Last Epoch Necromancer Build Guide - Flame Wraith
Mar. 5, 2024Last Epoch Necromancer Build Guide – Flame Wraith
In this Last Epoch Necromancer Build Guide we’re going to be covering aNecromancer Buildthat focuses on the use of a big number of Minions to stack Armor Shred on enemies, while actively buffing your minions, and debuffing your enemies with Dread Shade.Last Epochhas very deep customization options for passive trees, and Skill perks that can be difficult to navigate. In this Build Guide I’ll explain how to get the most from this Build, which also works great for Arena. So if you’ve been looking for a Last Epoch Necromancer Build, with a more active playstyle, then this Guide is for you.
The Flame Wraith Necromancer Build uses a combination of ranged minions that apply multiple stacks of Armor Shred to enemies. At the same time, it casts Dread Shade on minions, to buff them. The massive buff from Dread Shade can be applied outside of range, to have a universal buff for all your minions. Wraiths health decays over time, so we give them life leech, and minion health regeneration to make them stick around longer.
Dread Shade enables us to summon Volatile Zombies, which then explode and grant us Ward. We combine the Ward from Zombies, with Ward on Movement, Ward on Potion Use, Ward on Minion Death, Ward on Using Minion Skill, and Ward on Mana Spent. This Ward works as a shield on top of your health, and Ward Retention scales with our Intelligence stat, so it serves as a great tool for survivability, while minions kill enemies for us. That makes Intelligence double dip as an offensive and defensive stat at the same time.
In short, this Last Epoch Necromancer Build starts casting Summon Wraith around enemy spawn spots. Then places a single wraith out of the enemies’ attack range, so it’s doesn’t take aggro, nor overlap with other minions. You then cast Dread Shade on the single Wraith, you will see a circle on the ground around the wraith. Now all minionsoutsidethis circle get bonuses from the Dread Shade tree because we use theSpectral Distanceperk. The ranged Wraith will stay stationary, so we have easy control on its positioning.
Dread Shade will increase the health decay of the targeted wraith that will accelerate its death. Upon the death of the Wraith affected by Dread Shade, it will automatically summon a single Volatile Zombie. Volatile Zombies will seek out enemies and self destruct, catching enemies in the explosion. The explosion deals some damage, but also grants your character a Ward equal to a percentage of the Zombie’s health. To scale the Ward granted from zombies we need to invest in the “Minion Health” stat to increase the gains in Ward. And to counter the decay of both Wraith, and Zombie health, we invest in the “Minion health regeneration” stat.
This Last Epoch Necromancer Build has no tank, as neither the player can take a lot of hits for the minions, nor do the wraiths have good enough defenses. However, we are constantly summoning wraiths, so it doesn’t matter if enemies keep killing them as long as we maintain the maximum amount of wraiths, we are good.
Make sure your minions are always ahead of you, so you don’t take a lot of enemy aggression. If you play this build with a controller, the auto target will summon wraiths on top of enemies most of the time. This distracts enemies causing them to face the wrong direction, and blocks their AOE and projectiles.
In this section, we’ll take a look at what Skills should be on your Skill bar to make this Last Epoch Necromancer Build work. Four of our five skills we specialize are considered mandatory, and the fifth is kind of flexible. The summon Wraith itself will not carry your character alone in early game, so we can use any minion spell along with it at the start. Such skills are Summon Skeleton or summon Bone Golem. After we invest in the Mana regeneration stat, we can spam Summon wraith none-stop, and can respec the skeletons into a proper support skill.
The final form of the build only pick skills from default Acolyte class, and from Necromancer Master Class.
This spell unlocks after an Acolyte character gets to level four, and is the first skill we specialize in. It starts summoning three skeletons who are both melee and slow. We will keep using Skeletons for leveling until much later. The easiest way to use Skeletons is focusing on Skeleton Rogues, and Warriors.
For Rogues, we take 2/5Sweeping Strikes, 1/1Skeleton Rogue, 1/1Acid Flask. and 4/4Individual Operator. These nodes enable the Skeleton Rogues, and gives them an Acid Flask skill, which deals high damage. They also reduce their cooldowns by 200%. On top of that, they get a 200% damage multiplier, and all skeletons get more damage and AOE. The Skeleton Rogues damage bonus is the biggest modifier you can get early on, but it is split between all skeletons rogues. So summoning more than one Rogue makes each one get smaller bonus.
To Increase Skeleton Warrior effectiveness, we grab 3/5Necrotic Conviction, 1/1Bone Armor, 3/4Impatience, and 1/1Bone Share. These nodes give more health to warriors, and more damage to rogues. They also enable the warriors to cast the Bone Armor skill, which give themselves Armor and damage reduction. Then it gives Bone Armor more duration, enabling its cast on allies, and reduces the cooldown of all skeletons. This also allows Rogues to use their skills more frequently.
For the final points, we spend them in 1/1Hollow Walker,and 1/1Shambling Steel.These increase the maximum number of skeletons, and remove the Skelton archers from the pool of summonable skeletons. That way, you summon only Rogues and warriors. And complete 5/5Necrotic Conviction,for more damage.
The signature movement spell for all Last Epoch Necromancer Builds, and one of the very important utility skills in our arsenal. You unlock this skill at level 9, and it can be specialized in second slot immediately.
There are many ways to build Transplant, but I always prefer to use it to recover life and mana, and grant us defensive buffs. The skill drains health to teleport you into the desired spot on screen, and we can allocate theAnemianode to reduce the health cost.
We start with 3/3Fleeting Formto reduce cooldown, and increase the Cast Speed of Transplant. Get 2/4Anemiato reduce health cost, and 3/3Bone Armorto get more defenses. Then 3/3Acolyte’s Fervorto give you a Cast and Movement Speed buff for short duration. 1/2Azure veins, and 3/3Pale Bloodcauses Transplant to recover 30 mana, which is a huge boost to mana recovery.
Next is getting additional minions from Transplant with 1/1Simulacrum.That leaves four points which you can invest in either less health cost (4/4Anemia), or Bone armor effect and duration (1/2Plated Boneand 3/3Apostasy).
This spell unlocks after choosing the Master tree of Necromancer, which is roughly around levels 25~30. You will have three slots for skill specialization long before level 25, so you may use any other minion spell temporarily. I prefer using Bone Golem from level 12 to level 25, and then respeccing Bone Golem and specializing in Summon Wraith.
Summon Wraith is the main skill in our Last Epoch Necromancer Build, and the primary source of damage. We try to optimize it as much as we can, and pick the absolute best nodes and perks for it. This might involve reallocating some points as your character progresses and you obtain better gear.
The main concept of the Necromancer Build is to convert Wraiths into ranged Flame Wraiths. So you can spec into the nodes that give them massive damage, and causes them to stand still. Aside from that, we gain Ward per Wraith summoned to boost our survivability. And to maximize wraith damage, we give them flat Necrotic damage, Necrotic damage multiplier, life leech, and base critical strike chance. And if you get additional levels to Summon Wraith from equipment, you can give them extra Critical multiplier, and reduce their health decay.
Start with 2/5 inReapers, 4/4Wraith Bringer, and 2/2Flame Wraith. This give you a small 22% chance to summon a Flame Wraith, instead of a normal melee wraith, so you need to compliment it with more chance to summon Flame Wraith on Adorned Idols. Once you get the Idols, you should put points in 1/1Locus of Resurrectionand 1/1Locus of Death.These are the nodes that make wraiths stationary, so they focus on attacking, rather than wandering around.
Get 1/1Spirit Link, and 3/3Dawn of the fall,the combination of these gives 9% base critical strike chance. Base critical chance increases the critical rate of the wraiths by a lot, and with proper investment, and Logi’s Hunger Amulet, it can reach close to 100%. If you are curious to know your Wraith critical rate with these two nodes, it’s almost three times the critical rate shown in minion page on your character sheet.
Then we take 5/5Reapers,and 3/3Necrotic Hungerfor life leech and Necrotic damage multiplier. The damage multiplier from this node is much better than the Critical Multiplier from theDusk of The Livingnode. Because Critical Multiplier has diminishing returns without 100% Critical rate. You can then get 2/4 or 3/4Delay The End,and leaveDusk of The Livingas the last option if you have excessive points.
You can also refund one point fromFlame Wraith,in case you got your chance to summon flame wraith over 100% from idols.
This is the main buffing ability in our Last Epoch Necromancer Build, and the second source of damage. By default, Dread Shade attaches to a minion, buffes the minion, and all other minions around it with 10 flat Necrotic damage, and 50% increased Necrotic damage. These buffs can be further increased by nodes in the tree, and its range can be extended to be virtually infinite. We also use Dread Shade to summon Volatile Zombies upon minion death, as well as to buff the Attack and Cast Speed of minions.
We unlock Dread Shade after spending 30 points in the Necromancer tree, which is around character level 38~40. It’s the Fourth skill we specialize in, and use it from there on.
We need to take 3/3Wisdom of The Deadnode to reduce the massive mana cost of Dread Shade. Then we go 1/4Spectral Presence,and 3/3Dying Coven. This grants 24% Cast Speed to minions affected by the buff. For the final buff, we get 4/4Lingering Doomfor an extra 20 flat Necrotic damage, and reduced health decay. This node alone ensures that all our minions affected by Dread Shade deal more Necrotic damage than any other type.
Up until now, Dread Shade would buff the minion it attaches to, and minions surrounding it in a small circle. I personally prefer to take 1/1Spectral Distanceto change this behavior into buffing the minions outside the circle. So instead of buffing a portion of our shades that are summoned in a small area, we buff almost all our minions.
Finally, we spend rest of our points into the path that results in auto summoning Valotile Zombies. Then 1/1 inCongregation of the Dead, 2/5 intoFrenzied Phantom, and 4/4 inBeyond Death. For the final point, I use on 1/3Flesh Harvest, and if I get extra levels from equipment, I increase this to 3/3Flesh Harvest. This node can double the buff effects from Dread Shade.
We cast this spell in two ways: upon the death of a minion affected by Dread shade, there’s 100% chance to summon a single Zombie. This zombie is summoned without costing mana. And when any minion dies, there’s another 30% chance to summon a single Zombie. This one consumes the skill’s mana cost, and one of the reasons we need huge mana regeneration in our Last Epoch Necromancer Build.
First, we take the path towardsVital Wardto make Zombies give us Ward upon their explosion. So take 1/5Path of Destruction, 2/2Necromancer Fervor, and 1/1Vital Ward.The Ward gained this way scales with Zombies max health, so we need to scale “Minions Max health” stat to improve it.
Then, we take the path to enemies instant death at 16% health. Take 2/5Forceful Commander, 1/4Daunting Blast, 2/2Ravenous, and 2/2Pull of the Grave. These nodes give casting speed, mana efficiency, massive damage multiplier, and instant death to enemies. Then we have the option to use 1/1Horrific Vesselsto convert damage into necrotic. That’s because our minion necrotic damage is usually higher.
The auto summon node, 3/3Awakening Presenceis next. However, it costs a lot of mana, and is only advised to be used when your mana regeneration is over 20 mana per second. You should also finish 5/5Forceful Commanderfor more mana efficiency.
Finally, we improve Zombies speed by taking 3/5Fervor, and 1/1Ferocious Horde.That way, Zombies are able to keep up with your movement speed between packs, and ensure they don’t explode prematurely before reaching enemies. That’s 22 points, so you need a “+level to Volatile Zombies” affix on your helmet for this to work.
The last skill in the arsenal of our Last Epoch Necromancer Build is flexible, and many skills can be used here. I choose Wandering Spirit for the simplicity and effectiveness, but you may also use Bone Curse, or Drain Life. We switch to this skill once we equip the “Aberrant Call” unique staff, because the staff drains life of all minions, so your Skeletons will no longer be able to survive. At this point, we Respec Summon Skeletons and specialize in Wandering Spirits instead.
We use Wandering Spirits for two main functions: shredding Necrotic resistance, and applying fear. The resistance shred is a pure damage modifier, without any complicated conditions. And the fear is used to prevent enemies from ganging you before you summon enough wraiths.
We need 3/3Spirit Swarmto reduce the cooldown of Wandering Spirit. 5/5Drained Willfor 150% chance to apply Necrotic resistance shred. Then 1/1Terrifying Presenceto apply fear. And finally, 3/3Harrowing Aurato increase the range of applying both Fear and resistance shred. That’s the main priority, then we can spend rest of the points however we want.
I prefer to get 3/5Souls of Ragefor spirits movement speed and to unlock the next node. Then 1/4Medium, and 2/4Eternal Haunt, and put rest of the points inDaunting Presence. With the default 20 points, you can only put 2/5Daunting Presence,but if you get extra levels from equipment, you can add more points here. The reason I care about increasing the range even further withDaunting Presenceis how spirits can overlap. On bosses, the bigger ranger each spirit has, the higher chance to stack resistance shred and increase damage.
Figuring out how to spend your points in the passive tree is one of the most important parts of making a Build in the Last Epoch, and generally, it takes a respec or two before getting it right. In this section, I want to show you how I’ve set this up for maximum performance.
Acolyte Base Tree
You start with the Acolyte tree by default, which requires you to spend 20 points in to unlock the master class trees in this Last Epoch Necromancer Build. So, put 8/8 inForbidden Knowledge,which adds scaling to all of our abilities with the Intelligence stat. Then 5/5 inDark Ritualsfor Cast speed for your minions and yourself. Get 1/8 inStolen Vitalityand 1/6 inEthereal Revenantto get enough points to unlock the next column. MaxCrimson Gluttonyat 5/5 for health regeneration and minion health regeneration. And finally put one extra point in 1/1Soul Aegis.This tree ends up with 21 points, butSoul Aegisis too good to miss, and adds up to 300 Armor to your minions at the highest level.
Once you reachThe End of Timeand get to master the Necromancer class, you can start investing in this tree. We will spend a lot of our points here, and we will find very good stats, varying from character defenses, to all kinds of minion offensive and defensive stats. These passives will shape the entirety of our build, as we go very deep in the skill tree.
8/8Risen Armyis where we start, to boost minions damage and their cast speed. 5/5Reclamation of Soulsallows you to gain Ward on minion death, and get more Ward retention. 3/10 cursed Blood gives a little extra minion damage, but more importantly, it’s required to unlock the next node. One of the most important passives is 8/8Aegisfallto shred enemies armor twice per minion hit. The number of minions enables this passive to stack hundreds of times on bosses, for more than 30,000 armor shred! This is the easiest way for our Necromancer to deal with very high health and resistant enemies.
Get 8/8 inWisp Weaverfor 100% chance to gain Ward equal to your mana spent upon using a minion skill. We are always spamming Summon Wraith, and we stack mana regeneration to keep up, so this passive grant us a lot of Ward. 3/3Dark Retributiongive us another three minions, in the form of Skeleton vanguard. And that concludes the first half of Necromancer tree.
The second half of the passive tree is where we get all of our heavy offensive and defensive stats. The next major offensive node is 10/10Moonlight Pyrethat grants all your minions 10 flat fire damage, and 10 flat necrotic damage. To realize how big this buff is, you should know that the base damage of your Flame Wraith is 25. So these 20 flat damage is equal to 80% damage multiplier.
For extra offensive stats, you then need 1/5Frantic Summonsto unlock 5/5River of Bones, and 10/10Heresy.These passive give massive Critical Strike chance to minions, Minion life leech on critical strike, and Intelligence. 10/10Rite of Undeathis also a perfect fit for this Last Epoch Necromancer Build, increasing both Fire and Necrotic damage, and granting some resistances as well.
The defensive side gets 1/8Tyrant,3/8Cling To lifeand finally 4/4Empty the Graves. That way, we get Increased health regeneration and Armor per minion we summon. And with our number of Wraiths, we can gain up to 160% health regeneration, and 320 Armor. This passive becomes even more relevant if we farm and acquire the Vessel of Strife Relic, which applies Health regeneration to Ward as well.
This tree gives you more Intelligence and mana regeneration through 10/10Apocrypha.We fill this node last, from level 87 onward.
In this section we’ll be covering the type of equipment that you want to aim for in this Last Epoch Necromancer Build, and what stats you need on them.
The first thing you’ll want is a good weapon that give your Flame Wraith the highest boost. Ideally, the best weapon is the Unique staffAberrant Call,which give several buffs to the build.
It used to be more effective for us in Beta, with additional Minion damage. But as of the 1.0 release, the Minion damage changed to Minion Melee damage, which has no effect on Flame Wraith. All other stats though are very much desired, but only the maximum number of wraith is unique, and you have no other source for it. Meanwhile, the staff have a drawback in the form of:
So in the early game, using the staff would be much harder, because it would doom your skeletons, killing them constantly. Also, it would make your wraith die much faster, and you don’t have enough mana to keep summoning them back. So we use any staff with some minions stats, until we are able to handle the switch toAberrant Call
For Armor stats, we have these priorities (in order) by reaching Empowered Monolith at endgame. Note that some of these need an increase for high Corruption farming (+300). So always look for more health, Int, and damage.
That covers most stats you need from a Last Epoch Necromancer Build, leaving only a few ones to pick from other sources.
We need flat Minion Spell Damage for example, and we can only get that from some item bases such asRaven Crownin the Helmet slot. Or useNecropolis Helminstead for Ward Decay Threshold.
In the Body Armor Slot, pick eitherImmortal Regaliafor all resistances for you and your minions,Profane Regaliafor minions crit rate, orSanguine Regaliafor minions life leech and high Armor.
Caged Soulsis a great pick on Relics slot, to gain more ward on potion use and ward retention. However,Putrid Soulsusually proves more effective, as it gives constant ward per second passively.Ruined Bonesgives minions nice stats, but you lose your own survivability. These three slots, Body, Helmet, and Relic covers the Acolyte specific slots.
For general armor slots, Ward Decay Threshold is fantastic stat for Boots, so pickArcane Boots.Arcane Bracersis also a great gloves for mana and mana regeneration to sustain spamming Flame Wraiths at endgame. And for Belt, we prefer to get as many potions slots as possible, so either go forOsprean Beltfor pure potions slots, get potions alongside high armor withPraetorian Belt,or Ward Decay Threshold onChain Belt. And for Rings and Amulet, there’s no better choice than theTurquoise AmuletandTurquoise Rings. These give much needed Minion critical chance, minion health, and minion damage.
You will find gearing a bit tighter on this build, since certain item bases are very important, so you need more farming. Fortunately, our Last Epoch Necromancer Build is very suitable for farming, and can get high Monolith corruption without much investment to begin with. It’s so self sufficient.
Some unique items can be used as a source of some nice stats, especially if you get ones with Legendary Potential for very endgame gearing. The most prominent is the new item introduced in 1.0,Wraithlord’s Harbourwhich summons a wraith lord who can handle summoning wraiths for you. But this item requires an overhaul for the entire build, to optimize for its behavior. Feel free to experiment with it if you manage to get it!
A notable unique I found isTransient RestBoots, that gives three types of resistances, movement speed, and some ward every two seconds. It’s more stats than any rare Boots you can get, and with legendary potential, you can add even more Intelligence.
Logi’s Hungeris an amulet that can be farmed from the last boss in the Spirits of Fire Monolith. This amulet has several irrelevant stats, but it two overpowered stats:
These can elevate your Flame wraiths damage to the highest levels. We convert our wraith to flame type, so it gets two skill levels, and the base critical chance help them get closer to 100% critical chance.
Finally,Vessel of Strifeis an item that requires farming the hardest dungeon in game at highest tier. If you successfully get one though, it gives your Necromancer insane survivability by adding ward regeneration equal to your health regeneration. And we can get very high health regeneration from our necromancer tree.
Idols are a good way to augment your character, and for this particular Last Epoch Necromancer Build, we have several options to build towards. In all cases, we need two Adorned Immortal Idols (2×2) to maximize our chance to summon Flame Wraith instead of a normal Wraith. That leaves us with three other idols that can be either:
Usually, the Large and Huge idols have better stats for our Flame Wraith Build. The other option is less potent, but still useable. You can get some unique stats from idols, so pick idols that have one prefix and one suffix from the list:
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Finally, for a small idols, just pick whatever resistances you are missing, or get an extra ward retention.
Example build in build planner:https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/LB7MjzzA
This Last Epoch Necromancer Build actually relies on one unique item to function,Aberrant Callstaff. So you need to find the fastest way to find a good version of this staff, with higher stats, and hopefully legendary potential. It’s usually a random drop, but there are two ways to get a higher chance of getting it:
Once you get the staff, you have got yourself a build that’s viable in all game modes. Whether you play in Multiplayer, single-player, or even solo, you can play the Flame Wraith Build and farm high corruption in the Monolith. It’s one of the best farming builds in Last Epoch, so a perfect match for a first or second character on an account.
This Necromancer Build is especially good against bosses, and the most dangerous dungeons, because you get high single target damage, through all minions focusing fire on one enemy. You also don’t have to attack to deal damage, so you are more free to dodge and avoid enemy skills. And in terms of survivability, your hybrid health/ward style allows you to get the best of both worlds. On one hand, ward generation is very potent at low ward, since ward retention is still higher than ward drain. And on other hand, your health pool allows you to use endurance and the endurance threshold to greatly reduce damage if you take major hits. On top of that, you will spam potions for stacking even more ward, and cleansing all damage over time, debuffs, and aliment from yourself.
Finally, this is another controller-friendly Build, so it’s much more relaxing and less taxing on your wrist. But at the same time, it has active playstyle, with static minions that need strategic positioning, You need to be smart about the minion you choose to put Dread Shade on, because it buffs outside the circle, not the other way around.
Hopefully, thisLast Epochbuild gets you ready to take on the masses as a Flame Wraith Necromancer! If you enjoyed this build be sure to check out ourLast Epoch Druid Build Guide: Physical Spriggan
Be sure to check out ourlast epoch leveling primalist build guide,Last Epoch Sentinel Leveling Build Guide – Void Knight, andLast Epoch Runemaster Build Guide: Fire Claw, and keep an eye out for future Builds and Guides. You can pick upLast Epoch on Steam!
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