Warlock Bleed Fissure Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)

Our base class is the Acolyte, which acts as a generic spell caster and summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Acolyte, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Necromancers, Lich and Warlock. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Acolyte Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Warlock is our advanced class for the build. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Warlock Passive Tree, with a handful of points taken in Lich. The Warlock passives will unlock Bleed Overload, supply Haste and Ward, and allow us to apply Withering to enemies. To help round the build out we will be taking additional points in the Lich tree. These points will focus on Intelligence and help us enable a Low Life playstyle.

• 8 points into Forbidden Knowledge: Intelligence and Necrotic Resistance.
• 1 points into Blood Aura: Taken to proceed through the tree.
• 1 point into Mania of Mortality: Taken to proceed through the tree.
• 5 points into Blood Pact: Increased damage, as well as Health Drain if you have killed an enemy recently.
• 5 points into Unnatural Preservation: Large gains to Ward Retention, Necrotic Resistance, and Poison Resistance.

Our base class is the Acolyte, which acts as a generic spell caster and summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Acolyte, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Necromancers, Lich and Warlock. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Acolyte Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Warlock is our advanced class for the build. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Warlock Passive Tree, with a handful of points taken in Lich. The Warlock passives will unlock Bleed Overload, supply Haste and Ward, and allow us to apply Withering to enemies. To help round the build out we will be taking additional points in the Lich tree. These points will focus on Intelligence and help us enable a Low Life playstyle.

• 5 points in Spiteful Decay: Increased Damage Over Time, and More Damage Over Time to Cursed enemies.
• 5 points in Soul Stealer: Increased Mana Regen, as well as the ability to gain a substantial amount of Mana when hitting a Cursed enemy.
• 5 points in Occultist's Mind: Intelligence, and scales Mana off Intelligence.
• 5 points in Cauldron of Blood: Unlocks Bleed Overload and adds Bleed Chance.
• 4 points in Crimson Favors: Higher Bleed Chance for Rip Blood, and Rip Blood now automatically activates Rip Blood on enemies.
• 5 points in Harrowing Armor: Health and Armor, with More Armor granted per Curse on target.
• 5 points in Dark Protections: Ward per Second, and less damage taken per Curse on the target.
• 5 points in Ward of Malevolence: Adds Ward Decay Threshold and Ward gained on kill.
• 5 points in Wither: 100% Chance to Wither, and 8% damage reduction from Withered enemies.
• 8 points in Chains of Ruin: This is taken specifically for  Chaos Bolts, as it converts all Damned Chance into Bleed Chance. Damned will still be applied to targets through  Chthonic Fissure, so Damned Overload may still activate on large trash packs.
• 5 points in Fleeting Crone: A massive boost to Haste.
• 5 points in Aspect of Death: Increased Health, but also applies Damned to ourselves in order to increase damage when we kill an enemy.
• 2 points in Encroaching Darkness: Chthonic Fissure now applies Anguish on hit.
• 3 points in Duskbringer: Spell Damage for Curses, but applies the damage effect from Anguish on Boss hit.

Our base class is the Acolyte, which acts as a generic spell caster and summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery once we have completed the first act of the campaign. Each base class has three possible masteries to choose from. For the Acolyte, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Necromancers, Lich and Warlock. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Acolyte Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Warlock is our advanced class for the build. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Warlock Passive Tree, with a handful of points taken in Lich. The Warlock passives will unlock Bleed Overload, supply Haste and Ward, and allow us to apply Withering to enemies. To help round the build out we will be taking additional points in the Lich tree. These points will focus on Intelligence and help us enable a Low Life playstyle.

• 8 points into Dance with Death: 120% Increased Damage while at Low Life.
• 10 points into Apocrypha: Intelligence and Mana Regen.
• 8 points in Serrated Bones: 56% Global Bleed Chance.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

To start the explanation of how the skills work, we will begin with  Chthonic Fissure. This skill is capable of automating  Chaos Bolts off itself, which means further automation with  Bone Curse and  Rip Blood. Aside from this automation, this spell will place Anguish, Acid Skin, and Torment on enemies, scaling multiple parts of this build. We've selected nodes very purposely to maximize damage output on average while keeping Mana stable. To facilitate Bleed Overload and scale the build properly, Fissure will convert to a Physical Spell.

• 1 point in Death from Below: We will not be Cursing ourselves, however this node is taken to reach further nodes in the tree.
• 4 points in Mantle of Flames: With the conversion, this replaces Ignite with Bleed to help activate Bleed Overload.
• 1 point in Blood Gulch: This converts the Fire portion of the skill into Physical. It will retain its Necrotic Damage as well, which is capable of activating Damned Overload.
• 1 point in Pyrochasm: Adds a Hit component to Chthonic Fissure.
• 1 point in Fissure of Wrath: Adds Spell Damage to Fissure per 2% Bleed Chance.
• 1 point in Forbidden Chasm: The Hit aspect of Fissure now applies Acid Skin; this is used as a way to bolster our DoTs and help with damage mitigation.
• 3 points in Fragile Crust: Lowers the Mana cost as long as Fissure is cast with a Cursed Boss or Rare enemy nearby.
• 1 point in Spirit Gale: Chance for dead enemies to release a Spirit.
• 2 points in Severed Wards: Shreds Necrotic Resistance, which boosts the damage Spirits do.
• 2 points in Stygian Current: Spirits release more frequently from the Fissure.
• 1 point in Of Gloom and Flames: Adds a secondary Fissure that erupts behind you.
• 2 points in Chaotic Rupture: 40% Chance for Spirits to turn into Chaos Bolts.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Chaos Bolts are more important in this build than they were in the original Chaos Fissure build. While the other version of the build was highly reliant on  Chthonic Fissure damage, the majority of the damage potential for this build comes from Chaos Bolts. The spell is converted from Fire and Necrotic to Cold and Physical in order to scale with Bleed, Physical, and Cold Resistance. We've combined the synergy between  Oceareon and Chill to scale the damage based off the unique property of the ring.  Rip Blood and  Bone Curse are both automated off this spell and provide both an offensive and defensive aspect to the build. The majority of damage you gain from this skill is in the form of Bleed and Frostbite.

• 5 points in Condemned to Chaos: 100% Bleed Chance.
• 1 point in Sanguine Reverie: Converts the Necrotic aspect of the spell into Physical.
• 1 point in Exacted Libation: Adds automation of  Rip Blood scaled off Intelligence.
• 1 point in Another Affliction: Adds automation of  Bone Curse based on the prerequisite that a Curse already exists on the target.
• 5 point in Mania in Flames: 100% Frostbite Chance.
• 1 point in Call of Morditas: Converts the Fire aspect of the spell into Cold.
• 1 point in Torment of the Red Tundra: Scales Bleed Damage and Freeze Rate Multiplier off Cold Resistance, adding synergy with  Frostbite Shackles.
• 1 point in Chance of Snow: While the Chill Chance is negligible, as we already have enough on our Wand, the chance to deal double damage to Chilled enemies is massive and synergizes with Chaotic Strikes, as well as the Unique Ring  Oceareon.
• 3 points in Exult in Misery: Adds 48% more damage to Chaos Bolts.
• 3 points in Abrupt Chaos: Increases Cast Speed and projectiles now move faster. This results in more accurate firing.
• 2 points in Doom's Vindication: Pathing node.
• 1 point in Devour the Damned: Helps sustain Mana for the build.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Rip Blood serves a dual purpose in this build. We will never cast Rip Blood manually. It will always automate either off  Chaos Bolts or through Bleed Overload. While not used for direct damage, it does provide Bleed stacks on its own, which ensures we will have 100% uptime on Bleed Overload. However, every Rip Blood that goes off with generate Ward for us, and creates a situation where we're able to maintain extremely high Ward values simply by pressing a single button with Chaos Bolts.

• 2 points into Arcane Absorption: Purely for moving through the tree. We never manually cast this spell.
• 1 point into Rip Spirit: Converts Rip Blood from Physical into a Necrotic Spell.
• 1 point into Arcane Fortress: Health from Rip Blood is converted into Ward.
• 3 points into Hemomancer: Traversal node, this will not apply to anything we do.
• 5 points into Gushing Wound: Adds 100% Chance for Rip Blood to cause Bleed.
• 5 points into Quenching: Amplifies the Ward gain from this spell.
• 1 point into Hematology: Scales the Ward gained from Rip Blood off Intelligence.
• 1 point into Eviscerate: Enables 100% rate for Rip Blood to Splatter with a single point.
• 1 point into Splatter: 20% Chance for Rip Blood to Splattter twice, which can then hit the original target.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Bone Curse is taken due to its ease of automation and ability to immediately boost the damage we deal by 25%. Aside from applying Marked For Death, Bone Curse will also apply Slow, provide us with access to Bone Armor, and cull enemies at 12% Health.

• 2 points into Iron Maiden: Bone Curse deals 50% more damage.
• 3 points into Brittle Bones: 12% more damage, on top of a 12% Kill Threshold.
• 4 points into Conflation: More than doubles the size of Bone Curse, taken for clear potential.
• 1 point into Sigil of Mortality: Bone Curse now applies Marked for Death.
• 2 points into Defile Defenses: Mostly traversal, but may apply a stack of Armor Shred on use.
• 3 points into Marrow Thief: Has a chance to apply Bone Armor when an enemy afflicted with bone Curse dies. When running maps, this turns into a permanent defensive boost for your character.
• 1 point in Crippling Anguish: Bone Curse now slows enemies for 2 seconds.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill shine in the build. While some of these skills do allow for some variation to exist depending on your own custom choices, we recommend utilizing the skill trees as presented until you have a strong understanding of the build itself.

 Profane Veil ties the build together; this skill will be converted to deal Physical Damage, dealing more damage per our chance to cause Bleed. The nature of Profane Veil is a defensive one, and it does that job well, applying the Curse Penance to enemies, bolstering our DoTs and supplying further Armor and Damage Mitigation. We also deal more damage while channeling Profane Veil, so the automation on  Chthonic Fissure receives a big boost while we're inside the puddle. As an added bonus, Profane Veil will also automate  Bone Curse for us when we begin and end channeling the skill.

• 3 points in Eternal Blasphemy: Channel for longer and move faster.
• 1 point in Lake of Blood: Converts Profane Veil into a Physical Spell.
• 1 point in Desecrated Graves: Bone Curse is now automated upon entering and exiting the puddle.
• 1 point in Forked Tongue: You now have two puddles, however the second puddle moves on its own towards enemies.
• 1 point in Loose Tongue: -5 Mana Cost.
• 1 point in Penitent Tangent: Provides another Curse, boosting the overall strength of the build.
• 1 point in Spirit Plate: DoT protection while channeling.
• 1 point in Discourage: Pathing node.
• 5 points in Scorn: 25% more global damage while channeling Profane Veil.
• 2 points in Sable Inquisition: Profane Veil is now larger.
• 3 points in Profane Instruments: We use a Wand, so this provides 30% more damage to Profane Veil.