Necromancer Minion Army Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.0)

Our base class is the Acolyte, which acts as a generic spell caster and summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select a Mastery class 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 Necromancer, 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 build, Necromancer is our chosen mastery. We will be utilizing the majority of our Passive Points in the Necromancer Passive tree. Our passive points will be targeting augments for our Minions and boosting their survivability and damage output. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 6 points into Forbidden Knowledge: Intelligence and Necrotic Resistance.
• 4 points into Bone Aura Armour for us and our Minions
• 8 points into Stolen Vitality: Increased Health pools for both us and our minions.
• 5 points into Dark Rituals: increases our minion's Attack Speed.
• 1 point into Putrid Demise: opens up our pathway to Dominion of Rot.
• 1 point into Soul Aegis: this grants our minions Armor.
• 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 a Mastery class 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 Necromancer, 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 build, Necromancer is our chosen mastery. We will be utilizing the majority of our Passive Points in the Necromancer Passive tree. Our passive points will be targeting augments for our Minions and boosting their survivability and damage output. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 8 points into Elixir of Hunger: Hunger buff for our minions.
• 8 points into Risen Army: Minion damage and Attack Speed.
• 2 points into Grave Thorns: More Health, Armor and some damage reflection for our minions
• 3 points into Cursed Blood: Increases our Minion Damage, but also opens the pathway to the next passive.
• 4 points into Aegisfall: This is critical to our build, allowing all Minions to gain Armor Shred for 200%. We only take 4 points, as 3-5 is the sweet spot for applying Armor Shred stacks with this many minions. See the Mechanics and Playstyle section for more notes on this node and Armor Shred.
• 1 point into Mark of Punishment: This will allow our Zombies to keep up Marked For Death on bosses.
• 1 point into Dark Retribution: This allows us to summon Skeleton Vanguards when a minion dies, giving us three free minions. 1 point should be enough to keep three Vanguards up, though it may take a minute to initially summon them after a death.
• 5 points into Frantic Summons: Gives us and our minions increased Casting and Attack Speed.
• 10 points into Rotting Army: increases our minion's chance to Poison.
• 5 points into River of Bones: Increases our Critical Strike Chance for Minions and grants them Health Leech on Critical Strikes.
• 5 points into Moonlight Pyre: Flat Fire and Necrotic Damage for our Minions.
• 8 points into Heresy: Increases Intelligence and Minion Critical Strike Chance.
• 3 points into Rite of Undeath: More Necrotic/Elemental Resistance for us, and increased Necrotic/Elemental Damage for our minions.
• 1 point into Disciples of Necromancy: Increases our minion count for Death Knights.

Our base class is the Acolyte, which acts as a generic spell caster and summoner. Our character will be offered an opportunity to select a Mastery class 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 Necromancer, 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 build, Necromancer is our chosen mastery. We will be utilizing the majority of our Passive Points in the Necromancer Passive tree. Our passive points will be targeting augments for our Minions and boosting their survivability and damage output. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 10 points into Apocrypha: This boosts our Intelligence and Mana Regen.
• 8 points into Desolation: This boosts our Minion's Damage Over Time, as much of their damage comes from Poison.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible 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.

This skill is setup to auto summon our Zombies, which spread Poison to enemies by puking on them and self-destructing. To do this, the build requires you to run two Unique rings, both of them being  Cycle of Putrescence, for it to work.

• 2 points into Forceful Commander: Increased Summoning Speed and Mana Efficiency.
• 1 point into Daunting Blast: Explosion has increased Stun Chance.
• 1 point into Dreadful Horde: Spawns two Zombies on cast.
• 2 points into Vile Force: Parasites are mini-minions that spawn when the Zombie explodes, used to stack up Poison.
• 1 point into Ravenous : Increased explosion damage against Boss or Rare enemies.
• 2 points into Pull of the Grave: Our zombies gain a Kill Threshold; extremely helpful on Boss or Rare enemies.
• 1 point into Horrific Vessels: Converts the Zombie's explosion damage to Necrotic.
• 1 point into Path of Destruction: Increased explosion area of effect, but we're taking this mostly to unlock next passive.
• 2 points into Necromantic Fervor: Healing for the player whenever a zombie explodes.
• 1 point into Army of Rot: Poison Chance on hit.
• 1 point into Repulsive Vomit: Gives our Zombies a melee-range attack that stacks Poison quickly before they explode.
• 4 points into Wretched Innards: A large damage multiplier for their Vomit attack.
• 4 points into Putridity: Vomit can now Poison enemies every second when they touch it.
• 4 points into Fervor: A damage multiplier and increased Movement Speed for our Zombies. Slow Zombies don't reach their targets quick enough, which is a damage loss.
• 1 point into Ferocious Horde: Increased Movement Speed for Zombies scaling off their missing Health. This can cause low Health Zombies to zoom to a target before exploding, increasing their effective damage.

You may not have as many skill points to use until you have the required gear affixes. You can skip the last 5 points in the tree, as well as trimming points from the Putridity and Wretched Innards nodes until you have acquired more skill points from your gear.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible 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 Bone Golem summons our tanks, which grant us the space to fight without too much worry about being directly targeted. Golems are built to last with a strong defense and high Health pool, and include the ability to Taunt.

• 5 points in Amalgam of Rogues: Increased Melee Attack Speed and Movement Speed for Golems.
• 4 points in Unnatural Speed: Movement Speed for the Golem and a smaller bonus to other nearby minions.
• 5 points in Amalgam of Sentinels: Flat Health and Armor as well as Increased Health and Armor for our Golems.
• 4 points in Hunger: Passive healing for both you and the Golem whenever it hits.
• 4 points in Tower of Bones: Our Golems will be bigger, which helps to block projectiles, and generate more threat.
• 3 points in Amalgam of Primalists: Flat armor for Nearby Minions, including itself.

Due to our gear, we have more points than the standard allocation of 20 points. If you don't have the required points, you can first take 3 out of Amalgam of Primalists and if you still need points, you can take 1 out of Amalgam of Rogues and Hunger as well.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible 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 is more than just a minion skill in this build. On top of summoning Death Knights, which are melee-based minions rather than the normal casters this skill typically summons, it is also used as a Traversal Skill.

• 4 points into Putrid Essence: Gives Death Knights a guaranteed Poison Chance on hit.
• 4 points into Argonautic Speed. Attack Speed increase.
• 3 points into Ossein Frenzy: Chance to trigger a Frenzy on hit.
• 1 point into Forbidden Arcana: Increase to their damage based on our total Mana pool.
• 1 point into Grave Passage: This changes the skill to not only summon minions, but it can now be used as a Traversal skill. It will give it a cooldown, so it will take longer resummon all your minions after a death.
• 3 points into Leech Life: Increased Health and a Health Leech for Death Knights.
• 1 points into Death Knights: Converts Skeletal Mages into Death Knights.
• 2 points into Shadow Wardens: Ward per second and Critical Strike Avoidance for Death Knights.
• 1 point into Order of Death: Allows for an extra Death Knight to be summoned.
• 3 points into Celer Mortis: Increased their Base Crit Chance and Movement Speed.
• 1 point into Grey Merchant: Increased Critical Multiplier and Death Knights now heal themselves when they land a crit.

Due to our gear, we have more points than the standard allocation of 20 points. The nodes Leech Life, Grey Merchant, Celer Mortis and Ossein Frenzy can all be lowered by 1 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 perform as best as possible 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 a fairly straightforward skill that buffs our minions' damage for a set period of time. Once the buff fades, we simply reapply the skill to renew the buff. This skill boosts Attack Speed and Damage for all of our minions.

• 2 points into Spectral Presence: Increases the area that the buff effects, helping grant it to more of our minions.
• 1 point into Lone Watcher: Eliminates the Health drain on the minion, but converts any Health Drain increases on rest of skill tree to Increased Damage Taken by the minion.
• 3 points into Dying Coven: Increases Attack and Cast Speed.
• 4 points into Grim Fate: Huge damage and area size buff for  Dread Shade, but increases the damage taken by the minion.
• 1 point into Duskheart: Gives effected minions a chance to inflict Damned on hit.
• 4 points into Lingering Doom: A flat Necrotic Damage buff for our minions, and reduces the extra Damage Taken on the minion with Dread Shade cast.
• 1 point into Wisdom of the Dead: Reduces the Mana cost of  Dread Shade.
• 1 point into Martyrdom: Gives an Armor buff to effected minions.
• 3 points into Flesh Harvest: As the minion that you cast  Dread Shade on loses Health, it will increase the buff effect. For this reason, and others, it's suggested you try to cast it on a Bone Golem when possible.

In this section, we will break down each skill and highlight the key passives we have selected to make the skill perform as best as possible 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 Wraith is built for high damage, good survivability and allows a hands-off playstyle. We will be limiting ourselves to summoning only two Wraiths at a time, but eliminating their Health decay so they cannot despawn. Moreover, the Wraiths have a special skill node, Noxious Blades, for Poison Penetration to further amplify our Poison Damage.

• 1 point into Locus Of Resurrection: Summons the Wraiths at your cursor location, and increases Mana cost.
• 5 points into Haunting: Increases Health.
• 1 point into Twin Spirits: Limits you to only summoning two Wraiths, but removes their Health decay, making them permanent minions.
• 3 points into Sequel of Avarice: Amplifies the Wraith's damage, Melee Area, Size and Health.
• 3 points into Dark Scythe: Increased Attack Speed.
• 2 points into Grave Reality: Increase Health.
• 5 points into Noxious Blades: Poison Penetration and Poison Chance on melee hit.

Should you get more than 20 points for  Summon Wraith on your gear, you can put any extra points into Reapers.