Sleet-Footed, Aura of Evasion, Locust Agility and Shroud of Winter provide Flat Dodge, while Slither multiplies it with the more Melee Attack Speed you have.
- Freeze Rate Multiplier: The ability for this build to Freeze enemies is very reliable and makes it super safe. Almost permanent CC is one of the best Defenses.
- Freeze Rate per stack of Chill: Further increases your ability to Freeze enemies. This stat increases the Base Freeze Rate of your Cold Skills, which is then multiplied by Freeze Rate Multiplier. Chill stacks up to three times.
- Ward: A shield above your Health that is generated by certain effects, rapidly decays over time and is protected by Armour Mitigation. Your main sources are Frostbite Shackles and Ward Gained on Kill on your amulet.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup gets a good amount of Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits, Grand Body of Obsidian Blessing, Throne of Ambition, along with your Passives to reach 40%+ Armour Mitigation.
- Health: This build has a good amount of Health. Health is very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers the Druid has access to. Primalist has access to Large Nomad Idols with %Health; not all Classes have access to these amazing Idols!
- Endurance: A defensive mechanic that allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. Your base Endurance Threshold is 20% of your total Health.
- Health Leech: Leech is crucial to your survivability. Yrun's Penance or Bleeding Heart is extremely important for this build.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times. Make sure to include this affix in your gear setup.
- Cleanse: Available with Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use. Keep an eye out for dangerous Negative Ailments.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies.
Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Making sure you highlight all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to ensure your character's progression. Click on the Generate Loot Filter button down below then use the Paste Clipboard Contents button in-game to import it!
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Video Guide
Summary
The Frostbite Swarmblade is a Melee Swarmblade Form build that Dives into battle and disposes of its enemies with Frostbite Damage Over Time from flurry of strikes casting Tornado. Overall this Druid is excellent at completing all content in the game.
- This is a permanent Swarmblade Form build therefore uses Rage instead of Mana.
- Gathering Storm's Tree applies to all of your Storm Bolts from Tornado and Maelstrom.
- It scales Cold Penetration with Frostbite thanks to Snowdrift.
- With Viper's Call Node your Armblade Slash benefits from the Serpent Strike's Tree.
- Spam Armblade Slash to stack Tornadoes via Windfury Strikes. This allows them to apply Frostbite via Storm Orb and Storm Bolt.
- Dive on Cooldown to stack Maelstrom and gain massive offensive and defensive buffs.
Credits
Written by BinaQc
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL, Volca