Warlock Mastery Leveling Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)
Welcome to our Last Epoch Warlock Warlock Leveling build guide for the Acolyte class. Here you will learn everything about the Warlock play style, passives, skills, strengths, and weaknesses to conquer the world of Eterra.
Introduction
This build has been curated specifically to provide a fast and fun way to level a Warlock through the main story of the game and part of the way into the endgame Monolith system. The main focus here is placed on Chthonic Fissure as a way to clear a full screen of enemies. The fissure will erupt and spew out Spirits that deal Necrotic Damage and also inflict the Curse Torment when they hit. These Spirits will have a chance to convert themselves into Chaos Bolts, which is where our main damage will occur. Chaos Bolts are used to automate Rip Blood, which sustains our Health with Blood Orbs, and Bone Curse, which will increase our damage by inflicting another Curse, Marked For Death, apply a stack of Shred Armor on hit, and provide a 12% Kill Threshold which will help speed up fights against Elites and Boss enemies.
Transplant is taken as a way for us to quickly move through the map, dealing damage and casting Bone Curse on the way. Transplant will apply Haste and Frenzy for 3 seconds after use. Use this frequently, since the main goal for leveling should be speed.
Warlock Leveling Passive Trees
Acolyte Passive Tree
20 points are mandatory in the Acolyte tree to proceed onto Mastery Passive Trees, and we will be taking the minimum amount in order to quickly move on and grab Chaos Bolts as an accessible skill.
Start the Acolyte Tree by immediately taking Forbidden Knowledge. This provides an ample amount of Intelligence and Necrotic Resistance off the rip, perfect for scaling the build and prepping our defensive layers for later on. Blood Aura is taken for the Increased Damage it provides, ignoring the Minion Damage on the node. A single point goes into Mania of Mortality in order to place points into the linked node Unnatural Preservation. This nearly caps our Necrotic Resistance, adds Poison Resistance, and provides a bit of Ward Retention that will likely be wanted towards the end of the leveling process as you make your way into the Empowered Monoliths.
Warlock Passive Tree
The vast majority of our points will be placed into the Warlock Tree, scaling Intelligence, Mana and Mana Regen, and providing a significant boost to our defensive layers through damage mitigation. Prioritize nodes with Intelligence and Mana, as you will want as much Intelligence as possible in order to proc Rip Blood at a consistent rate.
The defensive scaling in the Warlock passives relies heavily on applying Curses. Dark Protections and Harrowing Armor are good examples of this, as both scale off the number of Curses placed on the enemy dealing damage to us. The available Curses for this build consist of Marked For Death, Torment, Bone Curse, and Acid Skin. To add onto this and make the build even safer, Wither is taken and is applied by every hit we deal.
As a final note, Fleeting Crone should be prioritized when you are able to put points into it. This provides a huge boost to Haste from all sources, including Transplant, as well as a 25% chance to grant Haste on kill, or by hitting a Boss or Elite enemy. This is a good way to scale our Movement Speed and lessen the time spent working through the main story.
Lich Passive Tree
The Lich Passive Tree is used very minimally, and it is only to provide a bit of extra Intelligence and some Mana Regen, that way the build has an easier time sustaining resources as you clear maps. Only take 5 points in Apocrypha and throw the rest into Warlock. More can, and should, be allocated into Lich depending on the build you are playing for endgame.
Chaos Bolts
Chaos Bolts are the main way we'll be doing damage, whether they are manually casted or automated through Chthonic Fissure. Chaos Bolts are a double-edged sword, mainly when automated through Fissure, because of their Mana cost. However, there are ways we can mitigate this.
Your first priority should be to make your way down to Devour the Damned. This will refund 2 Mana when a Chaos Bolt hits a Cursed enemy. Which means prior to hitting enemies, we will need to apply Bone Curse to them. If Mana is not an issue because of a small pack mob, don't worry about this. For larger groups of mobs, or continuous casting, make sure to apply a Curse first or you will run dry on Mana quickly.
Once the previous node has been grabbed, focus on automating both Bone Curse, followed by Exult in Misery. This will provide more damage for Chaos Bolts for having at least one stack of either Ignite, Frostbite, Bleed or Damned on an enemy. This will supply a 48% damage boost for having all of them on a target. Automating Rip Blood can wait until level 50 when we unlock our fifth Specialization Slot.
Chthonic Fissure
Chthonic Fissure can be thought of as the bomb, while Chaos Bolts are the shrapnel. Fissure deals a massive amount of damage, dealing Fire Damage Over Time along the fault line, as well as releasing Spirits that deal Hit Necrotic Damage and apply Torment to enemies.
This spell can easily take out an entire screen of enemies by itself, but comes with a reasonably high Mana cost, which is only made higher by automating Chaos Bolts off it. For that reason, be careful when taking Chaotic Rupture. If Chaos Bolts are automated, it will continually convert Spirits to Chaos Bolts even after enemies have died, and continue to drain your Mana bar. If you are in a situation with either low Mana or Mana Regen, opt to take this later. The Spirits will do damage on their own and you will have better control over your Mana by manually casting Chaos Bolts only. As a side note, since we are speaking about Mana, due to Fragile Crust requiring a Curse for the Mana reduction, just like Chaos Bolts, you may want to manually apply Bone Curse first and then lay your Fissure down.
On the far right side of the passive tree is Forbidden Chasm, which applies Acid Skin to enemies struck by the initial Fissure hit. This boosts your Critical Strike Chance by a flat 20% on enemies afflicted by the Curse, making it an easy way to scale into Critical Hit Damage early in the game.
Ultimately, the pathing on this is up to you and how you prefer to play the build. The main consideration here is how comfortable you are with Mana consumption. Waiting around for Mana to come back will be the bane of your existence if you spec into automated Chaos Bolts too early.
Bone Curse
As a way to force an applied Curse, Bone Curse is taken early in the leveling process. You can opt to take this later on and instead take Transplant, however Bone Curse is likely to offer you greater damage output, and Transplant can also be ran without specializing in it.
Priority here should be on getting access to Marked For Death in the node Sigil of Mortality. This will greatly increase the damage we deal to targets. Follow this up by extending the duration of Marked for Death, and then converting Bone Curse into a Necrotic Spell by taking Misery. Brittle Bones should be taken next, as the Kill Threshold will be quite useful for bosses. Back track from here to grab full points in other nodes.
Bone Curse should be applied before anything else while leveling! Once you reach level 35 and unlock Transplant specialization, you can automate Bone Curse through the traversal skill, but before then, in an effort to conserve Mana, applying it manually is going to be the play. If you are only dealing with low Health trash mobs, you can skip Bone Curse and just opt for Chaos Bolts spam to take care of it.
Transplant
Transplant should be placed on your hotbar immediately upon unlocking it, however we will not be specializing it until Level 35. Once this happens, focus on the bottom right-hand side of the passive tree. These nodes will convert Transplant into a Necrotic Spell and allow it to scale alongside the rest of the build and, more importantly, allow us to automate Bone Curse on arrival after using the teleport.
The top left-hand side of the passive tree is focused on cooldown reduction and applying Bone Armor to ourselves. Defensive layers are nice, but not needed early on in the campaign.
Once you unlock Transplant as a specialized action and automate Bone Curse, you now have a viable option to apply Curses to targets without wasting time casting a spell and standing still. Utilize this as long as teleporting into mobs will not get you killed.
Rip Blood
Rip Blood is taken almost entirely as a way to sustain our Health pool. It will also never be manually casted, so you do not even need it on your hotbar. Rip Blood is automated off Chaos Bolts, but requires Intelligence to make it consistent. One point of Intelligence is equal to 1% chance to cast Rip Blood from Chaos Bolts. For these reasons, we have opted to take Rip Blood as the final Specialization in the build.
If you are using a Wand, or any other weapon that reduces Mana Cost by 3, you can opt to entirely skip Thirst and remove one point from Hemomancer, taking instead more points in Splatter and Gushing Wound. Remember, active Bleed stacks on a target will provide 12% more damage through Chaos Bolts.
Focus your initial point spread into reducing Mana costs if needed, followed by the nodes leading into Hematology. From here, focus on Splatter. Necrotic Conversion (Rip Spirit) can come last, since we are not relying on Rip Blood to deal damage. As a final note, in the event you are close to the end point of the leveling process and you have gotten lucky with gear drops, Arcane Fortress is an option. This converts the Health gains to Ward for Rip Blood. Prior to having Ward Retention, this node is useless and should be avoided.
Mechanics and Playstyle
While still in low level areas and working off only three specialized skills, most mobs should be dealt with by spamming Chaos Bolts. Apply Bone Curse manually for the Mana Regen off Cursed enemies, as well as the Mana reduction when you cast Chthonic Fissure. The Fissure deals a ton of damage, and the Spirits that release from the chasm will act as homing missiles, chasing down even distant enemies. Be mindful of how often you use this, as the Mana cost is steep and it can not be spammed without specific gear requirements that you likely will not have while leveling, especially on a Cycle character. Instead, opt to use this for large packs of enemies or on Boss fights.
Once Transplant has been specialized in, you will have a much easier time engaging targets, so long as you are okay with playing aggressively. Transplant automates Bone Curse, applying multiple Curses to nearby enemies when you teleport. This will speed up our clear time on makes quite a bit, as Transplanting into groups and immediately using Chthonic Fissure is a very efficient way of bringing death to a full screen of mobs.
Gearing and Affixes
While leveling, there will be specific implicits, prefixes, and suffixes that you should be on the look-out for. If you happen to get a good piece of gear, do not hold back on crafting on it to boost the stats on it. It is very possible that a ring you drop at level 40 will be a viable option for you well into the 70s because of the implicit stats on it.
Attributes | Offensive | Defensive |
---|---|---|
Intelligence | Increased Necrotic Damage Increased Mana Regen Increased Cast Speed Critical Strike Chance Critical Multiplier |
Armor Resistances Flat Health |
Useful Uniques
Uniques in Last Epoch will start dropping very early. Even low level Uniques in this game can be extremely strong. With that in mind, there are two Uniques that this build would love to have early on.
Mad Alchemist's Ladle is one of the best weapons in the game, and synergizes perfectly for Warlock due to Curses counting as an ailment. This can add a whopping 48% extra damage to enemies, as long as there is 6 total ailments on them. This can be DoTs, Curses, Shred effects, or any negative ailment listed under an enemies health bar. These have a decent drop rate chance from killing Exiled Mages, which can be found fairly early in the campaign.
Advent of the Erased are Weaver's Will boots, so while there is a chance to make these boots even stronger than their base effects, they are already quite useful for the leveling process, providing us with Haste when a nearby enemy dies and reduced damage taken from Damage Over Time effects while under Haste status.
Particularly further along in the leveling process, once you have made it into the Monolith, a pair of Mortality's Grasp would be ideal. You can not wear these until level 63, but they automate the Curse Marked For Death off hits that normally would not apply a Curse. This is useful for Chaos Bolts, as we no longer require Bone Curse to apply a Curse or casting Chthonic Fissure for the Torment that comes off Spirit hits to reap the benefits of hitting Cursed enemies.
Idols
Idol slots are gained through the campaign, unlocking small bonuses and unique affixes for the player to discover and augment their builds with. The Idol screen consists of a grid system for the player to fill out with different sized idols, eventually filling in every part of the grid. As the Idol shape increases (1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 1x4, etc.) the stronger an affix you might find for your build.
The target Affixes we want to look for in our Idols are:
- +% Health
- + Health
- Needed Resistances
If you are near the end of the leveling process, be on the look out for Ward Retention as well. This will allow you to scale Rip Blood into Ward gain instead of Health.
Progressing to Endgame
This build will carry you all the way to the start of the Monolith, where you will need to decide on an Endgame build to follow. We have several options available for Warlock.
Changelog
- 06 Jul. 2024: Updated for 1.1. Build saw small nerfs to Spirit generation, but still extremely strong for leveling.
- 19 Feb. 2024: Guide Added.
GhazzyTV is a professional content creator that knows all about theory crafting builds in Path of Exile and Last Epoch and has been teaching players how to build their characters for over 9 years. He is a huge Blizzard fan with thousands of hours invested into Diablo 3 and 4 and is a frequent World of Warcraft Classic player. His builds will be helpful content for new players and veterans alike. You can find his PoE Vault Guide Hub here and his LE Guide Hub here. You can follow him on Twitch, YouTube or Twitter.
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