Werebeast Build

Early Game

A versatile hero filled with feral fury, Werebeast combines massive amounts of innate cooldown to shred through enemies with shields and healing to survive incoming attacks.

His versatility allows for two types of builds in the early game:

1. The Defensive Knight build
2. Or the more aggressive max DPS build

Defensive Knight Build

As you can guess by the name, the Defensive Knight build loads up on knight gear in every slot. You rely on Werebeast's 30% cooldowns at level 80 for damage and focus everything else on defense.

I used this build to progress way past what my talent level and gear would have allowed me for most heroes.

Max DPS Build

If you never liked defense, the other option is the HvH standard max DPS build. This build complements the rogue set with the ranger boots. The Werebeast's ultimate gives him a massive boost to critical strike that lets him proc the 4x critical strike multiplier.

You can mix and match these two builds if needed to find a balance between defense and offense in the early game. And as always, feel free to use your highest-level gear, even if it doesn't fit in the set or makes you lose a set bonus.

Late Game

As you enter the late game, you typically run the same Max DPS build in all settings except Nightmare Mode.

But Nightmare Mode is Werebeast's time to shine. One of the few champions suitable for nightmare mode, thanks to his healing and shields, Werebeast can take you through level 150. The Nightmare Mode build utilizes the "Snowman."

Here's the "Nightmare Mode Snowman Build:"

This build combines the Wizard Helm and Wizard Ring for increased status effect duration with the Knight Chest, Boots, Gloves, and Necklace. This combo turns the Werebeast into a snowball-throwing Were-Yeti.

The Werebeast's ability to clear Nightmare Mode content moves him from A to S- tier status in my book.

Onto the optimal weapons and tomes for the Werebeast.

Because of his versatility, there are actually five weapon builds for our favorite half-man half-wolf:

1. Early Game Offense
2. Early Game Defense
3. Late Game Offense
4. Late Game Progression
5. Nightmare

Early Game Offense

Most of you are still in the early game, which lasts until at least level 250 HM. My priority weapon build for the early game is:

Increasing the Werebeast's fairy tale status is that every tome increases the damage of his primary weapon, Dual Claws, so we want to max that out first.

Then, you get a massive spike in power in the early game, evolving Dragon's Breath into Dragon's Inferno. The constant DPS covers up for a relatively lower overall cooldown level.

Tomes to compliment the build are:

Depending on your last weapon, mix and match the last tome to evolve it.

Eary Game Defense

For defense, the priority for Werebeast shifts to armor and regen. This makes Armor Tome and evolving Divine Aurora into Vampire Auora a top priority. My priority for defense would be:

Tomes to compliment the build are:

Late Game Max DPS

Max DPS Gear is just about killing mobs before they kill you. The Werebeast's max DPS is the standard late-game DPS weapon build:

Tomes to compliment the build are:

You don't evolve Crossbow because the increased number of projectiles apply a ton of vulnerability to targets that increases your overall DPS more than the evolution to Crossbow would. The Crit Tome also plays into the Rogue 4x multiplier gear.

As an important note, at some point, you will hit the hard cooldown cap from gear and jewels. I know this because I just did. I have 90% CD without cooldown tome.

That might sound like a good thing, but it's actually a problem. Chain Lightening is one of the better end-game spells for DPS, but you completely waste CD tome to evolve it. I am still experimenting with better builds, but I'm guessing the optimal build revolves around a special weapon not granted within the default 11.

Progression Gear

Progression Gear puts an emphasis on disruption to navigate around giant elite spawns. My priority would be:

You can run Ice Wand and Boomerang for double disruption if you have the DPS to make it work. Otherwise, go with Ice Wand and Chain Lightening for damage.

Tomes to compliment the build are:

Nightmare

Werebeast is one of the few champions I would recommend for Nightmare Mode. Nightmare mode significantly increases the health of the hordes and reduces your evasion and regen. For that reason, the goal of the weapon build is to survive via armor and disruption, not to kill hordes. That makes the priority similar to early-game defense but with a massive emphasis on Armor Tome and Ice Wand. It's important to note you max Dual Claws last. I call this the "Snowman Build for Nightmare Mode":

You only want Divine Aura at 2* and Boomerang at 3* for the cooldown reduction.

If you're doing nightmare content, you probably have done enough Arenas to upgrade bombs or crossbow to 2*. They both get disruption chance at that point in the form of freezes or stuns. You should use whichever is at 2*.

I will have a full rundown on how to build "The Snowman", or in this case the WereYeti, in the future.

Jewel priority for Werebeast is very straightforward until very late in the game when it gets a bit tricky. Jewel priority for most of the game follows the best practices for most heroes. The jewel priority is:

Run cooldown jewels until it hits 60% in the detail window. You cap cooldown at 60% because you get 30% from cooldown tome. 90% is the max cooldown cap in Normal, Hard, Arena, Boss, and Guild modes.

Area has a soft cap on Area Of Effect when the inner ring of 4* Fire Orbs hits the side of the screen. But that's not really a worry until you have Heroic gear.

You have some leeway here to use much higher-level jewels instead of lower-level cooldown jewels. For example, I'd consider a level 7 Projectile (P) over a level 1 cooldown. You can always test which does more damage in your game by doing the same run with the same gear and weapons but changing the jewels.

I said it gets tricky late in the game because the Werebeast has so much internal cooldown you can actually get to 90% without using the cooldown tome. But as any half animal half man will tell you, with increased power comes increased trade-offs. Werebeast has so much cooldown that it's wasted in modes like Hero Clash and Nightmare mode with caps at 40%.

If you want to spend the tokens, you can make Werebeast really howl by upgrading Dual Claws to Moon Charged claws, with some solid, but not great, upgrades along the way. The tier 1 and 2 upgrades only impact his base weapon, not his evolved one.

The first tier is a toss up. I would go with Lupine Reach for the 20% increase in AoE, but I imagine the 10% increase in damage from Razor Claw Force would be about the same.

For tier two, predator's bite is the way to go for more damage. Werebeast does have a bleed effect when you evolve his weapon, so only take it then.

Per BBanditz on Reddit: The only thing I'll add is that the devs have confirmed Werebeast does inflict bleed for 2 seconds with each swipe of his Evo'd claws, so it might be worthwhile to choose the bleed pathway at 2 stars.

Moon Charged Claws seems pretty cool, and I could see going Howling Terror for more damage at five stars. But those look like a toss-up too.

Early Game Pets

Main Pet. The best main pet for the Werebeast is your highest-level pet. Typically, that means the Pyrokraken or Emberpaw. I just now, after about 300 eggs, got the Hydro Basilisk. The highest-level pet should do the most damage.

Passive Pets.I typically run my next two highest-damage pets as my passive pets. That means either Emberpaw or Pyrokraken, plus an elemental striker with a damage bonus.

Late Game Pets

Main Pet. I really like the Hydro Basilisk as a main pet. The ultimate slow is great, the geysers do a ton of AOE damage, and it's ranged. A great combo across the board.

I just now managed to grab the Crystalsaurs, which should start doing more damage once I get it to an equivalent pet level.

Generally, your highest-level pet should do the most damage.

Passive Pets.Right now, I am running Pyrokraken and Crystalsaurs as my passive pets. I like them for the ranged DPS that isn't limited by the Emberpaw radius. If you have a higher level Strom Gryphon than Basilisk, I would swap in the Basilisk for Pyrokraken.

A lot of this will come down to your own testing, honestly, as there's no 100% ideal setup.

Nightmare Mode Pets

Main Pet. I go with Hydro Basilisk as a main pet for the slow. I will test Crystalsaurs when I get it leveled.

Interestingly, it's passive pets that are a bit OP in NMM.

Passive Pets. You run double basic Snails for passive pets in NMM. Each gives 15% multiplicative HP of your base HP for 30% total. It's hugely important in Nightmare mode.

You don't need the extra damage from pets. You just need to survive.