Last Epoch is an Action RPG developed by Eleventh Hour Games set to become one of the biggest and most influential titles in its genre, and that’s thanks to the developers’ passion and great sources of inspiration. It is not a mystery that Last Epoch took a very close look at Path of Exile to make it its muse, given the similarities both games share and the fact that the latter is nowadays one of the most played ARPGs around, if not the most. However, the new era of ARPGs is coming with Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2, but fans of this genre are keen to also play something else in the meantime, be it Wolcen, Diablo 2: Resurrected, or Last Epoch.

The allure of Last Epoch is that it combines a very well-laid out character-building process with a varied, entertaining, and always fresh end-game. The latter includes the Monoliths of Fate, which branch in Timelines and allow players to complete Quest Echoes to progress further, and the Arena, which is a never-ending battle against waves upon waves of enemies where players get to choose when to stop, if at all. The process of building a character in Last Epoch is very interesting, comprising skill trees with several options for each ability and skill trees for the base class, and then one for each of the three specializations that classes have. Of course, this means the possibilities are endless for each character.

Necrotic Fire Damage Over Time Lich Build

Considering that the Acolyte’s base skill tree is not that interesting when compared to that of other classes, and weighing in the fact that one of the three masteries for the class, the Warlock, is still unreleased, players who don’t want to focus on minions should choose the Lich. The Lich is an acolyte willing to sacrifice her own blood in order to enhance her Necrotic spells, her blood and death magic, her vampire-like abilities to leech life and consume the essence of the dead. This build specifically revolves around the powerful combination of several damage over time abilities to clear the content of the game as fast and smoothly as possible, while also dealing incredible single-target damage on bosses.

As for the skills to use, this is possibly one of the best combinations to take advantage of factors like global damage, generic damage, utility, fast clearing, and high single-target DoT:

  • Hungering Souls: this damage over time spell can receive multipliers to damage globally, much like Spirit Plague, making both the Fire and Necrotic scaling possible. This skill has a sort of execution threshold that instantly kills enemies under a set amount of life thanks to passive nodes by the name of Reaper’s Gaze. The node Soul Drain makes mana management less problematic because it grants mana on kill, which is especially great due to Reaper’s Gaze, which will ensure that it will be Hungering Souls that kills enemies most of the time. Hungering Souls does require upgrades, but it is not necessary to slot it anywhere on the skill bar due to other interactions that will be described below. Spirit Plague: this is likely the best clearing tool for this build, as Spirit Plague inflicts Necrotic damage over time on an enemy and then spreads onto others on death thanks to Calamitous, a node that makes the DoT spread to two enemies instead of one. Then, a node called Discharge spreads automatically the DoT from Spirit Plague three seconds after it is first placed on an enemy, which can potentially clear screens away from the moment the spell is cast. Death Seal: this ability locks the character’s Health to the value it had when the spell is first activated, meaning it can’t go above that value, and the Lich deals more damage based on the amount of Health she is missing. Potions will still allow the character’s Health to go above that threshold, though. The node Devouring Release casts a single Hungering Soul projectile every second while active, and Insatiable Soul increases the frequency at which these projectiles are fired. This combination allows the Lich to constantly have Hungering Souls affecting a bunch of enemies simultaneously. Mortal Pulse makes the skill release waves of death each second while the Lich is sealed, further increasing the damage output of the build. Infernal Shade: this DoT skill places a ring of fire around an enemy, burning both the main target and all other nearby enemies. Multiple Infernal Shades can be cast, and each Shade attaches to another enemy when the primary enemy target dies, which makes it work in a similar fashion to Spirit Plague. Among the best nodes to specialize it with there are Blaze Shade, which gives more area coverage to the skill and increases its damage output, and Lingering Flame, which makes casting the spell on the ground possible, and the spell then waits for 10 seconds to find a target that comes close enough to it for the Shade to attach onto it. Transplant: this utility skill creates a new body for the Lich at a targeted location and detonates the old one to deal damage to enemies around it, but it costs health to cast. The small nodes called Bone Armor grant a buff by the same name that lasts for 4 seconds, providing some Armor to mitigate damage from all sources and then also makes the Lich take less damage after using Transplant. Another good option is to grab all of the nodes on Transplant’s skill tree that increase the efficacy of the buff to maximize the defensive boon from Bone Armor. There are a few other useful nodes for Transplant, like Squeamish, which applies fear onto enemies standing near the departure point, and Thanatophobia, which applies fear onto enemies when arriving at the target destination. Fear makes enemies run away from the caster.

Gear And Passives For The Necrotic Fire DOT Lich Build

Gear is not something that requires specific bonuses for the build to work, considering that most of the damage comes from passives and, ideally, a nicely-rolled staff. Defensive stats, cooldown recovery, Necrotic damage, Spell damage, and a bit of damage over time are all it takes to make this character shine, both in terms of regular equipment and Idols. Unique items that would pair well with this Lich build are:

  • A Body Armor called Woven Flesh that mainly grants 100% critical avoidance, which makes the character immune to extra damage and effects coming from critical strikes. This is crucial when facing end-game content as the character becomes more tanky, and it also makes it easier to choose which detrimental modifiers to choose when running Monoliths of Fate. Mortality Grasp are interesting Unique Gloves that provide Armor, increased Cast Speed (which is especially useful for skills like Transplant and Infernal Shade during the skill rotation), some Health, and then two more useful effects. The first one consists of having a chance to inflict “Mark for Death” on hit with Necrotic spells (including the automatically cast Hungering Souls), and what that does is applying a curse on an enemy that reduces all Resistances by 25%. The other perk provides a lot of Ward whenever the characters take damage that leaves them at low Health values; considering how this build will most likely sit at Low Life for quite a long time, the Ward buff will be applied often. The Belt by the name of Strands of Souls is another Unique item the Ward buffs, and as such, it would be beneficial to pair it with the Mortality Grasp. This belt provides Ward on using a potion, Ward on kill, Ward gained per second, Ward Retention (making the Ward buff disappear slower, which is gained by investing in Intelligence as well), and then 100% of Mana spent gained as Ward. With Hungering Souls and Reaper’s Gaze, Mana will be constantly gained, while other spells spend it and turn it into Ward. Soulfire: this Relic is particularly interesting thanks to Hungering Souls scaling globally and this item converting its base damage to Fire, allowing it to scale even more. Hungering Souls also Ignite on hit, and Soulfire makes all Fire and Necrotic skills have a very high chance of applying Ignite on hit so that the build gains even more damage over time sources with all the stacks of Ignite it can apply.

Regarding the passive skills for the class itself, the Acolyte base tree is not very interesting on its own, and it mostly serves the purpose of unlocking the Lich tree after 20 points are spent. The best nodes to dump points into are Bone Armor, Forbidden Knowledge (especially if using Strands of Souls, Mortality Grasp, or both), and Stolen Vitality to get some more Health.

Now, onto the Lich tree:

  • Survival of the Cruel to get some Health and above all Spell Damage Leeched as Health, which applies to DoT as well. Dance With Death increases damage overall, and the effect is tripled if at Low Life, making it especially useful. Bed of Souls increases Vitality and, more importantly, Health Regeneration which is needed to counterbalance nodes like Unclosing Wounds, which increase damage by a lot at the cost of losing Health per second. Apocrypha increases Intelligence and Spell Damage, and unless scaling Ward its main use remains to provide Spell Damage. Contagion Engine, providing 20% more damage over time if an enemy was killed within the last 4 seconds, up to 100% when spending 5 points into it. Necrotic Energy, which grants a huge boost to base Necrotic Damage, allowing the multipliers to scale damage much better thanks to how base damage works in Last Epoch. Soul Maw grants Damage Leeched as Health, and that’s great because of the generic damage type leeched back, and it increases the overall Health Leech of the build by 25%. Corrosive Consciousness is a great damage node that allows players to gain both Spell Damage and Damage Over Time multipliers that scale with all the skills used.

Last Epoch is available on PC.