GENERAL INFORMATION
1.1 Character Creation
There are several options available to you when creating a character. Selecting none of the Optional Challenges 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.
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.
Hardcore Challenge: 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.
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.
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 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.
You can use your cursor to hover over each stat to gain further knowledge about what that stat does or how it functions.
1.3 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 into the Forge using the Store Crafting Items button in your inventory. Some crafting materials, Runes and Glyphs, are automatically stored in the Forge when they are picked up, unless it is purchased from the merchant. Currently, the only crafting item that is purchasable is the Rune 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.
1.4 Attributes
There are 5 key attributes that each class can increase through passives and as affixes on most types of gear. 4 of the 5 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 Ability Tag 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, Mage, and Rogue 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.
1.5 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 or the Mark for Death ailments.
Resistances can be brought below 0% causing you to take increased damage.
Armour: Reduces the damage taken from all hits, but 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.
Also, Armour is 25% more effective when protecting health below a threshold. This threshold is equal to (30 + 3 x area level).
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.
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.
1.6 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 Golden Arena Key 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. Each item you gamble has a chance to roll as a Common, Magic, or Rare. Any item gambled will not roll an item that exceeds the level requirement of your character.
If the item base you are gambling is used for a Unique or Set item than it has a chance to roll one of those items as well, provided you meet the items’ level requirement. However, there are two instances where a Unique or Set item cannot be gambled for; 1) the base item no longer drops in the game and thus cannot be gambled, and 2) the Unique or Set item only drops from a certain enemy (or enemies).
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 located higher in the Mastery trees are sustained by the passive nodes below so you may need to refund higher passive nodes to make changes to lower passive nodes, in some cases.
1.7 Passives
The passive trees for each class offer nodes that increase a characters offensive and defensive traits, add new skills 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. You begin your journey with access to only the base class passive tree, but once you choose your Mastery Class you gain access to the lower part of each Mastery, and the upper part of your chosen Mastery.
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.
1.8 Skills
Each class has skills unique to it, and skills that are unique to each Mastery.
Every build has a maximum of 5 skills they can specialize in with each skill having its own customizable skill tree. There are 20 skill points that can be allocated within each skill tree with these skill points being gained through earning experience. All specialized skills gain experience at the same time and rate. Specialized skills are not permanent, allowing for a skill to be re-specialized and a new skill to be selected in its place.
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.
Each skill will have one or more Ability Tags associated with it. These generally signify the sources that scale the damage, the damage type(s) of the skill, and other unique properties of the skill.
You can hover over skills to see their ability tags. Hold the [Alt] key to view further information about the skill, and the benefit any attribute tag(s) may provide.
The ability tags that can appear on skills are as follows;
Melee: Scales with increases from melee based stats (e.g. “melee physical damage”, “melee fire damage”, “melee cold damage”, etc.).
Spell: Scales with increases from spell based stats (e.g. “increased spell damage”, “spell critical strike chance”, “adaptive spell damage”, etc.).
Throwing Attack: Scales with increases from throwing based stats (e.g. “throwing attack damage”, “throwing attack speed”, “throwing damage and fire vulnerability”, etc.)
Bow Attack: Scales with increases from bow based stats (e.g. “increased bow damage”, “increased bow attack speed”, “bow physical damage”, “bow fire damage”, etc.).
There is also a bow attack minion ability tag for the Summon Skeleton skill. Skeleton Archers that are summoned use a bow to attack enemies.
Curse: A skill that applies some form of debuff to enemies over a specified period of time.
Channelled: Requires the player to stand in-place while performing the skill (unless it is a skill like Warpath that also has the movement tag, which will allow you to both move and perform the skill at the same time).
Skills with both the spell and channelled tags do not receive bonuses from increased casting speed.
Skills with both the melee and channelled tags do not receive bonuses from increased attack speed, with Warpath being the lone exception at this time.
Damage over Time: Skills with this tag will not hit, or proc “on hit” effects. However, DoT attacks cannot be dodged, blocked, turned into a glancing blow, and neglect armour.
Buff: A skill that offers a boost to certain offensive and/or defensive stats while it is active.
Instant Cast: The skill is performed without a casting time allowing you to use it during other actions as well as not stopping your movement.
Movement: Provides some form of movement ability (e.g. teleport, dash, etc.).
Transform: Changes the characters appearance and adds new skills and/or functionality that is unique to that transformation.
Minion: Scales with increases from minion based stats (e.g. “minion physical damage”).
Companion: Companions are a type of minion with special mechanics that the Primalist class uses. Skills with this tag will benefit from both increases to minion and companion stats.
Totem: Totems are a type of minion that is used by the Primalist class. Skills with this tag will benefit from both increases to minion and totem stats.
[Damage Type Tag]: For damage type tags (elemental, cold, fire, lightning, necrotic, physical, poison, void) the tag means that it has base [insert damage type], and that makes “increased [insert damage type]” scale that specific damage type.
For example, a skill with the Cold tag means that it has base cold damage, and that makes “increased cold damage” scale that damage.
These damage type tags determine the split of the base damage the skill does. For example, if a skill has 2 damage types (such as both physical & cold) then the damage will be split evenly between the two.
Also, Elemental damage includes Cold, Fire, and Lightning damage types and would provide increases to each.
Attunement: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Dexterity: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Intelligence: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
Strength: This attribute will boost the skill in some way. Press [Alt] while hovering over the skill to see its influence.
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 map location, which is technically the start of Chapter 4. The End of Time is reached after defeating The Omen of Silence boss that lies within the Sanctum Bastille, of the Ruined Era.
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 full access to that Mastery’s tree. Investing enough passive points into this Mastery tree will unlock a further skill or skills that are unique to only that Mastery. 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 in the other Mastery trees to unlock half the tree.
1.11 Key Terminology
Adaptive Spell Damage: works like any other added spell damage, except that it changes its damage type to match the spell. Flat damage is really powerful because it adds to the flat base damage number of the skill, and other modifiers will further increase this damage.
For example, if you have an Oracle Staff with +95 Adaptive Spell Damage and use the Lightning Blast skill, whose base damage is lightning (unless this base damage type is converted), then +95 flat lightning damage will be added to the skills base damage. Other modifiers, such as “increased spell damage”, “increased lightning damage”, etc., would then increase this damage.
1.12 Helpful Resources
From official resources to community hosted websites, these are some of the most helpful resources:
- The official discord is an obvious choice for new players to seek information and communicate with others, beyond these very forums.
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Tunklab, hosted by forum member Tunk, is a community created website that offers a plethora of features that include; an Item Database, Gear Planner, Defensive Calculators, and so much more.
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LastEpochTools, hosted by forum member Dammitt, is a community created website that offers a robust Item Database and Build Planner.
- This loot filter guide was created by forum member Heavy and should help get you started in creating your very own loot filters. He also has a variety of starter loot filters that you can use or build from.
- A new wiki was started by forum member Destroyermaker and contains a variety of helpful information for those new to the game.
- The build compendium was put together by Bankaikiller and houses hundreds of builds created by a variety of forum members and content creators.
The old wiki used to be fairly helpful, but has not been updated to reflect the substantial overhaul to several game mechanics in recent patches so a lot of its content is now out of date.
