Paladin Reen's Skeleton Slayer Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1in 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 Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Paladin is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Paladin Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase Fire Damage, provide increases in Strength, and give us access to  Divine Bolt, a Fire projectile used to apply Ignite and Frailty while mapping. Forge Guard is specialized into to grab large Armor increased, a bonus to Attack Speed, and allow  Shield Throw to shred Fire Resistance.

• 8 points in Juggernaut: Strength base and Resistance gains.
• 1 point in Fearless: Taken for pathing.
• 5 points in Armour Clad: Reduces the damage you take from nearby enemies by 10%.
• 1 point in Stalwart: A single point increased our Block Chance by 3%.
• 5 points in Time and Faith: This node not only allows us to ignore our Mana completely, but also heals us for a substantial amount upon every use of  Rive. Even if you hit nothing, you will be healed, making this extremely useful.

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1in 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 Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Paladin is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Paladin Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase Fire Damage, provide increases in Strength, and give us access to  Divine Bolt, a Fire projectile used to apply Ignite and Frailty while mapping. Forge Guard is specialized into to grab large Armor increased, a bonus to Attack Speed, and allow  Shield Throw to shred Fire Resistance.

• 5 points in Weapons Master: Strength base and a bonus to Attack Speed if using a sword.
• 10 points in Battle Hardened: Massive boost to Armor and Physical Resistance. Since a portion of our Necrotic and Void mitigation ( Decayed Skull) comes from Physical Resistance, this node is extremely important for survival.
• 3 points in Steel Aegis: Block Effectiveness alongside an extra 3% Block Chance.
• 1 point in Peltast: Pathing node.
• 5 points in Shield Breaker: The Mana Cost increase can be ignored here; Every time  Shield Throw hits an enemy, it will shred a whopping 5 stacks of Fire and Physical Resistance off the enemy. This means the ailment will cap fairly easily depending on the amount of enemies you're hitting. This is fully automated based on your block chance ( Sigeon's Reprisal), so there is zero reason to think of this after you've spec'd into it.

Our base class is Sentinel, which fills the role of a knight in Last Epoch. Upon finishing Act 1in 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 Sentinel, you can choose between Passive Trees for Paladin, Forge Guard, and Void Knight. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing 20 Passive Points into the Sentinel Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

Paladin is the Advanced Class used for this build, and also where the majority of our Passive Points will come from. The Paladin Tree will focus around picking nodes that increase Fire Damage, provide increases in Strength, and give us access to  Divine Bolt, a Fire projectile used to apply Ignite and Frailty while mapping. Forge Guard is specialized into to grab large Armor increased, a bonus to Attack Speed, and allow  Shield Throw to shred Fire Resistance.

• 5 points in Honour: A large amount of Block Effectiveness and 2% extra Block Chance.
• 8 points in Conviction: Increased Fire Damage and Fire Penetration.
• 10 points in Phoenix Strike: 120% Melee Ignite Chance.
• 1 point in Divine Bolt: Melee attacks will now trigger  Divine Bolts, which apply On-Hit effects. For this build, it is specifically Ignite and Frailty. However, these do also neutralize enemies with certain modifiers, such as enemies who deal lethal damage if they have not been damaged yet.
• 5 points in Shared Divinity: You now cast more  Divine Bolts, but have a reduced chance of activating them.
• 8 points in Rahyeh's Strength: Strength base and increased Fire Damage if you hit with a melee attack recently.
• 7 points in Holy Icon: Necrotic Resistance and Health.
• 1 point in Sanctuary Guardian: Pathing node mainly.
• 1 point in Shield Wall: 5% Block Chance and 10 Health gained per Block. Probably the highest value single-point node in the build.
• 12 points in Reverence of Duality: Increased Health, Damage, and Mana.
• 4 points in Righteous Firebrand: This will activate constantly through  Sigils Of Hope, adding 8 Melee Fire Damage to  Rive hits.
• 7 points in Sword of Rahyeh: Similar to the previous node, except this adds 105% chance to Ignite on Melee Hit instead.

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.

Our main source of damage,  Rive is the skill we will be spamming the vast majority of the time. Near everything else in the build is automated, allowing for smooth gameplay. The focus here is to maximize our Critical Strike Chance, Ignite Chance, and improve our Melee Attack Speed as much as possible in order to take advantage of the Unique Sword,  Eye of Reen as much as we can.

• 4 points in Flurry: The first and second attack in Rive gain 32% Attack Speed.
• 3 points in Sever: The first attack in Rive gains 150% chance to Ignite.
• 3 points in Twisting Fangs: The second attack in Rive gains 150% chance to Ignite.
• 4 points in Concentration: Substantially increased the base Crit Rate on Rive.
• 1 point in Iron Reach: The second strike of Rive now has 25% larger area.
• 1 point in Challenge: The second strike now pulls enemies towards you, making melee range less of a weakness. Something to keep in mind, this will occasionally have an adverse effect on larger bosses (Undead Dragon). If you're having trouble on certain parts of the game because a large enemy is moving around, remove the point from here and add it back in later.
• 1 point in Rending: Pathing node.
• 1 point in Cadence: Begins to remove the third strike from Rive's rotation.
• 1 point in Double Slash: Completely removes the third strike from Rive, resulting in faster hits, more Ignite, and more pulling of enemies. Synergizes well with the  Eye of Reen.
• 3 points in Savagery: While this build is very Ignite-focused, it's hard to ignore the high Critical Strike Chance and Critical Multiplier. Therefore, this node is taken in order to add some much appreciated Hit Damage to the build, and allowing the  Eye of Reen to scale better with Rive.

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.

 Healing Hands serves as the backbone for the build. This Swiss Army Knife of a skill acts as a damage dealer, a form of healing and mitigation, and our mobility tool all at the same time. Some lesser used nodes are also taken in the spirit of the Imperial Uprising event that lasts until October 20th, 2024. Once the event is over, these points can either be kept in the same spot, or moved accordingly based upon how you perceive their usefulness.

• 4 points in Cleric's Hammer:  Rive will activate Healing Hands on every hit.
• 1 point in Rahyeh's Chariot: Converts the manually casted version of Healing Hands into a traversal skill.
• 1 point in Sun Shroud: While moving with Healing Hands, you are immune to damage. This is nearly mandatory, as certain mechanics are just easier to deal with. Namely, Lagon's eye beam.
• 1 point in Searing Light: Hits with Healing Hands now deal Fire Damage.
• 2 points in Cleric's Wrath: Mandatory, but does gain benefit from both  Holy Aura and  Sigils Of Hope.
• 2 points in Virtue of Patience: Increases damage, healing, and the area for Healing Hands.
• 1 point in Seraph Blade: Healing Hands is now a melee attack, including the traversal variation. This executes the melee animation when you finish moving with the skill.
• 1 point in Bane of Evil: Traversal node mostly.
• 1 point in Turn Undead: You now Fear Undead enemies when Healing Hands hits them, while dealing more damage to them and taking less damage from Necrotic sources.
• 1 point in Halted Scourge: Almost identical to the previous node, except Void-focused and rather than Fear, it immobolizes Void enemies.
• 1 point in Purity of Thought: Reduced Mana cost.
• 1 point in Divine Catalyst: Allows Healing Hands to proc Divine Bolts on its own when using it manually. In this case, as a traversal skill.
• 3 points in Blessed Parish: Further Mana cost reduction and increased area of effect.

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.

A staple in near-all Paladin builds,  Holy Aura is a mix of several strong passive buffs that double in efficacy temporarily when the skill is pressed. This build will utilize a few different Fire-Damage enhancing nodes, bump up Melee Attack Speed and Critical Strike Chance, and allow us to add an extra hit component to our Melee attacks through Flame Burst.

• 3 points in Rahyeh's Devotion: Small boost to Ignite Chance.
• 2 points in Rahyeh's Fury: Additional Fire Penetration.
• 5 points in Burning Blows: Increased Global Fire Damage.
• 3 points in Fanaticism: Extra Attack Speed.
• 4 points in True Strike: Increased Critical Strike Chance.
• 1 point in Flame Burst: Allows our melee attacks to trigger  Flame Burst. This is used to apply more instances of Ignite.
• 2 points in Inner Flame: Taken for the 50% increase to area to Flame Burst.

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.

 Sigils Of Hope is very much a set and forget option in this build. They will go off automatically, and naturally reach the cap (4) through the Unique Ring,  Orian's Sun Seal The benefit provided by each Sigil can't be underrated, as they provide a substantial amount of Fire/Ignite damage, and also bolster our Endurance Threshold by 300 Health.

• 5 points in Empowering Sigils: 25% Increased Global Damage per Sigil.
• 2 points in Decree of Flame: Adds 2 Fire Damage per Sigil.
• 5 points in Burning Sign: 30% Ignite Chance per Sigil.
• 5 points in Iron Sigils: 75 Endurance Threshold per Sigil.
• 4 points in Enduring Hope: Adds 8 seconds to Sigil duration.
• 1 point in Tetragram: Allows for an additional Sigil.

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.

While manual use of  Shield Throw is an option, and even sometimes ideal, you will not need to rely on manual button pressing for this skill to be useful. Instead,  Sigeon's Reprisal presents the opportunity for some automation, releasing Shield Throw at a rate based on the Unique's effect when you block an attack. Enemies hit by this will be assaulted by Ignite stacks and have their Fire and Physical Resistances shred to pieces. Additionally, your character will gain Haste for a couple seconds when this happens, helping us to speed through maps. This is very much a mobbing skill, and less of a bossing skill, though any multi-target boss fights (Fire Shaman) may see you gaining some use from the ricochet.

• 2 points in Ricochet: Allows Shield Throw to ricochet an extra two times.
• 1 point in Eruption: Shield Throw now casts Lava Burst on hit, dealing AoE Spell Damage. This will not apply shred stacks.
• 2 points in Forceful Breaking: Lava Burst deals damage in a 60% larger area.
• 1 point in Molten Shield: Converts Shield Throw to Fire, but also converts Stun Chance to Ignite Chance.
• 3 points in Molten Toss: 75% more Fire Damage modifier.
• 4 points in Burning Crusade: The reason we want Lava Burst; Shield Throw and Lava Burst both have gain 100% Ignite Chance.
• 4 points in Fleet of Foot: Gain 2 seconds of Haste when Shield Throw is released.
• 1 point in Heavy Shield: Mostly a pathing node.
• 4 points in Crippling Throw: With the earlier convert, this provides 100% Ignite Chance and 100% Slow Chance to Shield Throw hits.