Void Knight Mastery Leveling Build for Last Epoch (Patch 1.1)
This is the perfect leveling guide for new players wanting to start with Void Knight! This page will cover everything and anything you could need to know about leveling the class, including which skills to use, what stats to prioritize, and what uniques are useful early in the game.
Build Introduction
This version of the Void Knight's Leveling Build is focused around high survivability and on-demand mobility. The build is extremely beginner friendly and can be used all the way to level 70 without any issue.
The entire build is built around Rive to slash your targets and deal both AoE and single-target damage to enemies. Healing Hands is converted to deal melee damage and combines with Rive to both boost damage and heal ourselves.
Anomaly is taken to provide extra Attack Speed and Leech, while also debilitating close enemies with stacks of Void Resistance Shred. For an extra layer of buffs, Volatile Reversal is taken and provides extra Movement Speed and Attack Speed.
Our main way of getting around maps will be Shield Rush. This will make straight hallways take no time at all since there is no distance limitation, as long as you don't touch a wall.
Void Knight Leveling Passive Trees
Sentinel Passive Tree
Void Knight scales very well off Vitality, and as such, we will start the Sentinel Tree by taking Fearless. This build will only deal damage at melee range, so Armour Clad will be the next target, followed by Valiant Charge as this reduces the cooldown on both Shield Rush and Volatile Reversal. Take two points in Time and Faith in order to sustain our Mana after Shield Rushing. One extra point than what is required to start a Mastery Passive Tree is taken in order to dual-wield with Gladiator.
Paladin Passive Tree
Prior to starting the Void Knight Passive Tree, make a quick detour into Paladin in order to unlock Healing Hands. There is not much of a choice here, so we opt for the extra Resistances through Defiance.
Void Knight Passive Tree
The entirety of the rest of our Passive Points will get dumped into Void Knight. For the Tree above, you should prioritize the nodes Void Blades, Finality, and Eternal Form. The first and third node provide substantial damage increases, while the second gives us a Kill Threshold on every bit of damage we deal. You will have to take other nodes in order to access some of these, so fulfill those requirements as you come across them.
Echoing Strikes has great synergy with Rive, as Rive does extra damage when it hits with an Echo. Taking the five points here will double our chance to Echo.
At the point of reaching level 70, and you've finished all quests, you should have a total of 21 points into Sentinel, 5 points into Paladin and 57 points into Void Knight.
Rive
Rive will be your most pressed button for the build as the main source of damage you will deal. There is nothing terribly fancy with this, however we will be dual-wielding purposely to take advantage of Weapon Specialist. This allows Rive to scale off Vitality and allows it to scale similarly to how other Void Knight skills scale. This forces us to use an axe in the left weapon slot and a sword in the right. Follow up with Temporal Warrior before cutting back and grabbing Challenge as early as you can. The last node that should be taken is Ripples of Oblivion. This is because the Passive in the Void Knight Tree that increases our Echo chance is deep in the Tree, so we will not see the full effect of this until you reach that.
Shield Rush
Shield Rush serves as a way for us to quickly move from point A to point B. Even though this skill has a high Mana cost, we'll refund all of the lost Mana with melee attacks because of Time and Faith. Normally Shield Rush does require you to be using an actual shield, however Dark Rush allows us to use the skill without one. It is also the pathing taken to add Void Damage to the skill. Shield Rush does a decent amount of damage with its final hit, so stopping on a group of low Health mobs will likely kill them.
Once you've grabbed the ability to use this skill without a shield, immediately take Rush Mastery. This significantly cuts the Mana required to use it and will take a bit of the burden off your resources. From here, grab the Void Damaging nodes, Void Breaker and Temporal Strike. Warrior's Entrance should be grabbed after this. From this point, we finish off with Protective Speed. You may instead place these points into Critical Rush if you'd rather take the damage increase over the defensive one; it is purely based on personal playstyle and choice.
Healing Hands
Healing Hands will never be manually casted with this build. Instead, it is automated off Rive in order to heal you as well as deal Melee Damage. The animation for it is a bit subtle when tied to Rive, but you can see little sparks of yellow come off your weapons when you use the skill if you look closely.
Your first pathing should be immediately upwards towards Cleric's Hammer. This automates it off melee attacks, in this case Rive. The next goal here is to kill the Mana cost on it, otherwise we will constantly be low on Mana due to Shield Rush usage. Purity of Thought and a single point in Blessed Parish should be enough to make it so you don't feel low constantly. Once your Mana is comfortable, immediately head towards Seraph Blade. This will scale Healing Hands with Melee Damage and provide a significant boost in our damage.
Beyond this, all other nodes are taken in an effort to boost the healing capability on the skill, which in turn takes a bit of pressure off Void Knight's typical need to have Leech. Healing Hands is overall an extremely useful tool, and it will help greatly with your ability to kill and sustain while leveling.
Volatile Reversal
Volatile Reversal is used as a way to buff several aspects of our character. However, before we can do that, we want to take off how the base of the skill functions and changes our Health and Mana on use. These nodes are far too restrictive for leveling, and absolutely useless for this build in particular. As such, your first priority will be to grab Timelost Vitality followed by Timelost Wisdom. By taking these, we also immediately take the nodes before it that reduce the cooldown significantly. This is perfect, as the next nodes we want are Warped Time for the Attack Speed and Catching Up for the increased Movement Speed.
In the later sections of leveling, we will be taking the nodes that create Void Rifts as a way to increase the damage we deal to enemies for a bit of time after they've been hit by them. The Void Rifts won't deal much damage on their own, so they are used to buff our Melee attacks.
Anomaly
Anomaly is taken entirely for the Time Bubble associated with it. Rush Time Lord and Immediacy, then cut back and go for Borrowed Time. This will turn the skill into an instant cast so it isn't interrupting our uptime. Up front without any other nodes, this bubble will shred Void Resistance from enemies and Slow enemies within it. Manipulation should then be grabbed for the increased Attack Speed. Red Shift is mostly quality of life, so it should be taken last.
Damage Rotation
This build is extremely straight forward as the only skill manually used to damage is Rive. Healing Hands is completely automated and will not even need to be on your hotbar. Anomaly can and should be kept up at near full uptime, as this is going to increase your damage on enemies the longer they exist by shredding their Void Resistance. The combination of Shield Rush and Volatile Reversal makes us incredibly mobile. You're able to Rush out of damage, then immediately Reversal back into position to go back to dealing damage in melee-range. Just be mindful, Volatile Reversal will always throw you back 2 seconds in time. If you don't want to leave melee-range on an enemy, give the skill a bit before using it to keep the Attack Speed buff up and not get teleported backwards. Likewise, feel free to use this as a mob is dying, gaining Movement Speed for moving into the next pack.
Gearing and Affixes
This build forces the use of an axe to deal damage. While you can use a two-handed axe, dual-wielding will be more effective for clear speed. Early on, Cultist Blades can be found with Void Damage on them. As you level, high Adaptive Melee Damage will trump this, but you should prioritize swords with increased Void Damage on them. Constellation Cleavers can be bought in the Circle of Fortune and come with high Adaptive and Void Melee Damage on them.
Below is a list of Affixes you should aim for to better suit the playstyle of this build. Void Knight scales very well with Vitality, thus it should be prioritized on gear pieces when possible for both damage and survivability.
Attributes | Offensive | Defensive |
---|---|---|
Vitality | Melee Void Damage Void Penetration Melee Critical Strike Chance Critical Strike Multiplier Melee Attack Speed |
Armor Resistances Health |
Useful Uniques
Upon reaching level 19, Darkstride can be equipped and worn through-out the entire leveling process. These boots provide you with extra Void Damage and a substantial boost you Movement Speed based upon how much extra Melee Void Damage you gain through gear or passives.
While it can't be equipped early on, Blade of the Forgotten Knight is going to be a massive gain for this build. It is a rare drop, so may not be something you find on your first character. However, it can be equipped around the time you fight Lagon in the leveling process, and is hugely beneficial for our damage.
Progressing to Endgame
This build will carry you all the way to the start of the Monolith, where you will need to decide on an Endgame build to follow. We have several options available for Void Knights.
Changelog
- 06 Jul. 2024: Void Knight saw little changes with Patch 1.1. Leveling has remained the same. Mastery trait saw a small buff for melee builds.
- 22 Feb. 2023: Updated for Patch 1.0.
- 30 Nov. 2023: Guide added.
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