Last Epoch: Best Acolyte builds and skills
Learn the best builds and skills for the Acolyte class in Last Epoch
Wondering what the best Acolyte skills and builds are in Last Epoch? The Acolyte class in Last Epoch is for those who aren't afraid to challenge the powers of life and death - or rather undeath. If you've ever played an undead summoner in any other ARPG, you have some idea of what to expect here. Lots of henchmen skeletons and spirits are waiting for you, and Acolytes even possess the ability to morph into a deadly version of the Grim Reaper!
That said, it can be tricky to determine whether you'd rather unleash a hex on your nearest enemy or open a rift in the ground to send them straight to the Underworld. There are quite a lot of creepy options at your disposal when studying the Acolyte's three Masteries: the Lich, the Necromancer, and the Warlock. But thankfully, we've done this frightening work for you, and below you'll find our favourite builds for each of these Masteries, along with the right Skills, Specialization Tree nodes, and Passives to select for each. Read on, and pretty soon the horrors of the great beyond will be at your beck and call.
In this guide:- Last Epoch Best Acolyte Lich build
- Last Epoch Best Acolyte Necromancer build
- Last Epoch Best Acolyte Warlock build
Last Epoch Best Acolyte Lich build
The Lich is an Acloyte who doesn't fear their potentially corrupting magicks - rather, they relish in these forbidden skills and have progressed so far in their studies that they can turn into the Grim Reaper and deplete their own health in the pursuit of greater power. The Harvest Lich is an excellent Lich build for this Mastery, since it has great movement and traversal as well as stellar DPS potential, especially when facing large bosses. Get started by Specializing in the following Skills and Passives.
Bone Curse
Bone Curse is a reliable long-term Skill that gives an enemy a curse for 8 seconds. Hit the enemy when the curse is active, and watch them suffer the consequences. You can steadily build on Bone Curse, making the curse last longer, affect more enemies, and cause different types of damage.
After you've Specialized in this nefarious hex, pour points into Conflation to spread Bone Curse to a wider area. Follow up with Defile Defenses, which gives Bone Curse a chance to reduce enemy armour. From there, it's a matter of choosing which way you want your curse to fall - I like to go for Marrow Thief and Bone Feast, which give your Acolyte a chance to gain handy Bone Armor after killing a foe suffering from Bone Curse. You can also work your way towards Bitter Winter if you like the idea of freezing your cursed foes.
Death Seal
Death Seal is a Skill for those who like to gamble on death's door. It seals your Acolyte's health, preventing it from going above its current value for five precious seconds. During that time, you can deal damage equal to your missing health and take less damage. This Skill can also be used to shoot off a wave of death dealing damage all at once.
This is obviously a risky Skill to Specialize in, but a calm Lich who masters it is a force to be reckoned with. On the Death Skill Specialization Tree, you're going to want to max out Corrupted Consciousness, Desperate Shroud, and finally Deadlock to amplify damage even further and grant yourself extra armour, ensuring that you don't accidentally bite the bullet before seeing Death Seal to its end.
Harvest
Welcome to your main method of attack; this is the Harvest Lich build after all! Harvest nicely sweeps through all enemies in front of you and will deal extra damage to those who are cursed. Aren't you glad you took Bone Curse?
On the Harvest Specialization Tree, take the Great Scythe node to deal more damage in a larger area and Harrowing Blade to reduce enemy necrotic resistance with your successful hits. To continue building upon this Skill's synergy with Bone Curse, max out Symbol of Loss next.
Reaper Form
It's time to assume the form of the reaper of souls and slash the life out of anything that dares to challenge you! In my mind, this is one of the coolest Skills in all of Last Epoch, simply for the sheer novelty of becoming the Grim Reaper. Of course, there's a trade-off, and your health will decay over time. Once you hit 0, you're back to normal human form.
You can make the most of your eldritch transformation by putting all the points you can into Reaper's Curse, which ups damage and increased critical strike chance. Mistress of Decay, Swift Harbinger, and Soul Shroud are also all handy for ensuring that every second of your reaping time counts.
Transplant
All of the builds listed here use Transplant to some extent, because it's the best movement Skill that the Acolyte has at their disposal. It's also very cool - activate it to teleport to a new body and detonate your old one for a brief blitz of physical damage. Since Transplant uses health instead of mana, it's an appropriate inclusion for the Lich build.
Take the Fleeting Form and Acolyte's Fervor nodes to gain increased cast and cooldown recovery speed for Fleeting Form, along with Haste and Frenzy for a brief duration. Then, work your way towards Bone Armor and Apostasy, which both work well alongside the Bone Armor you can gain from your Bone Curse Skill.
Passives
To maximise your potential with the Harvest Lich build, we recommend the following Passives:
- Acolyte Passives: Take Forbidden Knowledge and Stolen Vitality. You may also want to put some points into Bone Aura to increase your Lich's survivability.
- Lich Passives: There are tonnes of possible Passives to take here, as you might imagine. My favourites are Dance With Death and Grasp of Fate for better damage, Deathbringer for superior crit chances, Necrotic Energy for adding necrotic effects to spells and Three Plagues for physical, nectrotic, and poison penetration. It's also worth maximising all the Passives that boost your Intelligence, like Apocrypha.
- Necromancer Passives: You're not a minion-user with this Acolyte build, so the only Necromancer skill worth taking is Elixir of Hunger.
- Warlock Passives: You can take Spiteful Decay or Soul Stealer if you want to deal more damage to cursed enemies or pull mana from them, but overall, the Warlock's Passives aren't a priority.
Last Epoch Best Acolyte Necromancer build
It's not always worth it to wade into battle, and with this Skeletal Mage Necromancer build, you'll find that it's much more fun to manifest a bunch of bony spellcasters who can fling magic on your behalf. In other words, this is the perfect build for a mage who'd rather sit back and let their army do the tough stuff.
Chaos Bolts
Chaos Bolts fires an array of twisting projectiles all around the Acolyte, dealing necrotic and fire damage. This is a great offensive spell that becomes even better when you realise that you can customise it to empower your skeletal mages.
To do so, you're going to want to veer towards the right side of the Chaos Bolts Specialization Tree - specifically Mana Anarchy and Revolution. Ensure that both nodes are filled out, and you'll find that your Chaos Bolts consume more mana, deal more damage, and also empower your minions with additional spell damage and increased casting speed.
Dread Shade
Dread Shade is a useful trade-off used to empower your minions by draining their health slightly in favour of amplified necrotic attack and casting damage. This is a vitally important Skill to ensure that your skeletal goons stay in the fight.
The Lingering Doom node is a good starting choice to make your minions' health drain more slowly. Following that, go for All For One and Egoism to increase damage and crit chance. Dying Coven and Flesh Harvest are also good nodes that respectively increase attack and cast speed along with the general buffs conferred by Dread Shade.
Infernal Shade
The icon for Infernal Shade shows a skull on fire, and that's what this Skill does. Basically, you turn your enemies into Ghost Rider by sticking a shade on them that steadily burns for the next five seconds.
The nodes you should prioritise for Infernal Shade are Influence and Fanning the Flames, both of which make this Skill deal damage in a larger area. I'm also partial to Devour in Flames, Subjugation, Soulfire, and Manic Pyre to boost the strength of your fire shades just a little bit more.
Transplant
The Skeletal Mage Necromancer might be a bit squishy, which is what happens when you play a class that leaves the bulk of fighting up to their summons. Transplant is thus an essential Skill to ensure that your Acolyte can dart out of the way when mobs get too close.
Fleeting Form and Acolyte's Fervor are vital for increased cast and cooldown recovery speed. along with Haste and Frenzy for a brief duration. Bone Armor and Apostasy are both good picks, and you may also want to take Reign of Blood and Violent Emergence to cause explosions every time you Transplant for a little extra safety insurance.
Summon Skeletal Mage
As you might have guessed, Summon Skeletal Mage is the cornerstone of this build. By default, you can have a maximum of two skeletal mages running around at once, casting Dread Bolt at everything in sight - though there are some options to tweak this in the Specialization Tree.
Would you rather have two skeletons with decent abilities, or one really big skeleton with beefier stats? That's the question to consider as you choose your nodes. If you'd rather go for one bony fellow, then take the Archmage node, which gives your single mage much more health and damage and lets them fire twice the number of Dread Bolt blasts. You can amplify this singular skeleton's skillset with Forbidden Arcana and Splintered Dominion, which are fine choices even if you'd rather stick to the default of two skeletal mages. Celer Mortis and Grey Merchant are also must-haves for improving critical strike chance, critical multipliers, and move speed.
Passives
To maximise your potential with the Skeletal Mage Necromancer build, we recommend the following Passives:
- Acolyte Passives: Make sure Forbidden Knowledge is filled out, and then do the same for Dark Ritual to make your minions stronger. It's also worth putting a point or three into Mania of Mortality and Unnatural Preservation.
- Lich Passives: The only Necromancer Passive that'll help this build is Apocrypha - the others are too reliant on decreasing your health for additional damage.
- Necromancer Passives: Lots to choose from here. Take Grave Thorns to increase health, armour, and reflected damage for your skeletal mages. Follow up with Cursed Blood and Aegisfall for all-around attack boosts and the great ability to shred armour on a hit. On the other side of the Passive Tree, there are a whole slew of Passives you'll want to max out to make your Necromancer unstoppable, and these include Frantic Summons, River of Bones, Moonlight Pyre, Tyrant, Rite of Undeath, and finally Blades of the Forlorn.
- Warlock Passives: Spiteful Decay and Occultist's Mind are worth picking up for increased damage over time and more intelligence.
Best Acolyte Warlock build
The Warlock is an Acolyte Mastery that's all about summoning spirits and forcing them to inflect long-lasting curses on your foes that deal damage over time. The Torment Warlock Acolyte build outlined below is a particularly effective option for slowly sapping the resources and lifeblood of your opponents in a most satisfying manner, ensuring that you're the last one standing on a bed made out of their corpses.
Chthonic Fissure
This will be your primary attack spell. Cthonic Fissure opens up a sickly green rift in the ground, inflicting fire damage to foes atop it and sending out spirits to feast on their bones. The spirits deal Torment, a curse that slows and causes necrotic damage over time.
I recommend filling out the Fragile Crust node to make this Skill cost less mana, and then putting points into a smattering of Skills from the left side of the Cthonic Fissure Specialization Tree. For instance, Eradication to deal more damage to rare enemies and bosses, and Damned Waters to make your spirits inflict the Damned ailment.
Profane Veil
Profane Veil cloaks your Warlock in a sheen of energy that pierces surrounding foes with necrotic damage. It's a great Skill for dodging hits (though by default, you can still take damage over time from ailments and other debuffs), and is superb for those moments with your Acolyte needs to slip through a fray of attackers and pop out the other side.
To reduce those pesky damage over time effects, take the Spirit Plate node. Seance is also a necessary choice for this build, as it'll create great synergy with Wandering Spirits (outlined below). Basically, whenever one of your Wandering Spirits comes into contact with your Profane Veil, the spirit will do much more damage.
Spirit Plague
Specialise in Spirit Plague for your own damage over time effect. This handy curse generates necrotic damage on a target over three seconds before jumping to another foe once the first target dies.
Your goal with the nodes in the Spirit Plague Specialization Tree should be to ensure that your plague keeps growing in size and potency. This means putting points into Pleague Bearer, Rotten to the Core, Concentrated Rot and Exsanguination. It's all a little disturbing, being a distributor of disease and all that, but you didn't become a Warlock to keep people healthy.
Transplant
As with the other builds in this guide, Transplant will be your movement go-to. Need to get into an advantageous position to rip open the ground with Chthonic Fissure? Hoping to target a slippery enemy with Spirit Plague? Use Transplant, and be there in an instant.
Acolyte's Fervor and Fleeting Form are both good nodes to fill out in the Transplant Specialization Tree, and consider investing in Anemia, Bone Armor, Plated Bone, and Apostasy to keep your Warlock healthy and sturdy in the field, even as they inflict waves on sickness on everyone else.
Wandering Spirits
Wandering Spirits is perhaps my favourite Skill out of this build. It does exactly what it says on the tin, setting free a group of spirits that swirls about you for six seconds, wrecking anything in your path. This Skill will be another of your main methods of assaulting enemies, and works excellently with Profane Veil, which buffs all your spirits to increase their potential as death-dealing chaos shades.
Take Spirit Swarm to give Wandering Spirits a shorter cooldown, and then Terrifying Presence and False Courage to ensure that your spirits inflict fear on foes. I've also found Familiar Souls useful if you want a more concentrated burst of spirits to spiral around you, Lingering Souls for making your spirits last longer in general, and Reap the Damned for granting your spirits the ability to deal more damage to cursed and damned enemies.
Passives
To maximise your potential with the Torment Warlock build, we recommend the following Passives:
- Acolyte Passives: Get Bone Aura and Forbidden Knowledge first and foremost. Then you can put a point or two into Mania of Mortality, but don't go overboard, since your priority should be maxing out Unnatural Preservation.
- Lich Passives: Apocrypha is very useful for the increase to your intelligence stat and mana regen. You can safely ignore the other Passives here.
- Necromancer Passives: The Necromancer Passive Tree isn't really worth bothering with, unless you want to experiment with Elixir of Hunger for additional health and some increased attack speed.
- Warlock Passives: Generally, you're going to want passives that amplify intelligence and increase the power of your curses. This means Unholy Torment and Occultist's Mind, Malefic Body, Encroaching Darkness and Duskbringer. To make your Warlock a little hardier, Harrowing Armor and Dark Protections are good, and it's also worthwhile investing in Doom Herald.
That finishes our look at the best builds available for the undead-summoning necrotic goth that is the Acolyte. For more on all the class options available to you in Last Epoch, keep an eye on Rock Paper Shotgun in the coming days as we proceed to delve into the spell-slinging Mage, the brutal Primalist, the shifty Rogue, and the noble Sentinel.