Last updated on Mar 06, 2024 at 01:00 by GhazzyTV and Lavender
Welcome to our Last Epoch Lich Pestilence Reaper build guide for the Acolyte class.
Here you will learn everything about the Lich play style, passives, skills, strengths, and weaknesses
to conquer the world of Eterra.
Due to the changes seen with 1.0 and the increased difficulty scaling,
we can no longer suggest this build or concepts related to it. It has been tested and can clear 100 Corruption, but it struggles to go further
than that. We will update this page in the future when Lich and Poison Damage get balance changes.
Embrace death and become Pestilence. Enemies will whither under the onslaught of
poisonous blight sent forth from your scythes. This build aims to
turn Hungering Souls into what is effectively a poisonous AK-47, inflicting
hundreds of stacks of Poison onto enemies!
Strengths
Highly mobile with two Traversal skills
Golems used as personal shields
Ranged gameplay
Weaknesses
Reaper Form ending puts the build at risk as it is squishy
Sustain is Minion-dependent
2.
Skill Selection
For this Lich build, our skills have been selected to facilitate Poison stacking. Hungering Souls
is the star of the build, utilizing the Unique Staff, Curse of Perseverance, to act as a vessel
transporting our Poison to enemies. To inflict more poison and provide some defensive layering to the
build, Reaper Form and Wandering Spirits are taken. To round the
build out, we've taken Transplant as our Traversal skill which can be used independently of Reap,
the Traversal skill gained from Reaper Form. Finally, we'll be accompanied by two Golems used to distract
enemies, as well as heal us through the damage they deal.
3.
Class and Skill Passive Trees
Class PassivesSkill Passives
AcolyteLichNecromancer
Hungering SoulsWandering SpiritsSummon Bone GolemTransplantReaper Form
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.
For this Poison build, Lich as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive
Points for the Lich Passive tree, with a few extra points going into the Acolyte tree than what is typical.
This build will only utilize the Necromancer Tree in order to provide more Health to our Golems. Our Passive Points for Lich will go almost
entirely to boosting our Poison Damage.
3.1.
Acolyte Passive Points
8 points into Forbidden Knowledge: Intelligence and Necrotic Resistance.
8 points into Blood Aura: Increased damage for you and Golems.
4 points into Stolen Vitality: Taken for Golem Health.
4 points into Dark Rituals: Increases Golem Attack Speed, and will also apply to the player for 10 seconds after summoning Golems.
1 point into Putrid Demise: Traversal node.
1 point into Soul Aegis: Adds 3 Armor per player level to Golems.
6 points into Dominion of Rot: This increases our Poison Damage and increases our minion's chance to inflict Poison.
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.
For this Poison build, Lich as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive
Points for the Lich Passive tree, with a few extra points going into the Acolyte tree than what is typical.
This build will only utilize the Necromancer Tree in order to provide more Health to our Golems. Our Passive Points for Lich will go almost
entirely to boosting our Poison Damage.
3.2.
Lich Passive Points
8 points into Survival of the Cruel: Setup for our next node.
1 point into Hollow Lich: This converts all sources of Leech from the player into direct damage increase. We can,
however, still Leech through other sources, such as our Golems.
10 points into Apocrypha: Intelligence and Mana Regen.
8 points into Desolation: Increased Poison Damage.
8 points into Lasting Stench: Increased Poison Damage.
8 points into Three Plagues: Poison Penetration.
10 points into Decaying Form: Ensure your Poison Resistance is capped at 75% before taking this, or Poison puddles
are likely going to kill you, even at low Corruption.
5 points into Soul Maw: Leech and, because of previous node choices, extra damage.
5 points into Ageless Ascetic: Provides three very useful bonuses; Movement Speed, Cast Speed, and extra Leech.
8 points into Corrosive Consciousness: Increased Damage Over Time.
5 points into Deathbringer: Extra Cast Speed.
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.
For this Poison build, Lich as our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive
Points for the Lich Passive tree, with a few extra points going into the Acolyte tree than what is typical.
This build will only utilize the Necromancer Tree in order to provide more Health to our Golems. Our Passive Points for Lich will go almost
entirely to boosting our Poison Damage.
3.3.
Necromancer Passive Points
5 points into Grave Thorns: Boost to Golem Health and Armor.
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.
3.4.
Hungering Souls
Hungering Souls is completely changed through the unique staff used in this build. Rather than a single-hit
cone, these ghoulish skulls are fired out of our staff similar to a machine gun; the perfect vessle for us to deliver
stacks of Poison to enemies. This will be our main form of damage for the build.
3.4.1.
Order of Skill Points
2 points into Soul Swarm: Extra projectiles means more Poison Damage.
2 points into Dominion Of Undeath: Reduction in Mana cost.
2 points into Risen Cemetery: A 40% chance for even more projectiles.
5 points into Descent Into Madness: Increase to Poison Damage.
5 points into Inspired Hunger: The base effect of Hungering Souls causes enemies to become
Possessed, and this scales our Poison with that debuff.
5 point into Caustic Wretches: Adds Poison Chance.
2 points into Decayed Mind: Further Mana cost reductions.
If you're missing points from the expected 23 this skill has, pull them off of Caustic Wretches.
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.
3.5.
Wandering Spirits
Wandering Spirits offers us a way to deal burst damage by applying even more Poison stacks.
While the Spirits will deal damage over time by walking through the enemy, they will also use
Poison Spit once a second and inflict Poison through this action.
3.5.1.
Order of Skill Points
3 points into Spirit Swarm: Reduces the cooldown by 30%.
3 points in Thin Veil: Generates more ghosts.
3 points in Lingering Souls: Ghosts last longer.
1 point into Infectious Dead: Converts the skill from Necrotic to Poison.
5 points in Souls of Rage: Makes the ghosts move faster and increases the damage they deal.
3 points in Poisoned Minds: Increases damage by 36%, as any enemy near us will be Poisoned.
1 point in Spectral Putrescence: Ghosts now spit projectiles that carry Poison stacks.
2 points in Soul Of Filth: Higher frequency for Soul Of Filth.
Due to our gear, we have more points than the standard allocation of 20 points. The nodes Amalgam of Primalists and
Amalgam of Sentinels can all be lowered until you have more Skill points available from your gear.
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.
3.6.
Summon Bone Golem
Bone Golems serve two purposes; serving as a body block, and healing us through the damage they deal to enemies.
Resummoning your Golems are regular intervals is a good idea, as it provides us with a 10 second long Cast Speed
buff when we do.
3.6.1.
Order of Skill Points
5 points into Amalgam of Rogues: Increases Attack Speed and Movement Speed, benefitting their Health Leech.
3 points into Unnatural Speed: Movement Speed buff.
5 points into Hunger: This node is how the Golems will heal us. This is doubled since we summon two of them.
1 point into Twinned Golems: Allows for summoning two golems.
5 points into Amalgam of Sentinels: Increases the defenses for Golems.
1 point into Tower of Bones: Increases threat generation so enemies attack the Golems before the player.
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.
3.7.
Transplant
Transplant is the mobility skill for the build, but also inflicts enemies with Fear if they are
nearby both the departure and arrival points. This is also how we keep Bone Armor up, which forms part of the
defensive layering. Transplant is only one movement tool for this build; when you add in
Reaper Form, you gain access to Reap and become extremely mobile.
3.7.1.
Order of Skill Points
1 points into Scarlet Rain: Traversal node.
1 point into Ethereal Body: Converts the skill to Necrotic, which adds a skill point to the
tree due to Curse of Perseverance.
1 point into Squeamish: Fears enemies on departure.
1 point into Thanatophobia: Fears enemies on arrival.
3 points into Acolyte's Fervor: After teleporting, provides a Haste and Frenzy.
3 points into Fleeting Form: Taken for the Cooldown Reduction.
2 points into Anemia: Traversal node.
3 points into Bone Armor: Provides defensive layering on use. If comfortable with constant
movement, this can be kept up at 100% uptime.
3 points into Apostasy: Bone Armor lasts longer.
2 points into Plated Bone: Bone Armor effects are increased by 20%. (This was removed, points will be redistributed when the build is updated.)
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.
3.8.
Aura of Decay
Reaper Form makes us immortal while also increasing our potential for inflicting Poison.
While in Reaper Form, you will gain access to Reap, which normally takes up the Traversal Skill
slot in a build. However, we take nodes that allow us to use both Reap and Transplant on separate cooldowns.
Reap will also kill anything you hit with 18% Health or less.
3.8.1.
Order of Skill Points
2 points into Deathtouch Scythe: Traversal node.
1 point into Haunting: Provides a small chance to apply Marked For Death on hit while transformed.
1 point into Pestilence: Reap will now poison on hit.
3 points into Venomous Coating: Extra Poison chance with Reap.
5 points into Herald of Rot: Provides a global boost to Poison chance while transformed.
3 points into Dark Harvest: Reap now has a Kill Threshold of 18%.
4 points into Mistress of Decay: Reduces the Health Drain from Reaper Form by 40% while also increasing Damage Over Time by the same amount.
2 points into Swift Harbinger: Reap's cooldown is reduced by 60%, increasing mobility.
1 point into Unholy Dominion: Reap and Transplant no longer share the same Traversal cooldown and can be used independently.
This Poison Lich build is all about stacking as much Poison damage as possible, taking full advantage of our Unique
Curse of Perseverance to deliver the stacks through Hungering Souls. Wandering Spirits should be used
on cooldown, as this essentially creates burst damage for us. While our Leech stat has been converted
to damage through the Lich passive tree, other entities are not effected, namely our Golems.
Our Golems have two main uses; Healing us, and acting as our body guard. Overall, they're quite tanky and in mob groups
will typically heal themselves back up to full just by attacking. In boss fights, you may feel the need to micro-manage
their movements slightly to avoid lethal AoE damage. Make sure to keep the minion control hotkey assigned to somewhere
easily accessible. If they die, it is not a huge deal. Resummoning them will also buff us for 10 seconds due to
the Passive node Dark Rituals.
Reaper Form grants us pseudo-invincibility while we're transformed, making it one of, if not the, strongest ability
in the game. While in Reaper Form, we gain access to a new action called Reap. This is a movement skill that will heal
you when it hits enemies. The longer we remain in Reaper Form, the faster our Health will drain. The Golems
will heal us through this Health decay for about a minute or so, but eventually it will catch up and Reaper Form
will end. During this time period, the number one priority is avoiding damage. The Golems will generate threat on enemies which
keeps us safe until the cooldown resets for Reaper Form again. Take advantage of Transplant and the Haste
it provides if you begin to get targeted by enemies.
4.1.
Poison Damage
In an effort to explain how Damage Over Time, specifically of the Poison variety, works in Last Epoch, we've decided to
outline some rules here so the player has a better understanding of how it works. Poison stacks start at a base of 20 damage,
dealt over a period of 3 seconds. You can stack poison infinitely. There is no limit, other than after 3 seconds
your stacks will fall off. Basically, the faster you can apply Poison stacks, the better. Probably the most important
factor about Poison stacks, they Shred Poison Resistance (5%, up to 150%) from enemies when hit. While Poison may feel lackluster in early game,
it can be made to be extremely strong in the late game. Your goal with Poison builds, including this one, should generally
be to apply as many stacks as you can, as quickly as you can, to maximize your damage output.
5.
Equipment and Gear Affixes
For this build, we will be focusing on several main affixes for each piece of non-unique gear, as well as working towards acquiring the specific Uniques needed
to make this build operate correctly. Our equipment will focus on these specific affixes for the Implicits and Modifier stats.
Gear Slot
Implicits
Modifiers
Staff
Curse of Perseverance
Prefixes Increased Cast Speed Chance to Poison on Hit
Head
Armor
Prefixes Increased Poison Damage and Poison Resistance +2 Hungering Souls and Increased Spell Damage
Suffixes Health Increased Health
Amulet
Physical Resistance Necrotic Resistance
Prefixes Increased Poison Damage Increased Damage Over Time
Prefixes Increased Poison Damage Increased Mana Regen
Suffixes Needed Resistances Hybrid Health
Gloves
Armor Mana
Prefixes Increased Cast Speed Increased Damage Over Time
Suffixes Health Hybrid Health
Ring
Tongue of the Aberrant Seer x2
Prefixes Increased Damage Over Time Increased Poison Damage
Ring
Mana Mana Regen
Prefixes Increased Poison Damage Damage Over Time
Suffixes Health Needed Resistances
Feet
Armor Movement Speed Fire Resistance
Prefixes Intelligence Movement Speed
Suffixes Health Hybrid Health
Relic
Chance to Poison on Hit
Prefixes Increased Cast Speed Increased Damage Over Time
Suffixes Health Needed Resistances
A loot filter made specifically for the gear table above may be copied by pressing the button below. Once in
the Loot Filter portion of the in-game menu, choose the "Paste Clipboard Contents" option to import the code.
Copy Loot Filter to Clipboard
Press the Copy 📋 button to copy the following text to your clipboard
There's only a singular Unique required for this build to work, that being the Unique Staff, Curse of Perseverance.
Any other Unique listed is purely a suggestion, as it will make the build scale better in end game, or provide a substantial survivability
boost when starting Empowered Monoliths.
6.1.
Curse of Perseverance
Curse of Perseverance: Required to make the build to work, there is no substitute. Every skull now has it's own damage instance, and
each one will apply Poison stacks onto enemies. Luckily, this Staff can drop
just from fighting random mobs, or can be target farmed in the Monolith Timeline "The Stolen Lance".
6.2.
Tongue of the Aberrant Seer
Tongue of the Aberrant Seer: Adds Poison Chance to Hungering Souls and scales the damage it deals.
Also adds a skill point to Wandering Spirits once it has been converted to poison. There is a high chance
to find LP 1 and LP 2 on these, and they're fairly common to drop anywhere; farm this ring in the Monolith timeline
"The Age of Winter".
6.3.
Woven Flesh
Woven Flesh: Adds Leech, which due to nodes in our Lich tree, also adds damage to the build. More importantly, this prohibits
us from taking Crits, freeing up a ton of Suffixes for us to plug in other stats. With a fairly common drop rate from The Abomination ("Fall
of the Outcasts"), there is no reason not to run this.
7.
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.
As you may have guessed, the Idols used for this build will be centered around Poison stacking. The Ornate Bone Idol we use
also comes with a nifty Chance for Hungering Souls to fire six additional projectiles. Other slots should focus on Health
or missing Resistances. Through Idols we also apply Plague and Damned,
with the former applying a larger Poison DoT than normal, and the latter lowering the Health Regneration of enemies.
If needed the vertical Idol slots can be used for missing Resistances.
8.
Blessing
Blessings are permanent buffs that are applied to your character. These come in two different powers, Standard and Grand. Grand blessings are significantly
stronger than the Standard Blessings. In total, there are 10 Blessing Slots, one for each Monolith Timeline. When you complete a Monolith and defeat the final boss you
will be awarded a choice of three blessing with a random value.
Blessing Name
Affix
Timeline
Grand Memory of Light
Health
The Black Sun
Grand Light of the Moon
Mana
Ending the Storm
Grand Bulwark of the Tundra
Increased Armor
The Age of Winter
Grand Body of Obsidian
Armor
Spirits of Fire
Grand Resolve of Humanity
Increased All Resistance
Reign of Dragons
9.
Changelog
06 Mar. 2024: Build retired until further changes to the game.
03 Feb. 2024: Build overhaul. Removed Aura of Decay for Reaper Form.
12 Jan. 2024: Loot Filter added.
17 Oct. 2023: Guide Added.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.