Sorcerer Meteor Endgame Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)
Build Introduction (Updated for 1.1)
Wade directly into battle, striking your foes while Fire spells are constantly going off around you! Generate tons of ward from your abilities, keeping you protected while your constant spell triggers wipe your enemies from the face of the Earth. Unlike most Sorcerer builds, this one gets into the thick of it, attacking enemies with blazing speed from melee range.
Strengths
Great AoE, quick map clear
- Enjoyable and fun to play
- Mostly single button rotation
Weaknesses
Damage can be inconsistent, depending on triggers.
- Requires being in Melee most of the time.
Skill Selection
The core of this build revolves around the unique belt 
Harbinger of Stars, which causes Meteors to have a chance to autocast
whenever we crit with any ability. As 
Meteor costs a hefty amount of mana, this can drain your mana pool in a hurry.
To fix this, the main ability we use to proc everything is 
Mana Strike, which refills our mana quite quickly. When in the thick of it, your
mana will jump up and down wildly. Additionally, we have quite a few other effects that will proc off of Mana Strike, such
as 
Frost Claw, to increase the chances of a Meteor proc when any of them crit.
Sorcerer has received a bit of an identity revamp in 1.1, creating a focus on 'expensive' spells (those costing 40+ mana) and/or large mana pools to sustain them. This build
is no exception, wanting to achieve a 1,000+ Max Mana pool. However, unlike the 'Manastack' style, it has some diminishing returns on stacking Mana past that point. Instead, we will be capping out
Critical Strike Chance for our main skills, as well as scaling damage through Critical Multiplier and Flat Damage. For survivability, we have added a ton of ward generation, either through skill
passives or 'mana spent gained as ward' mods on our gear, and the new unique boots 
Transient Rest. As well as the damage reduction on Harbinger of Stars, damage reduction during
Flame Ward and a respectable amount of armor.
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.
For any Meteor build, you must choose Sorcerer as your mastery or you will not have access to the spell. We put the majority of our points into the Sorcerer tree, but we also have a fair amount into the base Mage tree and the Spellblade tree. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.
Mage Passive Points
- 8 points into Arcanist: Increases Intelligence and Fire/Lightning Resistances.
- 2 points into Scholar: Adds Flat Health and Mana.
- 5 points into Reactive Ward: Gives us a burst of Ward when we drop below 70% health.
- 5 points into Mage Flurry: Increases Attack/Cast speed and lowers cooldown for
Teleport.
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 any Meteor build, you must choose Sorcerer as your mastery or you will not have access to the spell. We put the majority of our points into the Sorcerer tree, but we also have a fair amount into the base Mage tree and the Spellblade tree. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.
Sorcerer Passive Points
- 8 points into Calculated Destruction: Adds Intelligence and 3% Increased Critical Strike Chance per Intelligence.
- 6 points into Mana Shell: Adds Flat Mana and Armor.
- 6 points into Wisdom: Adds flat Mana and increased Mana Regen.
- 1 point into Pyromancer: Increases Fire Damage and Ignite Chance for Fire Skills.
- 5 points into Lavamancer: Increases Fire penetration and adds fire damage leech.
- 6 points into Crackling Precision: Increased Critical Strike chance.
- 5 points into Arcane Obliteration: Added Spell Critical Multiplier.
- 4 points into Arcane Insight: Added Intelligence, the 4 points helps us unlock the later tiers of passives.
- 4 points into Arcane Current: The 4 point threshold is very important for getting longer trigger chains, as
each triggered Meteor applies a
Spark Charge which can trigger 
Harbinger of Stars and continue the chain. Technically,
this can go infinite, but even with a 9% roll on the belt and 100% critical chance, it will fizzle out eventually. - 8 points into Mana Bulwark: A great node for survivability, as it effectively gives you 16% Damage Reduction as long as you have Mana. Plus, it adds some flat Mana as well.
- 5 points into Archmage: Adds flat Spell Damage and a chance to refund 20% of Mana cost, doubled if we are over 300 Mana and tripled over 1,000 mana. This node is one of the big reasons we want to reach 1,000 Max Mana in our build. It will give us a guaranteed chance to refund 20% of the Mana cost of skills on use, including triggered ones.
Spark ChargeOur 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 any Meteor build, you must choose Sorcerer as your mastery or you will not have access to the spell. We put the majority of our points into the Sorcerer tree, but we also have a fair amount into the base Mage tree and the Spellblade tree. Each of the Passive Trees and their points are broken down below.
Runemaster Passive Points
- 5 points into Arcane Warden: Adds flat Intelligence, a flat amount of Ward whenever we hit with an Elemental Melee Attack and the threshold bonus gives us a lot of Ward Decay Threshold with high Intelligence.
- 1 points into Elemental Affinity: Increased Elemental Damage and Elemental Resistance.
- 5 points into Flame Walker: Gives us a
Fire Aura when we move or attack with melee, which can't proc our belt but it will shred Fire Resistance of enemies it hits. - 5 points into Arcane Shielding: Reduces damage taken and adds Ward per second when you land a Melee Attack.
- 5 points into Shattered Aegis: Changes Arcane Shielding to be less effective, but can stack up to four times. At max stacks, we gain 6% more reduced damage taken, 12 Ward per second and 80% increased Armor over the base ability.
- 5 points into Warden's Echo: Gives us a 20% chance to trigger
Frost Claw on melee hit, at 80% of the mana cost. This stacks with other nodes in the Frost Claw
tree, giving us a very high chance to trigger it on any melee enemy hit. - 4 points into Essence Duel: Increased Melee Attack Speed and 12 flat Ward when we hit with elemental melee attacks.
Fire AuraIn 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.
Meteor
The main damaging ability of our build. We are looking to improve it's damage and reduce the Mana cost of the spell, as it is quite expensive by default. To improve damage, we want as many meteors to fall as possible and to boost the critical multiplier, as we will be very close to crit cap for spells. Meteor has one of the highest damage effectiveness ratios in the game, so we also try to get as much flat spell damage as possible elsewhere.
Order of Skill Points
- 1 point into Force of Impact: Increased Stun chance and Duration.
- 3 points into Rapid Descent: Increases fall speed of the Meteors.
- 1 point into Twin Meteors: Adds another Meteor, but increases Mana cost.
- 3 points into Meteor Shower: Adds three more meteors, but reduces the radius that they deal damage.
- 2 point into Rapid Impacts: Increases Meteor Fall frequency.
- 1 point into Rain of Fire: Adds one more meteor.
- 1 point into Distant Craters: Adds damage, but causes Meteors to fall further apart.
- 4 points into Mana Fall: Reduces the Mana cost of Meteor.
- 3 points into Extinction: Adds flat Critical Chance to Meteor and 40% chance for a Large Meteor to fall. This node is very important for helping us to get to 100% Critical Strike Chance for Meteor. However, we only need 3 points with the gear shown in planner, otherwise we overcap the Critical Chance by a good amount. In other words, it's a wasted point.
- 3 points into Craterborn: Gives us a buff that adds some Fire Penetration, as well as increasing Cast Speed, though this is less relevant as we are mostly melee attacking with
Mana 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.
Frost Wall
Mana Strike is our main ability used. However, this is not our main damage ability.
Its main purpose is to recover Mana and proc our other spells. Therefore, we focus on increasing the
utility of Mana Strike as much as possible, especially how much Mana it generates for us.
Order of Skill Points
- 4 points into Swift Sap: Increases Mana Strike's Attack speed.
- 1 point into Sprite Blade: Increases the Area Mana Strike hits.
- 4 points into Mana Drain: Increases the Mana gained.
- 5 points into Critical Mana: Adds flat Mana gained on Criticals.
- 1 point into Critical Rejuvenation: Massively increases the base critical chance of Mana Strike, but it no longer deals extra damage on Crits. This is hardly a drawback for the build.
- 3 points into Reclamation: Adds more flat Mana gained when we are below zero mana.
- 3 points into Arcanist's Blade: More flat Mana gained on hit.
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.
Frost Claw
While we have specialized into Frost Claw, it will not be on our skill bar. We use that slot for an un-specced 
Teleport for mobility.
It automatically triggers off Mana Strike on 30% of hits. When attacking three or more enemies, this is almost guaranteed to trigger.
With the amount of Attack Speed we are stacking, it will also trigger quite often even on single targets. However, we are not trying to boost
the damage of Frost Claw but rather use it as another way to proc Meteor on crits, and as a secondary mana generator.
Order of Skill Points
- 2 points into Shiver Shell: Gives a chance to cast Frost Claw when hit, and generates Ward whenever Frost Claw is triggered.
- 1 point into Reowyn's Veil: Generates Ward based on Freeze Rate Multiplier (this becomes Ignite Chance after you convert it to Fire later).
- 3 points into Macuahuitl: The most important node we take, as this is what triggers Frost Claw when are attacking, and stacks with other nodes that have the same effect in the passive tree.
- 3 points into Rending Cascade: Gives Frost Claw higher base Critical Chance, very important for hitting 100% critical chance, and increased Freeze Rate Multiplier. However, we only need 3 points here as we get enough Increased Critical Chance elsewhere that another point would put us well over 100%, for no gain.
- 3 points into Gift of Winter: Reduces the Mana cost of Frost Claw and a chance to gain extra Mana on cast.
- 1 point into Lava Talon: Converts Frost Claw to Fire damage.
- 5 points into Spark of Celerity: Increased projectile speed and Mana efficiency.
- 2 points into Artor's Sceptre: More Damage and Frostbite chance.
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. Most notably, we take the node to autocast it whenever we get stunned.
If you prefer, you could even leave it off your skill bar and use some un-specalized skill there instead, such as 
Snap Freeze, relying on it to only proc when stunned.
However, it is nice to have it on there as a panic button for when you get low. We are focusing our points on taking nodes that increase the amount of
Ward and survivability it will provide us.
Order of Skill Points
- 3 points into Stalwart Defense: Adds a flat amount of Ward gained.
- 3 point into Desperate Defense. A percent of missing health is added as Ward.
- 1 point into Astonish: Triggers
Flame Ward automatically if we get stunned, as long as we have the mana to cast it. - 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: 30% less Elemental Damage Taken while active.
- 3 points into Dilation: Increased duration and mana efficiency.
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.
Enchant Weapon
Much like Frost Claw and Flame Ward, we will be automating the casting of this. However, unlike those two, this must to be on your skill bar.
It will not cast automatically otherwise. 
Enchant Weapon adds a ton of nice bonuses to our build, such as cleansing ailments and casting 
Elemental Nova.
However, most importantly, it increases our attack speed for Mana Strike.
Order of Skill Points
- 5 points into Celerity: Large increase to Melee Attack Speed while active.
- 4 points into Concentration: Increases the active duration by 4 seconds.
- 4 points into Efficacy: Reduces the Mana cost and increases Melee Elemental Damage.
- 1 point into Kindling Blade: Automatically casts whenever it's off cooldown, but has to be on the hotbar to work.
- 1 point into Cleansed by the Elements: Cleanses ailments whenever cast, but increases Mana cost.
- 4 points into Immolating Strike: Adds passive Melee Ignite chance, doubled while
Enchant Weapon is active. - 1 point into Burst of Fire: Adds a
Fire Burst when we hit ignited enemies, with a 2 second cooldown. This doesn't do much damage, but it's another potential trigger for our belt.
Fire BurstBuild Mechanics and Playstyle
The basic rotation for this build is a one-button playstyle that plays closer to a Spellblade. You simply get close to enemies and
hold down the button for Mana Strike. However, you may wish to cast a Meteor or two from range before you close the distance to start meleeing enemies.
This will generate some extra Ward to begin with, and might start a chain of triggers that you can try to continue with Mana Strike. This build is super fun to
play, but it does have a very high RNG element to it. Meaning, you may go a few seconds without any belt triggers, but then you'll suddenly have a ton of them in a row, covering the screen
in constant Meteors.
Despite being a "fragile Sorcerer", without a ton of Health to begin with, we are quite tanky when in combat. Our health is deceptive, as Transient Rest will give you a lot of Ward
if you stop moving every 2 seconds. The easiest way to guarantee this happens, is to put Mana Strike on right click and then hold both right and left click down while attacking enemies.
This will cause your character to move in tiny increments between attacks. This guarantees you 'stop moving' as often as possible and don't miss a single trigger from Transient Rest, each of
which can give you upwards of 500-700 Ward, depending on your Max Mana.
Additionally, we have a lot of tiny Ward amounts coming from our attacks and our Melee Attack Speed is very fast, especially when Enchant Weapon is active. So, when
we are attacking we are constantly generating Ward from these attacks. Whenever there is multiple enemies to hit, you'll rain a huge parade
of Meteors on their heads, which will also generate a ton of Ward from the 'Mana spent gained as Ward' mods that we grabbing on our gear and passive tree. It's quite fun to
see in action, though it can be hard to see what is going on through the fiery meteor storm occuring around you sometimes. When in doubt, just keep attacking
with Mana Strike or Teleport out of harm's way if you are low on Ward and Health.
Equipment and Gear Affixes
For this build, we will be focusing on several main affixes for each piece of gear. The Exalted mod on any piece of gear is the most important affix, but you do not have to match the exact tiers if you are unable. Same for Uniques and their Legendary Potential mods. It is not required for the build to function, but it is something to aim for.
| Gear Slot | Implicits | Modifiers |
|---|---|---|
| Sceptre | Spell Damage Melee Damage |
Prefixes Melee Attack Speed Mana Spent gained as Ward Suffixes Fire Penetration Chance to Blind on hit |
| Off-hand Catalyst | Intelligence Spell Critical Strike Chance Ward Retention |
Prefixes Increased Critical Strike chance Critical Strike Multiplier Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Head | Armor Mana spent gained as Ward %Mana Regen |
Prefixes Mana spent gained as Ward Chance to apply Spark Charge on Melee Hit Suffixes %Health %Armor |
| Amulet | Less Damage Taken Over time | Prefixes Fire Penetration Critical Strike Multiplier Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Belt | Harbinger of Stars |
Legendary Potential Hybrid Health Armor/Reduced Bonus Damage from Critical Strikes |
| Ring (1) | Necrotic Resistance Ward Decay Threshold |
Prefixes Intelligence Increased Fire Damage Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Ring (2) | Cooldown Recovery All attributes |
Prefixes Intelligence Increased Fire Damage Suffixes Needed Resistances |
| Gloves |  Frostbite Shackles |
Legendary Potential Hybrid Health |
| Feet | Transient Rest |
Legendary Potential Increased Movement Speed Armor/Reduced Bonus Damage from Criticals |
| Relic | Mana Mana Spent Gained as Ward |
Prefixes Mana Increased Spell Critical Strike Chance Suffixes Flat Health Chance to Apply Frailty on hit |
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
Uniques
Now, let's look closer at the required Uniques for this build.
Harbinger of Stars
Harbinger of Stars The core item of the build. Without this belt, you cannot play the build. It only has a level requirement
of 36, however, so you could start playing the build pretty early if you got your hands on one. Please note, you want
a max roll on the chance to trigger meteors. That is, you want a 9% roll in that mod. It is not recommended to settle for
a lower roll, as this will dramatically decrease the number of Meteors you are able to trigger. For Legendary Potential, you want some defensive affixes here.
Hybrid Health and Armor/Reduced Damage from Criticals being the most important. This can be taget farmed from the 'Fall of the Empire' timeline, from 'Unique or Set Belt' rewards.
Transient Rest
Transient Rest are a new pair of Boots in 1.1 that are a key piece of gear for our survivability. With large Mana pool, these can generate quite a bit of Ward for us
every 2 seconds. To ensure you 'stop moving' as close to the 2 second cooldown as possible, it's recommended to put Mana Strike on Right click, with Move being on Left click.
Then, when you are attacking with Mana Strike you can hold down both left and right click, which will cause your character to 'stutter step' in between each attack. This ensures
you 'stop moving' as often as possible, while still attacking as much as possible, maximizing the triggers from the boots. This can be target farmed from the 'Spirits of Fire'
timeline, from 'Unique or Set Boots' rewards
Unstable Core
Unstable Core Unlike the previous two, this unique isn't fundamental to the build, a well rolled Exalted Body Armor will work just fine initially. That said, once
you can get an LP1 or LP2 version, and hit either Flat Mana or Mana Spent Gained as Ward on it, preferably both, this becomes the best option available. The implicits add a good amount of mana, there
is potentially a large flat Mana mod, it has some Increased Elemental Damage and it gives +1 to all your skills. The affix about Elemental Nova is irrelevant to us. This can be target farmed
from the 'Blood, Frost, and Death' timeline, from 'Unique or Set Body Armour' rewards.
Throne of Ambition
Throne of Ambition is an amazing Idol for any mage build that can utilize it.
It gives us a stack of Ambition whenever we hit a boss or rare. Since we attack very fast, and trigger
many different spells, this should stack to max extremely quickly. It stacks up to 20 times
and each stack increases our Fire Damage and Armor, granting us a total of 40% for each
at maximum stacks. While this Idol only plays a small role while we are clearing echoes,
we are already very strong at that, the extra power on Bosses is appreciated.
This Unique Idol can be target farmed from the boss "God Hunter Argentus" from the "The
Stolen Lance" timeline.
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, Mana Spent Gained as Ward, and at least one 'Spark Charges on Melee hit' affix is recommended. If you want more defenses, get more 'Mana spent gained as Ward' but if you want more consistent triggers, get more 'Spark Charges on Melee Hit'. Additionally, you should use your idols to fill in any resistance gaps you have. Below, you will see the idols we are targeting.
Size: 3×1
Modifiers
- Flat Mana
- Mana Spent Gained as Ward
Size: 3x1
Modifiers
- Flat Mana
- Chance to apply Spark Charge on Melee Hit
Size: 1x2
Modifiers
- %Health
- Needed Resistances
Size: 2x1
Modifiers
- Vitality
- Needed Resistances
Size: 2×2
Modifiers
- You gain a stack of Ambition when you hit a boss or rare enemy (1 second cooldown)
- If you have multiple Thrones of Ambition equipped you still only gain 1 stack
- 2% more Fire Damage per stack of Ambition
- 2% more Cold Damage per stack of Ambition
- 2% more Armor per stack of Ambition
- 20 Maximum Stacks of Ambition
- You lose all stacks of Ambition if you go 4 seconds without gaining a stack
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 can be filled with our recommendations, leaving the addition 5 for some personal preference.
| 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 Breath of Cinders |
Shred Fire Resistance | Spirits of Fire |
 Grand Resolve of Humanity |
All Resistances | Reign of Dragons |
Changelog
- 14 Jul. 2024: Updated for 1.1. Far stronger with new Sorc changes.
- 18 Apr. 2024: Guide updated for 1.0. Overhauled the old Fireball set up.
- 30 Nov. 2023: 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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