GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 Character Creation
There are several options available to you when creating a character. Selecting only the Standard game mode creates a character whose stash, gold, and crafting materials are shared amongst all similarly created characters. This is known as a Softcore (SC) character, and on the character select screen will have the SC tag.
Selecting only the Hardcore game mode creates a character whose stash, gold, and crafting materials are shared amongst all similarly created characters. On death this character is converted to softcore and loses access to your shared hardcore stash and leaderboards. This is generally referred to as a Hardcore (HC) character. On the character select screen these characters will have the HC tag.
Outside of death, there is no way to abandon this challenge. Though, you can still access and play the character after death. The character is converted to softcore (if solo challenge wasn’t selected) or converted to softcore solo self found (if solo challenge was selected). On the character select screen all dead hardcore characters have the Ghost tag.
Solo Challenge: This creates a character whose stash, gold, and crafting materials are separate from all other characters. This is generally referred to as a Solo Self Found (SSF) character. On the character select screen these characters will have the Solo tag.
Within the game’s Settings under the Challenges tab you can choose to abandon this challenge. If you abandon the solo challenge all items in your stash will be lost, as well as your gold and crafting items. This character will instead be moved to Softcore (by default) or Hardcore (if the HC challenge was also selected) and have access to the shared stash, gold, and crafting materials that reside there.
You can not re-enable this challenge once it has been disabled for that character.
Masochist Challenge: You and your minions take twice as much damage, and deal half as much damage as normal. If neither the Solo or Hardcore challenges are selected then you will have access to your Softcore shared stash, gold, and crafting materials. On the character select screen there is no unique tag given to these characters. This challenge becomes available after completing the story with at least one character.
Within the game’s Settings under the Challenges tab you can choose to abandon this challenge. If you abandon the masochist challenge then you and your minions will deal and take normal amounts of damage.
You can not re-enable this challenge once it has been disabled for that character.
One or more of these challenges can be selected at the same time. For example, you can create a Hardcore Solo Self Found (HC SSF) character.
1.2 Action Bar
( 1 ) Health Globe - displays your current amount of health and receives a blue coloured overlay if you’ve also accumulated any ward. For Lich’s Reaper Form ability this globe will turn a teal colour that displays a secondary amount of health that exists until you’ve been knocked out of Reaper Form. Hovering your cursor over the health globe will bring up a tooltip displaying your current health, maximum health, ward, ward retention, endurance, and endurance threshold.
( 2 ) Ward Gauge - displays your current amount of ward, if any.
( 3 ) Dungeon Ability - only visible in dungeons and the ability differs with the dungeon you’re currently in. This ability is mapped to the [D] key by default.
( 4 ) Potions - displays the current number of potions you’re carrying, if any. The amount of potions you can carry is directly tied to the belt you’re wearing, and potions are mapped to the [1] key by default.
( 5 ) Active Buffs - all buffs that have active indicators are displayed here. Not all active buffs have an indicator icon so you may have more buffs active than those displayed.
- Buffs have circular icons with a green border that indicates its duration.
- Effects with multiple stacks will have the number displayed at the bottom right of their icon.
- Mousing over an icon will display a tooltip with the name and details of the effect.
( 6 ) New Passive Point - a new passive point is available to be applied to any unlocked passive tree.
( 7 ) Skills - all skills you currently have mapped to your action bar. Only 5 skills can be mapped to the action bar at one time and these skills are mapped to the [Q], [W], [E], [R], and RMB keys by default. Hovering your cursor over these skills will bring up their Tooltip DPS and scaling tags.
( 8 ) Experience Bar - a visual indicator of your experience gain and how much is needed before your next level.
( 9 ) New Specialization Slot - a new skill specialization slot has been unlocked. There are a total of 5 skill specialization slots that are unlocked at levels 4, 8, 20, 35, and 50.
( 10 ) LMB Options - change how the LMB functions, from these three options:
- Move Only - the move button will always result in a move action even if your mouse is over an enemy.
- Move or Break Destructible - if you press the move button while hovering over a destructible (such as a barrel) you will attack it instead of moving.
- Move or Attack - if you press the move button while hovering over an enemy you will use an ability instead of moving, as long as the ability is targeted or you are holding Shift. Click to select which ability slot to use.
( 11 ) New Skill Available - a new skill has been unlocked through leveling, applying passive points, or after selecting your Mastery.
( 12 ) Active Debuffs - all debuffs that have active indicators are displayed here.
- Debuffs have hexagonal icons with a red border that indicates its duration.
- Effects with multiple stacks will have the number displayed at the bottom right of their icon.
- Mousing over an icon will display a tooltip with the name and details of the effect.
( 13 ) Panel List - contains a list of shortcuts to all panels/windows that can be opened in-game.
( 14 ) Teleport - opens a portal back to the last major town you visited.
( 15 ) Mana/Rage Globe - displays your current amount of mana. For Druid transformations this globe will turn orange and display your current amount of rage.
( 16 ) New Skill Point - one or more of your specialized skills has leveled up and gained a new skill point for you to apply. Specialized skills can earn a maximum of 20 skill points through leveling.
1.3 Character Sheet
The character sheet, opened using the [C] key by default, shows you key global offensive and defensive stats for your character as well as minion, ailment, and other stats. These stats are updated in real-time based on buffs or debuffs that are currently active. You can use your cursor to hover over each stat to gain further knowledge about what that stat does or how it functions.
A revamped character sheet is currently in development that will offer players even more in-depth stats concerning their character and skills. There is no ETA for its release.
1.4 Inventory & Stash
Your inventory, opened using the [ I ] key by default, shows you all the gear, idols, shards, and other items you’ve picked up off the ground or purchased. You can then store your gear in the stash as well as store your shards, glyphs, and runes into the Forge using the Transfer Crafting Items button located in the inventory window. Crafting materials are not purchasable at merchants, beyond a limited amount of Runes of Shattering.
You can use your cursor to hover over items to see their stats. Doing so brings up further functionality. You can use the [Alt] key to display item modifier explanations, the [Ctrl] key to compare the item with your currently equipped item of that type, and the [Alt] + [Ctrl] keys to display the items crafting & item roll information.
1.5 Attributes
There are 5 key attributes that each class can increase through passives and as affixes on most types of gear. All attributes have secondary effects that benefit some classes more than others and, in particular, the skills that you select for your build.
You can hover over skills that have an attribute in their Scaling Tags and hold the [Alt] key to see the benefit that that attribute provides to the skill.
Strength: Each point of Strength increases armour by 4% and improves skills that rely on the raw strength of you and your companions. The Primalist and Sentinel both have certain skills that benefit from this stat.
Dexterity: Each point of Dexterity adds 4 dodge rating and improves skills that rely on the skillful handling of weapons. The Acolyte, Mage, Primalist, Rogue, and Sentinel all have certain skills that benefit from this stat.
Intelligence: Each point of Intelligence grants 4% ward retention and improves skills that rely on carefully studied magic. The Acolyte and Mage both have certain skills that benefit from this stat.
Attunement: Each point of Attunement grants 2 mana and improves skills that rely on the innate magic inside you and your surroundings. The Primalist and Sentinel both have certain skills that benefit from this stat.
Vitality: Each point of Vitality grants 10 health and 2% increased health regen. The Sentinel has certain skills that benefit from this stat.
1.6 Defenses Overview
These are high level overviews of the defense systems available to you during your playthrough. You’ll find further information on each in the Combat Mechanics section of this Game Guide.
Resistances: Reduce the damage taken from a specific damage type. Each resistance caps at 75% and reduces the damage of both hits and damage over time.
Enemies penetrate 1% resistance per area level, up to 75%. This penetration applies after the resistance cap, so extra resistance above 75% has no effect unless enemies apply Resistance Shred, Shock, Poison, or Mark for Death ailments.
Resistances can be brought below 0% causing you to take more damage.
Armour: Reduces the damage taken from all hits, but is 70% as effective against non-physical damage. Armour only protects you from hits and not from damage over time. Your total damage mitigated from armour is increased by your armour rating, but reduced by the area level. To visually see how this works click here.
Endurance: Reduces all damage dealt to your health below your Endurance Threshold. You start with 20% Endurance and have an Endurance Threshold equal to 20% of your maximum health. Endurance mitigates damage from both hits and damage over time.
Block: First, you have Block Chance which is the chance you’ll block a hit from an attack or spell. Second, you have Block Effectiveness which is the percentage by which damage is reduced when you block a hit. Blocks will only protect you from hits and not from damage over time.
Your total damage mitigated from a block is increased by your Block Effectiveness, but reduced by the area level. To visually see how this works click here.
Dodge: Your chance to dodge a hit from enemies and thus negating all its damage. Dodge chance is increased by dodge rating, but reduced by the area level. To visually see how this works click here.
Critical Strike Avoidance: Gives a chance to downgrade an enemies crit on you to a regular hit. This stat caps at 100% which will provide you with immunity to enemy critical strikes.
Glancing Blow: Reduces damage taken from a hit by 35%. Having a glancing blow chance greater than 100% has no additional effect.
Stun Avoidance: Protects against stuns. Stuns do not allow you to move or use skills for a base duration of 0.4 seconds. When you are stunned, you become immune to stuns for 1 second after the stun ends.
Health & Leech/Regen: A large enough health pool in conjunction with appropriate amounts of health leech and/or regen can provide a significant amount of defense, especially in tandem with other defensive layers.
Ward: Is generally referred to as an energy shield that sits above your health and rapidly decays over time. Its temporary nature can require many sources of ward generation during combat in order to offer a substantial amount of defense (on its own).
Ward Retention: Any ward accumulated decays at a slower rate as this stat is increased.
Movement Speed: While not a defensive mechanic by definition, higher movement speed will allow you to avoid telegraphed enemy attacks far easier than if you had little or no movement speed. It may not be necessary for success, but it will certainly afford every build increased survivability.
1.7 Useful NPCs
Annya the Blacksmith
Annya is Last Epoch’s main merchant that sells on-level items for your character with an inventory that restocks over time. Annya also sells varying amounts (1-4) of the Rune of Shattering, a crafting item, for $2,000 gold each.
The majority of items found during your travels will not sell for much gold. The highest selling items in the game are the Arena Key at $6,500 gold and the Arena Key of Memory at $7,250 gold.
Artem the Gambler
The Gambler allows you to target farm any item of your choice, provided you meet the items’ level requirement. However, the item level of items sold by the gambler stops scaling with character level beyond level 40 and thus only provides a good source of items during the initial leveling of ones character. Item sold by the gambler within this item level range will never exceed the level requirement of your character.
Each item gambled has a chance to roll as a Common, Magic, or Rare item. Exalted, Unique, Set, and Legendary items cannot be gambled for.
Chronomancer Lerinne
The Chronomancer allows you to respec your passive points at the cost of gold. The gold cost is greater for passives higher in the Mastery trees than passives lower in those trees.
Currently, you can only refund one point at a time, having to confirm each change. Passive nodes on the righthand side of Mastery trees are sustained by the passive nodes that come before so you may need to refund higher passive nodes to make changes to lower passive nodes, in some cases.
1.8 Passives
The passive trees for each class offer nodes that increase a characters offensive and defensive traits, add new skills/buffs to proc, and allow for unique functionalities. You gain passive points by leveling up, starting at level 3, and as rewards for completing certain quests. A total of 113 passive points are possible by character level 100, with 98 obtained from leveling (lvls 3-100) and a further 15 from mission rewards.
You begin your journey with access to only the base class passive tree, but once you’ve chosen your Mastery Class you gain access to the left half of each Mastery’s passive tree and the right half of your chosen Mastery’s passive tree.
Passive points are spent from left to right in each of the passive trees. Nodes in these trees are located 5 passive points apart from each other and require passive points to be spent in previous nodes to access nodes located further to the right within the trees. Respec’ing passive points within the trees may require you to reallocate points from the rightmost nodes first if you are trying to remove points from the leftmost nodes, which are the nodes allowing you access to the righthand side of the tree in the first place.
As you earn passive points and increase the allotment of these points within the passive trees you unlock skills that you can then use.
The [Alt] key can be used to display further information for certain Passive and Skill tree nodes. Passives that grant a bonus stat/buff/skill when a certain amount of points have been invested in them are called threshold nodes. These nodes have yet to be implemented for all Mastery passive trees.
1.9 Skills
Each class has skills unique to it and skills that are unique to each Mastery Class. Skills are unlocked through leveling, investing passive points into a class, or after selecting a Mastery class. Unlocking a skill allows you to place it on your action bar, but it will need to be specialized in before you can access and take advantage of its skill tree.
Each character has a total of 5 skill specialization slots that are unlocked at levels 4, 8, 20, 35, and 50. Every skill has a customizable skill tree that is accessible once specialized. There are 20 skill points that can be allocated within each skill tree with these skill points being gained through earning experience by killing enemies or completing missions. All specialized skills gain experience at the same time and, depending on their current level, may also receive accelerated experience gain.
As your character level increases so will your Minimum Skill Level. The minimum skill level dictates how many skill points your skills start with when you specialize in them and how many skill points will be retained when de-leveling a skill.
Specialized skills are not permanent and can have their skill trees altered or replaced for a different skill. Removing individual skill points of your choosing will reduce a skill’s level by 1 if above your minimum skill level. You then level up the skill as normal to spend these skill points again. De-specializing a skill will remove all skill points and experience from the skill, and allow you to specialize in another skill to take its place. The new skill will start at your minimum skill level.
1.10 Mastery Choice
When you start your journey in Last Epoch you only have access to the base class passive tree. As you progress through the main story you will eventually reach the End of Time location, which begins the start of Chapter 4. The End of Time is reached after defeating the Emperor’s Remains boss that lies within the Sanctum Bastille, of the Ruined Era. It can also be accessed by completing the Lightless Arbor dungeon, provided you’ve previously acquired a Lightless Arbor Key.
Once you have reached the End of Time you speak to The Forgotten Knight NPC who will open a portal to the Realm of the Forgotten. At the end of a series of walkways and after fending off your other selves you get to a pedestal surrounded by 3 unique versions of yourself. These are the Mastery class options for your character, with but one path to take, and the choice cannot be undone.
Your Mastery choice grants you a unique Mastery Bonus, a skill unique to that Mastery, and access to that Mastery’s full passive tree. Investing enough passive points into your chosen Mastery tree will unlock additional skills unique to it. While your Mastery choice locks you to that Mastery, it does not stop you from putting passive points into the other Mastery trees. However, you can only put enough passive points into the other Mastery trees to unlock half of their tree.
Currently, the Falconer, Runemaster, and Warlock Mastery’s are unavailable. These are still in development and will be released by 1.0 at the latest.
1.11 Shrines
Shrines are magical constructs found in the world that can be activated by clicking on them. Shrines can only be activated once and activating a shrine is optional. The shrines from each era have their own unique model and visual appearance that will update when they are activated, and again when their duration expires.
Shrines from each era also have their own pool of effects. These effects can vary from summoning enemies for you to fight, spawning temporary allies to assist you in combat, dropping valuable loot, or granting powerful, time-limited buffs.
1.12 Training Dummy
The training dummy is located in multiple town hubs, allowing the player to test changes to gear in order to optimize damage output. These dummies are effectively level 1 and don’t have any resistances or other damage mitigation stats. Considering enemies have ~87% damage reduction at level 100, the training dummy will receive about 7.7 times as much damage as a level 100 enemy.
The training dummy isn’t an enemy so it won’t count as striking an enemy, nor trigger events or procs that require one. However, the Champions Gate area of the Arena has one such training dummy available that provides this functionality, and even minions (including totems) will automatically attack it without any input necessary from the user.
The ring on the floor surrounding the training dummy in the End of Time has a radius of 5.2m. However, if the character is standing on the circle then that character is about 4m from the dummy when calculated from character radius edge to enemy radius edge. This distance is considered nearby and provides a visual reference for the player. The area outside the circle would be considered distant. This terminology is used frequently throughout the game.
1.13 Terminology
Adaptive Spell Damage: works like any other added spell damage, except that it changes its damage type to match that of the spell being used.
For example, if you have an Oracle Staff with +95 Adaptive Spell Damage and use the Lightning Blast skill, whose base damage type is lightning by default, then +95 flat lightning damage will be multiplied by the skill’s damage effectiveness (100% in this case), and then added to the skill’s base damage before stats like increased damage and more damage are applied.
Deadly: enemies gain 100% more damage.
Direct Cast: a skill directly casted by the player (i.e. the player manually activates the ability on their action bar).
Distant: this distance can generally be defined as greater than 4 meters from the player character radius edge. The circle surrounding the training dummy can be used to show how far away enemies are required to be considered distant.
Elemental Resistance/Damage: impacts Fire, Lightning, and Cold resists/damage elements.
Enrage: enemies gain 60% increased attack & casting speed and 35% increased movement speed.
Fear: causes enemies to flee from you and your allies and lasts for 0.5 to 0.9 seconds. Enemies can only be affected by fear once.
Frenzy: grants the player 20% increased attack and casting speed and does not stack. Enemies with frenzy gain increased attack and casting speed.
Haste: grants the player 30% increased movement speed and does not stack. Enemies with haste gain 40% increased movement speed.
High Health: refers to greater than 65% of maximum health remaining.
Inspiration: grants the player 20% increased cooldown recovery speed for 4 seconds and does not stack.
Kill Threshold: instantly kill enemies below a certain health threshold (a percentage of their maximum health).
Low Health: refers to less than 35% of maximum health remaining.
Nearby: this distance varies among skills, but is generally within 4 meters of the player character radius edge. The circle surrounding the training dummy can be used to show how close enemies are required to be considered nearby.
On Hit: when you, the player, inflict a hit on an enemy.
Rampant: enemies gain increased damage, size, and damage resistance.
Recently: within the last 4 seconds (unless stated otherwise).
Shadows: creates a Shadow of yourself that persists for up to 5 seconds and will imitate your next Shadow Cascade, Shurikens, Umbral Blades, or Acid Flask. Shadows are exclusive to the Rogue class and its Mastery’s, and are not classified as minions. Minions are summoned while shadows are created.
Taunt: taunting vastly reduces your “unimportance modifier” so that you appear as though you are the closest target from the enemy, so the enemy AI then automatically targets you. Please see threat for more info.
Threat: how an enemy determines what to attack next. Essentially, increases to threat will make one appear that much closer to enemies when they are selecting a target. Also, enemies prefer to keep attacking the same target.
Threat is based almost entirely on proximity. Individual actors (players, minions, enemies) have an “unimportance modifier” which causes them to appear as though they are closer to or further away from anything which is doing an automatic targeting calculation.
Twinned: enemies summon a twin at half health.
When Hit: when you, the player, receive a hit from an enemy.
1.14 Helpful Resources
From official resources to community hosted websites, these are some of the most helpful places a new player can visit for further information or community interaction.
Official Resources
Community Websites
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LastEpochTools - hosted by Dammitt, this community created website offers a fully featured Build Planner, robust Item Database, Build Compendium, Game Guide, and much more.
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Tunklab - hosted by Tunk, this community created website offers a plethora of features that include; an Item Database, Gear Planner, Defensive Calculators, and much more.
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Wiki - while several aspects of the wiki are vastly outdated, there’s still some useful information to be found here.
YouTube
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LE University - a video series of guides, created by McFluffin, focused on helping new players get a better understanding of the game’s core concepts.
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MoF Overview - a quick guide of the Monolith of Fate endgame system created by Smattymatty.
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Crafting Guides
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Boss Guides
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MoF Boss Guide - this video, created by Heavy, provides a breakdown of boss mechanics for all 10 Timeline bosses in the Monolith of Fate.
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Shade of Orobyss - this video, created by Heavy, provides a breakdown of boss mechanics for the Shade of Orobyss boss located within each of the MoF Timelines.
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The Mountain Beneath - this video, created by Heavy & CaiusMartius, provides a breakdown of boss mechanics for the Lightless Arbor’s dungeon boss.
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Chronomancer Julra (1) - this video, created by Heavy & CaiusMartius, provides a breakdown of boss mechanics for the Temporal Sanctum’s dungeon boss.
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Chronomancer Julra (2) - this video, created by LizardIRL, provides a breakdown of boss mechanics for the Temporal Sanctum’s dungeon boss.
Forums
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Loot Filter Guide - created by Heavy, this guide will help you to both understand how the loot filter works and how to create your very own loot filters. Heavy also maintains a repository of loot filters that you can use or build from.
Reddit
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Defenses Guide - a guide detailing the many defensive layers you can get in the world of Last Epoch.
Foreign Language Resources
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German
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Discord - an unofficial server, started by Heavy, that was created to help build a German speaking community around LE and has over 200 members.
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Fan Website - hosted by RawSuicide, this website includes guides for beginners and provides translations of the latest news, dev blogs, and patch notes.
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Game Guide - while some of its content is outdated now, this is a community translation of the game guide created by ZeroSorc.
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Russian
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Discord - an unofficial server, created by Quadtrac, is a place to hang out or ask your fellow countrymen questions.
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Spanish
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Discord - an unofficial server, created by elgamerviejuno, that brings together all people from Spain and Latin America interested in Last Epoch.
Multiplayer
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Multiplayer is planned, but not yet available. It’s scheduled to arrive alongside patch 0.9, which doesn’t currently have a release date but will hopefully come out sometime in Q4 2022. From the May 2022 multiplayer update we learned that it’s progressed into pre-Alpha testing with the Community Testers.
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Official LE Multiplayer FAQ
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EHG also releases semi-monthly multiplayer progress updates:
