Necromancer Abomination Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.0)

Our base class is Acolyte, which fills the role of mixed spell caster and minion summoner in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1 in the campaign, your character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery. Each base class has three possible Masteries to choose from. For Acolyte, you can choose between Passive Trees for Lich, Necromancer, and Warlock. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Mage Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Necromancer is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Necromancer Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase our Minion's Health, Attack Speed, Physical Damage, and Critical Multiplier. In true summoner fashion, we will be ignoring both the Lich and Warlock Passive Trees.

• 8 points into Forbidden Knowledge: Boost to Necrotic Resistance and Intelligence.
• 5 points into Dark Rituals: Taken specifically for Minion Attack Speed.
• 1 points into Stolen Vitality: Taken to proceed into the Passive Tree.
• 1 point into Mania of Mortality: Taken to proceed into the Passive Tree.
• 5 points into Unnatural Preservation: Taken for Ward Retention, but also supplies important Resistances.
• 1 point into Soul Aegis: Minion Armor scaling off our own character's level.

Our base class is Acolyte, which fills the role of mixed spell caster and minion summoner in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1 in the campaign, your character will be offered an opportunity to select an Advanced Mastery. Each base class has three possible Masteries to choose from. For Acolyte, you can choose between Passive Trees for Lich, Necromancer, and Warlock. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Mage Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Necromancer is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Necromancer Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase our Minion's Health, Attack Speed, Physical Damage, and Critical Multiplier. In true summoner fashion, we will be ignoring both the Lich and Warlock Passive Trees.

• 8 points into Risen Army: Minion Damage and Attack Speed.
• 6 points into Cursed Blood: Increases to the Abomination's Physical Damage.
• 1 point into Blood Armour: Traversal node.
• 5 points into Reclamation of Souls: Taken specifically for Ward Retention.
• 5 points into Mortal Tether: Significant boost to the Abomination's Health, but taken in order to access the following node.
• 1 point into Unbound Necromancy: +1 Skeleton.
• 8 points into Unearthed Arms: Add and Increased Minion Physical Damage.
• 5 points into Frantic Summons: Minion Attack Speed boost.
• 8 points into Tyrant: 24% increased Health, converted into Ward.
• 8 points into Cling To Life: Vitality, used for Ward, and extra Resistances for the Abomination.
• 1 point into Tyrant's Legion: +1 Skeleton.
• 10 points into Moonlight Pyre: Adds flat Necrotic and Fire Damage for the Abomination.
• 5 points into River of Bones: Very useful for Minion Leech Rate, but Critical Chance is unnecessary due to nodes in skill trees.
• 10 points into Rite of Undeath: Major increases to Resistances and Minion Necrotic Damage.
• 10 points into Blades of the Forlorn: Crit Multipler for the Abomination.

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.

 Assemble Abomination is the main source of damage for this build, and it is what every other skill we specialize in aims to bolster. The goal with this build was to make the Abomination as easy to use as possible, and as such we have completely killed his Health Decay. This also means he can only consume Skeleons and Skeletal Mages. This massive beast takes a while to summon, so ensure you do so out of combat, prior to entering an Echo or Dungeon.

In order to scale the Abomination properly, we will be relying on Minion Health, unique Minion types, and maximum Minion count.

• 4 points into Domination: Adds multiplicative damage to the Abomination's attacks.
• 1 point into Age of Undeath: You can only use Skeletons and Skeletal Mages to summon the Abomination, but Health Decay is removed.
• 5 points into Unholy Reach: Significantly enhances the range of the Abomination's melee attacks.
• 1 point into Meat Grinder: The Abomination will gain a stack of Meat Grinder every time an enemy is killed that grants Increased Damage. This can reach 10 stacks.
• 3 points into Engorgement: Adds multiplicative damage per Minion consumed while summoning.
• 5 points into Epicurean: The Abomination gains more damage if the types of Minions absorbed are different.
• 5 points into Death in the Family: Significantly increases the Abomination's Attack Speed if he consumes at least 5 different types of Minions.

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.

 Summon Skeletal Mage exists for a single reason; to be used as fodder for the Abomination. Since we want as many different types of Minions as possible, we force this skill to summon three types of Mages; Cold, Fire, and Necrotic. All 20 points won't be used for this, so the image above only shows the mandatory points in order to maximize your summon count and Health.

• 5 points into Gravetide: Increases Spell Damage.
• 1 point into Cryomancers: Adds a Cryomancer to the pool of Mages that can be summoned.
• 5 points into Leech Life: Increases Mage Health by 75%.
• 2 points into Celer Mortis: Taken to progress to other nodes.
• 2 points into Grey Merchant: Taken to progress to other nodes.
• 1 point into Pyromancers: Adds a Pyromancer to the pool of Mages that can be summoned.
• 1 point into Order of Death: This node allows us to summon all three Mage types at the same time by increasing the summon count.

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.

As with the Mages,  Summon Skeleton has a singular purpose, to be fed to the Abomination. While we use the Necromancer Passive Tree to increase the limit on Skeletons, we can also use this Skill Tree as well. We do not need to utilize all points for this skill, so we will be highlighting the mandatory ones instead.

There is a special node in this tree, Immortal, which has a random chance to resummon a Skeleton after it dies. This applies to being absorbed into the Abomination and adds a bit of RNG to the strength of the Minion. However, it is always a net positive, so it is always worth taking in this case.

• 2 points into Unholy Rage: Taken to progress to the next node.
• 1 point into Marrow Walkers: Increases Skeleton count by 1.
• 5 points into Necrotic Conviction: Increases Warrior Skeleton Health.
• 1 point into Hollow Walkers: Increases Skeleton count by 1.
• 2 points into Unbound Necromancy: Taken to progress the tree.
• 4 points into Immortal: Adds a 40% chance to resummon a Skeleton when it is absorbed.
• 2 points into Sweeping Strikes: Taken to traverse the tree.
• 1 point into Skeleton Rogue: Adds Rogues to possible Skeletons, raising our unique Skeleton count to three.

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.

 Dread Shade is used to buff a singular, specific Minion for this build. Coincidentally, we only use one Minion, making this skill perfect for us. Normally Dread Shade decays Health, however we have removed that aspect of it. There is a time limit on how long this stays active, so you will need to reapply it every so often. It can be kept on with 100% uptime.

• 2 points into Spectral Presence: Taken to traverse the tree.
• 1 point into Lone Watcher: This limits Dread Shade to a single Minion and removes Health Decay.
• 3 points into Dying Coven: Increases the Attack Speed of the Abomination.
• 4 points into Grim Fate: Increases the damage bonus given to Minions through Dread Shade.
• 4 points into Lingering Doom: Adds base Necrotic Damage to the Abomination.
• 1 point for All For One: Increases Dread Shade damage, but removes the aura from it. Since we only have one Minion, this won't have a negative effect.
• 1 point into Egoism: When under the effect of Dread Shade, the Abomination has 100% Critical Hit Chance.
• 1 point into Flesh Harvest: Increases the Abomination's damage based off its missing Health.

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.

 Infernal Shade servers a similar purpose as Dread Shade does. It provides a direct buff to the Minion its applied to. In this case, the Abomination. The difference here is that instead of being a limited duration, Infernal Shade is permanent... until it kills your Minion. As time goes on, Infernal Shade will continue to deal more and more damage to the Minion you have placed it on. Eventually, even with infinite Health Leech, your Minion will die as it will tick high enough to one-shot. This is extremely dangerous with this build, since summoning the Abomination is no small feat. Ensure you re-apply Infernal Shade if you see the damage ticks getting too high to be comfortable.

• 3 points into Influence: Taken to move into the Minion nodes.
• 1 point into Devour in Flames: Infernal Shade can only attach to your Minions.
• 1 point into Burn Trail: Infernal Shade now gives the Abomination Haste.
• 1 point into Subjugation: Not important, since we don't rely on Infernal Shade to deal damage on its own.
• 3 points into Manic Pyre: Increases Movement Speed and Attack Speed for the attached Minion.
• 1 point into Soulfire: Infernal Shade no longer has a time limit and will last indefinitely.
• 3 points into Torment Beacon: We do not rely on Infernal Shade's direct damage. This is taken to move along in the tree.
• 2 points into Baneful: Just like the previous node, taken for tree traversal.
• 1 point into Blood Shade: Converts Infernal Shade into a Physical Skill.
• 4 points into Corrosion: Infernal Shade will Shred the Armor of nearby enemies.