Another day, another Hype Week reveal! The Last Epoch team has shared even more of what is coming in Beneath Ancient Skies when Season 3 launches on August 21. This time, the focus is on quality-of-life improvements, minion AI upgrades, Beastmaster reworks, and some cool new tools for merchants!
Smarter Minions
If you love running with a personal army, Season 3 is about to make your life easier. Minions will now have two behavior modes you can toggle with a single key:
- Protect Mode (the current default): Minions stick close and defend you.
- Assassinate Mode: Minions hunt down enemies from farther away, prioritizing bosses and rare mobs.
Your chosen mode is shown by an icon near the minion portrait, and minions will now stick to their targets better instead of constantly swapping.
The update also brings some stats fixes. The minions now update correctly when you change gear or skill nodes. Their scaling has been buffed too, granting 0.8% minion power per level (up from 0.6%), meaning level 100 minions deal and take 60% less/more damage instead of 45%.
Beastmaster’s New Tricks
Beastmaster companions are completely evolving!
- Raptor can take the new Volcanic Adaptation node, transforming into a Dragon Raptor. Your damage turns into fire DMG, and on top of your melee damage, he can also deal spell fire damage with Fire Breath!
- Scorpion gains the Frozen Winds node, letting it cast Maelstrom whenever you do.
- Bear gets an Earthquake ability via the Groundshaking Might node, scaling with the Bear’s own stats (though with -50% damage from balance tuning).
Merchant’s Guild Upgrades
Shopping in Eterra just got easier. The Merchant’s Guild will now let you:
- Filter by min/max roll ranges on uniques.
- Set filters directly from an item, so you can check the price faster.
- Use new Merchant’s Tokens to bypass favor costs, and Black Market Tokens to also ignore rank requirements (and set equip rank to 1).
Tokens drop from enemies if you are in the Merchant’s Guild, and you will get them from faction ranks too.
Offline Cosmetics Arrive
One long-requested feature is finally here, and it is the offline cosmetics! You can now equip your favorite cosmetics even when you are playing offline. You will need to set it up once by playing in either mode, and cosmetics will need re-equipping when Season 3 hits.
With smarter minions, expanded Beastmaster builds, and more player-friendly systems, Season 3 is going to be a big one for both summoners and traders! Keep an eye out for the full patch notes that should drop today, and prepare to command your army your way when Beneath Ancient Skies drops on August 21!
You can also check the full Hype Week post about Minions on the official website!
