Lich Mastery Leveling Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)

There's only three nodes we want to target within the Acolyte passives. Truth be told, the Acolyte Passive Tree isn't spectacular. However, it does provide some very early Intelligence which allows us to create a good base of Melee Necrotic Damage for  Harvest. All of the nodes selected here will focus on damage increases.

• Since this build will start with  Summon Skeleton as the first skill, adding a bit of Minion Damage is a good thing. Grab all 8 points in Blood Aura. Thankfully this also scales our personal damage, making it a useful node through out all of the leveling process.
• Immediately slot 8 points into Forbidden Knowledge afterwards. Not only does this solve Necrotic Resistance for the entirety of the leveling process to 70, but each point of Intelligence scales as 1 Necrotic Melee Damage for  Harvest and  Reap. Early on this will make a huge difference.
• From here, you should grab 4 points in Dark Rituals. This is great for the Attack Speed, as the Skeletons you summon will eventually be applying Armor Shred to targets. More Attack Speed means more Shred stacks.

At this point you will have 20 points into Acolyte and can proceed to start filling out Mastery nodes. While this is a Lich build, our top priority will be to start placing points into Necromancer.

We're looking to allocate a very specific amount of points into the Necromancer tree for a singular reason; We want our Skeletons to Shred Armor on enemies. Specifically, Skeleton Archers. We won't much care about the damage your minions do once we enable our character to deal damage, so their only real purpose is acting as backline support.

• Start Necromancer by taking 5 points in Risen Army. Grave Thorns is a usable option, but the reality is your Skeletons really won't die often even without stacking defensives, and even if they do they're incredibly easy to resummon. Opt for the Attack Speed buff.
• Cursed Blood is a great option, especially for early  Harvest. It's easy for us to add base Melee Damage to this skill, so getting nodes that increase our Necrotic Damage are perfect. Place all 10 points in this node.
• To finish off Necromancer, put 4 points into Aegisfall. This provides a 100% chance for your minions to Shred Armor. While you could go all the way and place 8 points into this, we really want to start placing points into Lich going forward and those 4 points will be useful elsewhere.

Every point we get going forward will get dropped into Lich. It's unfortunate, the first half of the Lich tree really isn't spectacular. There isn't really option to deviate from what we've chosen here. Once you get "beyond the chain" in the Passive Tree, higher damage dealing options exist and the build will begin to take form where your damage increases become drastic in short amounts of time.

• Start Lich by taking 10 points in Apocrypha. We do not care about the Mana Regen, however the Intelligence correlates directly into Melee Damage making this node an easy decision.
• Place 5 points into Grasp of Fate to increase the Necrotic Damage we'll deal.
• With limited options at this point, Bed of Souls is really the only node you can take and see any sort of boost from. This is mostly for the Vitality, as we gain a slight boost to our Health pool and some small Poison Resistance gains.
• Now that we've hit the mid-point in Lich, good options begin to present themselves in the form of Critical Hit Rate and Necrotic Penetration. Prioritize the 8 points into Three Plagues for the 24% Necrotic Penetration.
• With the added Critical Rate in  Harvest, Increased Critical Rate is a no-brainer. Place 4 points into Deathbringer for a decent boost in Critical Hit consistency.
• With only two nodes left for us to put points into, Darkguard is the better option here as it provides a small layer of survivability against chip damage while in  Reaper Form. Finish off the remainder of the points you have into Clairvoyant Insight afterwards.

While some of the leveling builds we use on the site are meant to start at level 20, this one was made with Level 1 players in mind.  Summon Skeleton is a great skill to start allocating points into immediately. Your Bone Brigade will deal great damage early on with little to no investment. By the time we're ready to take up the mantle of doing the damage ourselves, we will have already converted the Skeletons into pure archers to provide backline support.

• The first node we take will be Unholy Rage, however at the start this is mostly a roadblock. Start with 2 points in this, unlocking access to Marrow Walkers, adding an extra Bone Buddy to your growing army.
• After this, place 1 more point into Unholy Rage, giving us access to another branching path. This route will have us taking 1 point in Lone Guardian (mostly a pathing node) into the single point in Mightier than the Sword. This completely removes the melee-variant from your Skeletons and ensures you will only summon Archers.
• We'll come back to fill in Unholy Rage later, but for now we will set our sights on the lower half of the Skill Tree, taking 2 points in Necrotic Conviction. Albeit a pathing node, early on the more damage modifier is a welcome addition.
• Hollow Walkers is your next goal, adding yet another reanimated ghoul to your friend group.
• Turn your attention to the top right portion of the Passive Tree, selecting 2 points in Unbound Necromancy. This is a pathing node, however the Mana Efficiency will be useful later on. This takes us into the final summon limit node, Grave Walkers.
• It's time to return back to Unholy Rage. At this point you should already have your Skeletons applying Armor Shred to everything they hit, so we want this Attack Speed for a higher amount of stacks on targets. Place the last 2 points into this node to finish it out.
• Place a singular point into Marrow Tap, allowing us to access to next node Empty the Graves. This allows us to summon 3 Skeletons each time we press the skill, which is a great help if Skeletons die in the middle of a fight. This does significantly increase the Mana cost, which is why the Mana Efficiency node was mentioned earlier as being useful.
• Double back and place the remainder of your points into Marrow Tap giving your Skeletons a bit of sustain, for a total of 20 Skill Points in  Summon Skeleton.

On top of the Skeletons we'll be utilizing, this build will also want ghosts in the form of  Wandering Spirits. Just like Skeletons, early on these Spirits will deal a considerable amount of damage for little-to-no effort on your part. These spectral entities will have a main focus on applying ailments to enemies in the form of Necrotic Shred and Damned, both bolstering the damage we will deal with  Harvest and  Reap. Upon the first time a Spirit spawns on top of an enemy, it will Fear them, which causes them to momentarily run sporadically, but also interrupts any sort of damage cast that enemy was preparing. Use this to your advantage to stay out of harms way.

• Place an initial 2 points into Spirit Swarm. The goal for this skill is to have it active nearly 100% of the time, so the cooldown reduction is worth it. However, we won't be maxing out the points here for later, there are more lucrative nodes beyond this.
• Both Drained Will and Sins of the Forgotten should be prioritized from here. Cap both of these with 3 points each. The Spirits will now apply Damned and Necrotic Shred just for existing near enemies.
• Terrifying Presence is priceless; this is how we Fear enemies, providing a bit of a defensive buffer for the build which helps us avoid being overwhelmed by enemies.
• Harrowing Aura should have 2 points placed into it. The worst part of this skill is the fact Spirits will summon at random locations and just kind of do their own thing when it comes to movement. This node aims to resolve the weakness by increasing the range at which your Spirits apply ailments.
• From here on out, all nodes taken will aim to increase the frequency at which Spirits remain active. The choice between what to take next is up to you as the player, as both options result in a very similar outcome; more, longer lasting Spirits. Thin Veil and Lingering Souls should both be maxed out for a total of 8 points.
• Your final point should go back into Spirit Swarm for the cooldown reduction.

 Harvest is our main damage skill for the build. It can be scaled in two ways; Dexterity, providing increased damage, or Intelligence, providing base Necrotic Melee Damage. For this build, we'll be opting for the latter, completely ignoring Dexterity in favor of Intelligence. However, if you find Dexterity on gear while leveling, there is absolutely no reason you can't equip it. Harvest scales extremely well as a Critical Hit based skill, so that is how we will utilize it's Passive Tree.

• Start with a single point in Harrowing Blade.  Wandering Spirits are already shredding Necrotic Resistance, so there's no need to invest in this further.
• Place 3 points into Great Scythe. We'll come back to this later, but damage nodes take priority over range increases for the time being.
• Fill in all 3 points for Spectral Whetstone. This boosts Harvest's Critical Hit Rate to a base of 14%, enabling a high Critical Hit Chance through gear drops and late nodes in the Lich Passive Tree.
• Pathing forward would take us to nodes that require Marked For Death access. We won't be able to apply that until a bit later in the leveling process (through  Reaper Form), so for now backtrack to Great Scythe and fill in the last 2 points here.
• Dedicate your next 5 points into Symbol of Loss. This will significantly boost the damage Harvest deals consistently, Critical Hit or not. However it does require a Cursed target. This is taken around the time you should be hitting level 35 and gaining access to  Reaper Form, so it lines up perfectly.
• Drop 5 points into Learned Weakness. Similar to the previous node, this requires a Cursed enemy to be hit by Harvest which should not be an issue.
• Your final point can be placed into Steal Youth for the increased Movement Speed. This works well to quickly move through maps, a necessity due to the limited amount of time we can spend in  Reaper Form.

Want a second life? That's what  Reaper Form does. You literally can not be killed while under the effect of this skill. However, time spent transformed is limited; as time passes, your Reaper Health will continue to drop faster and faster, resulting in eventually being forced out of form. We can combat this (and do) partially with Health Leech off  Reap. To bolster this, Health Leeched from Melee Damage / Hits should be aimed for on gear drops. Reaper Form provides a ton of bonuses for us and is also a wonderful movement tool, all centering around  Reap. This is also how we apply Marked For Death to enemies, enabling half of the  Harvest nodes we took.

Similar to  Harvest,  Reap scales the same way; Dexterity and Intelligence. Keep that in mind when looking at gear drops.

• Start with a single point into Deathtouch Scythe in order to place 3 points into Haunting. This allows both  Harvest and  Reap to apply Marked for Death to enemies.
• Head upwards, taking a single point in Soul for a Soul in order to access Reaper's Curse. This provides a substantial boost to Critical Hit Rate, mainly aimed at  Harvest.
• Head back down and take 3 points in Swift Harbinger. With this massive reduction in cooldown, we're looking at a rotation of  Harvest →  Harvest →  Reap on repeat, significantly boosting how much Health we're able to leech while transformed.
• Throw 2 more points into Deathtouch Scythe to access Executioner. This significantly increases the damage our Critical Strikes will deal with both Harvest and Reap.
• With 1 point leftover, throw it into Deathtouch Scythe to cap the node.

 Aura Of Decay has one main purpose, which is to eliminate Poison Damage from the list of lethal things in the game. This is pretty useful for the Majasa fight at the end of the story, but also comes in handy when dealing with DoTs in Monoliths. It also reduces our reliance on gear to survive, one of the biggest hurdles you may face when leveling normally. You can instead invest in other Resistances or Health.

• Your first point can be placed into Plague Rat. This allows us access to Respite which will immediately boost our Poison Resistance to 60%. No need to worry about low rolls on gear, this is always 60%.
• Place 4 points into Inoculation, further reducing Poison Damage dealt to us. At this point, the Poison DoT we're applying to ourselves is a non-issue and can be ignored.
• 3 points should be placed into Loathing. This is the final guaranteed layer we have for applying Marked For Death to enemies, and is especially useful once you start the Monolith.
• Place 3 points into Absence of Life in order to reach Chill to the Bone. This will assist us defensively to Chill enemies and reduce the damage we take.
• Finally, head back down to Plague Rat and fill it in with 2 more points.