I’ve been working on this section to add to the Community Game Guide, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing or overlooking something so I wanted to get some input from players before I included it there. All information in this section is focused solely on enemies.
Please read through it and provide any feedback you’d like. I’ve also included sources for much of the information used to construct this resource at the end of the post.
Enemies
2.1 Rarity
Normal Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/7lJV9l2.png
- have their names written in white coloured text
- don’t have modifiers applied to them unless the enemy has a modifier inherent to them
- for example, the Imperial Guard enemy will always spawn with the “Blocks Hits From Distant Enemies” modifier
Magic Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/I7SmPyj.png
- have their names written in blue coloured text
- have one random modifier applied to them in addition to any inherent modifiers they may already have
- in comparison to normal enemies [ 1 ]
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
Rare Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/hzNbdEF.png
- have their names written in gold coloured text
- have two random modifiers applied to them in addition to any inherent modifiers they may already have
- are guaranteed to drop at least one Rare item
- in comparison to magic enemies
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
- can drop Temporal Sanctum Keys in level 54+ zones
- can drop Arena Key of Memory in level 90+ timelines if you have conquered at least 15 Echoes in that Timeline
Unique Enemy (i.e. bosses) [ 2 ]
https://i.imgur.com/3MyByGu.png
- have their names written in pale gold coloured text
- in comparison to rare enemies
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
- can drop Temporal Sanctum Keys from Timeline bosses in the Monolith of Fate
- certain bosses have drops specific to them
- Monolith of Fate Timeline bosses
- Dungeon bosses
- Orchirian The Rampant campaign boss
2.2 Skills & Damage
Most, if not all, enemy skills have some form of telegraph that warns the player of an impending dangerous attack. These telegraphs can be audio, visual, or a combination of the two. Players will want to watch out for these telegraphs and avoid standing in them at all costs, especially those of bosses.
The damage element from each enemy can be distinguished by the colour of their attacks (i.e. purple is void damage, teal is necrotic damage, etc and these are the same colours as those displayed for resistances on your character sheet). However, physical damage is a bit different in that it will always be attached to some form of physical object striking you, and is generally accompanied with a secondary element type. For example, the Avalanche attack from Rime Giants has both cold and physical damage. Enemy skills with two damage types will have their damage split evenly between the two.
Most enemy skills comprise of one or two damage elements, and each era of the campaign will generally have two or three dominant elements that the player should prioritize defending themselves against.
- Ancient Era - physical, fire, cold, poison
- Divine Era - physical, elemental, poison
- Imperial Era - physical, necrotic, poison, elemental
- Ruined Era - physical, void, elemental
2.3 Offense & Defense
Enemies do not have any additional offensive stats unless acquired through modifiers. By default enemies have 5% critical strike chance.
Enemies can also apply resistance shred ailments, but for most enemies the only way to do this is through specific modifiers that give a chance to shred that resistance type on hit. These modifiers are generally more rare because they only appear on enemies of a corresponding type; for example, a fire enemy can have the fire shred modifier but not the lightning shred modifier. [ 3 ]
Most enemies do not have any defensive stats by default, though they can acquire these stats through modifiers.
- enemies have no resistances unless they have a modifier that explicitly states it, and in that case the resistance amount varies but is usually pretty high [ 4 ]
- only a select few enemies in the game have an inherent resistance modifier, such as the Voidstone Scorpion with its “Resists Physical Damage” modifier
- enemies do not have armour, endurance [ 5 ], block, dodge, glancing blow, critical strike avoidance, stun avoidance, or health regen by default
- like resistances, these defensive stats can be applied to enemies through modifiers
2.4 Modifiers
Enemy modifiers can be inherent to the enemy type, added randomly during enemy creation, scaled based on area level, selected by the player in some endgame modes, or scaled increasingly higher by certain endgame systems. Inherent and random modifiers will be visible under the enemies name located at the top of the screen when targeted.
Inherent Modifiers
Some enemies have modifiers inherent to them, such as the Imperial Guard enemy with its “blocks hits from distant enemies” modifier. Enemies with these modifiers will always spawn with them.
There are also certain bosses that receive these types of modifiers, which are not found anywhere else in the game. For example:
- Abomination boss - invulnerable until soul vessels are destroyed
- Heorot boss - cannot be frozen
Random Modifiers
There are many enemy modifiers that can appear on enemies that grant them additional offensive and defensive stats, buffs, summons, and even resurrection. To see the full list click here. These modifiers are applied randomly when the enemy is created, though not all enemies can have just any modifier applied to them. For example, a fire enemy can have the fire shred modifier but not the lightning shred modifier.
The number of random modifiers applied to an enemy will denote its rarity, with one random modifier being a magic enemy and two random modifiers being a rare enemy. Inherent modifiers are not used when identifying an enemies’ rarity.
Level Scaling Modifiers
Enemies gain certain stat modifiers throughout the campaign and endgame based solely on area level.
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All enemies gain 1% penetration per area level, up to a maximum of 75%. Enemy penetration is applied after the resistance cap for players, which is 75%. This means that any overcapped resistances on the player will not affect enemy penetration.
If the player character has 75% resistances or greater in a level 75+ area than their effective resistance is 0% when factoring in enemy penetration. For the player, this means that for every 1% they’re below the resistance cap they take 1% more damage from enemies. [ 6 ]
Only enemies that apply ailments which reduce resistances, such as Resistance Shred, Shock, Poison, or Mark for Death, would benefit the player character having overcapped resistances as these are applied before the resistance cap for players.
For example, if the player character has 100% lightning resistance in a level 75+ area and enemies have applied 20 stacks of shock (-40% lightning resistance) to the player character than their lightning resistance has now decreased to 60%, but will really be -15% lightning resistance when enemy penetration is factored in. However, if the player character had 75% lightning resistance to start, instead of 100%, than their final lightning resistance would have been -40% in this example.
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All enemies gain % damage reduction based on area level which alters their actual health based on the effective health that enemy should have at the corresponding area level. At levels 1-6 there is no damage reduction, at level 7 there is 1.5%, then it gradually scales up to 30% at level 26, 50% at level 46, 60% at level 56, 75% at level 76, 83% at level 90, and finally reaching 87% at level 100. [ 7 ] [ 8 ]
Enemy effective health is calculated first, then this level based damage reduction is checked to see how much actual health the enemy has so the system doesn’t actually make enemies tankier. For example, if a level 46 enemy is supposed to have 2000 effective health, it will have 1000 actual health, because it has 50% damage reduction from level. If a level 76 enemy is supposed to have 2000 effective health it will have 500 actual health, because it has a 75% damage reduction from level. [ 9 ]
Endgame Modifiers
Each endgame mode applies additional modifiers to enemies in some way to make their content more challenging. Both the Arena and Monolith of Fate have systems that scale specific enemy modifiers infinitely based on player progress.
Dungeons
Progressing further into the dungeon increases enemy health, damage, and rewards. Each floor of the dungeon provides options for differing increases to these modifiers that will persist for the remainder of the dungeon.
Arena
The Arena will increase enemy damage, health, movement speed, and pack density as the player delves deeper into its infinitely scaling progression system. However, enemy movement speed and pack density do have limits to their scaling. Enemy damage and health also have scaling increases at each 100th wave interval. [ 10 ] [ 11 ]
Monolith of Fate
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Additional modifiers are selected by the player based on the Echo they’ve chosen. These modifiers will affect all enemies or specific enemy types in that Timeline for a predetermined number of Echoes. To see the full list click here and select each of the Timelines to view the full selection of enemy modifiers available to the player in that Timeline.
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The Monolith of Fate also incorporates an infinitely scaling system called corruption.
Corruption increases enemy health, enemy damage, experience gained, and the increased item rarity modifier.
2.5 Boss Temporary Resistance System
Bosses receive a separate damage reduction system. It’s implementation causes bosses’ damage reduction to decay over time, but temporarily go up when they lose 1% of their maximum health. The result is that differences in player damage have a smaller impact than they do against most enemies, so high health bosses don’t take forever for low damage builds, and high damage builds don’t kill them before getting to experience their mechanics. [ 12 ]
- Bosses can take up to 170% more damage than most enemies, but start off with a lot of temporary resistance so they initially take about the same amount of damage as most enemies.
- Once they have dropped to 99% health this initial temporary resistance begins to drop off linearly over time. The exact duration depends on the boss’s health compared to its level, it’s about 150 seconds for the Abomination boss.
- Whenever the boss loses 1% of its total health it takes 2% less damage for a duration. The exact duration depends on the boss’s health compared to its level, it’s about 30 seconds for the Abomination boss. This 1% does not need to be dealt with a single hit.
- Whenever a boss takes lots of damage at once the damage is reduced based on how many of these stacks of damage reduction it would have procced. This just means that one big hit deals the same damage as lots of small hits over a short duration (where the later hits would be affected by the temporary damage reduction).
- With this system unless your build has exceptionally high single target damage you should never deal significantly less damage to a boss than you would to a regular enemy. Meanwhile if you’re struggling to take down the boss in the normal amount of time you will end up dealing more damage to the boss as the fight goes on. [ 13 ]
This system applies to all bosses except those found in randomized Monolith zones or the Arena. [ 14 ]
Sources
- [ 1 ] Taken from 0.8.3 Patch Notes
- [ 2 ] Taken from 0.7.3 Patch Notes
- [ 3 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 4 ] Posted by Mike W on Discord
- [ 5 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 6 ] Taken from Overhauling Defenses in Last Epoch dev blog
- [ 7 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 8 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 9 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 10 ] Taken from 0.7.9 Patch Notes
- [ 11 ] Taken from 0.8 Patch Notes
- [ 12 ] Posted by Trasochi on Discord
- [ 13 ] Taken from 0.7.10 Patch Notes
- [ 14 ] Taken from 0.7.10b Patch Notes
Information that might be incorrect, but would likely require developer input:
- the % damage reduction numbers for enemies may not be 100% accurate as it’s an array of values the developers update manually, so it could be slightly off from the values Trasochi shared on October 9, 2020 and November 17, 2021.
- the boss temporary resistance system as I can’t find any updates to it since October 20, 2020.
Any feedback is welcome, but here are some general questions you could answer to help me:
- Are there any errors? Including grammar/spelling errors.
- Is there anything about enemies that is missing or unclear?
- Do any sub-sections require more or less explanation?
- Did you find this resource helpful? If not, why? And how could I improve it?
Thanks for reading!