Upheaval Beastmaster Guide
Last Updated:April 11, 2025|Changelog
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. The investment to maximize this build is considerable, so it is not recommended as a starter.
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!
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!
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.
- If you are missing Chance to create a Shockwave on hit with Upheaval on your Body Armour, invest 2-3 points into Sundering Strike inside Upheaval.
- Any additional points in Upheaval can be allocated into Unstoppable Strength or Crust Rupture.
- Summon Wolf dies quite easily, which can reduce the uptime of its buffs. You can allocate Howl of Might for the multiplicative Dodge Rating, while Wolfen Recovery and Earthborn can be useful for some extra sustain.
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.
- Cornered Beast, Ursine Strength and Porcine Constitution provide insane Damage Reduction.
- The Circle Of Life and Dragon Slayer provide stacks of Aspect of the Shark.
- Ocean Maw is important for more effectiveness and uptime of Aspect of the Shark.
- Feeding Frenzy allows Aspect of the Shark to stack up to 10 times, providing massive DPS.
- Cry of the Lynx and Serrated Claws grant a powerful Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier buff.
- Critical Bite provides a huge amount of Leech.
- Viper Fangs grants a ton of Attack Speed.
- Life in the Wilderness and Natural Bond helps your companion survive.
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.
- Make sure to keep Aspect of the Lynx up at all times by using Howl.
- Warcry and Fury Leap grant a brief Damage Immunity, use them to your advantage!
- Fury Leap is a leap and can be used to go over certain walls and terrain gaps.
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 stack as many other defensive layers as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Empowered 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
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with two 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 Bladed Staff with double T5 offensive Prefixes 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
Get T5 Level of Upheaval on your Body Armour to invest more points into its Skill Tree. Aim for T5 Chance to create a Shockwave on hit with Upheaval to increase the AoE and clear speed.
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, provide utility or increase your Damage output.
Milestone 1
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Strength, Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier to increase your DPS drastically.
Milestone 2
Get Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit to decrease the Damage enemies deal to you. This Ailment is really important and should always be kept in mind.
Milestone 3
Farm Siphon of Anguish for the Doom chance it provides. It's a common drop from Shade of Orobyss in any Monolith of Faith Timeline. You can farm this Unique while you look for Empowered Blessings.
Milestone 4
Farm Throne of Ambition in The Stolen Lance Empowered Monolith Timeline. It's a rare drop from God Hunter Argentus. This item provides a multiplicative Damage and Armour buff.
Milestone 5
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance. Your goal is to have items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20. Keep an eye for Large Nomad Idols with %Health Prefix and Critical Strike Avoidance for You and Your Minions Suffix. The Suffixes on these Idols can also have Resistances, use them as needed.
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.
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.
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
Farm Titan Heart with Legendary Potential. This item provides a lot of %Health and Damage Reduction. Health Regen is disabled when using this item, but it's not a big downside for this build since it relies on Leech for sustain. Get at least Level of Upheaval and Chance to create a Shockwave on hit with Upheaval on it.
Milestone 4
Continue farming Jasper's Searing Pride, Siphon of Anguish, Shattered Chains and Foot of the Mountain with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Remember that some Unique Items are extremely hard to get with multiple Legendary Potential. 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 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.
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 quickly 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 Survival of Might. A high roll on this Empowered Blessing can be combined with Large Nomad Idols or a single T5 Critical Strike Avoidance to completely cap it.
- Farm Grand Echo of Solarum and Grand Resolve of Grael for their Resistances.
- Farm the best rolled Grand Body of Obsidian you can get. It grants a large amount of Flat Armor that helps increase the survivability of the build.
- Finish up by farming Grand Crash of the Waves for the high chance to Stun enemies. Grand Bastion of Divinity is an option if you need more Resistances.
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 helps us find the best Idols for our build. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Farm Grand Chill of Death to find more Bladed Staff and Jasper's Searing Pride.
- Lastly, take Grand Slumber of Morditas to find more Relics or Grand Embrace of Ice to find more Body Armours, such as Titan Heart.
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.
- Health
- %Health
- Vitality
- Armour
- Elemental Resistance
- Poison Resistance
- Void Resistance
- Physical Resistance
- Increased Aspect Of The Boar Effect
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.
- 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.
- Warcry and Fury Leap: They grant a brief Damage Immunity thanks to the Juggernaut and Heorot's Protection Nodes.
- 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: Porcine Constitution grants 30% Damage Reduction.
- Armour Mitigation: This setup can get high Armour. Combine the Armour from your Item Implicits, Grand Body of Obsidian Blessing and all the Strength this build has to reach 50% to 60%+ Mitigation. Thanks to Throne of Ambition, this Mitigation increases to 70%+ while Bossing. 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 4000 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!
- Leech: Critical Bite is the main source of Leech for this build. Survival of the Pack, Lamprey Teeth and Siphon of Anguish provide some extra Leech as well.
- Chill: An Ailment that greatly reduces the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. It is a must have on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers. Glacial Cascade converts the Slow from Maiming Rubble into Chill.
- 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. With Purging Shout in Warcry and Battle Bloom in Fury Leap, you don't need to have this affix on your Belt.
- Aurora's Time Glass: This powerful Unique can save you from dangerous situations. Make sure its internal cooldown is ready before you engage 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. 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.
- Cornered Beast, Ursine Strength and Porcine Constitution 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.