Thanks for the write up, I really want to play a poison lich because I love the esthetics of it. I really dislike Warlock for the color scheme on fissure. Time to theorycraft a good Lich. Kind of want to use spirit plague because I think it’s a cool ability. Wandering spirits got buffed to. Any tips?
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Basically, you need to decide whether you want Spirit Plague to be your main skill or Wandering Spirits, because they have different gear requirements.
The Spirit Plague version wants cast speed for multiple reasons. Firstly, you will be applying 3 stacks of super long duration Poison per application (approximately 7 seconds). Secondly, you’re going to be gaining % damage over time and % poison damage per cast, up to 13 stacks each, for a total of 468% damage with all skillpoints allocated. Because of this, it will be slightly stronger on Warlock because Warlock gets 45% additional curse cast speed in the back half of its passive tree, but it’s not so much stronger than you can’t play it on Lich and still do well. I should also note that there’s currently a bug with Spirit Plague where getting too much cast speed triggers some kind of animation override where you won’t get the buff stacks you want, so having too much cast speed is currently a thing.
The Spirit Plague version will still use Wandering Spirits, because it’s that strong, but you’ll want to use it off cooldown, which means less uptime of it. Making Wandering Spirits your main skill (by turning it into a channeling spell) means you don’t need cast speed, but you will need to make your character tankier, because you’re going to be standing still a lot of the time. This means investing into defenses more, which Lich is pretty good at already. Another thing to be mindful of is skill levels; the Wandering Spirits version REALLY wants a +4 exalted mod on the chest, because every point matters. It’s also why you want to use Rotmind in the offhand instead of using a staff. I actually recommend Rotmind and a good one handed sceptre over something like Plague Bearer’s Staff unless you get a super cracked 3LP version with t6 or higher mods on it, because Rotmind has too many good stats for poison Acolyte builds. You also really want Increased Area of Area Skills in as many gear slots as it will fit, even over damage mods. Each Spirit has its own AoE around it that it can deal damage in, and increases to your AoE will increase overlap on single target, it’s probably your most important damage stat aside from Poison Damage itself.
TL;DR: If you’re playing Spirit Plague as a poison skill, build into cast speed over poison on hit chance, but don’t focus solely on it, especially right now because it’s bugged; and still use Wandering Spirits on cooldown. If you’re playing Wandering Spirits, invest in AoE increases and higher defenses because you’re going to be stationary when you deal damage.
I just finished the campaign yesterday on my Aura of Death Lich and it was a lot of fun. Had no deaths at all in the campaign except when I tried AoD the first time and as I turned it off with not enough life I killed myself over 
Right now, just finished the first monolith where I melted everything around me. I used the following levelling guide on Maxroll and some spare gear I had in my stash from running with my level 91 necromancer: Acolyte Lich Leveling Build Guide - Maxroll.gg
This is my current setup if you seek some inspiration: Lich, level 63 (Release / 1.0.3) - Last Epoch Build Planner
As I said, I used some spare gear. Like that relic that would be great on a Profane Veil Warlock but still bring some good DoT to the character until I can find another relic. The gloves, the body armour and the right ring are also spare that I started to use once I reached the minimum level.
Not perfect, especially as I am just starting to see exalted items dropping but it fits the low APM character I want to play. Most of the time, I run around in Reaper’s Form, trigger Wandering Spirits and Death Seal for extra damage as needed. I mostly use Spirit Plague on big bosses like Abomination.
Thank you!
Is what I slapped together as a starting point since spirit plague is bugged. Aura and bloodsplatters for clear, super high cast speed on rip for single target. Insane sustain with aura and rip blood healing (with increased effectiveness) combined with a lot of poison leech. Good move speed, armour and endurance.
Ill play it on MG so 3/4 lp should be very achievable because of the low LP levels on the items.
Will try this after I’ve tried my skelly rogue’s poison necro and tweak along the way. Maybe more damage instead of cast speed feels better or more aoe on aura for clear. Should always have overload so i skipped minus resistance and poison pen. Guess titan hearth is an option too.
Any feedback for now?
Spirit Plague is bugged? Was not aware of that.
How is it bugged?
Cant keep key/mouse button pressed down to stack poison/bleed. See post above 
Not sure I follow you there.
I just tried and if I hold the button for my Spirit Plague, it keeps firing the skill for as long as I have mana to do so.
If you invest into cast speed (which you should if you go the poison ailment route) it wont.
It is weird because I have the poison node for Spirit Plague but not the Bleed node and I see the poison stack rise as I hold the button. I even unleash the poison nova I got from the warlock passives.
So either I do not have enough cast speed or the bug is with the bleed node.
Note: Before you ask, I have 73% increased cast speed right now at level 69 (outside of Reaper’s Form).
Would you level this build with channeled version of Wandering Spirits asap or not really?
Also I noticed 5 points Inspired Hunger in Hungering Souls - does that mean you manually cast Hungering Souls against tanky targets?
Could you by any chance explain or link Drain Life version?
I was gonna say those items look mighty unrealistic, but if you’re gonna play on Merchant’s Guild then they’re definitely more doable. Plague Bearer’s Staff is probably the better choice if you’re using Rip Blood as your main poison applicator, so good call there. The biggest issue I see for Rip Blood as a poison applicator is the lack of generic more damage in the skill itself. The reason Wandering Spirits/Hungering Souls/Spirit Plague are so strong with poison is because they either have loads of generic more multipliers to scale their poison stacks, or some other mechanic that scales exponentially (in the case of Spirit Plague and cast speed/duration). Rip Blood has none of that, so you’re trading raw power for the defensive merits of Rip Blood’s blood orbs healing you alongside Aura of Decay.
The bug on Spirit Plague is not with the poison stacks or bleed node, it’s with the nodes Pestilence and Endless Decay. With too much cast speed investment, you will not gain buff stacks for either of them, meaning you’re losing nearly 500% increased poison damage.
I level this build using channeled Wandering Spirits because the skill is busted for leveling. It has a lot of damage that is balanced around its 10+ second cooldown, and the channeled version doesn’t give you a damage penalty; in fact, it gives you 120% additional spirit reveal rate, meaning you can make it a main skill with no issue. If you’re planning on making Wandering Spirits your main skill, rush that node ASAP. As far as Inspired Hunger, if you read the node, it says you get more global damage over time for 8 seconds against Possessed targets if you cast Hungering Souls manually. What this means is that, for rares and bosses, you want to cast Hungering Souls once, giving yourself the buff, then use the node in Death Seal that autocasts Hungering Souls to maintain the Possess debuff on enemies while you channel your main skill. You only ever have to manually cast Hungering Souls every once in a while, because Death Seal takes care of the rest while its up.
Thanks for the feedback! It’s number 2 on my ‘builds-to-try’ list. Will adjust as I start pushing corruption. I think with most builds damage is never really the issue so the defence might be nice, we’ll see 
I will also say as a minor nitpick, using the Poison Shred blessing from Reign of Dragons is a waste of a blessing slot. You’re getting so much Poison Penetration from Poison Overload, and Poison already strips poison resist as a default behavior, that the poison shred doesn’t do much for you. It’s easily the worst res shred in the game for this reason, and you’d be better off using the Poison on Hit blessing.
EDIT:
There’s two Drain Life versions! The first uses Dark Shackles and deploys the skill as a clearing aid, dropping it on large packs to help your clear go faster: Lich, level 100 (Release / 1.0.1) - Last Epoch Build Planner
The second version uses Drain Life as your main channeled skill instead of Wandering Spirits, relying on the node in Drain Life that perpetuates Spirits while you’re channeling: Lich, level 100 (Release / 1.0.1) - Last Epoch Build Planner
In both cases, you’re giving up 40% more global damage from Hungering Souls, but gaining the additional damage of another Poison Spell that’s scaling from all your modifiers, so it’s really up to you.
Up until now, I had no issue staying alive. But since the last few levels, I have noticed an issue with Reaper’s Form. Not sure if it is a bug but I can’t explain it if it is not.
The problem is that when I get some wards through the item Ambitions of an erased Acolyte, then the decay rate of Reaper becomes as quick as the one on the ward. And even after the ward is gone, the reaper decay’s speed stays the same. Which means it no longer last. Even the healing from Aura of Decay stops applying, which drops reaper even more quickly.
While when I have no wards or almost no wards, I can keep it up for quite a while. I might try to get the item out for a while to confirm if the issue is real or not. I have no other explanation as it is a bit hard to validate during a battle.
So, I ran a little test in the arena against dummy without that relic and it seems that at some point, the reaper decay become exponentional. It starts slow where I can keep up from leeching the dummy but after 2 minutes or so, my reaper’s form was gone. Even against the group of 7 dummies, the form held for a little bit more than 3.5 minutes.
I see no explanation as to why that form starts to drain so fast. And unless it is by design (in which case it should be written in the skill description), then I am cluless. Also, these dummies were not fightning back. In a real battle, this means the form will hold on even less time!
Great advice, thank you! I’ll check if all res or crit avoid gets the most value.
Yeah started leveling yesterday but first quickly checked my Lich from beta - had no idea channeling Wandering Spirits costs no mana. Wish I knew that before leveling Necromancer/Warlock.
Right now I am close to unlocking Death Seal but there is something that I don’t get already. This is my 9th build on live version (send help) so I already have 2x rings + Mad Alchemist’s Ladle and Rotmind and I put them on asap. Thing is - you cannot proc ailments from the Ladle wand without Death Seal ‘‘wave’’ component right? As Wandering Spirits is not a ‘‘hit’’ - same for Aura of Decay or Drain Life.
But then it made me think - is this actually a hybrid spell/poison build? It’s hard to tell from actual gameplay what exactly does damage but so far it looks like Wandering Spirits do quite a decent amount of damage. So is Alchemist Ladle used for ‘‘more spell dmg modifier’’ to boost Wandering Spirits/Drain Life damage? I see there is a spell damage sceptre and some damage over time affixes too or nodes like Reap the Damned in Wandering Spirits.
I guess my question is - do we actually care about base dmg of Wandering Spirits or Drain Life?
That depends on wether you want to scale the damage from the skill itself or wether you want it to apply as many poison/ailment stacks as possible. But in this case, since you can give everything the poison tag, you can also do a bit of both. All can work, that’s the beauty of it.
With the fact that Reaper Form cannot be sustained after a few minutes and that when out of it, I am actually really weak, I decide to make quite a few changes to my skills.
Removed Spirit Plague (that I was using only for monoliths bosses) to use Hungering Souls, removed a few nodes in Death Seal (all of those leading toward Deadlock) so it could be used both in and outside of Reaper Form and tied to all skills to auto-cast Hungering Souls as well. And I maximized both the Aura of Decay area and Death Seal waves auras so I can stay a bit more away from bosses while still hitting them.
Of course, my DPS while in reaper is lower but my DPS outside of it is much higher. Not perfect but I quickly started to see that playing was more smooth than before the change. Will see how it goes when I face my next monolith boss in Reign of Dragons I guess 
Wandering Spirits itself is not a hit, but the poison dart from Spectral Putrescence is a pseudo-hit; it carries all of your ailment on hit effects, but doesn’t proc things like Bone Curse. This is the entire reason poison stacking works with the skill, and it’s also why you can use Mad Alchemist’s Ladle freely if you desire. I’m 50/50 on it personally; while it does provide a massive damage boost to the Spirits, it’s also taking up a weapon slot you’d normally be using for an Argent Sceptre with high level poison/damage over time affixes. Really, the choice is yours.
EDIT: Actually, I JUST tested this in game, and for some reason it’s not counting the spoon’s modifiers as global chance on hit? I currently have a chance to apply shock globally from a blessing, and that applies from Spectral Putrescence as expected, but the spoon ailments do not apply at all. So for the moment, it looks like you are actually correct, and the ailments aren’t properly applying from our poison darts.