Last Epoch Runemaster Build Guide: Fire Claw
Feb. 27, 2024Last Epoch Runemaster Build Guide: Fire Claw
In this Last Epoch Runemaster Build Guide, we’re going to be covering aRunemaster Buildthat focuses on the rapid casting of a converted Frost Claw to Fire, while passively debuffing enemies and dealing extra damage with Frost Wall as well as Runic Invocation. I’ll explain how to get the most from this Build both as a beginner, and what works great for the endgame. So if you’ve been looking for a Runemaster Build, one with much less hassle, then this Last Epoch Runemaster Build Guide is for you.
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Fire Clawis a converted version of the Frost Claw skill, which comes from the base Mage class. The skill has easy access to extra base Crit Chance nodes, so it plays well as a Crit-focused build. The Runemaster is a class that brings very good survivability and mana sustain. So we can go very aggressive with Frost Claw nodes, to deal great damage and gain Ward.
With Frost Wall converted to Fire, you can apply a lot of Fire Resistance shred to enemies. Moreover, with Runic Invocation on your skill bar, you gain Rah Runes while casting Frost Claw. Rah Runes help with mana generation, and give you access to very good damage invocations. Invocations can increase the damage capability of this Runemaster Build, but we don’t rely on them a whole lot.
This build gets a large “effective health pool” by staying low health, and stacking Wards from so many sources. This synergizes well with the Intelligence stat that scales Ward Retention, but also damage, Critical, and cooldown recovery speed. Staying at low health makes the Endurance stat more impactful in mitigating damage, as 100% of the hits you take will be reduced by the Endurance multiplier.
This Last Epoch Runemaster Build can spam Frost Claw as much as you need. It has no cooldown, and initially has a very low mana cost that may go down to zero. In later stages of progression, you may spec into nodes that increase both AOE and single target DPS. This comes at the cost of using more mana, so we have to build our mana generation first before going down this route.
While clearing the Monolith of Fate, the goal is to run as fast as possible to reach the destination while clearing mobs, so we cast Frost Wall ahead of us, and run through it to gain speed and damage bonuses. We also have access to one of the best movement skills in the game, Flame Rush. Between these two skills, we move very quickly between packs of enemies. We can also spam Frost Claw throughout the whole process.
Frost Claw has two notable properties that affect gameplay. First, you can stagger cast your Frost Claw, so you don’t stop moving. This is achieved by holding the movement key (LMB on keyboard or joystick direction on controller), and holding the Frost Claw assigned key in small bursts. Therefore, you can cast a couple of times, move a small distance, then rinse and repeat.
Secondly, Frost Claw takes time to reach enemies, so you may be able to adopt a cast and move tactic, even before enemies die. Predicting the right amount of casts you need to perform in order to kill enemies may vary between different modes. However, each Monolith of Fate has consistent packs of enemies, with similar HP, so the kill speed remains mostly the same in each one. This saves a lot of time and allows players to progress faster.
In this section, we’ll take a look at what Skills should be on your Skill bar to make this Last Epoch Runemaster Build work. Not all five skills in this build are mandatory, and some can be replaced in some situations. We will pick skills from the base Mage class and the Runemaster Class.
This is a base skill from the Mage tree, that unlocks at character level 12. So before level 12, you may use any of the starter spells, such as Fireball, or Lightning Blast, then respec it later.
As soon as you specialize in Frost Claw, you should start with 3/3Gift of Winterwhich reduces mana cost. With this, and a “reduce mana cost of spells” on the wand, Frost Claw’s mana cost gets down to 3 mana per cast. This with the 36% chance to regain 12 mana, and natural mana regeneration, enables an infinite spam of Frost Claw.
We move to damage modifiers next, with 4/4Rending Cascadefor additional base Crit chance. Then 1/3Fen of the Frozento get to the nodes behind it. Now we allocate 1/3Brightfrostto cast faster and cleanse ailments and debuffs from yourself. Then proceed to 1/1 Hand of Mortidas, which adds additional projectiles to Frost Claw.
So far, the cost of Frost Claw is still around 5 mana per cast, and can be countered by mana generation. The element of the skill is still cold damage, which can chill and freeze. This is very helpful in the early game. However, to transition into mid-game, we adapt it to a fire Claw build, to capitalize on ignite and fire resistance shred from Frost Wall. So take 1/1Lava Talon, converting its damage type to fire, and turning chill chance into ignite chance.
Now take 1/1Volley of Glassand 5/5Spark of Celerity. Volley of Glass allows all projectiles to hit the same target, doing great damage at the cost of consuming more mana. Spark of Celerity reduces the mana cost, so it stays manageable. You may also take 1/1Frozen Reignto reduce mana cost even further.
For the final form of the tree, we aim to increase damage potential, so we get 1/3Glamdringand 1/3Coldstar. This takes the total points spent to 20 points, which is the maximum without modifiers. However, you should manage to get +2 to Frost Claw from the modifier on the Relic slot. This enables us to take 1/1On Through the Snow, adding a whole extra cast from the target location. This extra cast hits the same target as the first cast, so it effectively doubles the damage an enemy takes!
However, the mana cost peaks at this point, and it starts draining your mana pool rapidly. So you should invest heavily in mana regeneration, and spec another spell to regain mana fast (I recommend Runebolt for this purpose).
You can get 3/3Coldstarfor maximum damage. This will need to either get an extra +1 to Frost Claw level or respec any other node, like reduceSpark of Celerityto 4/5 instead. You may also get 1/1 Frozen Malice to have the second cast of Fire Claw aim at enemies, which give you much more comfort in clearing areas.
This spell unlocks upon picking a Runemaster mastery, which is around character level 16-18. It’s the signature skill of Runemaster that allows the character to passively gain Runes of three different types, depending on the element of spells directly cast. Fire spells grant Rah rune, cold spells grant Heo rune, and lightning gives Gon rune. Depending on these rune types, you gain different passive bonuses and are allowed to cast different spells with Runic Invocation.
There are a total of 40 different combinations that equal 40 different spells. However, in our Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build we don’t focus on actively casting Runic Invocation. The reason being is that most spells it can cast have limited scaling at endgame, and are complicated to setup. So we focus on passive bonuses instead.
Start with 1/4Attuned Approachfor opening the path to the lower half of the skill tree, where we spend most of our points. 3/3Inscribed Patternsgives passive bonuses based on the rune types you have. Each Rah Rune (fire type) grants 2% mana generation for a total of 6% at three runes. Gon runes (lightning) grant 12 wards per second, for a total of 36 wards per second on three runes. Then Heo runes (cold) get you a freeze rate multiplier. So the final form of our Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build gains 6% mana generation from this rune. This is helpful to sustain the spam of Frost Claw.
Get to 3/5 or 4/5 inRunic Energyto accumulate energy stacks passively while not casting Runic Invocation. Then allocate 4/4Copied Scrollsfor a 10% chance (per 1 energy) to double cast Runic invocation. Finally, finish this branch with a 1/1Arcane Batteryto triple the maximum energy. These three nodes combined allow energy to stack up to 27, 36, or 45 which grants 270%, 360%, or 450% chance to repeat respectively (depending on the level of Runic Energy). This makes Runic Invocation repeat two times for each cast, even with a small number of energy stacks.The duplicated effect is a nice way to get some burst damage against bosses once in a while.
As you may have noticed while trying to cast any invocation, it costs a lot of mana and hinders the spam of Frost Claw. So we take away the mana cost entirely by taking 1/1Author of Arcana. This gives the skill a 12 seconds cooldown, damage bonus, and fully refunds mana upon cast. We pair this with 4/4Adept Runescribingto reduce cooldown. Then wrap up the skill tree with 3/4 or 4/4 inTranscriber of Power.
Trying to pick the best Invocation and accurately cast it is a lot of hassle, but also an exciting part of playing a Runemaster. Luckily for us, there’s a simplified way to get the exact runes you need, regardless of the elements you cast. This is done with the 1/1Immutable Ordernode, which bases the runes you gain on the element of the first three skills on the skill bar. So we pick the node, switch the element of some skills, and place them on the skill bar in the correct order. However, this removes the flexibility of manually picking an invocation and locks you into a specific one.
An important part of picking runes is the passive they grant. The first passive of note is the mana generation from having Rah runes withInscribed Patternsallocated. But there are other passives from the passive tree, such as doubling the effects of “Decree of the Burning Wind” with the Rah rune, which gives more damage against bosses. Doubling the effects of the“Decree of the Eternal Tundra”with Heo runes, for more wards per second. As well as doubling “Decree of Bountiful Ocean”with Gon runes, for massive mana regeneration.
For our Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build, I recommend one of these three:
This casts lightning and fireball to orbit your character, dealing several hits to all enemies around you. It increases AOE, and helps to clear massive waves of monsters around you. This invocation lasts for a few seconds, so it allows higher uptime, to compensate for Runic Invocation cooldown.
Two Rah runes grant 4% mana regeneration, Gon runes add 18% more mana regeneration from “Decree of Bountiful Ocean”.
You can get this Invocation by placing your Frost Claw (converted to Fire) first on the skill bar. Followed by Flame Rush (converted to lightning), and finally Frostwall (converted to Fire).
It’s similar to the previous combo, with the exact same runes but in a different order. Just choose Flame Rush first, then follow it up with Frost Claw and Frostwall.
This Invocation summons a gushing flame that shoots projectiles at enemies for a duration. The flames auto-aim, but the source of them is stationary, so it’s more suited for bosses, rather than AOE clearing.
Adding the Heo rune instead of Gon gives more survivability via ward gain from“Decree of the Eternal Tundra”. The Invocation itself gives the Frenzy buff for 4 seconds, which gives a massive 20% Cast Speed. This is a universal buff that increases clear speed, boss-killing speed, and war-gain speed. But naturally consumes more mana.
Note that this is not the only source of Frenzy in this Fire Claw Runemaster Build, and if you are willing to fully optimize it, you have to cycle through these buffs for more uptime.
Set up your skill bar with Frost Claw (converted to Fire) first on the skill bar. Followed by Flame Rush (converted to Cold), and Frostwall (converted to Fire).
This spell unlocks after spending 5 passive points in the Runemaster class tree. So you may get it around levels 23-25, which is fairly early.
Flame Rush is a movement spell, that teleports the player a short distance, and causes a fire explosion on arrival. If you hold down the key the spell channels for longer, it also increases the travel distance and deals more damage. We give this spell more modifiers to make the character tanky and use it as a tool for survival, not only movement.
We convert the spell element, depending on which invocation we choose, as explained previously.
Start by 3/3Blazing Fluxfor mana efficiency and cooldown recovery. Next is 2/3 or 3/3 inRunic Eclipseto reduce damage taken while you channel Flame Rush. This buff can be helpful against some massive boss hits, especially with the next node 3/3Celestial Guidance. This node enables buffs to persist a bit after you finish casting. Then take 3/3Lunar Protection, for more wards per second, and ward burst after you finish casting.
If you need to convert Flame Rush to Lightning, you will need to take 1/1Energy Equivalence, and if you need cold, take the 1/1Snowballingas well.
Now take 2/2Fiery Overload, for the Frenzy buff. Then you are left with 4~7 points you are free to spend wherever you prefer. I’d prefer picking 1/1Ember Wake, and 3/3Solar Rush. You may opt to auto-cast Runic Invocation after Flame Rush, by picking up 1/1Epilogue. However, this node doesn’t refund the mana of Runic Invocation and will drain your mana rapidly causing a sustainability issue. Only take it if you know exactly what you are doing.
Frost Wall unlocks at 15 points in the Runemaster tree and goes a long way in helping our build. This spell casts a wall on the target location. The location would be wherever the mouse pointer is with KBM, or right on the enemy’s head if you use a controller. This is very useful in applying certain debuffs to help us clear both AOE content and bosses.
The wall element can be converted into fire, through nodes, or through an affix on Grand Idols. The conversion comes with very rewarding bonuses. The wall also gives more bonuses when you pass through it, so keep that in mind.
In this Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build, we aim to convert all our damage, buffs, and debuffs to fire. So we pick 1/5Marching Winter, 1/1Pyroglass, and 1/1Brand of the Invader. These three nodes ensure conversion to the fire element, and changing Frostbite chance into Fire Resistance Shred chance. Next, we go get more Frostbite chances to enhance the Fire Shred, through the 4/4Biting Limit.
1/4Protection of the Apostateand 1/1Shelter of the Chefis next which gives an easy way to accumulate Ward. In crowded areas, casting Frost Wall will give a very nice burst of Ward to help you survive more incoming damage.
Now to get more Ward and Haste, pick 2/4Crystals of Protection, and3/3Boosted Kickoff. We don’t pick Prepared Wards, because it adds a huge cooldown to Frost Wall, which hinders the build. You also gain Frenzy and Haste buffs for a duration matching the duration of the wall before you pass through.
1/1Wall of Glyptic Artenables Frost Wall to auto-cast Runebolt, which could be used to gain some benefits and deal some damage. ThenArcane Mosaicincreases the Runebolt frequency, depending on how many points you spend here. Put the rest of your points here, up to 3/5, 4/5, or 5/5
This spell unlocks after spending 35 points in Runemaster, so it will be the last spell you Specialize in this Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build. It’s another spammable spell similar to Frost Claw, but alternates between three versions: Lightning Bolt, Fire Bolt, and Cold Bolt. Each element has slightly different properties.
We can’t spam both Runebolt and Frost Claw. With Frost Claw having higher damage potential, I usually switch up the Runebolt to utility skill.
Pick 4/4Arcane Restoration, for a 100% chance to gain 12 mana per cast. Then 3/3 Runeweaver for extra mana regeneration and mana gained as a ward. To gain more mana from Runebolt, pick 2/5Arcane Overcharge, and 3/3Attuned Recovery.
Attuned Recovery is a node that grants bonuses based on the Rune type. So if you don’t change the rune types for Runebolt, it will keep cycling through the three elements, granting different and smaller buffs. Cold grants mana, lightning grants ward, and fire grants health. I find health to be bothersome and counterproductive in a pure Ward build. So I intend to change the Runebolt.
Take 3/4 or 4/4 inArcanist, for Haste buff, then 1/3Cryomantic Bolt, 1/1Ice Shard, and 1/1Frost Spike. This changes both Fire and lightning into Cold and enables Runebolt to rapidly fill our mana when we cast it. It turns the spell into an emergency tool that reduces the downtime of our Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build.
You may also put 1/1 inRunic Evocationfor auto aim, and 1/1 inEfficient Experimentfor a 20% chance to double cast.
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.
The Mage Base Tree is where you start by default, and will need to spend 20 points to unlock the specialization trees later. So put 8/8 into the Arcanist node for Intelligence, Fire Resistance, and Lightning Resistance. Note that Intelligence is one of our most desired stats overall. It naturally scales all our spell damage and Ward retention, but with certain nodes in the Runemaster tree, it also scales Crit chance and cooldown!
Put 1/8 inElementalist, and 1/8 inScholar, then jump to 5-6Arcane Flames. This enables any hit to ignite surrounding enemies, and give fire hit a 5% damage multiplier. And finally, finish with 5/10 Knowledge of Destruction for an extra Crit multiplier on hits.
Once you reachThe End of Timeand get to master the Runemaster class, you start investing in this tree. We will spend a lot of our points here, and we will find very good stats.
5/6Unsealed Manais where we should start, for mana and cast speed. Plus there is a bonus from 5 points that gives a burst of mana and ward. This bonus is hard to get from Frost Claw, as it needs zero-cost spells, so we only get it when using Runebolt. It makes Runebolt double down on mana generation, so it’s all good.
Take 8/8Arcane Focusfor more Intelligence and ward per spell cast, and 6/6Runeword: Cataclysmfor Crit chance. Runeword: Cataclysm is a 5-point bonus that gives a straight 15% damage multiplier to enemies below 35% health. Then we get more ward and health from 6/8Transcendence.
6/6Edict of the Scionis the biggest source of wards in our build so far, as it grants 36 wards per rune per area skill cast. Frost Claw is an area skill, and the high cooldown of Rune Invocation allows us to have 3 runes for almost 100% of the time. So this way, every cast of Frost Claw is done with three runes, and grants 108 Wards! We can cast multiple Frost Claws per second, depending on the cast speed.
There are a lot of other good nodes in the Runemaster tree, but we get even more potent ones from some of the Sorcerer tree. This would be the time to grab them.
8/8Calculated Destructionis a source of Intelligence, and Crit Chance is based on total Intelligence. If you manage to get 80 Intelligence for example, this node gives 240% increased Crit chance. This helps Frost Claw get a near-guaranteed crit.
Next is 5/5Arcane Momentum, and 8/8Essence of Celerityfor a 25% Cast speed, 80% Spell damage, and 10% movement Speed.
Finally, we have a choice for the last 6 points (if we reach level 100). We may grab a 1/5 inPyromancer, and 5/5Lavamancerin Sorcerer Tree for Fire penetration, but at the cost of gaining health, which reduces ward generation.
Another option is putting them in the base Mage tree to getKnowledge of Destructionto 10/10. This is a decent option, but risks overcapping Crit Chance.
Finally, the last option is to put them anywhere in the Runemaster tree. This could go intoCelestial Doomto deal a bit more damage in general and to gain a damage multiplier against branded bosses. We can apply Brand from Frost Wall, but it’s not easy against highly mobile bosses.
In this section we’ll be covering the type of equipment that you want to aim for in this Last Epoch Runemaster Build, and what stats you need on them.
The first thing you’ll want is a good weapon that ideally gives nice stats. The best stat for this Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build isIncreased Fire Damage, as it gets to increase both direct spell hits and Ignite damage. As well asIncreased Spell Crit Chance. For this reason, the best weapon to use in our build is theWandandCatalyst. There are several good base weapons to craft:
You can settle on any base, and aim to craft the best sub-stats possible. For Wand, there are no great suffixes to roll, so we focus mainly on maximizing the output from the Prefixes. The following Prefixes are in order from highest damage impact to lowest:
You can’t get more than two Prefixes, so we try to get the top two and max them to tier 5. However, if we get an exalted item with exalted tier (T6 ~ T7) Prefix from the lower damage ones, it’s most likely viable to use.
For suffixes, the most useful ones areChance to Ignite on Hit.Followed by chance to chill and chance to blind But they are not necessary.
The best stats we may get from off-hand are the Ward-related stats. There’s one Catalyst that has two ward stats:
Note that other Catalysts with mana gained as ward is weaker, because Ward retention is much more impactful.
Off-hand Catalysts can roll most stats similar to Wands, so you can get Cast Speed, Crit and Spell Crit, Fire Damage and Spell Damage. So use the same logic for prefixes.
On suffixes however, Catalysts roll an extra modifier, which are resistances and Ward per second. So make sure to get these.
For Armour stats, we have these priorities by endgame:
That covers most stats you need for a Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build, leaving only a few ones to pick from other sources. For example, Mana gained as a ward comes from some item bases, such as theRuned VisageHelmet base, theWarding ScrollRelic base, andArcane Bootsbase. Or it can gained from Unique items such as theStrands of SoulsUnique Belt, andLast Steps of the LivingUnique Boots.
Last Steps of the Living Boots alongside Exsanguinous Body Armour gives very potent Ward gain. Between them combined, you lose 35% of current health per second, and gain 35% of the missing heath as ward per second. The degeneration reaches a very low point and matches life generation, so you stop losing health at around 2-5% HP. The Ward gain becomes insane, as you gain an amount equal to 95-98% of health per second. For example, at 1000 health, and if your heath loss stops at 50 health, you gain 950 ward per second!
You can further increase this through getting an experimental mod on gloves that drain additional health, and gain additional ward.
For other bases, you may useNoble Glovesfor Cast speed,Bronze Beltfor Armour, andRuby Ringfor Fire damage increase. As for Amulet, I prefer usingOracle Amuletfor damage reduction on DoTs.
There are more potent mods that can only be gained from Idols. For example, we need mana efficiency and elemental penetration for Frost Claw, which comes from Ornate Idol. That’s why I prefer using this setup:
You can get these unique stats from idols, so pick idols that have one prefix and one suffix from the list:
Last Epoch Fire Claw Runemaster Build is an easy build to fulfil most offensive and defensive requirements for a farming build. It can kill bosses as well as clear intense waves of enemies. It can do most Monolith mods without issue. This build has huge effective hit points, and can even survive some one-hit mechanics. When the ward range becomes low, it will suddenly gain a huge increase in ward, so it’s harder to die from several small hits.
It doesn’t rely a lot on Unique items, besides a couple of ones that are not hard to get, so it can work as a starter build.
You can use this Fire Claw build with hit-and-run tactics, or you can stand your ground by casting infinitely making the build quite versatile. For me, it’s the most stable build I’ve played, while still being fun and effective.
For more Last Epoch Builds be sure to check out nextLast Epoch Necromancer Build Guide: Flame WraithandLast Epoch Druid Build Guide: Physical Spriggan.
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