Runemaster Flame Hydra Endgame Build for Last Epoch

Our base class is the Mage, which acts as a generic spell caster. 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 Mage, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Sorcerer, Runemaster and Spellblade. Upon selecting a Mastery and placing a minimum of 20 Passive Points into the Mage Tree, you'll then be able to place Passive Points into the Mastery Trees.

For this Hydra build, Runemaster is our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Runemaster Passive tree, with a smaller investment into Sorcerer to round out the build. Our passive points will be targeting augments for Fire Damage and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 2 points into Scholar: Increases Health and Mana.
• 8 points into Arcanist: Increases Intelligence and Resistances.
• 5 points into Mage Flurry: Increases Attack and Cast Speed.
• 5 points into Knowledge of Destruction: Increases Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier.

Our base class is the Mage, which acts as a generic spell caster. 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 Mage, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Sorcerer, Runemaster and Spellblade. 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.

For this Hydra build, Runemaster is our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Runemaster Passive tree, with a smaller investment into Sorcerer to round out the build. Our passive points will be targeting augments for Fire Damage and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 6 points into Calculated Destruction: Increases Intelligence and Increases our Critical Strike Chance by 3% per Intelligence.
• 5 points into Arcane Momentum: Grants us Arcane Momentum Stacks.
• 6 points into Essence of Celerity: Increases Spell Damage per stack and increases Arcane Momentum Duration.

Our base class is the Mage, which acts as a generic spell caster. 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 Mage, we have access to the Mastery Tree Passives for Sorcerer, Runemaster and Spellblade. 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.

For this Hydra build, Runemaster is our advanced class. We will utilize the majority of our Passive Points for the Runemaster Passive tree, with a smaller investment into Sorcerer to round out the build. Our passive points will be targeting augments for Fire Damage and boosting our survivability. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.

• 8 points into Sphere of Protection: Increases your Health and take less damage from ailments.
• 7 points into Quintessence of Triumph: Increases your Spell Damage.
• 6 points into Unsealed Mana: Grants us a buff for Mana and Cast Speed when we use three skills with zero mana cost.
• 8 points into Arcane Focus: Increases our Intelligence and gain Ward on cast.
• 6 points into Transcendence: Increases Health and Ward gains.
• 8 points into Never Late: After using a traversal skill increase your Spell Damage and Critical Strike Chance.
• 1 point into Nimbus Walk: Gain Ward on Traversal skill.
• 3 points into Rune of Dilation: After using a Traversal skill we gain a Cast and Movement Speed buff.
• 6 points into Inscribed Instruments: Increases Critical Strike Multiplier while using a Wand.
• 5 points into Decree of the Burning Wind: Increases our damage against Elites and Bosses.
• 8 points into Ancient Inscriptions: Increases our Intelligence and Recovery Cooldown.
• 6 points into Cerulean Runestones: Increases our Endurance and Mana.
• 1 point into Runeword: Inferno: Grants us a buff for an increase in Fire Damage and Armor when casting a Fire Skill.
• 4 points into Jagged Veil: Grants Ward on Critical Strike.

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 just full of bonuses, mainly increasing our Fire Damage on top of the Damage Reduction it already provides. It is easy to keep up and adds a big buff to our survivability.

• 2 points into Stalwart Defense: Increases your Ward with Flame Ward.
• 5 points into Barrier: You take less damage under Flame Ward.
• 3 points into Dilation: Increases Flame Ward's Duration and Efficiency.
• 5 points into Infusion: Increases our Fire Damage.
• 1 point into Desperate Defense: Additional Ward based on our missing Health.
• 1 point into Astonish: Flame Ward automatically casts when we get stunned.
• 2 points into Fuel The Flames: Flame Ward grants more ward, but has a longer cooldown.
• 1 point into Dual Aegis: Grants an additional charge to Flame Ward, so you can cast it twice.

Any additional points you acquire can go into Stalwart Defense.

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.

First, our Frost wall is converted into Lightning in this build, so we can trigger a lightning skill for our  Runic Invocation to make Hydrahedrons. It also grants us Haste and Frenzy whenever we pass through it and adds Ward to us whenever an enemy comes into contact with it.

• 4 points into Crystals of Protection: Increases the gains of Ward and Mana when you walk through Frost Wall.
• 1 point into Purifying Gate: Cleanses Ailments off of us when we touch the wall.
• 3 points into Aspirant's Arrival: Reduces the cost of your next  Runic Invocation and increases its damage.
• 3 points into Boosted Kickoff: Grants Frenzy and Haste buffs when we touch the wall.
• 2 points into Marching Winter: Increases our Area of Effect and Duration of our Frost Wall.
• 2 point into Chilled Touch: More damage to Chilled while Frost Wall is up. Make sure you have a source of Chill, such as on your weapon, for this passive.
• 1 point into Biting Limit: Frost Wall has chance to inflict Frostbite
• 1 point into Crackling Barrier: Converts Frost Wall to Lightning, so we can generate a lightning Rune for  Hydrahedron.
• 3 points into Flames Unchained: Chance to cast Fireball at enemies that pass through Frost Wall. If you prefer using Runebolt over Fireball in the build, you could put these into The Dark Cold instead.

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.

Flame Rush is our traversal skill for zipping around the map, but we have also added some utility to the skill. First, we have included several buffs that will stay after the skill is used for 45% of the time we were in Flame Rush. These buffs include bonus Wards, Frenzy and Damage Reduction. We also have added the ability to increase our Fire Damage whenever we use our  Fireball then  Flame Rush.

• 3 points into Blazing Flux: Increases Mana Efficiency and Cooldown Reduction.
• 3 points into Runic Eclipse: Take less damage during Flame Rush.
• 3 points into Celestial Guidance: All buff effects from Flame Rush stay afterwards.
• 3 points into Lunar Protection: Gain Ward when the skill ends.
• 1 point into Energy Equivalence: Converts to Lightning, so we have a way to generate a Lightning Rune to create Hydrahedron.
• 2 points into Fiery Overload: Grants a Frenzy buff after the skill is used.
• 1 point into Epilogue: Allows us to use Runic Invocation on exit; very important so we cast a Hydra right after  Flame Rush.
• 1 point into Guidance of Flames: Casting  Fireball then using Flame Rush will buff its damage.
• 3 points into Solar Rush: Extra speed and range for Flame Rush. You could take some points from here and put them into Guidance of Flames, based on personal preference.

If you get extra levels on gear, you can put up to 3 in Smolder and Burn and then 1 more into Fire Eater

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.

 Runic Invocation is the specialty of Runemasters by using a combination of skills to trigger a unique spell. For this build, we will be using the combination: Fire skill, Fire skill and Lightning skill then activate Runic Invocation. This will trigger our Hydrahedron creation, which is the largest component of our DPS, so we want to create as many of these as possible while we move through out the battlefield. One of the unique components we have included in this skill tree is the Immutable Order which will use our skill bar to determine our spell cast for Runic Invocation, this means every time we cast three skills regardless of order or element, we will produce a Hydrahedron.

• 2 points into Attuned Approach: Grants ward for every rune consumed.
• 1 point into Inscribed Patterns: Select runes grants different effects, we use this as a step to the next node.
• 1 point into Author of Arcana: Directly casting Runic Invocation will now refund your Mana and increase your damage.
• 1 point into Immutable Order: This is really important to this build, it uses the first three slots of your skill bar to define your Rune order. You will want  Flame Rush as the first skill on your hotbar, as we've converted it to Lightning, followed by two of your abilities that generate fire runes. Don't forget, you can always change your keybindings in the options if you normally prefer your traversal skill on a different button.
• 1 point into Rune Slinger: This increases our casting speed and using Invocation grants us 5% of our mana value as ward.
• 4 points into Word of Rahyeh: Grants more Fire Damage and Ignite Chance.
• 1 point into Elemental Lore: Grants Elemental Penetration per 3 Intelligence.
• 4 points into Unbridled Ruin: Increases our damage per Rune consumed.
• 2 points into Transcriber of Power: Grants a Spell Damage buff when you use Invocation.
• 3 points into Word of Lagon: Grants increased Critical Strike Chance for Gon Runes (fire).
• 2 points into Adept Runescribing: Increased Cooldown Recovery for Runic Invocation.

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 is our main spam skill, however, it is not our primary source of DPS - that will be our  Hydrahedron. This skill is used to trigger our Immutable Order for producing Hydrahedrons, so we can spam it while using  Flame Rush and  Frost Wall, to constantly make Hydrahedrons. Fireball will do some damage on its own, and with no need to target its locations, its super fun to spam.

• 4 points into Adept: Increases our Cast Speed.
• 4 points into Flammability: Increases our chance to shred Fire Resistance.
• 1 point into Seeker's Ash: Grants Fireball the ability to follow targets.
• 1 point into Flame Burst: Fireball now explodes on the target after a set number of hits.
• 2 points into Volatile flames: Lowers the required number of hits for Fireball's burst to happen.
• 3 points into Mana Sphere: Lowers Mana cost and increases damage.
• 5 points into Winged Fire: Increases our Speed, Range and damage of our fireballs. You can trim 2 points here if you don't have any extra Levels on gear for Fireball yet.
• 2 points into Orb of Destruction: Increases our base Critical Strike Chance.