LizardIRL has been playing Last Epoch at a high level for years. He has invested a huge amount of time learning the game, theory crafting builds and making educational content. By the time LE Multiplayer launched, he already had thousands of hours driven by his competitive nature and desire to improve. His builds and min/maxing rules have shaped the meta, establishing him as a top build maker and theory crafter. LizardIRL livestreams his Rank 1 Arena pushes and has dominated both SC and HC ladders. Learn how to scale your Damage and Defense with the Squirrel Beastmaster Build to reach the different Endgame Activities like the Monolith, Dungeons and Arena.
Build Scaling
This Beastmaster takes command of his ferocious animals and leads them against its enemies. The Summon Wolfs or Summon Squirrels deal Physical Damage and your goal is to reach 100% Melee Critical Strike Chance with them. This build also has great survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Minion Power: Your minions gain Minion Power based on your Character Level. By level 100, they deal 45% More Damage and take 45% Less Damage (Multiplicative with other modifiers).
- Minion Melee Flat Damage: You want to get as much Flat Damage for your Summon Wolfs or Summon Squirrels as possible, since Summon Wolf has tons of Damage Multipliers on its Tree.
- Minion Melee Attack Speed: The faster your Summon Wolfs or Summon Squirrels attack, the more Damage they deal and Ailments they apply. The The Chase provides 32% and Grand Heorot Idols with Minion Melee Attack Speed allow to to scale it further.
- Melee Attack Speed: The faster you attack with Swipe the more Spirit Wolves proc from your Summon Wolfs or Summon Squirrels. Berserker buff grants up to 60% Melee Attack Speed thanks to Warcry's Fury Strikes Node and Fury Leap's Rage Node provides Frenzy, a 20% Melee Attack Speed buff.
- Minion % Physical Melee Damage: Anything that increases Minion Melee Physical Damage is welcomed.
- Strength: Summon Wolf gains 4% Damage and 8 flat Health per point of Strength. Additionally, it provides 4% Armour per point to the player, a nice defensive layer for the build.
- Minion Melee Critical Strike Chance: Make sure you get T5 or Exalted Added Minion Melee Crit Chance on your Body Armour, it's easy to cap it with it thanks to all the Crit Chance related buffs this build has.
- Minion Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your minions Crits deal. Get as much as you can!
- Level of Summon Wolf: Get this Prefix on your Helmet for the Increased Damage it provides and to invest extra Points into its Tree.
- Herald of the Scurry: Thanks to this Unique, the build is able to convert Summon Wolfs into Summon Squirrels, doubling their numbers.
- Physical Resistance Shred: Thanks to Herald of the Scurry your minions can apply 10 stacks of Physical Resistance Shred to your targets. 10 stacks increase the Physical Damage enemies take by 50%. This is a big part of your single target DPS, so make sure to roll it nicely.
- Chance To Shred Armour on Hit: Each stack of this Ailment reduces enemy Armour by 100 for 4 seconds and stacks infinitely. Enemies have 0 Armour by default and it can go into the negatives. At -1000 Armour a target takes 23.7% increased Physical Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 57.2%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly. Use Julra's Obsession with Chance To Shred Armour on Hit to ensure your minions apply stacks themselves.
- Cull: 2 Points into Swipe´s Culling Node provide a 14% kill threshold, ensuring all procs on player Kill get triggered.
- Warcry: Grants a brief Damage Immunity thanks to the Juggernaut Node.
- Berserker: Provides 25% Damage Reduction when you are below 35% of your total Health. This Passive has insane synergy with Endurance.
- 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.
- Ursine Strength: Grants 16% Damage Reduction against Nearby enemies.
- Aspect of the Boar: Combining Boar Heart with Porcine Constitution grants it 30% Damage Reduction. Proc it with Swipe thanks to Primal Strength.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup can get insanely high Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits, Grand Body of Obsidian Blessing and all the Strength this build has to reach 40% to 50%+ Mitigation. This is huge on top of all the other defensive layers the build has.
- Health: This build can stack a huge Health pool and surpass the 5000 mark. 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!
- Block Chance: Block is a defensive mechanic that grants a chance to reduce the Damage taken from Hits. Whenever you take a Hit, your Block Chance is rolled to determine if you Block the Hit. On a successful Block, a percentage of the Damage is mitigated. This build can have anywhere between 50% and 100% block. Bastion of Honour is an incredible Shield for the setup.
- Block Effectiveness: The percentage of Damage reduced on Block depends on how much Block Effectiveness you have. The percentage cannot exceed 85%. The Grand Bones of Eternity blessing is an exceptional source of Block Effectiveness.
- Leech: Survival of the Pack and Lamprey Teeth provide decent Melee Leech. Swipe has some built in Leech thanks to the Way of the Hunt Node.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. They are must haves on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use.
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.
Recommended End Game Activities
Last Epoch has multiple end game activities with completely different roles and rewards. All the builds in Maxroll.gg have been tested and are designed to complete all available content. However, not all builds excel at doing the same activities. Make sure you are familiar with the end game strengths and weaknesses of your character.
The Monolith of Fate is the main end game system. Most of your character gear upgrades are found here. Once you get all of your desired Empowered Blessings, you can start pushing Corruption to increase your chances at finding incredible Exalted Items. The Monolith of Fate rewards speedy builds that are able to target farm Echo Reward Nodes or stack Timeline Stability as fast as possible.
This Beastmaster is a great Monolith of Faith farmer. It's fast, has good AoE clear and its single target is extremely high. Since it's also a fairly tanky build, it's an amazing setup for farming difficult content in high Corruption.
Monolith Goals
Your goals in the Monolith of Fate will differ greatly depending on what build you play and what stage your character progression is at. Here are the objectives you should aim at when playing this build:
- Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
- Farm your Combat Empowered Blessings. Prioritize gaining Timeline Stability and fight the Timeline Bosses as often as possible. Once you are done with one Timeline, move to the next one. Reach 200 Corruption to farm your desired Blessings faster, as it unlocks a 5th option to choose from after you defeat a Timeline Boss.
- Get your first Drop Rate Empowered Blessing in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline as you farm Ribbons of Blood for the amazing stats it provides.
- Finish up your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
- Farm for key Uniques.
- As you farm for Uniques, stack Corruption as high as your gear can handle. The higher Corruption you do, the more Items you find. Get your character ready for the other end game activities.
Monolith Modifiers
Every time you choose an Echo a Modifier comes attached with it, adding difficulty and changing how enemies behave. These Modifiers stay active for a maximum of 6 Echoes and stack with each other. Some Modifiers can handicap your build immensely while others can almost be ignored. Monolith Modifiers scale with Corruption and increase the Item Rarity of Echoes. Ideally you want to do the hardest content possible, without delaying your clear times. Keep up Item Rarity as high as you can without it slowing you down.
Easy Modifiers
- Enemy Critical Strike Chance (Once you have 100% Critical Strike Avoidance).
- Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently.
- Rare enemies have high speed and crit chance until approached.
- Rare enemies regenerate health.
Avoid these Modifiers
- Enemy chance to receive a Glancing Blow.
- Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Enemy chance to Dodge.
- High health enemies take less damage.
- High health enemies deal increased damage.
- While bossing: enemies Enrage at half health and enemies gain Frenzy and Haste when hit.
Learn more about the Monolith of Fate with our Empowered Monolith Guide.
Dungeons are another important end game activity. All of them have an unique reward system attached that can only be accessed by defatting the Boss guarding it. They are divided by 4 Tiers of difficulty; it might take you some time to have a character strong enough to defeat Tier 4. Remember, Dungeons require specific Keys to enter them.
This Beastmaster is one of the best Dungeon farmers due to its incredible single target DPS. The build is able to obliterate T4 Bosses in a few seconds while being able to survive most of their mechanics.
Dungeon Tips
When it comes to Dungeons, each build has different needs and should focus on the ones that fulfill them. Remember, each Dungeon comes with an unique Dungeon Skill. Make sure you are familiar with the different Dungeon Skills, Boss fights and Rewards before you attempt them.
Recommended Dungeons for this build:
- Solarum Sanctum: You only need to interact with the Eternity Cache to upgrade any desirable Uniques you find with Legendary Potential and to get Julra's Obsession. The Boss fight against Chronomancer Julra is fairly easy for any Beastmaster, as many of her telegraphed attacks can be ignored by timing Warcry's Immunity.
- Lightless Arbour: While the gold sink in the Vault of Uncertain Faith is not necessary for this build to progress, it has a good time dealing with The Mountain Beneath and, thanks to Warcry's Immunity, his most dangerous attacks can be trivialized. The Stone Titan's Heart is easier, just make sure to use Warcry for its moving lasers. Run this Dungeon when you have some excess Gold, be careful as it gets expensive really fast!
- Soulfire Bastion: Make sure you pay attention to the Damage type on the floor while fighting Fire Lich Cremorus and save Warcry to immune the big telegraphed attacks. Overall this Dungeon and the Soul Gambler are low priority as nothing attached to them is relevant for the build.
Remember that T4 Dungeons are hard pinnacle content that can only be defeated with well geared characters. If your build struggles against a particular Dungeon you can always dedicate a different setup that shines against it to earn its reward. This is not possible if you play in any of the Solo Game Modes.
Check all of our Dungeon Guides if you want to learn more about their Bosses and rewards systems.
Use everything explained in the Gameplay and Build Scaling sections of this Build Guide to defeat them.
The Endless Arena is the main competitive game mode. It's all about the Ladder! While you might get some upgrades, the other end game activities are far superior for gearing up. The Endless Arena is not for everyone and only the best builds and players can reach the top. You need an Arena Key or an Arena Key of Memory to enter.
This Beastmaster build is good for competing in the Endless Arena, especially because of its DPS. However, the moment your minions' survivability gets out-scaled by the enemy's Damage and they start dying, your run is over.
Endless Arena Tips
Adjusting your playstyle to the build you are playing is mandatory to reach high waves. Use the easy early waves as a practice tool; learning about wave management, developing good habits and limit-testing your build are very important things to become a better Endless Arena player.
Tips for playing this build in Arena:
- Always keep track of all 4 enemy packs. New waves do not spawn as long as there are two enemies of the current wave alive. Finish them up at the right time!
- As a melee build it's crucial to know when to go in. Find the perfect window to engage!
- Don't ever stand still! Always kite melee enemies so you can hit them but they can't hit you.
- Stay in combat to keep all your buffs active.
- Target ranged threats first. Deal with the rest of enemies once the ranged ones are taken care of.
- Enemy homing projectiles are really dangerous. Use Warcry's Immunity and hide behind your minions or terrain.
- Let Summon Wolfs or Summon Squirrels deal with the threats. Direct them with the "A" key offensively and defensively.
- Hold Fury Leap to disengage for emergency situations.
Eager to get competitive? Check our Arena Guide!
