Sorcerer Manastack Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)
Build Introduction
Obliterate your enemies with massive spells of destruction, channelling immense Mana reserves to power your abilities. Unleash huge Glaciers, hard hitting Static Orbs and even rain scores of Meteors down from the sky to see your foes destroyed.
Strengths
Great AoE, quick map clear
- Very strong Ward Generation
- Deletes Bosses late game
Weaknesses
Requires some heavy farming for best version
- Late game rotation can require a bit of practice
Skill Selection
With the changes of Patch 1.1, Sorcerer has received more of an emphasis on high Mana cost spells, specifically spells costing over 40 Mana to cast.
Along with this, they have additional benefits to getting a huge Mana pool that all combine to power deadly abilities to eliminate your enemies. With our build, we'll show you how to start
a Mana-stacker build, and also how to transition it into one that uses the 
Harbinger of Stars belt to create long proc chains of 
Meteor at the late endgame. Mana-stacking is
a bit different in that your gear level (and total Mana pool) dictates which abilities become better. Early on, and what this build starts with, it is best to use 
Glacier.
Once above 1,000 Mana you can begin to use 
Static Orb for bosses, though you will still use Glacier for clearing. Eventually, once you have farmed the
important endgame gear, you may drop both of these and simply use Meteor to trigger more Meteors with the Harbinger of Stars belt. As it requires multiple setups depending
on gear level, we have included two other planners above the gearing section to transition towards, along with some notes about the differences. If you are only looking for the meta endgame
version, simply scroll down the page.
Class and Skill Passive Trees
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.
Starting in the Mage tree, as always we are taking some all purpose nodes to get to our 20 point minimum and unlock the more powerful Sorcerer tree.
Mage Passive Points
- 8 points into Arcanist: Increases Intelligence and Fire/Lightning Resistances.
- 3 points into Scholar: Adds Flat Health and Mana.
- 1 point into Reactive Ward: Gives us a burst of Ward when we drop below 70% Health.
- 3 points into Mage Flurry: Increases Cast Speed and lowers the cooldown for
Teleport. - 5 points into Warden: Increases Ward Retention.
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.
Sorcerer is our chosen mastery, and also where we will spend the majority of our passive points. This is where the build really starts to shine, especially once you have filled out the whole tree. Some of the nodes at the end of the tree, especially Archmage, Mana Well and Recollection are quite powerful for Manastackers. Here is the passives we have chosen to take:
Sorcerer Passive Points
- 5 points into Calculated Destruction: Adds Intelligence and 3% Increased Critical Strike Chance per Intelligence.
- 5 points into Mana Shell: Adds Flat Mana and Armor.
- 6 points into Wisdom: Adds flat Mana and increased Mana Regen.
- 3 points into Arcane Momentum: Gain stacks of Momentum for 2 seconds on cast that give increased Cast Speed.
- 6 points into Essence of Celerity: Adds Increased Spell Damage per stack of Momentum and adds a flat Movement Speed bonus at max stacks.
- 5 points into Lost Knowledge: Gain Ward per 15 Current Mana when you use a skill costing at least 40 mana. Note: This node is huge for Ward Generation as your Mana pool gets larger.
- 5 points into Crackling Precision: Increased Critical Strike chance.
- 5 points into Arcane Obliteration: Adds Spell Critical Strike Multiplier
- 8 points into Arcane Insight: Adds Flat Intelligence and the Threshold bonus adds Ward Decay Threshold per Int.
- 4 points into Arcane Current: More Lightning damage to shocked enemies, but more importantly the Threshold bonus adds Spark Charges on hit with spells costing 40 Mana. This is
important once you obtain a
Harbinger of Stars for creating longer proc chains. The Meteor casts from the belt will inflict Spark Charges, which can proc more Meteors. - 5 points into Archmage: Adds Flat Spell Damage and Chance to refund 20% of mana cost. These values are doubled at 300 Max Mana and tripled at 1000 Max Mana.
- 5 points into Mana Well: Increased Mana and Mana Spent Gained as Ward.
- 5 points into Recollection: Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed.
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.
The Runemaster tree also has some great passives for us, and this is where we will spend the remainder of our points. If you aren't max level yet, we would suggest taking the Sphere of Protection node early on in the tree, for the damage reduction, but leave most of the rest till you have finished the Sorcerer tree. Here are the passives to take in the Runemaster tree:
Runemaster Passive Points
- 8 points into Sphere of Protection: Adds Flat Health and Less Damage Taken from Ignited, Shocked or Chilled Enemies.
- 1 point into Unsealed Mana: Flat Mana and Increased Cast Speed
- 8 points into Arcane Focus: Adds Flat Intelligence and Ward Gained on Direct Spell Cast.
- 5 points into Runeword: Cataclysm: Increased Critical Strike Chance, and gain Rune Word Cataclysm on crit, which grants 15% more damage to low health targets.
- 4 points into Rune of Renewal: Increased Health Regen and Mana Regen, doubled with at least 50 Intelligence.
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.
Glacier
The main damaging ability of our build initially. When our Mana pool is still not gigantic, we need to improve the Mana Efficiency and damage while making sure it still costs over 40 Mana to trigger important Sorcerer passives. We also Fading Echoes which reverses the order of explosions, giving you more upfront burst damage.
Order of Skill Points
- 4 points into Breaking Point: More damage and Increased Mana Efficiency.
- 4 points into Greater Destruction: Largest explosion does 80% more damage.
- 4 points into Morditas' Bane: 100% More damage to Rares and Bosses.
- 3 points into Frost Grip: Increased Freeze Rate Multiplier and Stun Chance.
- 1 point into Fading Echoes: Reverses the order of the explosions, causing the largest one to happen first.
- 2 points into Resplendent Frost: Adds Base Crit Chance, but lowers the Critical Multiplier.
- 1 point into Critical Rejuvenation: Critical Hits restore Mana equal to 1% of your total mana.
- 1 point into Cold Victory: Glacier kills grant Mana equal to 1% of your max Mana.
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.
Focus
Focus is how we will be sustaining Mana. It is always
better to start channelling Focus while you are at negative Mana, as
this will give you a large portion of your total Mana back very quickly. This requires casting
until you go negative beforehand and may take a little getting used to. Later on, once
you acquire the experimental mod on your belt that reduces traversal cooldown on potion use,
we change the tree to convert Focus into a traversal skill. This allows you to use a few potions
to get Focus off cooldown quickly when needed. However, it is assumed you do not yet
have that mod in this tree. It is changed in the endgame versions listed below in the guide.
Order of Skill Points
- 4 points into Mana Flooded: Increased Mana Regen.
- 1 point into Desperate Meditation: Grants increased Mana Regen proportional to the % of missing mana.
- 1 point into Null Profusion: Grants 20% of Max Mana if cast while at negative Mana, but adds 5 seconds to the cooldown.
- 4 points into Null Infusion: Grants another 20% of Max Mana if cast while at negative Mana, for a total of 40% with previous node, but adds 4 more seconds to the cooldown.
- 4 points into Iron Stance: 48% More Armour and 12 Flat Armor per Intelligence while channelling
Focus. - 5 points into Chilling Aura: 250% chance to Chill nearby enemies each second while channelling, and -25% Damage Taken from Chilled Enemies.
- 1 point into Prismatic Stance: -7% Elemental Damage Taken. This is a filler node until you get the experimental affix on belt. You will swap this with Conveyance once you do.
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.
Teleport
Teleport acts as the main traversal skill for the build, providing some nice bonuses
when we use it consistently. These include Stun Immunity, Haste, extra Armor and Resistances. Other than
that, we are trying to reduce the cooldown of the skill.
Order of Skill Points
- 4 points into Comet Rush: Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed and grants Haste for 4 seconds on cast.
- 5 points into Crystaline Passage: Cold Resistance and Flat Armour
- 4 points into Time Dilation: Increased Stat Buff Duration
- 1 point into Mana Tunnel: Refund the Mana Cost of the next spell cast after Teleport, but adds 6 seconds to Teleport's cooldown.
- 5 points into Tunnel Finder: 50% Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed.
- 1 point into Rock Phase: Grants Stun Immunity for 4 seconds after cast.
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 Ward
To increase our survivability, we specialize into 
Flame Ward. We have it setup to autocast if we ever get stunned, have an additional charge, maximize the Ward
gained, and reduce Damage Taken while active.
Order of Skill Points
- 2 points into Stalwart Defense: Adds a flat amount of Ward gained.
- 1 point into Desperate Defense. A percent of missing Health is added as Ward.
- 1 point into Astonish: Autocasts
Flame Ward when stunned. - 2 points into Fuel The Flames: Increased Ward granted, but adds time to the cooldown.
- 1 point into Dual Aegis: Gives an extra charge of Flame Ward, allowing us to cast it twice.
- 5 points into Barrier: Less hit damage taken while Flame Ward is active.
- 3 points into Prismatic Buffer: Reduced Elemental Damage Taken by 30% while active.
- 3 points into Dilation: Increased duration and Mana Efficiency.
- 2 points into Energize: Adds Ward per second while Flame Ward is active.
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.
Static Orb
Static Orb will become your highest DPS skill as your mana gets higher and higher. Somewhere around 1,000 Max Mana you shoud be using it on Bosses while continuing to
use Glacier for clearing. There is one passive, Manacharged that requires a very large mana pool, and very high Mana regen, to put the max points into.
However, it massively increases the damage of Static Orb, so you will have to feel this out for yourself based on your gear level.
Order of Skill Points
- 4 points into Shocking Conduit: Increases chance to Shock.
- 2 points into Manacharged: Adds More Dmage per 20 Max Mana, but increased the mana cost by a percentage of your Max Mana. We only put 2 points initially, but if your gear can handle it already, you can put up to 5 points here.
- 1 point into Static Ground: The Explosion now leaves behind
Charged Ground, dealing lightning damage over time. - 1 point into Forking Surge: Adds 2 Explosion Tendrils.
- 4 points into Open Circuit: Increased Projectile Speed and More Damage.
- 1 point into Overcharged Detonation:
Static Orb now explodes on hit rather than piercing enemies. Static Orb deals 2% more damage per 1 Mana cost. - 4 points into Scatter Blast: Adds 4 smaller orbs in a cone, these orbs can hit the same target as the large orb.
- 3 more points into Manacharged for a total of 5.
Charged GroundBuild Mechanics and Playstyle
For clearing, you will simply be spamming Glacier on enemies, using Teleport on cooldown and Focus whenever your mana hits negative values.
For boss fights you will most likely swap to using Static Orb which has much higher burst
damage and DPS (Damage per second), though it will drain your mana pool far quicker. On the
first rotation, you simply use Focus to refill, but if you are draining your whole Mana
pool before it comes up again you may have to use Glacier a bit in between. Once you transition
to the late game gearing, which includes the experimental mod on belt to reduce Traversal skills
cooldown on potion use, and have taken the node to change Focus to a traversal skill, this won't be a problem anymore.
You can simply use a few potions to get it off cooldown quicker, and then the Boss will drop more to refill your supply.
Equipment and Gear Affixes
For this build, we will be focusing on several main affixes for each piece of gear. The higher the tier listed, the more important that mod is on that piece of gear, but you do not have to match the exact tiers if you are unable. Same for Uniques and their Legendary Potential mods in the higher budget planners linked below. We often put 1 extra LP on Uniques in the planner, to show you which mods to target. i.e. If it's shown as LP3, with a t7, t6 and t5 mod, those are the rough order of importance of the mods if you have an LP1/LP2 version, with the T7 mod being the most important/required. It is not required for the build to function to get the exact LP shown, but it is something to aim for.
| Gear Slot | Implicits | Modifiers |
|---|---|---|
| Wand | Spell Damage -Mana cost for Spells Mana Spent gained as Ward |
Prefixes Critical Strike Multiplier Flat Mana/Mana Spent Gained as Ward Suffixes Chance to apply Blind on Hit Shared Cold/Lightning Penetration |
| Off-hand Catalyst | Intelligence Spell Critical Strike Chance Ward Retention |
Prefixes Flat Mana Critical Strike Multiplier Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Head | Armor Mana spent gained as Ward %Mana Regen |
Prefixes Increased Spell Crit Chance (doubled over 300 mana) Flat Mana Suffixes Flat Armour %Armor |
| Amulet | Less Damage Taken Over Time | Prefixes Flat Mana Increased Mana Regen Suffixes Chance to apply Frailty Chance to Shred Armour |
| Belt | +6 Potion Slots | Prefixes Experimental Traversal Skill Cooldown on Potion Use/Increased Chance to find Potions Increased Mana Regen Suffixes Increased Cooldown Recovery Armor/Reduced Damage from Criticals |
| Rings | All Attributes Cooldown Recovery Speed |
Prefixes Intelligence Increased Mana Regen Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Gloves | Armor %Armor applies to Damage over Time |
Prefixes Flat Mana Increased Area for Area Skills Suffixes Armor/Reduced Damage from Criticals Needed Resistances |
| Feet | Armor Movement Speed Reduced Bonus Damage taken from Critical Strikes |
Prefixes Flat Ward Gained and Ward Gained per 10 missing Mana when you use Traversal Increased Movement Speed Suffixes Cooldown Recovery Speed %Armor |
| Relic | Flat Mana Mana Spent Gained as Ward |
Prefixes Flat Mana Intelligence Suffixes 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
Endgame Versions
This version of the build should take you up to Empowered Monos and to a decent Corruption level easily.
However, once you have obtained some of the required gear, especially a Harbinger of Stars with the experimental
mod 'Traversal Skill Cooldown Recovered on Potion Use' slammed onto it, you'll want to transition
away from using Glacier at all and potentially even Static Orb. This mod combines with
the node in the Focus skill tree, Conveyance, to let you drink a few potions to
get the cooldown recovered immediately. The experimental mod also increases the chance of finding potions.
On top of the game's base mechanic to drop more potions when you aren't full on them, you will be dropping
a crazy amount of them. Your aim should be to avoid saving potions, favoring to instead
building muscle memory for using a few between each cast of Focus.
Along with the unique relic 
Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs adding flat necrotic damage for 4 seconds
when you use a potion, and Meteor having a massive damage effectiveness ratio of 900%, you want to get in the habit of
using potions quite often. The idea being to dump your Mana as quickly as possible, use Focus to
refill, then use a potion (or three) to dump your Mana again. This process should be consistently repeatable.
Speaking of Necrotic damage, the wand we use in these planners, 
Marina's Lost Soul, has
flat Necrotic damage as the implicit; this is by design. As mentioned above, Meteor has a large
damage effectiveness ratio of 900%, the highest in the game. Any Flat damage we add, regardless of the
element, is receiving that bonus. Additionally, the Stardust node in the Meteor
tree, boosts any non-fire damage by a large amount. Along with 
The Confluence of Fate
and Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, despite being a Fire skill, your Meteor will end up doing
a majority of Necrotic and Void damage instead of Fire damage. In testing, only about a third of the
Meteor's damage was still Fire with this gear. When it comes to increasing your damage, this means
'Increased Fire Damage' or 'Fire Penetration' is not nearly as useful; the build prefers generic
'Increased Spell Damage' or 'Necrotic Penetration' when applicable.
If you have transitioned to using Meteor to proc more Meteors with the Harbinger of Stars belt,
the last skill slot is somewhat personal preference. 
Arcane Ascendance is preferred for the extra damage on
bosses, but 
Snap Freeze or 
Frost Wall are both valid alternatives. This will largely depend on
your personal playstyle preferences, as some may find toggling Arcane Ascendance to be annoying while
others will like the additional Mana Efficiency and, therefore, burst damage it gives you.
Below, we have some more notes about the individual Uniques in these higher budget versions. The base build does not require any of them.
Uniques
Now, let's look closer at the Uniques for the mid budget version.
Harbinger of Stars
Harbinger of Stars: The core item of the build. Specifically, you will need at least an LP1 version,
with the experimental mod 'Traversal Skill cooldown on Potion use/Increased chance to find Potions'
slammed on it, combined with the Conveyance node in Focus to
turn it into a traversal skill. It does not need to be a t7 roll, but at least t5 is highly recommended.
Also, the higher you can get the unique mod on the item, the one that triggers Meteors
on Criticals, the better. A 9% roll is a very large increase from a 6% roll. If you have an LP2/LP3 version, the next best
mods to add are shown in the High Budget planner.
Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs
Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs: A great unique that drops fairly early, but you'll likely want at least an LP1 version before you
would replace a well rolled exalted Relic, and preferably LP2. The flat damage it adds after
using a potion is a very large damage increase to Meteor damage. This unique is not necessary
if you are still using Glacier and Static Orb. It's only suggested after getting
equipping Harbinger of Stars.
Marina's Lost Soul
Marina's Lost Soul: The largest source of non-fire flat damage available to us. This is what helps Meteor
to hit like a freight truck when combined with the Stardust node. You could use
a 0 LP version initially, the extra mods just add more valuable stats but don't do anything
fundamental to the build functioning.
The Confluence of Fate
The Confluence of Fate: Another great source of both Fire and non-Fire Flat damage, though it does come with
the drawback of taking extra Fire/Necrotic/Void damage. We recommend waiting until you have at least an LP1 version
with either flat Mana or increased Mana Regen slammed onto it before replacing a well rolled
Exalted amulet. If you do not have a great Exalted amulet, and feel your damage is lacking, then
go ahead and use an LP0 version for the time being.
Peak of the Mountain
Peak of the Mountain: This helmet adds a very large amount of Critical Strike Chance, which helps to make our Harbinger of Stars
proc chains go crazy. The closer your Critical Strike Chance gets to 100%, the more insane these chains can get.
Don't forget, the threshold bonus on the Arcane Current that inflicts Spark Charges on hit can proc more
Meteors from the belt. So, for example, if you had 100% Critical Chance, your initial 6 Meteors (and 6 Spark Charges)
would all crit, and if you have a 9% chance roll on the belt, you are almost guaranteed to get at least one trigger.
While the triggered Meteors can't proc the belt, they apply Spark Charges which can continue the chain,
giving a roughly ~54% to trigger another round of Meteors. Then, if that happened, the next round also has another ~54%
chance to trigger. Etc etc.. These triggers can also overlap, causing some insane Burst damage at times.
If the first Meteor hit crits, and procs the belt, the new Meteors will start falling immediately, while the other 5
Meteors are still falling also, each with a chance to cause more triggers themselves. It can be quite hilarious
to watch in game when you high-roll, forcing dozens of Meteors falling from the sky.
Idols
Idol slots are gained throughout 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.) it will open up different affixes for you to use. This can be a great way to add some more customization to your build.
For this particular build, we will be focusing on increasing our Mana pool, Armor, and Critical Chance. As well as filling in any resistance gaps needed. Below, you will see the idols we are targeting.
Size: 3×1
Modifiers
- Flat Mana
- %Armor and %Mana.
Size: 1x2
Modifiers
- Increased Critical Strike Chance
- Needed Resistances
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. For the purpose of this guide, we are highlighting 5 major slots that provide stat bonuses, leaving the additional 5 for whichever kind gear you trying to target farm.
| Blessing Name | Affix | Timeline |
|---|---|---|
 Grand Emptiness of Ash |
Critical Strike Multiplier | The Black Sun |
 Grand Light of the Moon |
Flat Mana | Ending the Storm |
 Grand Bulwark of the Tundra |
%Increased Armor | The Age of Winter |
 Grand Promise of Death |
Chance to Shred Necrotic Resistance | Spirits of Fire |
 Grand Resolve of Humanity |
All Resistances | Reign of Dragons |
Changelog
- 11 Jul. 2024: Guide added.
Lexyu is a professional content creator focused on theorycrafting and playtesting many ARPGS. He is also known for his skillful gameplay, such as playing Bazooka Wizard in Diablo 3. Since 2013, he has been creating in-depth guides to teach gamers how to succeed. Check out his social platforms through Discord to join the discussion in the community!
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