Spellblade Mastery Leveling Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.0)

Mage passives are mostly used to provide a defensive boost to our character with Fire and Lightning Resistance. These nodes will increase our melee attack speed with Mage Flurry. Defensively, we rely on Warden to start to push our Ward Retention.

Plan to only invest 20 points in this tree, as that's the minimum requirement needed to unlock the Spellblade passive tree.

This build will not utilize Runemaster or Sorcerer passives at all. Instead, we prioritize every point into Spellblade. Aside from the fact this build does not use skills from the other two Mastery subclasses, Spellblade is able to put points into several nodes that push base Cold Damage, such as Infused Weapon, Frozen Steel, Prismatic Blade, and a large portion of Melee Attack Speed with Essence Duel. We also capitalize our stacks of  Firebrand stacks (four of them) which gives a massive kick of damage to our  Shatter Strike with Blade Weaver.

To start off, place the max amount of points into Infused Weapon, two points into (for now) Arcane Warden and then max Frozen Steel. Then pour five points into Arcane Shielding, which starts to bolster our defenses further. We will then jump right into five more points into Essence Duel. Throw the singular point into Gemini, so we can dual wield swords. Roll another eight points into Prismatic Blade to gain massive base damage into our attacks. We then grab ten points into Volka's Razor and only four points into Blade Weaver. We only put four as we can realistically only use four stacks. We get no benefit to our  Firebrand stacks, because it only gets to four stacks. Put the other two points into Arcane Warden, giving it a total of four points now.

At the point of reaching level 70 and having finished all quests, you should have a total of 20 points into Mage and 50 points into Spellblade. You will have an additional 13 points left over; these can be used in various places in the tree. A good portion of these points could be put into Elemental Affinity in order to bolster Resistances. You can also pour a large chunk of points into Outrun and Outlast to buff up our base HP.

Our main damage skill used for this build is  Shatter Strike. This skill has a massive AoE that can clear from side to side, and even behind you at the correct angle.  Shatter Strike will hit incredibly hard once scaled, with even mediocre weapons. However, it will rely on  Firebrand to do what we need it to do. Typical skill rotation will be four strikes of  Firebrand into  Shatter Strike. This should clear almost any pack in the campaign, and will make short work of any boss you run into as well.

While pathing  Shatter Strike, prioritize Icy Flow before other nodes. This will ensure we keep Mana cost down and we wont be left with nothing in the tank to kill what we need to, as we do not have a Mana generating skill. Once this is done, work towards Cold Steel. This will add an incredibly large amount of Critical Strike Mulitplier per sword, which will be a total of 240%.

 Firebrand is the build up booster for our  Shatter Strike, and they will always be used interchangibly. Although  Firebrand may clear very low end enemies, don't rely on this for most encounters.

 Firebrand will generate stacks per attacks landed on an enemy. Each of these stacks will also give us Ward, but most importantly give us +24% chance to critically strike with  Shatter Strike. This leveling build works with four maximum (default) stacks. This amount coincides with our passive tree, which will at the same time give us four stacks of Blade Weaver.

When scaling this, you should work towards Illuminating Fire immediately, then Fulmination. Once these are done you can move right into the defensive scalers on the rest of the tree as shown.

 Enchant Weapon is a massive boost to our DPS, as it gives a massive increase to our Melee Attack Speed and base increase to our base Cold Damage. We also take the singular point in Overloaded so that once we build up the four stacks of  Firebrand. We can attack twice with  Shatter Strike, the first being free, the second will cost Mana. This is just to mitigate Mana issues we may run into.

Initially, path towards Celerity, as this Attack Speed is our major benefit. We then need to grab Concentration to capitalize on the duration of the buff. Then work towards Kindling Blade, this could be skipped, if you do not mind recasting it yourself. Follow the only pathing left to round out the scaling of  Enchant Weapon.

 Teleport is our movement skill, however it does more than just blink us around the map. We take Unexpected Copy in order to taunt enemies with a minion. This minion does not hit very hard, and is purely to distract. We also take Rock Phase to stay as safe as possible in case we take a wrong turn, helping us avoid being stun locked immediately in a pack of enemies. We focus the rest of the tree on Cooldown Reduction to ensure we can blink when we need to.

Path towards the node Unexpected Copy before Comet Rush. Then follow the only pathing available from there.

 Flame Ward is our major defensive skill. It will keep us protected from hits that can stun us and will give us a large boost of Ward upon activation. On top of that, Flame Ward mitigates 40% of the damage we take when it is activated. There is also a boost to Mana Regeneration we take with Warmth.

Prioritize Dilation, as the duration and efficiency are key. Then immidiately work up and into both Dual Aegis and Astonish. After this, take the only available route to Warmth.