Last Epoch News

Happy Sunday, Travelers! Welcome to the 0.9.2 Pre-patch Blog Post covering the new Rune Prisons and Experimental Items coming this Thursday in Runes of Power!

An area we’ve felt is in need of improvement with respect to Last Epoch’s endgame system is the moment-to-moment gameplay of completing Echoes. This isn’t something we feel can be fixed by any single change, however we’re still looking to improve this aspect of gameplay piece by piece. By introducing more random events that can happen in an Echo, it can help to reduce the ‘sameness’ of each Echo, and feel like a much more dynamic experience. The first random encounter we’re introducing this Thursday is Rune Prisons.



Rune Prisons are a special type of encounter you can find in any Monolith Echo, as well as most campaign areas. While making your way through the world and Eras of Eterra, you may find yourself coming across a large floating prism held in place with chains. The intermittent shudders betray the power that lies within these prisons.



By clicking on a Rune Prison, you will unleash the Exiled Mage held within, who will become immediately hostile to both you and any enemies in the area. These Exiled Mages will spawn with a random set of abilities, so you never quite know exactly what you will be facing when you break them out - but always be ready for a fight.



If you manage to defeat this Exiled Mage, you will be rewarded with an Experimental item, and potentially, at higher levels, a Rune of Research.



Experimental Items are a new class of items being introduced in Runes of Power. These are items which at first glance may appear to be a standard Magic, Unique, or Exalted item. However on closer inspection you’ll notice they come with a very special affix. These Experimental Affixes cannot by crafted or found through normal means, and are typically only found on items dropped by an Exiled Mage.



These experimental affixes can even roll exalted, as well as the potential for other affixes on the item to roll as Exalted. This means that yes, you can in fact craft a Legendary Item using Experimental Affixes!

At higher levels, you may also find a very special crafting item dropped by an Exiled Mage: a Rune of Research.



Successfully defeating an Exiled Mage above level 70 has a chance to drop a Rune of Research. This Rune will seal an Experimental Affix on an Experimental item. This obeys normal Sealed Affix rules, in that an item can only have one Sealed Affix.



When sealing an experimental affix through the use of a Rune of Research, you have a chance to receive a particularly powerful crafting item, a Glyph of Insight. When this glyph is used to upgrade a normal affix, it will change it into an Experimental Affix. This process is deterministic based on the item.



This means if you have two of the exact same item, it will always produce the same Experimental Affix. Determining what exactly an item needs for each possible Experimental Affix however is something that may require a bit of… experimentation.





That’s all for today’s Pre-Patch Blog Post taking a look at Rune Prisons, and we hope everyone’s excited for this entirely new type of item and crafting mechanic coming in just four more days on September 7th.

Join us again tomorrow for a look into One-shot Caches, Lost Caches, and some general improvements for Monolith Echoes coming in Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Welcome Travelers to the third Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, visual improvements, and quality of life features coming in Patch 0.9.2 on September 7th. This post is going to be quite a visual feast, so make sure you have your eyeballs ready for the images ahead!



With the recent complete overhaul of Chapter 1, we wanted to go back through some of the mid-game areas and apply our new tech and design principles. All zones in Chapter 6, most zones in Chapter 4, and several other hand-picked zones have had significant visual upgrades made to them.



Many of these areas have had completely new assets created for them such as siege weaponry for Osprix War Camps and new soul storage devices for the Immortal Empire. Many of these items not only improve the visuals of the area, but also work to create additional immersion as each of these custom crafted items also have a purpose and intent.



These changes help us bring Eterra as a whole up to our latest standards in preparation for 1.0. Our goal with many of these changes is not just to beautify these areas, but also to help bolster the unique distinctions between both different Eras and Zones. Time travel is a core part of Last Epoch, and so it’s even more important to have distinct visual traits and variety to help reinforce the difference between the Eras. These visual updates make many of these areas feel like entirely new maps to play through.







Alongside Zones, a number of enemies are getting visual updates as well in 0.9.2. For those that keep close track of our teasers on our weekly Dev Streams, we teased this duo’s art a while back, and they’ll be two of the new Enemy Models arriving in Runes of Power!

[h2]Soul Cage[/h2]



[h2]Soul Warden[/h2]



[h2]Don’t be so shy you two![/h2]





[h2]In-game Bug Reporting[/h2]

One of the most frequently requested quality of life features is a way to be able to quickly and easily report bugs and provide feedback in-game. As of September 7th, this ability will be added to the game! On the Character select screen, as well as in the main menu, you can find a new “Report a Bug” button.



When you submit any bugs or feedback through this feature, you can automatically include a screenshot of your current game view, as well as your log files, for comprehensive review. We’re quite happy to finally have this feature in players’ hands, both to make it easier and more friendly for you to report issues. We’re looking forward to receiving more info and feedback on a range of issues so we can address them more quickly and efficiently with this new tool!

[h2]Town Functionality[/h2]

Earlier this week we re-enabled Town functionality live on all servers, allowing players to encounter other Travelers throughout Eterra in Towns. With this Town functionality, you’re able to connect with other players, form parties, or socialize, show off your latest legendary, and talk shop.

To make interaction in Towns a bit smoother, with Patch 0.9.2 we’re also adding the ability to right click players in Town to be able to interact with them. Using this interact menu, you can start a direct conversation, add to your friends list, send them a message, or if the need arises, block them.





Beta patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power is going to be adding twenty-one new Uniques to Eterra! With a new Mastery coming in, many of these will be aimed to support the Runemaster, however we haven’t completely forgotten other characters for this patch. Here’s a look at a few of the new Unique Items coming in just five more days! You can also find a few more Unique teasers by keeping an eye on other news such as from our Dev Streams, and videos.





With continuing visual enhancements across all of Last Epoch, as well as improving quality of life features, we’re making our way ever closer to 1.0. While still making sure we continue to add new ways to build and theory-craft in Last Epoch with an ever-expanding roster of Unique Items. In Last Epoch, gameplay, quality of life, and visual fidelity are held in balance to continue making the game as enjoyable as possible for everyone in our great community.

Thank you for joining us for Saturday’s Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power, and we’ll see you all again tomorrow to talk about Rune Prisons, Experimental Items, and Experimental Crafting!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to the Pre-Patch Blog Post for Frost Claw!

Frost Claw is being added as a new skill for the base Mage class. This is in addition to the 5 Runemaster skills, meaning there will be a total of 6 new skills being introduced in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power!

As we were developing Runemaster for the Mage, and began receiving early feedback, one of the most common responses was was the lack of a ‘spammable’ cold skill, particularly for use in generating Heo runes early. When we reviewed this feedback, we agreed that there needed to be an earlier access for the Runemaster to generate runes, as well as correcting the lack of a fast usage cold spell alongside Fireball and Lightning Blast. Because of this, we decided to address the gap within the Mage class in tandem with the release of Runemaster. Frost Claw helps to provide support for more elemental build options, supports all Mage Masteries, and is just plain fun.





Unlocked at level 12 for all Mages, Frost Claw fires three piercing cold projectiles in an arc, dealing damage to any enemies they pass through, and converging on the targeted location to create a burst of area damage on impact. With Fireball’s focus on damaging single enemies, and Lightning Blast’s ability to target multiple enemies, this left a space in between for an area damage based ability. As such, not only does Frost Claw take up the missing element, it also fits the middle ground between playstyles, adding a greater element of accuracy rewarding picking the right spot to deal damage to a number of enemies.

With its versatile design and ability to be quickly cast at high speeds with low cost, Frost Claw offers opportunities to be used by any of the three masteries. It can be specialized into Fire or Lightning in addition to the base cold, it can gain Melee Damage as Spell Damage, and can even be triggered automatically by melee attacks — allowing even further spell synergy with the Spellblade. Depending on how Frost Claw is specialized, it can also be set up as a zero cost skill, making it useful as a generator for other abilities.



Let’s take a look at a couple of the Transformative Nodes you will find on the Frost Claw tree!

[h2]On Through the Snow[/h2]



With On Through the Snow, you will enable Frost Claw to recast from the target location a second time behind the targeted location. This recast can hit the same enemies hit by the first cast, producing both increased targeted damage, as well as expanding the total area of effect of the ability as the new projectiles can also hit any enemies along their path.



[h2]Volley of Glass[/h2]



Looking for greater single target damage out of Frost Claw? Volley of glass removes the Area of Effect blast damage at the target location, but staggers each of the projectiles, allowing a single enemy to be hit by each one. This also lends Frost Claw to some very exciting ailment builds, so options are very open here.





Frost Claw is a perfect example of the importance and value of listening to feedback from the community. We want to provide a big thank you to everyone who helped us arrive at introducing Frost Claw to fill a much needed vacuum in the Mage Class, and provide an additional skill for everyone to enjoy in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power! With a total of six new abilities, with five in a completely new mastery coming to Mage in just six more days, it should be a great patch for theory-crafting builds!

Join us again tomorrow we’ll be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, continuing visual improvements, and quality of life updates coming to Last Epoch next week!

Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power releases in just 7 days! Over the next week we'll be going over all the big new features coming in Runes of Power leading up to the Patch Notes on September 5th. We'll be covering the next mastery to reach Eterra: The Runemaster, a new Base Mage Skill, Rune Prisons and Experimental Items, One-shot and Lost Caches, a new Crafting Mechanic, a peek at some new Unique Items, and more progress in our ongoing efforts to improve Last Epoch’s visuals!



We're exhausted. The good kind of exhausted that only whirlwind adventures can provide. In case you missed the news, last week we traveled to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom - the biggest stage in gaming. We were excited to introduce the Runemaster, who is featured in today's blog post, on that stage. For many of us it was the first time attending a convention of this scale and meeting each other face to face. We experienced the joy of those playing the game for the first time, we spoke in great depth with existing fans, and even strengthened our bonds as a team. We were honored to work (and play) alongside Maxroll ( Lonestar_McFluffin, Terek, and Lizard_IRL), Aaron ActionRPG, and Rhyyker. With their help we were able to show off Last Epoch to a whole new audience. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to them for making it a memorable Milestone in our history. We wish it could last forever, but the ephemeral nature of time is what makes those moments so special. Now with our eyes on the future, we are incredibly excited to bring you 0.9.2 - Runes of Power.





Seeing so many amazing fans show up to our booth in Germany is a perfect segue to our first feature to mention coming in Runes of Power - Localization. Patch 0.9.2 will be releasing translated into eight languages in addition to English: Simplified Chinese, French, German, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish!

We wanted to get localization into our community's hands before 1.0 so we could have time to get feedback from our global player base on it, and get it as clean as possible for 1.0. We are happy to say that we will be including this feature in patch 0.9.2. Our community has been the biggest part of what makes Last Epoch what it is from its very beginning, so being able to support an even larger community across the world is an amazing milestone to reach, and we're super excited to see all the new players joining the fray in Eterra.

We know there are a lot of intricacies in an ARPG where wording is critical and we want to make sure that comes across as much as possible for everyone in our community. We have been working closely with translators over the last year to make as many translations hit the mark as possible. We also know no one could know the subtleties and nuances of game mechanics better than our own players, and we look forward to continuing to improve localization in Last Epoch with help from all of you!



Of course, what we’re all excited about since the reveal at Gamescom - the Runemaster! The third and final Mage Mastery, and the latest Mastery to join the ranks, the Runemaster provides the greatest opportunity for customization and skill expression to date with Runic Invocation. With the Runemaster’s mastery skill, Runic Invocation, you will passively gain Runes each time you use an ability: Heo, Rah, And Gon runes, representing Cold, Fire, and Lightning respectively. At any point you can invoke these Runes using Runic Invocation to cast one of 40 different invocations based on which runes you have active, and in what order they were generated. The Runemaster also has the ability to generate, benefit from, and consume runes with other abilities depending on how you choose to specialize. The new Passive tree continues to build upon our latest passives designs with threshold nodes, and even new mechanics such as dynamic defensive stats.

As a savant, weaving the power of the raw arcane, infusing magic into offensive and protective wards, we wanted to create a class which could deliver a large depth of mechanical play. We felt this was a playstyle ripe for exploration within Last Epoch. One where in combat, each decision and ability used could impact the course of the fight individually, and create large payoffs for active decisions on controlling enemies and choosing how to approach a fight. With this in mind, the Runemaster offers several methods for area denial and enemy control with Frost Wall, Glyph of Dominion, and several of the available outcomes of Runic Invocation.



When we originally envisioned Runemaster, we had also looked at “Golems” as part of the Mastery, and we don’t want to leave out mentioning them. These weren’t to be traditional minions, but rather arcane constructs which could be invoked by the Runemaster. When designing the specific interactions and diving into the gameplay of Runemaster, we made the decision that the focus should be on the Runes and Area Control. With the amount of depth, and complexity already offering such a strong playstyle for Runemaster, we found having pseudo-minions muddled the gameplay of the mastery too greatly. That being said, we also didn’t want to leave out the theme of arcane constructs entirely, so you can still find ways to generate constructs as a Runemaster. Rune Bolt can create Runestones which automatically cast Runebolt for you, and the Hydrahedron Invocation creates a construct which lobs balls of molten fire at nearby enemies. These constructs act as an extension of yourself, scaling with your own stats rather than with Minion stats.

The goal with the Runemaster is to be easy to approach, and have a large amount of depth to master and power to wield. While Runemaster is designed to offer great depth in mechanical play opportunities, we also want to make sure that every mastery is still approachable and easy to get into. A good example of this is the Runemaster spell “Rune Bolt”, which casts piercing elemental projectiles. This spell supports being used to manipulate specific rune generation, while being powerful and versatile enough to be a primary ability on its own in a “low cost spam” setup. Whether you just want to quick-cast single elements for three of the same Rune, establish a specific pattern of Runes, or adapt your Rune usage on the fly to get the absolute most out of the Mastery, The Runemaster has you covered.

[h2]Runic Invocation[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Runemaster’s Mastery Skill, gained the moment you gain your Mastery, Runic Invocation is at the very heart of the class. By invoking Runic Invocation with any number of Runes generated from other elemental abilities, Runic Invocation will consume your current runes to cast one of its forty corresponding invocations.

Generate three Rah (Fire) Runes, and unleash Aergon’s Greater Fireball, creating a massive fiery explosion, dealing fire damage, and applying spreading flames to all enemies hit in a large area. By generating Rah, Gon, Heo (Fire, Lightning, Cold), you can invoke an Antipode of Mesembria, a rune stone which destabilizes over time eventually pulling in surrounding enemies followed by a massive explosion. Or perhaps a more defensive move is in order? Generate Heo, Rah, Heo (Cold, Fire, Cold), and surround yourself in an explosive shell of regenerating Ward with Reowyn’s Frostguard.



[h2]Flame Rush[/h2]

Flame Rush adds a new Traversal ability to the Mage’s Toolkit. Available to all masteries via the Runemaster passive tree, Flame Rush turns you into a hurling ball of fire, gaining damage reduction and exploding at the end of the movement. Channel the ability to its fullest and you’ll gain up to 150% increased area and damage when you release the ability.

As a Runemaster, you will generate Runes while channeling abilities, making you ready for the next Invocation once you arrive at your destination. Flame Rush can also be specialized to automatically trigger your invocation at the end of the traversal for a very impactful arrival. Flame Rush can also be converted to either Lightning or Cold, matching the elements you need for your build and giving the Runemaster greater control over Rune generation.



[h2]Frost Wall[/h2]

Frost Wall is the second ability you can unlock in the Runemaster tree, and alongside Flame Rush will be available to all Mage Masteries should they chose to invest in the Runemaster Tree. Frost Wall erects a sheet of chilling winds, freezing and dealing Cold Damage over Time to enemies which cross it. With Frost Wall, we aimed to reinforce the Runemaster’s ability to control enemies and aid allies with thoughtful positioning.

Frost Wall can be further specialized to apply beneficial effects to allies, or even to other spells passing through them. You can also convert Frost Wall to either Fire or Lightning to match your elemental style and provide their own positive effects, such as more damage over time. Frost wall offers extensive ways to control enemies and provide great payoffs for positioning.



[h2]Rune Bolt[/h2]

Rune Bolt is the Runemaster’s “bread and butter” spell. Rune Bolt allows you to steadily fire piercing projectiles of Cold, Fire, and Lightning, rotating through the elements. We wanted to offer all Runemasters a skill which was easy to get into, and fill the role of something that was “spammable”. With a low mana cost, ability to generate resources, and ability to generate all Rune Types, Rune Bolt provides a go-to ability for the Runemaster.

Within Rune Bolt’s Tree you can modify the ability to focus on its own projectiles - adding additional projectiles, making them home in on enemies, and even explode on contact dealing area damage. Alternatively, specialize Rune Bolt’s ability to generate runes and resources to make it a supporting skill for a larger build setup. Rune Bolt gives Runemaster many ways to control the flow of combat.



[h2]Glyph of Dominion[/h2]

The final skill unlocked as a Runemaster is Glyph of Dominion. Placing a growing rune on the ground, dealing damage over time, culminating in a large explosion dealing damage to all enemies within it, Glyph of Dominion allows you to punish enemy positioning. With Glyph of Dominion, we wanted to focus on the area denial aspect of the Runemaster.

To accomplish this, Glyph of Dominion can be specialized into taking greater advantage of enemies within it - dealing more damage to enemies that have shredded armor or are slowed, or adding a chance to stun enemies each second they are within it. You can also specialize to make Glyph of Dominion a haven for yourself and allies, offering defensive benefits such as ward generation, resistances, and even an additional 30% cast and attack area of effect while being dangerous for enemies to approach.

Our goal with this ability is for Runemasters to be able to either take advantage of enemies positioning, or empower their own positioning. With the Runes of Disintegration node you can also generate ward per second and gain more damage to Disintegrate for those wanting some more laser beam action.



[h2]A new Mage Skill?[/h2]

We’re extremely excited to get Runemaster into everyone’s hands on September 7th. With a whole new level of opportunity for mechanical play, we can’t wait to see what kinds of builds everyone manages to come up with. Alongside the new Mastery, making Last Epoch available to so many more players in their native language, means we have an opportunity to get feedback and continue building on Last Epoch for an even wider community!

Tomorrow we’ll be back looking at another, as yet unmentioned Mage Ability, which is going to be arriving with Patch 0.9.2 - Frost Claw! Until then, may Eterra watch over your travels.

We liked the action-RPG Last Epoch an awful lot when we most recently looked at it, calling its skill system "a brilliant new twist" on those offered by Diablo and Path of Exile. But that was in 2019, and we haven't heard anything from the game since—until tonight, when Judd Cobler, founder and CEO of developer Eleventh Hour Games, appeared on the stage at Gamescom's Opening Night Live to show off its upcoming Runes of Power update and the powerful new Runemaster mage class...
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