The arrival of Last Epoch Patch 1.1 adds a ton of new and improved content to the game. Among them, Nemesis is the new boss system implemented in Harbingers of Ruin update. What’s more, the update also introduces Cycle 2, which means that all players must create new characters in order to participate in the content.

Don’t worry, though. In this guide, we’ll go into detail about how this Nemesis Boss System works, what items players can get as rewards from it, and which Harbingers of Ruin builds players can choose to succeed in the new cycle. Without further ado, let’s get straight to it!

How Does Nemesis System Work?

As a new boss type, Nemesis is a challenging enemy with its own new loot system.

Throughout Campaign and Monolith of Fate maps, players will have the opportunity to fight one of these new bosses. Nemesis is somewhere between the difficulty of a normal enemy type and a Pinnacle Boss.

Since it can take a long time for new players to become strong enough to fight a Pinnacle Boss, the developers wanted to provide a challenge they would also see in regular play. What’s more, the fight with Nemesis is optional for players, and they can choose to ignore it if they don’t feel they are strong enough to defeat them.

Loot Drops

When players interact with a Nemesis found in Last Epoch, they will be shown the loot that will drop after they are defeated. Players will see three new loot options added in Harbingers of Ruin Cycle update. 

Banish

If the player chooses Banish option, the fight will be ignored. This will be your first choice, especially if your build is not strong enough to defeat Nemesis. However, when you have the right gear and skill points, choosing one of the other two options will have more benefits.

Challenge

When the player wishes to fight Nemesis, they will choose Challenge option. This option will initiate a boss fight, causing Nemesis to attack the player. If the player successfully defeats the challenged Nemesis, they will be rewarded with the loot shown to them before the fight.

Empower

If Empower option is chosen, Nemesis boss fight will be exactly the same difficulty as Challenge option. However, the slight difference is that once Nemesis is defeated by the player, they will disappear and can be fought again later at a higher power level.

Note that when Empower is chosen, Nemesis will not drop loot for the first defeat. However, when it is encountered and defeated a second time, it will drop enhanced loot.

Loot enhanced in this way may result in better Affix Tiers, Forging Potential, or Legendary Potential. You’ll also have the opportunity to gain upgrades that weren’t previously available in Last Epoch, such as Tier 6 and 7 Item Affixes, through these loot.

Best Build Choices

Given the complexity of the different skills and passives, it's hard to decide which builds to choose when you’re ready to take on Nemesis. To help players find the right choice, we’ve listed some of the best builds to try. Don’t forget to stock up on Last Epoch Gold if you want to get the most out of these builds!

Avalanche Shatter Shaman

Avalanche Shatter Shaman is a brand new build for Last Epoch Cycle 2. This is a powerful setup that will allow you to complete all of the early game content with a very simple play style. It’s recommended for both new and returning players.

This Shaman build relies on using Avalanche skill to activate Unyielding Storm and Excavation Passives. Activating these Passives will automatically cast your Upheaval skill four times in a row, giving you massive single target and AOE damage.

Mana Stacking Meteor Sorcerer

Mana Stacking Meteor Sorcerer build is great for new players just starting out with Harbingers of Ruin. It’s an easy build to learn, especially if you haven’t unlocked Last Epoch upgrade path and need to go through the major story.

This build uses Meteor as the source of almost all of its damage. In the past, Meteor was difficult to use because of its high mana cost, but the new passive has fixed that. The strongest synergy with this build is the new Archmage Passive, which makes up for Meteor’s high mana cost and allows for multiple consecutive casts.

Mana Lightning Sorceror

Mana Lightning Sorceror is also a standout because it requires almost no input if played correctly. Its auto-bombing style attacks also make it good at AOE damage.

Its two main abilities are Static Orb and Lightning Blast, which work together to create a lightning blast field around your character. By investing skill points into a Cloud Answer node, your Lightning Blasts can apply Spark Charges to anything they hit. These charges will cause your enemies to explode and spread damage to all monsters around them.

To make this build as powerful as possible, you will also need two Legendary items. The first item is a Fragment of the Enigma, an Off-Hand Catalyst. The second is Triboelectra, a new Wand added in Patch 1.1.

Avalanche Storm Bolt Shaman

Avalanche Storm Bolt Shaman is a simple and safe build that can be used until the end of the new patch.

Avalanche will become your primary skill. It synergizes with Maelstrom and also grants Storm Stacks when used. When you consume Storm Stacks with this build, you will have the opportunity to cast Maelstrom for free, which will greatly enhance your physical damage.

All skills and their passives will automatically work together, making your Avalanche an unstoppable and powerful skill for both AOE and single target.

Spark Charge Runemaster

Spark Charge Runemaster is unique because it can make up for the nerf to Sorcerer in Patch 1.1 update. It can give itself Lightning Aegis by using Static Orbs. And this build also stacks additional damage reduction, allowing you to safely focus on attacking.

Its key skill is Elemental Nova, a sendable AOE that can be used against all types of enemies. This build can use different legendary items such as Mad Alchemist’s Ladle and Prismatic Gaze to make it more powerful, but these are not absolutely necessary.

That’s all we know about Nemesis Boss system in Harbingers of Ruin update. I believe the arrival of this new mechanism will bring new fun to your open world journey! Have a nice day!

With the release of Last Epoch Patch 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin, some players have already started to experience the new challenges and new game mechanics in the new patch. From the new Evade Skill to the bosses and encounters of additional Harbingers and Nemesis, there is a lot of new content for players to explore slowly.

This guide will take a detailed look at some of the new content added in Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin and explain how the new game mechanics work. In addition, this update also makes several changes to skills and passive abilities. Let’s take a look!

New Contents

Starting A New Cycle

As of the day before the official release, Last Epoch has officially started a new cycle. This means that all of your existing characters will be classified as “Legacy” characters, and any shared storage associated with these characters will be moved to the old version.

The good news is that the items can be taken out by any character with the same optional challenge set, and the items can be retrieved, but it should be noted that you cannot add new items to it.

Essentially, characters from the previous cycle will retain all the access they had before, just moved to Legacy. So you need to create a new character to participate in the current cycle.

It is important to note that your legacy characters will still have a normal storage room that can be used to store and access items, but if your storage room is related to the optional challenge set of the previous cycle, it can only be removed.

Harbingers Of Ruin

Harbingers of Ruin is not only the name of the new patch but also the new enemies that will appear after you defeat any of the timeline bosses in any of 10 Monolith Timelines. These powerful timeline bosses absorb the power of the supreme boss that spawned them, and will drop Harbinger Eyes when defeated.

It is important to note that each Harbinger is guaranteed to drop Harbinger Eyes the first time it is defeated, but it is not guaranteed to drop Harbinger Eyes after that. If you just want to enjoy the battle, you can turn off Harbingers in Boss Rewards Echo Panel.

Nemesis Encounters

Another new enemy type you encounter in Harbingers of Ruin is Nemesis. They are initially found floating on the bodies of people killed by Harbinger, and can be found in any Campaign or Monolith of Fate.

When you approach these remains, you’ll be presented with a window that shows a list of loot you can get from Nemesis, which includes Last Epoch Gold and some special items. In addition to this, it will give you three options - Banish Nemesis, Challenge Nemesis, and Empower Nemesis.

Of the three options, the third one is probably the most confusing - why would you want to empower Nemesis? Don’t worry, I’ll explain it to you.

Empowering Nemesis means that the next time you encounter Nemesis, you may encounter the same Nemesis, but it will appear as a time rift instead of a corpse next to the armor. In addition, it will provide higher Affix Tiers, Forging Potential, or Legendary Potential for your loot.

Nemesis will sometimes offer you Egg of Forgotten as loot. Whether you drop a Nemesis or empower it, it will become random loot, and you can replace it with a unique item that is exclusive to you, but it will lack a bit of legendary potential. If you choose to empower a Nemesis, you can turn it into legendary potential.

Evade

When you start Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin, all classes and their variants use Evade. Evade allows the character you control to leap a short distance to avoid powerful attacks from bosses and enemies.

Not only can Evade be used by all classes, but it can also be used at various levels, even from level 1. This makes it very easy to use for some new players. It also has two chances to recharge, only a 4-second cooldown, and most importantly, it doesn’t consume any mana.

As your character level increases, the cooldown of Evade gradually decreases at a rate of 0.5% per level. However, this does not mean that the use of Evade is mandatory for all builds. A build with high mobility may not need Evade. But many players prefer stronger movement abilities, and some high-level players are not satisfied with the mobility of high mobility builds, so the developers created Evade.

Gameplay Changes

Boss Changes

In previous games, bosses gained variable damage reduction in damage taken from you, which has now been replaced by Ward Breakpoints. Each boss has a little breakpoint on their health bar, and once these breakpoints are reached, the boss gains Wards based on their maximum health.

Wards decrease over time, but otherwise function the same way as the player’s Ward. Most bosses have two Ward Breakpoints, but some major bosses may have more.

Additionally, bosses will receive 50% more effective health for Stun and Freeze Effects you cast, and Freeze Chance will also take Ward into account.

Ward Changes

The player’s Ward is calculated using a different formula than before, in order to balance builds that provide players with less Ward, while also suppressing any abnormal values ​​that generate numerous wards very quickly.

After learning about these new contents and changes, are you eager to enter Last Epoch Patch 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin to find out? I hope you can have fun in the new patch!

No matter what game you play, the mention of Necromancers always brings to mind a densely packed undead army that obeys your every command, and Last Epoch is no exception. In a game that really loves to give you pets, you can use Necromancers to manipulate golems, wraiths, zombies, shades, and oodles and oodles of skeletons.

But because you need to command your undead army, you may not have the same relaxing leisure time as players with other builds. Necromancers can be as hands-on in battle as other Acolyte subclasses, only with bigger cheers and thick bloody chaos.

This guide will cover the detailed strategies and skills of Necromancers in Last Epoch, so that you can get a head start in Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin when it officially releases on July 10.

Necromancer Strategy

You can think of Necromancers as the least relevant of the other Last Epoch builds. It is built by filling every skill slot with summons, and you only need to invest in minions to increase their health and damage.

Combined with your high Intelligence attribute, you will cultivate your undead army into an invincible force, which is something that other builds simply cannot do. In addition, you will also have a few spells at your disposal, some of which will deal partial damage to enemies, some will increase the damage of minions, and even summon more undead to help you.

When building your Necromancer, you need to pay attention to each item that can provide a customized share of your spell damage. Almost all Acolyte and Necromancer skills can provide you with percentage-based increases, so you should try to increase your base damage first.

In addition, when in the Imperial Age, you will find that your minions look exactly like the enemies you encounter. But the good news is that you can’t cause damage to your allies in Last Epoch, so you don’t have to worry about hurting your minions until they win.

Necromancer Skills

Another benefit of Necromancer is that you don’t need to re-spec. In fact, you get one of your main damage spells, Rip Blood, right from the moment you select Necromancer.

This spell may not seem very useful at first, but as you progress to the later stages of the game, it becomes a powerful shotgun for clearing out large groups of enemies and restoring health. This also means you’ll have a ton of loot that’s very easy to pick up, including Last Epoch Gold.

Another reason that really makes this build popular with most players is Bone Curse, which curses the enemy, causing it to take more damage based on your spell damage. This means that your minions will get the same damage to enemies as you do, and essentially make your minions contribute to your spell damage stats.

Summon Skeleton will provide you with most of the undead army, while Summon Bone Golem will only provide you with a very powerful minion.

When you encounter a boss that will use a powerful area spell to wipe out your minions, this powerful minion will not fall down, which can help you prolong the fight and even turn the tide.

Additionally, Transplant allows you to quickly escape from the battlefield and avoid danger using positioning or movement spells. Similarly, Bone Curse and Transplant can be used by your minions, so don’t feel sorry for missing out on other summoning skills.

Acolyte Passives

There are many ways to make Acolyte easy. First, as before, you need to maximize Forbidden Knowledge, which will increase the overall stats of you and your minions. In addition, Blood Aura can deal more extra damage to everyone.

Investing a point in Mania of Mortality, Stolen Vitality, Crimson Gluttony, and Unnatural Preservation will give you higher defensive stats. If you feel that your Necromancer is dying too easily, you may want to try this method and improve it later.

If you don’t want to change your defensive stats, you can increase your health by Stolen Vitality and Crimson Gluttony.

Necromancer Passives

Once you become a Necromancer, you will immediately get another skeleton to join your skeletal army. You can then make your army more powerful by maximizing Risen Army to increase the attack speed and damage of the entire army.

Additionally, Cursed Blood increases the physical damage to you and your minions. You can invest 6 points into this skill. If you have points to spare, invest 1 into Blood Armour, 5 into Mortal Tether, and finally 1 into Unbound Necromancy. This will give you an extra skeleton, which means you can deal more damage to enemies.

If you just want to increase the base damage of your minions, you can invest all 8 points into Unearthed Arms and 5 into Frantic Summons. This will increase the overall speed of your minions. If you also invest 5 points into a River of Bones, their critical chance will be doubled.

During the game, you will gain Intelligence from Heresy. You may have already completed the game before maxing Cursed Blood, but if not, remember to max it.

After learning about the strategies and skills of Necromancers, are you looking forward to the Last Epoch Harbingers of Ruin, which will officially start on July 10? Looking forward to your new experience!