Thorn Totem Shaman Guide
Last Updated:July 10, 2024|Changelog
The Thorn Totem Shaman shapeshifts into its Spriggan Form and uses Summons Thorn Totems that cast auto-targeting Single Projectiles in a wide area to wreck havoc on your enemies. While this is a totem setup, it plays more like a caster than a summoner.
This build's main focus is to spam Summon Healing Totem as they instantly cast a Mystic Thorn when you summon them. It also aims to Summon Storm Totem as extra DPS. The rest of the Skills provide tankiness, support and sustain.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However, items like Phantom Grip, Julra's Obsession, Stormcarved Testament and Death Rattle increase our damage dramatically. Titan Heart provide tankiness mainly thanks to the Damage Reduction from using a Two Handed Weapon.
Overall, the Thorn Totem Shaman is a well-rounded build and shines in every aspect of the game. From early leveling up to End Game, Bossing, Arena, Monolith, and more. It does it all and packs a big punch. Welcome to the Thorn Totem Shaman!
This article assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Shaman Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- Easy to Play
- Safe Playstyle
- Auto Targeting
- No Mana Issues
- Low Mobility
- No Life Leech
- Can't Facetank
- Must Keep Companion Alive
Skills
Spriggan Form
This is a permanent Spriggan Form build. You gain a new set of Skills, and Mana is replaced by Rage while Transformed. Thanks to the Spiked Totems Node your Summon Healing Totems benefit from the Summon Thorn Totem's Tree. Grab the 3 extra totems from Unbound Garden for extra damage.
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.
- Grab Avatar of Thunder, Rune of Awe and Elder Branch for the Minion Flat Spell Damage they provide.
- Protective Circle and the Shaman Mastery Passive Bonuses will cap your Physical & Elemental Resistances easily.
- Ancestral Speed, Gift of the Skies and Wind in the Leaves grants a lot of Cast Speed for your Totems.
- Ancestral Speed along with your Idols guarantee getting Haste.
- Spirit Warden acts as a source of sustain when spamming Summon Thorn Totem.
- Ursine Strength provides a lot of tankiness with its Damage Reduction.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
This Shaman shapeshifts into Spriggan Form to spam Summon Healing Totems casting Single Projectile that Pierce and have increased Range via Winged Thorns. 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
- Summon the Summon Spriggan Companion.
- Shapeshift into Spriggan Form.
- Cast Summon Healing Totem, summoning 3 Totems that shoot Single Piercing Projectiles in a wide AoE.
- With at least 5 Thorn Totems active, use Spirit Thorns to proc Summon Storm Totem via Stormcarved Testament for extra Damage.
- Use Thorn Shield to gain all the buffs from Eterra's Blessing when in danger or to revive your Summon Spriggan.
Mapping
- Stay out of enemy range by casting Summon Healing Totem before they aggro you.
- If you have Silvafrond, cast Summon Vines to Teleport around the map.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
- Spam Summon Healing Totem as fast as possible to get the maximum damage output from your Totems. Every cast instantly makes them shoot 1 projectile.
- With at least 5 Thorn Totems active, use Spirit Thorns to proc Summon Storm Totem via Stormcarved Testament for extra Damage.
- Use Evade to dodge telegraphed Boss attacks. If you have Silvafrond, you can also use Summon Vines to dodge 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
- 2500 - 3500+ Health
- 500 - 700 Endurance Threshold
- 50% - 60%+ Armour
- 100% Thorn Totem Critical Strike Chance
- 70% - 85%+ 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 a Horned Staff with double T5 Minion Suffixes as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. It can be farmed by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
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 for T5 Level of Summon Thorn Totem on your Helmet to invest extra Points on them. Make sure to grab T5 Totem Adaptive Spell Damage on your Body Armour for an early Damage boost.
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 Grand Heorot Idols with Minion Critical Strike Chance Suffix and Ornate Heorot Idol with Critical Strike Chance for Totems Prefix. 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
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Minion Damage, Minion Critical Strike Multiplier and Cast Speed to increase your DPS drastically.
Milestone 3
Legacy of the Quiet Forest is great for covering your Poison Resistance and Void Resistance. Alongside your Shaman Mastery Passive and Protective Circle, the belt alleviates a lot of the Resistance gearing process. It also gives you Rage per Second, ensuring you never run out in Spriggan Form alonside the use of Memories of Eterra.
Milestone 4
Death Rattle and Phantom Grip provide a lot of Damage for this Minion build. The extra levels to Minion Skills are amazing. Another Ring option is Silvafrond, as it makes Summon Vines a Traversal Skill.
Milestone 5
Get Stormcarved Testament to proc Summon Storm Totem while staying in Spriggan Form.
Milestone 6
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
Julra's Obsession is an insane addition to this build for its ability to grant all the stats it has to your minions. These Gloves can only be obtained by defeating T3+ Chronomancer Julra in the Temporal Sanctum Dungeon. Farm it until you get them with Chance To Shred Armour on Hit.
Milestone 3
Look for a Titan Heart with Legendary Potential in the Blood, Frost, and Death Monolith Timeline to benefit from the Damage Reduction while using a Horned Staff. Unless you get Spell Damage for Totems on it, keep using your previous Body Armour.
Milestone 4
Keep 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 on 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
Keep farming until you get the maximum Legendary Potential you can find on all of your Uniques.
Milestone 4
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
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Embers of Immortality
- Body of Obsidian
- Spirit of Command
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 Dream of Eterra for the Necrotic Resistance.
- Grab Grand Body of Obsidian for the big amount of Flat Armour it provides.
- Farm Grand Memory of Light for the extra Health.
- Pick Grand Cruelty of the Meruna to grant Flat Spell Damage to Summon Storm Totem thanks to Fulgurite Core.
- Finish up by getting Grand Bulwark of the Tundra for the huge % 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 Favor of Souls is valuable to help you find Ornate Heorot Idol with %Critical Strike Chance for Totems Prefix and Minion Critical Strike Chance or Shared Physical Damage Suffixes. You can also use Grand Pride of Rebellion to find Grand Heorot Idols with Chance To Gain Haste For 3 Seconds When You Summon A Totem Prefix and Minion Critical Strike Chance or Shared Physical Damage Suffixes.
- Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Grand Chill of Death helps you find more Two-Handed Staves.
- Grand Arrogance of Argentus helps you find more Helmets to get an Exalted Level of Summon Thorn Totem Affix.
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 1 Ornate Heorot Idol with Critical Strike Chance for Totems and Minion Critical Strike Chance Suffix.
- Get 2 Grand Heorot Idols with Chance To Gain Haste For 3 Seconds When You Summon A Totem Prefix and Minion Critical Strike Chance Suffix.
- You also want 2 Large Nomad Idol with %Health Prefix and Totem Damage.
- Depending on your needs to cap your Totems Critical Strike Chance, consider using another Ornate Heorot Idol with Critical Strike Chance for Totems and Minion Critical Strike Chance Suffix instead of a Large Nomad Idol.
- You might need extra Resistances out of your Idols early on, so keep an eye out 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 Thorn Totem Shaman uses permanent Spriggan Form and stacks Cast Speed related buffs to fire a volley of Projectiles with Summon Thorn Totem against its enemies. It also deals a good amount of Damage with Summon Storm Totem. It mainly deals Physical and Lightning Minion Damage and aims to reach 100% Critical Strike Chance with Totems. This build also has decent survivability thanks to the defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Minion/Totem Flat Damage: You want to get as much Minion or Totem Flat Damage as possible. Avatar of Thunder, Rune of Awe, Elder Branch, Minion Melee and Spell Damage, Minion Spell and Bow Damage, and Totem Adaptive Spell Damage are crucial to build it up.
- % Minion/Totem Damage: Anything that increases Minion or Totem Damage is welcomed.
- Minion Physical/Lightning Penetration: Penetration subtracts from Resistances, causing a source of damage to deal more damage. Physical Penetration and Minion Physical Penetration, Stormcarved Testament and Shamanic Infusion are your main sources.
- Cast Speed: The faster you cast Summon Healing Totem, the more Projectiles you output from Summon Thorn Totem.
- 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. You need to get Julra's Obsession with Chance To Shred Armour on Hit for your Totems to apply it.
- Attunement: Summon Thorn Totem gains 4% Damage per point of Attunement.
- Minion/Totem Critical Strike Chance: Your Idols Critical Strike Chance for Totems and Minion Critical Strike Chance combined with Lethal Thicket and highly effective Tier 1 Totem Critical Strike Chance will cap Summon Thorn Totem's Critical Strike Chance.
- Minion Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your minion's Crits deal. Build as much as you can on your gear. Death Rattle provides up to 65% on its own.
- Level of Summon Thorn Totem: Get this Prefix on your Helmet for the Increased Damage it provides and to invest extra Points into its Tree.
- Totem Cast Speed: Ancestral Speed Increases the speed at which your Totems can fire their Projectiles when you are not actively spamming.
- Ursine Strength: Grants 16% Damage Reduction against Nearby enemies.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup gets very high Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits, Grand Body of Obsidian and Grand Bulwark of the Tundra Blessings, along with Silent Protector to reach 60%+ Mitigation.
- Health: This build has a decent 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 Gained on Minon Death: Death Rattle is used to regain health whenever you unsummon your Totems.
- Healing: Eterra's Blessing, Summon Healing Totem with Guardian of Nature and your two Summon Spriggans provide a decent amount of healing to aid you with sustain.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times. You need to get Julra's Obsession with Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit for your Totems to apply it.
- Ailment Cleanse: Available with Purge from Eterra's Blessing.
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
Coming Soon!
Summary
The Thorn Totem Shaman summons Totems casting auto-targeting Single Piercing Projectiles in a wide AoE for massive damage. Overall this Druid is amazing at completing all the content in the game.
- This is a permanent Spriggan Form build. Thanks to the Spiked Totems Node your Summon Healing Totems benefit from the Summon Thorn Totem's Tree.
- Spam Summon Healing Totem to deal damage with their Piercing Projectiles.
- With at least 5 Thorn Totems active, use Spirit Thorns to proc Summon Storm Totem for extra Damage.
- Ornate Heorot Idol and Grand Heorot Idol with Critical Strike Chance for Totems and Minion Critical Strike Chance is crucial for capping your Summon Thorn Totem Critical Strike Chance.
- While they are not mandatory, Uniques Items like Julra's Obsession, Death Rattle, Titan Heart, Legacy of the Quiet Forest, Stormcarved Testament, Phantom Grip are amazing to unleash the build's potential.
Credits
Written by BinaQc
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL, Volca