Last Epoch Gold

Last Epoch Season 5 will begin on October 1, and returning players may want to consider which classes to use for league starting.

Acolyte is one of the main choices for many players, as its army of Skeletons can help us reach the endgame with little difficulty. Many players may transition to Lich in the endgame, but Necromancer also has several promising options.

Here are the 4 Necromancer Builds in Last Epoch Season 5:

• Mana Stacking Skeleton Mages
• Zombie Giants
• Abomination Necromancerv
• Ice Skeleton Mage

Mana Stacking Exploder

The damage of this entire build comes from 5 Skeleton Mages. The regular Skeletons that are summoned are not damage dealers, while Bone Golem mainly serves as a tank. This build does not give you an army of undead in the traditional sense. Instead, it plays more like a mage.

The real purpose of the regular Skeletons is to serve as ammunition. Your Skeleton Mages use Profane Oblation to sacrifice them, causing them to explode in the faces of enemies. Simply spawn Skeletons directly on top of a pack of enemies, and Skeleton Mages will immediately detonate them.

The key node is Forbidden Arcana in Skeleton Mage skill tree. It gives Skeleton Mages more multiplicative damage based on our maximum Mana. Therefore, Mana should be stacked as high as possible. All Mana gained by your minions increases their power multiplicatively, with an ideal target of around 3,000 Mana.

However, multiplicative damage alone is not enough. You also need base damage for those multipliers to work with. That is why Chaos Bolts in the skill bar are not used for dealing damage. Instead, they are there to provide buffs.

Revolution node in Chaos Bolts skill tree grants minions additional base spell damage based on maximum Mana. This means a large Mana pool is converted into a huge amount of base spell damage, and you only need to cast it once every few seconds.

If Chaos Bolts hit your own Skeleton Mages, they also gain a very high chance to apply Damned on hit, adding another significant amount of damage.

Dread Shade is placed on one Skeleton Mage, and its buff spreads to all Skeleton Mages.

Zombie Giants

Zombie Giants is an upgrade node for Summon Volatile Zombie. It transforms your Volatile Zombies into Zombie Giants and slows their health loss, allowing them to remain on the battlefield for longer. However, you still need to occasionally cast the skill to ensure that 6 Zombies remain active.

Flammable Vitae node converts the vomit skill into Fire damage, while Pyromancer Skeletal Mages throw Fireballs and the tank-focused Golems draw enemy attention.

This build permanently maintains Aura of Decay. In its skill tree, we take the nodes that increase the chance for minions to poison and provide more multiplicative minion Poison damage.

The reason is that Ash Wake boots convert Aura of Decay into Fire damage and convert the chance to Poison into a chance to Ignite. As a result, these two large Poison nodes actually provide Fire and Ignite benefits. This becomes a massive buff that remains active across the entire army.

You will also need Dragonflame Edict, whose main purpose is to give minions a chance to Ignite on hit while also providing many other minion bonuses.

The body armor is Aaron's Will. It grants us additional Bone Golems based on the maximum number of Skeletons, allowing you to summon two Bone Golems and significantly improving survivability.

If you have enough Gold, you can look for items with T7 Vitality affixes on the market, as Vitality is your main attribute. Necromancer passive tree has threshold bonuses that grant minions more damage over time for each point of Vitality. Therefore, stacking Vitality effectively gives your minions a huge amount of multiplicative damage over time.

Abomination Necromancer

Abomination Necromancer remains powerful in Season 5. In a conventional Abomination setup, it deals very high damage and is extremely difficult to kill, but it does not move particularly fast.

Unless you are fighting an endgame boss such as Uber Apophis, Abomination's damage is often more than enough. Therefore, you can sacrifice some damage in exchange for greater speed.

Abomination is assembled by consuming your own minions. Two nodes in its skill tree are more important than anything else:

• Engorgement: Each point gives Abomination more damage and health for each type of minion fed to it.
• Death in the Family: Each point provides a large amount of additional damage, attack speed, and movement speed, provided that every specialized minion type is fed to it: Skeletons, Skeleton Mages, Wraiths, and Bone Golems.

The main source of speed for this build is Infernal Shade, which provides extremely high movement speed and attack speed. Abomination will also need to potentially consume Skeleton Rogues, which can provide additional speed through Sharpened Bones and Cruel Monstrosity nodes in the skill tree.

Ice Skeleton Mage

Ice Golem and Skeleton Mage are the only two minions in this build. The setup looks somewhat similar to Abomination Necromancer, but it removes the complicated summoning process.

Archmage node in Skeleton Mage skill tree removes the entire group of Mages and gives us a single Archmage instead. This allows all Necromancer skills that target individual minions with debuffs and buffs to be concentrated on your Ice Golem and Skeleton Mage.

The key item that makes this build work is Lich's Scorn. Without it, this build does not work. It converts Dread Shade's damage into Cold damage, and increases base Cold damage for each Infernal Shade attached to one of our minions.

Dread Shade is almost mandatory for Necromancer minion builds because it provides more damage than almost anything else. Infernal Shade is then used to greatly increase movement, attack, and cast speed, making this build highly effective for clearing maps.

The above are 4 unique and powerful Necromancer builds for Season 5. Most of them can function without many Unique items, and even the ones that do require them are not particularly difficult to put together. They can be built relatively easily for the Season 5 endgame.

Last Epoch Season 5, Rage of the Frostborn, launches on October 1st at 11:00 AM CDT. Alongside the new season, the developers are introducing First Blood season-start race, designed for all Travelers who thrive on speed.

The rules are simple: using your chosen class, be the first to defeat Pinnacle Morditas - God of Bloodshed - to claim First Blood title for that class.

Participation and Rewards

First Blood race offers two modes of participation:

• Online Normal Solo Challenge
• Online Hardcore Solo Challenge

Regardless of the mode chosen, you must progress solo. Unlike standard gameplay where trading Last Epoch gold can provide an advantage during the early game, First Blood emphasizes the player's own resource management skills.

Rewards are divided into two tiers: participation rewards and racing rewards. Players who log in to Season 5 within two weeks of its October 1st launch will receive the in-game title Blood Seeker as a memento of the event.

Racing rewards are reserved for true speedrunners. The race covers all five base classes, with a winner determined for each class in both Normal and Hardcore modes.

The first player to defeat Pinnacle Morditas for each class and mode will receive Enraged Legend Supporter Pack. Consequently, a total of 10 players will earn this supporter pack.

Notably, the developers have provided clear guidelines for the rare scenario of simultaneous kills: if two players are determined to have defeated the boss at the exact same time, both will receive the reward without further tie-breaking.

The Path to Pinnacle Morditas

Morditas does not appear immediately; players must follow a specific progression chain to unlock the Pinnacle Morditas encounter.

Step 1: Obtain Woven Echo via Rage of Morditas

First, players must engage with the new Season 5 mechanic, Rage of Morditas, to defeat the standard version of Morditas and obtain Woven Echo drop.

Rage of Morditas encounters appear as players explore Eterra. Players will come across Blood Crystals; interacting with them triggers Rage of Morditas event. Once the event begins, players must reach specific kill thresholds within a limited time; the higher the threshold reached, the stronger the resulting buffs, while also generating Bloodrage Charges.

This mechanic features various iterations, each introducing unique combat effects. For example:

• Revitalizing Rage: Blood Potions may appear during combat; picking them up grants a temporary movement speed boost.
• Freezing Rage: Generates projectiles with a high Freeze Rate.
• Coalescing Rage: Spawns Blood Orbs around the player that explode upon contact with enemies.
• Reptilian Bloodrage: Has a chance to spawn lizard-like enemies nearby every few seconds.

Step 2: Place Demigod's Ascendance into Monolith of Fate

After obtaining Demigod's Ascendance Woven Echo, the next step is to slot it into Monolith of Fate's Echo Web.

It is important to note that Demigod's Ascendance is a Woven Echo with fixed difficulty. Players must raise their Corruption level to 400 to slot it into Echo Web.

Unlike standard Echoes, the difficulty of Demigod's Ascendance does not scale further with increased Corruption. In other words, reaching 400 Corruption satisfies the entry requirement, but raising Corruption beyond that point does not increase the difficulty of Woven Echo itself.

Step 3: Challenge Pinnacle Morditas

Upon entering Demigod's Ascendance, players face the ultimate challenge: Pinnacle Morditas - God of Bloodshed. This serves as the final objective of First Blood race.

Based on revealed mechanics, Pinnacle Morditas follows the established design philosophy for Pinnacle Bosses: players must engage with the seasonal mechanic, defeat the standard Morditas, acquire the corresponding Woven Echo, meet the 400 Corruption entry requirement, and finally challenge Pinnacle version.

Season 4's Vision of the Observer utilized a similar design, requiring players to reach a specific Corruption threshold to access Pinnacle encounter via a Woven Echo.

Consequently, for players participating in First Blood, the entire journey - from initial progression and character strengthening to reaching 400 Corruption and ultimately defeating God of Bloodshed - forms part of the race.

Speedrunning Strategy Recommendations

Class Selection

Choosing a class is the first step in speedrunning. Prioritize Masteries in Last Epoch that offer efficient map clearing, high mobility, and consistent boss damage; if playing Hardcore, survivability becomes a critical factor.

Pre-planning Your Build

Finalize your build, skill setup, and gear requirements before the race begins to minimize the need for on-the-fly adjustments after launch. For First Blood event, how quickly a build comes online and its reliance on specific gear are often more important than its theoretical maximum damage output.

Prioritize Progressing Monolith of Fate

Once you reach the endgame, prioritize progressing through Monolith of Fate. Aim to reach 400 Corruption as quickly as possible to meet the entry requirements for Demigod's Ascendance. Unless your gear is severely lacking, avoid spending too much time farming for items at low Corruption levels.

Efficiently Navigating Rage of Morditas

Minimize wasted movement within Rage of Morditas and make full use of the game's objective markers to eliminate targets quickly. The goal isn't to clear every enemy, but to maximize effective kills and Bloodrage gains within the time limit.

Planning Gear Acquisition

Since First Blood requires Solo Account Found or Solo Character Found modes, you cannot rely on trading or grouping up with others. Therefore, plan your gear and resource acquisition routes in advance and leverage in-game mechanics effectively based on your specific build.

First Blood speedrun is not merely a test of speed; it is a comprehensive evaluation of a player's resource management, build knowledge, and execution skills during the early stages of the season.

Whether you are a top-tier speedrunner aiming for Supporter Pack or a casual player looking to experience the competitive atmosphere, understanding the seasonal mechanics, planning your route, and choosing the right class build will help you go further in Last Epoch: Rage of the Frostborn.