New player here and ive heard about the recent ward conversation and bugs.
I have started a couple characters but finally made it to Lagon last night. I was playing with my dad. He was playing a beastmaster with crap leveling gear and I was playing a spell blade also with crap gear BUT i had high lightning and cold resists which I believe are Lagons primary damage types.
FIght starts- my dad dies in 5 seconds or so and i make it through the first phase but die in the second because i didnt really understand what was going on. Second attempt, my dad dies in 10 seconds and I proceed to beat Lagon.
Here is the problem: I face tanked him and barely moved and rarely moved potions. I have invested in ward in my passive trees and i have couple of pieces of equipment with ward affixes. Looking at my character screen my ward threshold is 42 and my ward retention is 89% which i dont even know if thats good for level 56 but to me, something seems very broken.
At the top of this forum right now is a long discussion of how hard Lagon is and how its causing people to quit. I literally just stood there and swung for phase 1 and 3 and ran around a bit in phase 2 (im not even sure how I ended phase 2). I think ward is way way way overtuned even at low levels but maybe this is a bug?
I am happy to share my character info- just not sure how to do so. For what its worth my first character was a healing hands pally i got o 50 and that also supported that ward is WAY overtuned at low levels.
So my question is: Is facetanking Lagon at the end of campaign something i should be able to do untwinked and without a focused build? If not- could this be a bug and how would i find it.
I want to love this game- just need it to be a bit more challenging and it sounds like it is for non ward builds.
I am being honest here- do you think I am trolling because I didnt facetank him or because this isnt much of a challenge and beating lagon in the campaign is easy and im a noob?
but in my experience, Lagon does hit pretty hard. I’m surprised you were able to just face tank him. But you must have a pretty good build
edit: he killed me a dozen times my first time, so I went and did monoliths and leveled up a few times and came back. I thought it was kinda hard tbh. But once you learn his moves it isn’t too bad.
Thanks man- My build isnt organized or even informed. Thats why i think its a bug. I am about to try doing it again and see if I can understand why i dont have to do anything with the mechanics at all.
Yep did it again- used 4 potions total and proabably could have gotten away with 2. I didnt move at all in phase 1 or3 once I was in position at a tentacle.
Something has to be broken- my health is 695 and i peak aroun 550-600 ward
I have 57 cold resist and 75 lightning- which i know is pretty good but I shouldnt be able to not move at all.
Ward is currently a really strong defensive. When done properly, even if you didn’t plan anything, followed a guide or like what you said isn’t organized or informed, can really perform well with very little understanding. I was able to do the exact same with a janky Healing Hands Paladin with that experimental glove that drains HP per second. My damage was bad but I basically face-tanked everything except for the water spray and the moon beam.
That said, if you truly still believe if your build is bugged, you can recreate your current skills in the build planner in Last Epoch Build Planner and post it here so we can check it, along with your current gear.
Yeah your build looks fine for leveling and early monoliths. You are getting a bunch of ward from synergies in your idol, Shatter Strike and most importantly your Frost Claw auto-casts.
You’ll notice that in a lot of the forum posts complaining about Lagon, not a lot of em even mention ward, which is part of the reason why they were struggling. The other part could also be a skill issue lol. That being said, I wouldn’t say it is a bug as it seems to be working as expected. You’re not getting crazy amounts of ward yet like how Torment Warlock gets 70k ward or Smite Paladin that can hit up to 30k.
Story mode Lagon is relatively easier so outside of maybe a couple of his moves that can one-shot you, like the water spray or the moon beam. However those could also be sort of dodged if you’re super close and you kind of clip through him.
You appear to be a vet of the game and well informed and I appreciate your time.
In your opinion, is ward balanced? Can you do late game without it?
I ask because i think ward has sort of ruined my experience as a new player and i am now looking for a build without it because it makes the game too easy and unengaging.
Would love to hear your perspective!
thank you!
PS i didnt use shatter strike at all for lagon- just manastrick and the autoclaws
I wouldn’t say I’m a vet for Last Epoch, just really enjoy ARPGs and theorycrafting.
That being said, I do think ward right now is unbalanced for specific builds right now and can be a safety net at best. However there are a lot of builds out that there that still has wards but isn’t as broken as the ones I mentioned before. Because while it feels like you’re flying through the content right now, your current ward in Empowered Monoliths and at higher corruption will not save you from getting domed in the head by trash mobs. DoT is also a huge equalizer later on without proper resistances.
So I suggest sticking with it until actual endgame and see how you feel about it.
I’ve face tanked Campaign Lagon on my Primialist, Warlock, Mage, Paladin, Falconer, and Blade Dancer this cycle so I believe you face tanked him on whatever you tell me you did.
Lagon can’t kill you if you have some form of life/ward that is 1,000, life on hit, life leach, or ward gained on hit and capped cold/lightning resist.
Lagon can’t hit harder than 1,000 damage vs capped res so as long as you can regen that back between the 2-3 seconds his attacks take you can face tank him. What I suspect happened with you is that you are using Frost Claw with the ward nodes. That alone will out heal anything Lagon can do.
What i get from 170 hours of gameplay with 1 main necro wraith build and 1 alt explosive trap falconer…even with sh*t gear you are able to take down every single boss by mechanics and movement. It doesnt matter how long it will take.
I took down Majasa after 10 mins with that rogue and lagon on classic mono tooks me maybe 6 mins in first phase to take it down and get to phase 2 wich is about dodge every single wave he send and kill everything you see (its good run in circles abd stay behind tentacles wich you need to kill on edges of that circle you run in direction to open space / always face a middle with your character and run in opposite clock direction in circle) .
I took down rayaeh, drake boss …always with dmg around 1k in peak of hit.
