Upheaval Beastmaster Guide

Last Updated: September 30th 2023

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This fearless Upheaval Beastmaster heads into battle with Upheaval, sundering the ground and dealing Cold melee Damage to all enemies caught in its path. Nothing can stand in your way as you slam and pound your foes into an ice-cold death.

The build takes advantage of Shockwave, which efficiently scales up the AoE of Upheaval and provides enjoyable gameplay. Fury Leap into battle, and use Summon Frenzy Totem and Warcry to gain powerful buffs. This Beastmaster is a pure melee build, and as such it uses Summon Wolf only for the buffs it provides.

You need Foot of the Mountain to play this build, as it reduces Upheaval mana cost to 0. It can be easily obtained by defeating the Dungeon boss in Lightless Arbor.

Aside from Foot of the Mountain, this setup shines with Uniques. Titan Heart and Aurora's Time Glass provide amazing tankiness for the build, while Siphon of Anguish and Shattered Chains raise the Damage considerably. Jasper's Searing Pride provides even more DPS, making this build an absolute powerhouse.

Overall the Upheaval Beastmaster is a strong melee build and capable of completing all the content in the game with ease. It's fun to play, has very high single target DPS and decent AoE. If you are looking for a satisfying melee build that pounds its enemies into oblivion, this setup is perfect for you!

End Game Gear Planner

Summon Wolf

Summon Frenzy Totem

Fury Leap

Warcry

Upheaval

This build guide assumes you have a Level 70 Character. Reach Level 70 with our Beastmaster Leveling Guide.
The build needs Foot of the Mountain. Check our Unique Item Farming Guide for tips!
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!

Fun To Play
Amazing DPS
Good AoE For Melee
Great Scaling With Gear & Uniques

❌ Requires a Unique
Mana Management
Buff Micromanagement
Requires Mana Sustain Investment

Skills

Upheaval

Upheaval is your main Damage Skill. Glacial Cascade converts its Damage to Cold. 3 points in Inexhaustible is required for the mana cost reduction. Take Brutish Engagement for the huge Damage multiplier it provides. Grab Natural Weapons and Glacial Crash for massive Cold Penetration.

Click the Nodes at the bottom to see Skill Tree Progression

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.

  1. Berserker, Ursine Strength and Boar Heart provide insane Damage Reduction.
  2. The Circle Of Life and Dragon Slayer provide stacks of Aspect of the Shark.
  3. Ocean Maw is important for more effectiveness and uptime of Aspect of the Shark.
  4. Feeding Frenzy allows Aspect of the Shark to stack up to 10 times, providing massive DPS.
  5. Cry of the Lynx and Serrated Claws grant a powerful Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier buff.
  6. Critical Bite provides a huge amount of Leech.
  7. Viper Fangs grants a ton of Attack Speed.
  8. Life in the Wilderness and Natural Bond helps your companion survive.
End Game Gear Planner

Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.

Gameplay

This Beastmaster leaps in and sunders the ground with Upheaval. 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

  • First of all, use Summon Wolf to summon your wolf.
  • Fury Leap into enemy packs.
  • Summon Frenzy Totem for its buffs.
  • Use you companion ability, Howl, for its buffs and to proc Aspect of the Lynx.
  • Cast Warcry for Berserker and other buffs.
  • Spam Upheaval. Stack Berserker and Aspect of the Shark.
  • Whenever your companion ability buff runs out, cast it again and refresh the buff.

Mapping

  • Rush to the objective fast with Fury Leap every time it's off Cooldown.
  • With high stacks of Aspect of the Shark, Upheaval will spend a lot of mana per second. If you're spamming the skill for a long time, stand still to activate the mana cost reduction of Foot of the Mountain.
  • The more Mana Regeneration you have on your gear, the smoother the mapping will be, allowing you to stay on the move while spamming Upheaval.

Bossing

  • Fully stack Aspect of the Shark and the Berserker buff from Warcry to gain absurdly high DPS.
  • Stand still to activate the mana cost reduction of Foot of the Mountain.
  • Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
  • Warcry and Fury Leap can save you from incoming Damage. Time them against dangerous 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 - 4500+ Health
  • 50% - 60%+ Armour
  • 70+ Strength
  • 160%+ Attack Speed (with Buffs)
  • 100% Melee Critical Strike Chance
  • 400%+ Critical Strike Multiplier
  • 30% - 50%+ Movement Speed

Gear Progression

Starting Gear
Advanced Gear
End Game Gear
BIS Gear

Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 setup 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
Farm Foot of the Mountain with Legendary Potential. Get Movement Speed on them. This item can be farmed by killing the Dungeon boss in Lightless Arbor. Kill the boss in T4 difficulty to maximize drop rate.

Milestone 3
Look for Shattered Chains with Legendary Potential. This Belt grants more Damage per stack of Doom and other valuable stats. Farm it by killing the Shade of Orobyss at 120+ Corruption. At the same time, farm Siphon of Anguish with Legendary Potential.

End Game Gear Planner

Milestone 4
Farm Jasper's Searing Pride with Legendary Potential. This item provides a lot of Flat Melee Damage, scaling up the DPS significantly. It's a common world drop and relatively easy to get with 1 LP. Only use it after getting Melee Critical Strike Chance on it. Exalted Bladed Staff is still an option, providing less Damage and more Stun.

Milestone 5
Aurora's Time Glass is an excellent addition to this build for extra survivability, if you happen to find it.

Milestone 6
Focus on finishing your Large Nomad Idols with %Health Prefix and Critical Strike Avoidance for You and Your Minions Suffix. You also want Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix. The Suffixes on these Idols can also have Resistances, use them as needed.

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!

End Game Blessings
Normal Blessings
Empowered Combat Blessings
Empowered Drop Rate Blessings

Normal Blessings are not very 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

Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.

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:

  • Get 2 Large Nomad Idols with %Health Prefix and Critical Strike Avoidance for You and Your Minions Suffix.
  • Find 2 Large Nomad Idols with %Health Prefix. For the Suffixes aim for Elemental Resistance, Cold Resistance or Lightning Resistance.
  • You also want 2 Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix. Suffixes can be either Health or Resistances, depending on your needs.
  • Throne of Ambition provides a multiplicative Damage and Armour buff, which is great for Bossing.
  • You might need extra Resistances out of your Idols early on, so keep an eye for anything useful until you get your final setup.
End Game Idols

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

This Beastmaster sunders the ground with Upheaval, dealing high Cold melee Crit Damage with a fast Attack Speed. This build also has great survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.

Damage
Defense
  • Flat Melee Damage: This build focuses on scaling Cold Damage. You want to get as much Flat Damage on your Staff as possible. If you're using Jasper's Searing Pride, it also provides some Flat Fire Damage with its Searing Blades buff.
  • Attack Speed: Attack faster for more Damage and Ailments.
  • % Increased Damage: Anything that increases Cold Melee Damage is welcomed.
  • Strength: Upheaval gains 4% Damage per point of Strength. Additionally it grants 4% Armour per point, which adds a nice defensive layer for the build.
  • Attunement: Upheaval gains 4% Damage per point of Attunement. Additionally it grants +2 Mana per point.
  • Critical Strike Chance: Make sure you get T5 or Exalted Melee Critical Strike Chance on your Staff, it's easy to cap it with it thanks to all the Crit Chance related buffs this build has.
  • Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. The build gets a ton of it from Serrated Claws and Dig Deep. Get as much as you can on your gear.
  • Cold Resistance Shred: Since this build gets so much Cold Penetration from the Natural Weapons and Glacial Crash Nodes in Upheaval, Cold Shred is not required. Resistance Shred and Penetration are additive with each other since they both reduce the resistance of the enemy. However, if you want even more Damage, you can get the Grand Rage of Winter Blessing for Cold Shred.
  • 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 16.6% increased Cold Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 40.1%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly.
  • Aspect of the Shark: Grants % Increased Melee Damage and Attack Speed. With Rending Maw, it also grants Chance to Shred Armour on Hit. By speccing into Feeding Frenzy, we can stack it up to 10 times, making it an extremely powerful buff. At 10 stacks, it provides 660% Increased Melee Damage, 88% Increased Attack Speed and 880% Chance to Shred Armour on Hit .
  • Doom: Granted by Siphon of Anguish, this Ailment greatly increases the Melee Damage taken by enemies. 4% per stack, maximum 4 stacks. Shattered Chains scales this further, with an extra 5% more Melee Damage per stack.
  • Penetration: This build gets a ton of Cold Penetration from Natural Weapons and Glacial Crash in Upheaval.
  • Level of Upheaval: This is a big boost to our Damage since it allows us to invest in additional multipliers from the Skill tree.
  • Throne of Ambition: Provides a huge DPS boost while fighting Bosses.

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.

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.

Monolith
Dungeons
Endless Arena

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 very high. Since it's also a tanky build, it's an amazing setup for farming difficult content in high Corruption.

Monolith Timelines

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:

  1. Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
  2. 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.
  3. Finish up your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
  4. Farm for key Uniques.
  5. 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.
  • Enemy chance to Dodge (with Mantle Strike).

Avoid these Modifiers

  • Enemy chance to receive a Glancing Blow.
  • Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
  • 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.

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. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.

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

Overall, the Upheaval Beastmaster is a fearless melee fighter capable of defeating all the content in the game. It has amazing single target DPS and great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers.

  • This build requires Foot of the Mountain to be played.
  • Fury Leap into combat, spam Upheaval and stack Aspect of the Shark and Berserker to reach sky-high DPS.
  • Maintain all your powerful buffs with Warcry, Summon Frenzy Totem and Summon Wolf.
  • Berserker, Ursine Strength and Boar Heart provide insane Damage Reduction.
  • While they are not mandatory, Siphon of Anguish, Shattered Chains, Jasper's Searing Pride , Titan Heart and Aurora's Time Glass are great Uniques that you want to get to scale the build to its full potential.

Credits

Written by Volca.
Reviewed by LizardIRL.

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