Shaman Leveling Guide

Last Updated: September 30th 2023

Share on Social

This Shaman leveling build floods foes with endless totems, melting their health in the process. By taking advantage of Spriggan Form, we can cast multiple Summon Thorn Totem at the same time while getting healed in the process, resulting in constant waves of spells and poison.

This Shaman build plays in melee range, summoning his totems close to his foes for maximum effectiveness. His totems are a reliable way to recover health thanks to their Butterfly Heal that you can further scale with Attunement. Additionally, Spriggan Form and Summon Spriggan provide a great defensive boost, making you really tanky during leveling.

Overall, the Totem Pop Shaman is an amazing leveling build, as it provides insane damage, defense and recovery. It also scales really well into the end-game with powerful skill tree and passive tree nodes. This combination makes Shaman leveling look easy.

Early Campaign Gear Planner
Summon Thorn Totem
Spriggan Form
Summon Storm Crows
Eterra's Blessing
Summon Spriggan

Check out the Campaign Guide for an in depth breakdown of the campaign.

Easy to Gear ✔
Unique Playstyle ✔
Tons of Recovery ✔
Very Good Damage ✔

❌ Managing Cooldowns
❌ Has to Respec 2 Skills
❌ Can Impact FPS Significantly
❌ No Movement Skill in Spriggan Form

Shaman Passives

Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives in the first half of any Mastery regardless of the one you chose. Powerful skills and nodes are usually found in the masteries tree.

Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Passive Tree Progression

Skills

Swipe

At level 4 spec into Swipe. Use it as your main damaging skill until you unlock Maelstrom, then as a mana generator. When you unlock your Mastery, it gets replaced by Spriggan Form.

Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression

Gameplay

As we level the power of skills shift, with some becoming stronger while others get weaker. To account for this, we transition from a setup that is optimized for early game to one that is more suited to tackling endgame content.

Early Setup

  • At level 4 spec Swipe and use it as your main damage skill until you unlock Maelstrom. Then use it as a filler skill in between Maelstrom casts.
  • At level 12 spec Maelstrom and use it as your main damage skill until level 35. Once you spec into Beneath The Waves, you can cast multiple stacks of Maelstrom at the same time.
  • At level 20 spec Summon Thorn Totem and use it to aggro monsters.
  • Use Summon Wolf to aggro monsters.
  • Use Fury Leap to move quickly through the chapters.

Final Setup

  • After your mastery, when you get 5 points in the Druid tree, respec Swipe for Spriggan Form. Don't use it until level 35. After this level, use it to chain cast multiple totems on the enemies.
  • At level 35 spec Summon Storm Crows.
  • At level 35 respec Maelstrom for Eterra's Blessing. When in Spriggan Form, use Thorn Shield on your Summon Storm Crows to get Haste and Frenzy.
  • At level 50 spec Summon Spriggan. He provide passive buffs to your defence and totem damage.

Shaman Gear Progression

While we make recommendations for all items make sure you pay special attention to your weapon. Weapons are a core part of your character's power and getting a higher level base weapon increases your damage significantly. A good way to get better weapon bases is to buy them at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town. Upgrade or buy your next weapon each time you reach the appropriate level.

If you are lucky you might get a Rune of Ascendance while leveling. Use this first on boots to get unique boots such as Eterra's Path.

You might also drop useful uniques for this build such as Ferebor's Chisel, Ferebor's Persistence, Legacy of the Quiet Forest, Tears of the Forest and Silvafrond.

Gear Stats Priorities

Prefixes

  • Vitality to bump your health up. Getting your health pool as high as possible is very important.
  • Chance to Bleed on Hit, Chance to Ignite on Hit and Chance to Poison on Hit are really good early as Damage over Time mechanics have high base damage. Physical Damage is also really good early to scale Bleeds and the Hit damage from Swipe. Once you respec Swipe, they become useless.
  • Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed makes your experience way smoother as it makes Transplant available more often.
  • Minion Damage, Minion Chance To Poison On Hit, Damage Over Time For You And Your Minions, Spell Damage For You And Your Minions and Totem Damage are great to boost Summon Thorn Totem Damage.
  • Critical Strike Chance for Totems, Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance and Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance further scale Summon Thorn Totem Damage.
  • Cast Speed and Cast Speed for Totems are really important as it increase Summon Thorn Totem summoning speed.
  • Level of Swipe, Level of Fury Leap, Level of Summon Thorn Totem, Level of Spriggan Form, Level of Summon Storm Crow, Level of Eterra's Blessing and Level of Summon Spriggan are very important as skill tree nodes provides a substantial boost to your character power.
  • Attunement is nice to boost your Damage after the affixes above. It also increases the dodge rating given by Aura of Evasion and the health of Summon Spriggan. More importantly it scales the healing effectiveness of your totems, making it your primary way of scaling recovery.

Suffixes

  • Health, Health and Hybrid Health to bump your health up. Getting your health pool as high as possible is very important.
  • Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance to get your resistances to 75%. This is your second layer of defense, getting it capped to 75% is not vital.
  • Dodge Rating and Armour are less important than health and resistances. This is your third layer of defense, getting some is useful, as you get 15% Dodge and Armour with little amount.
  • Health Regen Per Second is a very effective way to regen health early, but it quickly falls off once you get other ways to regen.
  • Damage Over Time for Minions and Minion Spell Damage are great to boost Summon Thorn Totem Damage.

Idols

  • Health, Health, Vitality, Chance to gain Haste for 3 seconds when you Summon a Totem, Minion Increased Healing Effectiveness and resistances for extra defences.
  • Totem Damage, Critical Strike Chance for Totems, Shared Physical Damage, Shared Poison Damage, Minion Critical Strike Chance, Minion Chance To Poison On Hit and Spell Damage For You And Your Minions for big damage boosts.

Gearing Step by Step

Early Campaign
Mid to Late Campaign
Early Monolith
  • Level 29: Imperial Staff.
  • Level 30: Brigandine Boots and Nomad Cowl.
  • Level 31: two Turquoise Ring.
  • Level 35: Cultist Chopper.
  • Level 44: Bronze Belt.
  • Level 45: Engraved Gauntlets and Heoborean Boots.
  • Level 46: Kolheim Armor.
Items at level 58

Campaign Leveling

Key Leveling Notes

  • Keep your character at the area level by killing monsters. You need to maintain at most a 5 level difference with the area. Press C to open the character sheet to find your level and TAB to find the area level.
  • If your inventory is full, stick extra gear in your stash. Don't sell your extra gear that have affixes to a vendor. Instead, keep it to use later or destroy it with a Rune of Shattering or Rune of Removal.
  • Crafting is powerful and important for enhancing your gear. Press F and place your item in the crafting interface to level up the affixes and craft new ones! Adding health or vitality on a few empty affix slots can increase your HP by a significant amount!
  • Always get the best weapon you can. Weapons are a core part of your character's power and getting a higher level base weapon increases your damage significantly. You can buy them at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town.
  • Wait until the end (or near the end) of the campaign to dive into the Monolith of Fate.

If you need help with crafting, check the Beginner Crafting Guide.

Campaign Step by Step

Chapter 1 - Divine Era

Chapter 1 (level 1 to 8)

Skills

Swipe is your main damaging ability until you unlock Maelstrom.

  • At level 5, open your skill panel by pressing "S" and specialize Swipe.
Passive Tree
  • At level 3 open your passive tree, by pressing "P" and begin placing points.
Gearing
  • At level 6 use a Root Staff and Runic Scroll for a significant damage increase. Check vendors or craft, as necessary.
Step 1
  • In the first area kill every monster and pick up all the loot.
  • In the second area focus on getting to level 3 and kill the Forged Soldier.
  • Advance to the Keepers' Camp then loot the chest on the right side.
  • Talk to the Shop NPC, sell your items, and look for a two handed weapon. After that look for Jade Ring and Boots with Movement Speed.
    • The Shop NPC has this icon above his head and is located in the center of the area.

Step 2

  • Continue forward to The Fortress Gardens, then to The Fortress Walls and kill Sturiax The Burning Sky.
  • Continue West to The Storeroom, kill the Forged Soldier and click on the stored armor.
  • Now teleport back to The Fortress Walls and talk to the Heoborean Soldier to finish Storeroom Sabotuers and get an extra Passive point, then continue East towards The Keepers' Vault.
  • In The Keepers' Vault, kill the Forged Soldier and defend Keeper Balthas.
  • Now continue to The Northern Road, watch Keeper Balthas getting abducted, then talk to the Keeper Guard and teleport back to the Keepers' Camp.

Step 3

  • Go East to the Ulatri Highlands, then continue Northeast to The Osprix Warcamp.
  • Now continue your journey North to reach The Summit.
  • Kill Haruspex Orian and deliver Keeper Balthas from his prison.
  • Teleport back to the Keepers' Camp and talk to Keeper Leena and Keeper Balthas.

Monolith of Fate

You are now done with the campaign and are ready to conquer the endgame, the Monolith of Fate. It has 2 difficulties, Normal and Empowered. In the Empowered Monolith all Timelines are at level 100 and have 100 base corruption, which scales item rarity making farming end game items much easier.

Although this article guides you up to your 3rd Timeline called the Ending the Storm Timeline, your longer term goal is to unlock Empowered Monoliths. This is achieved by completing the Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and then activating the beacon in the center.

Timelines are represented as big islands on the world map in the End of Time era.

Check the Monolith Beginner Guide for more details.

Early Monolith Strategies

As you want to gain stability fast, you need to rush the echo objective while killing monsters on your way. Until you unlock Empowered Monoliths, prioritize Exalted items and Uniques as completion reward when choosing echoes. If you die in an echo, you lose the completion bonus of that echo, so try not to. Also in your first Timeline prioritize the experience as it gives you a big boost in character power.

In the Fall of the Outcasts Timeline after killing Abomination, choose the level 66 Timeline. As a general rule when selecting Timelines, always choose the highest leveled one. This keeps you on the right-hand-side of the Monolith progression and provides more immediately relevant blessings as you progress through.

Echo Modifiers

If you feel like you are taking too much damage, avoid the following echo modifiers:

  • Increased damage of all types
  • Enemies have increased critical strike chance

Remember that you can farm items in the previous Timeline, if the current one is too hard.

Monolith's Gearing

In the Monolith of Fate you have more opportunities to acquire better gear. Max your resistances quickly and have as much health as possible before investing into damage on your gear (except for your weapon, which is exclusively for damage). At the very least, max your physical, necrotic and void resistances for the first Timeline.

Here are the recommended items and affixes for each slot:

  • Weapon : Obsidian Axe
  • Helmet : Icewolf Pelt, Darkwolf Pelt and Ancestral Crown
  • Body Armour : Kolheim Armor, Greatwood Coat and Ancestral Garb
  • Belt : Bronze Belt
  • Boots : Heoborean Boots and Solarum Greaves
  • Gloves : Engraved Gauntlets
  • Amulet : Bone Amulet
  • Rings : Turquoise Ring
  • Relic : Ochre Antler

Best Prefixes

  1. Vitality
  2. Level of Summon Thorn Totem, Level of Spriggan Form, Level of Summon Storm Crow, Level of Eterra's Blessing and Level of Summon Spriggan
  3. Attunement
  4. Cast Speed and Cast Speed for Totems
  5. Minion Damage and Totem Damage
  6. Critical Strike Chance for Totems, Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance and Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance
  7. Minion Chance To Poison On Hit
  8. Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed

Best Suffixes

  1. Health
  2. Hybrid Health
  3. Health
  4. Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance
  5. Damage Over Time For You And Your Minions, Spell Damage For You And Your Minions, Damage Over Time for Minions and Minion Spell Damage

Loot Filter

Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Highlighting all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.

Link :

Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.

Summary

This Shaman leveling build shines in its offensive capabilities. It destroys everything in its path and is quite tanky, establishing it as one of the best mastery to play during campaign.

  • Before respeccing Swipe, use it as a mana generator for Maelstrom.
  • Before respeccing Maelstrom, use it as your main damaging skill.
  • Use Summon Thorn Totem once you have Unbound Garden from Spriggan Form
  • Use Thorn Shield to proc Eterra's Blessing .
  • Summon Spriggan and Summon Storm Crows are here to boost your damage.
  • Once you switch to Summon Thorn Totem, search for a good Bearded Axe.
  • Cap your Physical Resistance early to make the campaign look easy.

What's Next?

Congratulations, you completed the campaign and your first 3 Monoliths Timelines! What awaits you is unlocking Empowered Monolith after pushing through The Reign of Dragons, Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and activating the beacon in the middle of them. Then you can dive into dungeons, empower your character further and test your limits at the Arena leaderboard.

Check out our Shaman Guides and find the perfect Shaman Endgame build for you.

Please visit our Monolith Beginner Guide for more information on how the Monolith of Fate system works.

Find out more about dungeons in our Dungeon Guide.

Credits

Written by Terek.
Reviewed by Aristotelian.

© 2023 Maxroll Media Group, All Rights Reserved