Gathering Storm & Tempest Strike Rework

In the lead up to 1.0, EHG announced the new Gathering Storm skill and the rework to Tempest Strike. These changes will be live on February 21st when 1.0 releases but you can read up on the juicy details right now!

Here are some key takeaways from the Gathering Storm and Tempest Strike Rework coming to Last Epoch in 1.0!

Gathering Storm will become available to all Primalists at level 2, replacing Ice Thorns. Those who have been following our posts for a while may remember we intended to remove Ice Thorns but wanted to have a new skill to implement in its place.

“Strike at your enemy with a mighty lightning powered storm. When you use Gathering Storm and hit at least one enemy, you gain a Storm Stack. Every second you expend a Storm Stack to cause a Storm Bolt to strike a nearby enemy. This interval is reduced by 2% for every stack you currently have.”

With higher stack counts firing off Storm Bolts at greater rates, Gathering Storm is an ability that is about pressing the attack for greater reward. By the time you reach 50 Storm Stacks, there is zero delay between consuming stacks to generate Storm Bolts, so a greater stack count is always beneficial.

Gathering Storm costs zero mana by default, and inherently gains 4% increased damage per point of strength to the Melee Attack, while each point of Attunement grants it +1 spell damage for Storm Bolt.

Frostbringer converts Gathering Storm and Storm Bolt’s Base Damage from Lightning to Cold, and converts Shock chance to Frostbite chance. This offers a great route for those looking for more crowd control through freeze, and damage over time with Frostbite.

With Lagonian Diplomacy and a Staff, Gathering Storm can be converted completely to a spell. Striking out with Storm Bolts directly, this node allows you to put complete focus into the spell aspects of Gathering Storm, though with an added mana cost.

What would a skill about pressing the attack be without some dual-wielding support? The Two Eyed Storm node grants your Storm Stacks the ability to strike two enemies for the price of one; so long as you have a weapon in each hand.

For those that like to synergize their builds with Minions, you’ll also find support for this within Gathering Storm. One such node, Whirlwind Tactics, expends a number of Storm Stacks whenever you use a Companion ability.

As we covered in November’s Dev Blog 33, Tempest Strike has been reworked in functionality while keeping the same theme. Tempest Strike is now a powerful high-cost combo ability which triggers a Tempest with each strike, rather than a chance for a spell effect that it had previously.

While we talked a bit about how the skill was mechanically changing, at the time we were still making changes to the ability, and weren’t quite ready to show the tree for it. So today, as we are covering the new Primalist Skill, we also want to show everyone some of the new skill tree options coming to Tempest Strike.

Supporting transformations, Druids Call allows you an option to turn Tempest Strike into a melee triggered ability while transformed. I’m sure there’s many lightning Werebears out there who just had their ears perk up at the idea of adding another skill to the repertoire.

In Tempest Strike's tree you will find a number of nodes that allow you to sacrifice one of the Tempests in order to gain attack speed. Though do be aware, removing a Tempest does not remove the corresponding Strike. You’ll also find opportunities to synergize with other abilities for further spell combos, such as with the Ceaseless Typhoon node, which grants a chance to cast Tornado each time you trigger Wind Tempest in the combo.

With the Looming Gale node, you will convert Tempest Strike into a Tempest Totem which casts the three Tempests in sequence without the melee attack. This also converts the ability into a minion ability by changing it to a totem, allowing Tempest Strike to fit into other totem and minion builds.

Just want to keep it simple and add more Tempests? We’ve got you covered. Granting any of the strikes a chance to cast one of the Tempests means you can lash out with multiple tempests on each strike. Pick a specific Tempest to focus on, or just trigger more of all of them, the choice is yours.

With 1.0 fast approaching, Last Epoch is truly shaping up to be everything we want and more as we head towards release on February 21st! Until then, the Maxroll Last Epoch Team is in full swing getting the branch's final details done and ready for you to blast the great world of Eterra

If you haven't already, head over to our Discord and select the Last Epoch role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development.