Last Epoch News

Hello Travelers,

Welcome to the second Pre-Patch Blog Post! Today we’re going to be highlighting some of the Quality of Life changes, as well as a few other changes, coming with the Last Epoch 1.1 : Harbingers of Ruin update on July 9th.

While we’ll be covering some hot topics today, fear not, the full Patch Notes will cover everything being added, changed, or fixed in 1.1! (*Looks at word count of the Patch Note post*) Make sure to set some time aside to read those.



In this section we’re covering some of the much requested quality of life updates to the most commonly used mechanics in game that should help Travelers as they progress through Eterra, even our Alt-oholics too!

[h2]Changes to Blessings[/h2]




Blessings can sometimes be a key piece in making a build come together. Getting just the right blessing setup with a good roll can take a while to farm. The prospect of giving that up to try out another build can be daunting enough to discourage experimentation. To remedy this situation, we have added the ability to quickly and easily change your blessings without losing progress.

You will now find an NPC in the End of Time next to the Monolith of Fate entrance. Similar to the Passive Respec NPC, for a small Gold fee this NPC will enable you to swap between the Blessings your character has earned, or the minimum rolled versions of blessings earned on your other characters in the same game mode!

Wait, like a Blessing Stash?




Yep! In 1.1, after defeating a Boss and unlocking new Blessings, all of those Blessing options will be saved to the Blessing Stash at their current roll values (if higher than previously earned versions). This includes the blessings which you do not select when you kill a monolith boss. You may then switch between any of these blessings without losing the roll values you earned.

For Alts, this means once you have defeated a Timeline, you will be able to swap out a Blessing you have earned with any Blessing from another character that it shares a stash with. Blessings earned on other characters will be usable at their minimum roll values until a better roll is unlocked on the alt character.

Pre-1.1 characters will have access to their non-equipped but discovered blessings as swap options saved at minimum roll. Any currently equipped blessings will persist as an option with its current roll saved.

For Example: If Character A has earned the Grand Cruelty of Formosus Blessing with a 68% Chance to Increase Wand Drop Rate, this will be saved to their Stash. Should they earn this Blessing again at a higher value, say 85%, but choose not to take the Blessing, it will be added to their Stash at the higher roll.

Once Character B (An Alt with access to the Stash) has defeated the required Blood, Frost, and Death Timeline, they will be able to equip the Grand Cruelty of Formosus Blessing at it’s lowest value of 50% Chance to Increase Wand Drop Rate, even if they have not earned this Blessing yet. Once Character B has defeated the Timeline and earned the Blessing, the higher value roll will be available to use.

Alt characters will only have to complete the Normal version of a Timeline to access Empowered Timeline Blessings.

[h2]Ladder Improvements[/h2]

We understand that Ladders and competition are important to a dedicated portion of our player base, and accuracy is an integral part of those. To expand the opportunities our players have to officially challenge each other, we are adding a brand new Level Ladder to Last Epoch. This will track the race to Level 100 by showing the leading Cycle characters with the highest experience totals and a timestamp displaying when they reached Level 100!

We have also added timestamps to Arena Ladders to show when a player earned their rank by defeating the most Waves.





[h2]Monolith Timeline Search[/h2]




With 1.1, we are adding a search box to the Timeline map with buttons for common reward searches. This creates a quick way to filter and search for desired Echo types and rewards, with matching nodes highlighted on the map.

[h2]Loot Filter Improvements[/h2]

Okay, okay, okay! We heard you, Loot filters are getting some new filtering options. You will now be able to add multiple affix conditions to a single rule. For example, you can have one condition for boots to only show if they have Movement Speed at Tier 6 or higher, and then another condition to also include at least Tier 5 or higher Dexterity, Vitality or Strength.

You will also now have the option to show the relevant filter rule number on the end of the label names the while the loot filter is open. You will also be able to show or hide affixes that are incompatible with the item type you are creating a rule for.

Oh, we are also including the much requested Legendary Potential and Weaver’s Will filtering. Enjoy!






Since we introduced our Item Factions, we have always wanted to provide options that suit everyone’s preferred playstyle and also feel rewarding. Thankfully, you provided plenty of feedback and suggestions for our teams to work with and below we are sharing the upcoming New Ranks and Changes to the Item Factions for the 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin update.

Progression speed has also been taken into account when including the new Ranks, and it requires less Reputation to achieve the maximum Rank in 1.1, than it required to achieve Rank 10 in 1.0.

Also in 1.1, each Rank in Item Factions also now provides +5% increased Favor gain. At maximum rank of 12, you will have +60% increased Favor gain. However experience now scales less with corruption than it did at high corruption values and Favor gain is based on experience gain. At all normal corruption values you'll be gaining more Favor than before at high ranks, but at extremely high corruption you'll be gaining less than before. Overall this means that getting to high corruption and being able to farm it efficiently is much less important for farming Favor.

[h2]Merchant’s Guild[/h2]

While we were overall happy with where item progression is in the Merchant’s Guild, there were some Ranks we felt offered very little in terms of upgrades as other Ranks included all the relevant items. To make progression feel smoother, we have split these Ranks and introduced two more. These changes are highlighted below.

We have also heard your feedback on the Bazaar search function and the team is currently working on updates to this system - especially affix searching - which we plan to release as soon as it’s ready during the 1.1 Cycle.




[h3]Merchant’s Guild Ranks[/h3]

• Rank 1: You can sell all items, and you can buy Normal, Magic and Rare items in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 2: You can buy Set items in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 3: You can buy Unique items with no Legendary Potential in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 4: You can buy Idols in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 5: You can buy Exalted Weapons and Offhands in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 6: You can buy Exalted Armor in the Bazaar or directly from other players - Boots, Gloves, Helm, Body Armor (Split from previous Rank 7)
  
• Rank 7: You can buy Unique Weapons and Offhands with Legendary Potential in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Previously Rank 6)
  
• Rank 8: You can buy all Exalted items in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Previously Rank 7)
  
• Rank 9: You can buy all Unique items, including those with Legendary Potential, in the Bazaar or directly from other Players. (Previously Rank 8)
  
• Rank 10: You can buy Legendary Weapons and Offhands in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Previously Rank 9)
  
• Rank 11: You can buy Legendary Armor in the Bazaar or directly from other players. - Boots, Gloves, Helm, Body Armor (Split from previous Rank 10)
  
• Rank 12: You can buy all Legendary items in the Bazaar or directly from other players. (Previously Rank 10)
  

[h2]Circle of Fortune[/h2]

We heard your feedback on how Circle of Fortune felt as if it was lacking when farming Bosses and experimental items from Exiled Mages. To address this we have added two completely new Ranks that increase the amount of boss-specific loot and to increase the amount of experimental affix items Exiled Mages provide.

In addition to these, Rank 12 (previously Rank 10) which duplicated prophecies has received a rework. In 1.1 instead of duplicating the rewards, the prophecy now act as if you had 2 of them, meaning it can roll different Uniques, for example instead of getting two of the same rings from a single prophecy duplication, you’ll now get the ring prophecy twice which will in most cases end up granting 2 different rings.




[h3]Circle of Fortune Ranks[/h3]

• Rank 1: Enemies have 35% chance of dropping twice as many items (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 2: 45% chance for Runes of Ascendance to be preserved when used on an item that requires at least Circle of Fortune Rank 1 (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 3: Whenever an Idol Drops, there is a 25% chance for two more to drop at the same time (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 4: When a Set item would drop, the whole set drops instead (Previously Rank 9)
  
• Rank 5: 35% chance for double item rewards from Monolith Echoes (Unchanged)
  
• Rank 6: Affixes are 50% more likely to be Exalted (Previously Rank 4)
  
• Rank 7: Exiled Mages drop twice as many experimental items (New)
  
• Rank 8: Uniques are twice as likely to have Legendary Potential (Previously Rank 6)
  
• Rank 9: T7 Affixes are twice as common (Previously Rank 7)
  
• Rank 10: Bosses have 150% increased drop rate for any specific rewards they have (New)
  
  • ‘Specific Rewards’ refers to any items dropped by that Boss, for example Ravenous Void dropped by The Husk of Elder Gaspar
    
  • ‘Bosses’ applies to all unique enemies that display a boss health bar.
    
• Rank 11: Items that would drop as Rare have 25% chance of becoming Exalted (Previously Rank 8)
  
• Rank 12: Prophecies grant twice as many items (Previously Rank 10 - Changed, formerly "Items from Prophecies are duplicated")
  
  • No longer duplicates the actual granted reward, but instead considers as if you had the prophecy itself twice, meaning it can roll different Uniques, for example.
    

Corruption is an integral part of Last Epoch’s Monolith of Fate endgame system. This is a mechanic players spend a lot of time with, as it increases the amount of experience gained and the likelihood of finding rarer items, as well as unlocking the final two Blessing slots. This means becoming familiar with the Gaze of Orobyss mechanic as well, which has proven frustrating based on how it currently works. As such, we are introducing some changes to help address the most common pain points.

Previously your Gaze of Orobyss had diminishing returns, in 1.1 each Gaze of Orobyss will grant 12 Corruption. This takes away the confusion over how much extra Corruption you should expect to earn per Gaze, and you no longer feel like you can waste Gaze due to the removal of diminishing returns per additional Gaze.

Another thing to help manage Corruption, now only 4 Gazes will be consumed at one time. So instead of all Gazes being consumed at once, the rest will now carry over the next echo web. The amount of Gaze consumed is capped at 4 to avoid the possibility of adding too much Corruption and experiencing a sudden increase in difficulty after killing a Shade while increasing Corruption in your higher corruption timelines, which could lead to unfortunate player deaths. However, we do have a change to make that less painful too. Upon dying to a Shade of Orobyss, players will now only lose 1 Gaze of Orobyss instead of losing them all.

These changes also mean that Corruption can be increased faster, as consuming a full stack of Gaze (4) in 1.1 will provide 48 Corruption which required at least 10 Gaze in 1.0. No specific changes have been made to the current Corruption catch-up mechanic. So with these new changes, increasing Corruption on your lower Corruption Timelines is now faster as well.

We also know that gaining Corruption in a Party has been less than optimal, in that only the player who started the Echo would earn Gaze of Orobyss to help them increase Corruption later on. This has been changed so all players in the Party who have the required Stability to be granted a Blessing when the Timeline Boss is defeated, will also gain a stack of Gaze. These players can then increase Corruption much faster in their own Timelines.




Here’s where we’ll be highlighting a few of the many upcoming changes to various Skills and Passives. The team has taken onboard a lot of your feedback about how some skills feel ‘outdated’ and have amped up their arsenal, so to speak. While the full Patch Notes will cover every single change (and it’s a lot), today we’re focusing on a few frequently mentioned cases.

[h2]Channeling Skills[/h2]

It’s long been a bugbear in the community that using a channeled skill stopped all Mana regeneration, especially in builds where a 0 cost channeled skill triggered another that still cost Mana, meaning players would need to ease off the gas and wait for their Mana pool to restore.

For 1.1, most channeled skills which prevented Mana regeneration while channeling have been changed. They no longer prevent base Mana regeneration, however the base Mana regeneration amount (8) has been added to their channel cost. Other modifiers to their Mana costs have been adjusted where necessary to also account for this change.

This change has been introduced so players that invest into Mana regeneration feel rewarded for doing so, without having a negative impact on players that have not.

[h2]Skill Changes[/h2]

All classes are getting balance updates, so don’t worry if you don’t see your favorite skill below. The full breakdowns of those changes will be included in the Patch Note post due out in the coming days. Today we will be focusing on a few of the skills and passive changes which will be seeing more significant changes with Harbingers of Ruin.

[h3]Disintegrate[/h3]




Disintegrate has historically been highly dependent on an unintended interaction between two Unique items: Ingvar’s Head, and Gambler’s Fallacy. This combination allowed you to greatly overcap critical strike chance, which offered a massive multiplier to Disintegrate. This wasn’t a particularly healthy interaction as the mechanic was easily overlooked considering the normal functions of the involved stats, and also meant that it was the only way to build disintegrate.

With this in mind, we have updated older nodes and added new nodes in for Disintegrate and its Skill Tree to give it the power it needs inherently, and stop relying on this interaction. So while combining Gambler’s Fallacy and Ingvar’s Head will no longer work in 1.1, Disintegrate should have many more build options available to it. The full list of changes will be included in the Patch Notes of course (over 25 change notes just for Disintegrate), though today we’ll have a look at some of the most impactful nodes to look forward to.

Base Skill

The Base damage on Disintegrate has been increased from 15 to 24, and it’s added damage effectiveness increased from a modest 300% to a generous 480%.




Lucomancer




Hyperfocal




Flame Vent




[h3]Shield Bash[/h3]



Shield Bash as a skill is one which has been in the background for some time. We’ve even noticed when people talk about melee skills, Shield Bash often doesn’t even get a mention. Being a highly niche skill, and a support skill left it out of many builds. Because it provides a guaranteed stun, it requires a longer cooldown to prevent it from being overly abusable on bosses, however there was certainly a lot of space available to improve Shield Bash. In particular, one area of improvement for Shield Bash was as an offensive skill - which is receiving a lot of love for 1.1. Let’s take a quick look at a few of the big improvements coming to Shield Bash to help bring it into the conversation more often.

Base Skill

Shield Bash’s Base cooldown has been increased to 18 seconds, however stunning enemies will now quickly make Shield Bash available again by reducing the remaining cooldown by 20% when you stun an enemy. This counts stuns from any source, including other skills, not just stuns inflicted by Shield Bash itself, which should open up some fun build opportunities!




Flurry of Blows




Indomitable Force




Shieldstorm




[h3]Avalanche[/h3]




Avalanche is a very well known skill, unfortunately for when it’s used by enemies rather than Shaman players. We’re aiming to change that in 1.1 with over 20 changes and adjustments to its Skill Tree. As with Disintegrate and Shield Bash, there’s a lot more changes you’ll find in the Patch Notes, though today we can take a look at a few of the big changes to look forward to.

Base Skill

Avalanche’s base functionality has been reworked: It is no longer a channeled spell by default. It now costs 50 mana and creates 1 larger boulder at the target location, followed by 10 smaller boulders around the target area over 2 seconds. It is now always targetable, and the boulders fall within a circle instead of an extended rectangle in front of the player. It has no cooldown.




Excavation




Alpine Guide




Stormcaller




[h2]Passives[/h2]

Skills aren’t the only area receiving balance changes. We’re also visiting Passives for many masteries, with a few in particular getting more attention. While none of these qualify as “reworks”, today we want to give you a brief look at some of the many Passive changes coming for the Sorcerer, Forge Guard, and Shaman.

[h3]Sorcerer[/h3]



[h3]Forge Guard[/h3]




[h3]Shaman[/h3]






Since the introduction of Experimental items, and with them the ‘% Missing Life Gained as Ward’ affix on gloves, Ward has been a dominant force in the world of Eterra. In addition to this is the Runemaster’s ability to generate Ward, and recently, Warlock and Healing Hand’s ability to generate massive amounts of Ward. It’s little wonder how the topic of Health vs. Ward has become such a big talking point, and we haven’t been blind to the conversation.

While there’s absolutely specific changes to be introduced to reign in some of these methods of Ward generation, this isn’t the first time Ward has come up as a hot topic. Because of its nature of decaying, but otherwise being ‘infinitely’ stackable, it’s easy for Ward to quickly fall out of line. So while we’re making those individual changes to outlier methods of Ward generation, we’re also making a more significant change to Ward overall. That change, is in the Ward Decay Formula.




The biggest thing we want to clarify with this, is this formula change is not a full on nerf. While there is certainly the potential for outliers of high Ward generation being reigned in, there’s also natural, and intended methods of Ward generation which currently feel a bit too weak. As such, the change in the formula results in stronger retention of Ward when below 4,000 Ward, and to address outliers, is now a much faster decay when over 10,000 Ward. For clarity, we’re providing the exact formula’s below:

Old:

0.4 x current ward / (1 + 0.5 x ward retention)

New:

(0.2 x current ward + 0.00005 x (current ward^2)) / (1 + 0.5 x ward retention)

Trying to be a bit more readable (and for those of us that hate Maths), the change here is going from *40% of your ward per second* to *20% of your ward per second plus 0.005% of your ward squared per second*.

This means normally lower Ward generating builds, such as Ward per second, or hybrid Ward health builds will now be able to maintain their Ward a little better, but if an outlier crops up, the base formula will help limit its impact.



We look forward to seeing these changes make your journeys through Eterra feel even better and we thank you for all of your feedback and suggestions that help us continue to make the game our players want to see.

Thank you again for your continued support and can’t wait to stand shoulder to shoulder with you against the coming darkness on July 9th, when Last Epoch 1.1: Harbingers of Ruin launches!

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Hello Travelers!

Last Epoch’s first post-launch cycle arrives in just a couple of weeks on July 9th, and we can’t wait to talk about it any longer!

Today, we’re going to be covering the big new features you can expect with Harbingers of Ruin on July 9th! For those that were with us in beta, we had previously done a “hype week” with smaller blog posts leading up to the patch. This time around we’re going to be combining everything into two big posts, today’s “What’s New?” and a second post that will come soon covering Quality of Life, and other changes. Then as we close in on patch day, we’ll be releasing the full patch notes for everyone to have a look through and get ready for the Harbingers! Today, let’s start by jumping into the new features with Harbingers of Ruin, starting with the new Evade Mechanic!





An Evade or “dodge roll” mechanic has been a highly requested feature, and with Patch 1.1 it will become available for all classes and transformations!

Evade provides a fast, short distance movement allowing players to quickly avoid many powerful attacks. We specifically call it an “Evade” rather than a “dodge roll” for several reasons. The first is that Dodge is already a mechanic in Last Epoch, which can lead to some confusion. The second is that Evade is not always a rolling move for all characters.

First, let’s talk about how exactly Evade works. All characters will have Evade available from level 1 with a default of two charges available and a four second cooldown. As your character level increases so will Evade’s cooldown recovery speed. So as your character grows more powerful, you can also Evade more often.

It’s important to note that Evade does not grant any immunity frames. It lets you more easily avoid enemy attacks, but you are still vulnerable to damage. If you Evade but are still inside an attack area, you will still take the damage. This is why we wanted to avoid confusion with the existing “Dodge” mechanic as Evade does not provide damage mitigation. This also helps keep some of the power and identity to movement skills, as more specialized and often safer movement options.



The most important thing with introducing the Evade mechanic is that it now allows us to assume a baseline of mobility for all characters. This doesn’t mean utilizing Evade will be essential for all builds, as many players will prefer traversal abilities. Having Evade simply means we have a “lowest level” of possible mobility every player can be expected to have. This allows us to increase the base level of difficulty in some fights, regardless if players use Evade or another movement ability.

By introducing an Evade mechanic, we also open up some build opportunities within Last Epoch. Most builds currently feel forced to include a traversal skill purely for evading incoming attacks, which has a limiting impact on potential build diversity. By providing all characters a default method to quickly avoid enemy abilities, there’s not as much pressure to include a traversal skill in every build. Of course, many will still prefer one for overall speed, but it will no longer be as mandatory for survival.

We also wanted to make sure that Evade wouldn’t simply be replacing traversal abilities in general. As such, Evade will not have a skill tree or be assigned to a slot within the skill bar (you can still change its keybind). In addition, there will be powerful options to modify Evade, including a number of Uniques which can drastically change it. Some of these options will even replace Evade completely with a different mechanic, such as (double checking with design team)… summoning a crab?







Nemesis is a new random encounter system you will encounter during Harbingers of Ruin. While 1.1’s primary focus was around a Pinnacle Boss system, many players may take some time to reach that point in the game. We wanted to make sure these players didn’t feel left out of 1.1, as well as introducing more systems for everyone to engage with.

While Traveling throughout Eterra, during both the Campaign and Monolith of Fate, you may randomly come across this new encounter type: the Nemesis. Upon spotting one of these powerful warriors, slain by a Harbinger, with its armor circling around its body, you will be provided with an opportunity to add more loot to your hoard. Interacting with the remains will present you with a window showing several items available from the Nemesis, as well as three options on what you would like to do in regards to the items.



[h3]Banish[/h3]
Banishing the Nemesis will cause the encounter to be put to rest, banishing both the current Nemesis, and the items it offers. This will provide you the opportunity for a completely new selection of items with the next Nemesis you find, without fighting the current Nemesis.

[h3]Challenge[/h3]
The second option you will be given is to Challenge the Nemesis. By selecting to Challenge, the Nemesis will rise from its grave to return to the fight. Should you succeed in putting the Nemesis to rest, you will receive all of the items which were displayed in the earlier UI. If you defeat the Nemesis, the next one you encounter will have a new set of items.

[h3]Empower[/h3]
The final option you will be provided with is the ability to Empower the Nemesis. By selecting Empower, the Nemesis will awaken and attack you in its rage. Then upon defeat, it will flee instead of dropping its items. You will encounter this same Nemesis again next time, which will have the same items available but giving them potentially increased Affix Tiers, Forging Potential, or Legendary Potential. Empowering a Nemesis can also add new Affixes to items, including non-experimental Sealed affixes. Empowering is able to upgrade Sealed non-experimental affixes all the way to ranks 6 and 7, which hasn’t been possible before.

You can Empower a Nemesis twice, increasing the quality of rewards as well as the power of the Nemesis holding them. Once an empowered Nemesis has been Banished or defeated after Challenging it, the next Nemesis encountered will start over as unempowered with new items.

[h2]Egg of the Forgotten[/h2]



Nemesis can also be found with a special reward type: An Egg of the Forgotten. If you immediately challenge the Nemesis, the egg will reward a random Unique. However, you can instead replace it with your own Unique item that has no Legendary Potential. This item is then empowered through the Nemesis system, and can become a Legendary by gaining random affixes or instead even gain Legendary Potential.



And so we get into the titular system, the heart of the new Pinnacle Boss system coming on July 9th. Learn more about the history of Orenthia, The Forgotten Knight, as her past catches up with her. Align yourself with the Forgotten Knights as a new Faction, as you progress through the new Harbinger system, and eventually challenge the Leader of the Harbingers.

[h2]Harbingers[/h2]



To gain access to the new Pinnacle boss, you will first need to challenge and defeat the Harbingers. These are new bosses which can be found deep within the Monolith of Fate. As you progress corruption in different Timelines, you will be able to encounter new Harbingers to progress your ranks within the Forgotten Knights faction and get closer to challenging their leader. Harbingers can be found in two main variants: Agile and Brute. Beyond having greatly different combat styles, the Harbingers also gain abilities from the Timeline’s boss, bringing unique considerations into each of the 10 Timelines.

You will need to defeat the Harbingers in each of the 10 Timelines before being able to access the portal to the most difficult fight in Last Epoch to date. You also have a chance to harvest an Eye from a Harbinger upon defeating them, which you will use as a currency to access the Pinnacle Boss fight. The first 10 unique Harbingers you defeat are guaranteed to provide an Eye, with a chance afterwards. This will provide you with 10 attempts at the Pinnacle Fight when you first unlock it. Once you have defeated all 10 Harbingers, you can continue to challenge the Harbingers to gather additional Eyes for further attempts.

[h2]The Forgotten Knight[/h2]



After defeating the first Harbinger you will begin your journey with the Forgotten Knights Faction. You will find the Forgotten Knight herself in her camp upon the Shattered Road. Here you will learn of the Harbingers and Orenthia’s history. With the advice from Orenthia, you will set out on your quest to track down and end that which has caused her to all but lose hope completely.

[h3]Forgotten Knights Faction[/h3]

As you make your way through the Harbingers, you will progress your Rank with the Forgotten Knights Faction. This faction is available to both Merchant’s Guild and Circle of Fortune players, rather than being an alternative choice.

As with other factions, increasing your Rank with the Forgotten Knights will grant unique Rank Reward benefits. These benefits include increasing Harbinger Unique drop chance, lucky Blessing rolls, and even an increased chance to drop a new crafting material: The Glyph of Envy.





With Harbinger Eyes in hand, and all 10 Harbingers defeated, you can make your way to the portal beyond the Shattered Road. Place an Eye upon the altar, and you will be pulled into the Harbinger’s Domain.



Within this domain, you will face off against the leader of the Harbingers, and servant of Orobyss: Aberroth. Your fight will take you through the four Eras, each presenting unique arena mechanics and empowering Aberroth with new abilities to further crush your hopes of facing the void.



With the release of Patch 1.1: Harbingers of Ruin, Aberroth will only be able to be challenged in the Online Cycle. This allows an opportunity for this new Pinnacle fight to be experienced and learned through natural progression rather than instantly solved by characters outfitted in the very best gear. Once the boss has been defeated in the Cycle, Aberroth will be made available to both Legacy and all Offline modes within the next business day. If Aberroth remains un-slain for the first week, we will automatically release the encounter to all environments to prevent too long of a delay for Offline and Legacy players.



Out with the old and in with the new. As some are aware, Bosses in Last Epoch, up until 1.1 had a “Dynamic Damage Reduction” (DDR) mechanic. One of the biggest issues with the system was little awareness about it. It wasn’t a very clear system as it didn’t have any sort of visual representation. It also was easy to misunderstand due to its dynamic nature, and generally resulted in “feelsbad” of seeing yourself doing less damage to bosses after a few hits without anything actively telling you why. While more damage per second was always still more damage per second against the boss, sometimes it didn’t feel like it because of the scaling damage reduction. Dealing more damage early on could also lull you into a false sense of security with more leech from that damage, leaving you more vulnerable later into the fight.



In response to this feedback, we’re replacing Boss Dynamic Damage Reduction with a Boss Ward system. With this new system, as a Boss reaches pre-determined breakpoints it will gain a burst of ward that then decays over time. The longer the ward is present, the faster it will decay. The goals of this are the same as the DDR system: that bosses are given a better opportunity to exist and fight back without punishing lower DPS builds that already get this experience. As the ward decays at an accelerating rate, lower DPS builds will have less total damage necessary to cut through, while higher DPS builds will continue cutting through the ward while it decays. This means higher DPS builds will still kill bosses much faster than lower DPS builds, but it does so in a way that doesn’t suddenly make bosses sponges for higher damage builds.

This system also provides a much clearer visual representation of how you’re actually progressing through the boss’ health. Previously, with DDR, because the resistance could stack up, some parts of the health bar could take longer to get through than others. This created false expectations of how long the boss was going to take to kill based on early damage.

Alongside the change from Boss Dynamic Damage Reduction to Boss Ward, we’ve made a couple of other defensive changes to bosses. Because boss health no longer has such high damage reduction for high DPS builds, it would inherently be easier to randomly stun. As such, we’ve given bosses 50% more resistance to stun and freeze (effectively adding 50% more life to their calculations for stun and freeze). We’ve also reduced the effectiveness of Slow and Chill against bosses to 50%, matching the effectiveness of these ailments on players. Lastly, we’re adding a maximum stun/freeze duration to powerful endgame bosses, such as Harbingers to increase the difficulty of “CC Locking” them.



A very common area of feedback we see is that it can feel very slow to progress through Monoliths on subsequent characters. When addressing this feedback, we didn’t want players to simply skip Monoliths as that can lead to a worse experience especially for newer players.

Alongside tweaks to stability rates, we’re also introducing the new Glyph of Envy with Patch 1.1. This item allows you to greatly accelerate progress through normal Timelines you have not completed yet, and add a large amount of stability to Timelines you have completed.



By upgrading an affix using a Glyph of Envy, it will have two effects. One on the item itself, and a second effect on your most recently accessed Timeline.

On the item, it will upgrade the selected affix as normal. In addition, every other property of the item will be changed other than Item Type. This means a ring will remain a ring, but the three other affixes as well as the Sub Type of ring will be randomized to completely new stats.

Having destabilized the item, the glyph siphons that lost stability and grants it to your most recently accessed Timeline. The bottom of the Forging window will tell you which Timeline will receive the stability. If it’s a normal Timeline and you have not already completed it, the glyph will grant that Timeline full stability. This allows you to immediately conquer the Timeline quest objectives. If it’s an Empowered Timeline or a normal Timeline you have already completed, it will instead have a moderate burst of stability added.

Glyphs of Envy can only be found within level 100 zones, and drop most commonly from rare enemies and Harbingers. This helps to reduce negative UX for new players feeling forced to use them and makes progression more even. It also prevents interruption for community race events, where a sudden Glyph of Envy could completely determine the race.



Harbinger’s Needle is a new item coming in Harbingers of Ruin to further assist with pushing Corruption. This item is very unique, in that it’s the first consumable equipped item.



If this unique item is equipped in your idol inventory when you kill any Timeline boss above 90 Corruption, you will gain three additional Gaze of Orobyss for that Timeline. Upon granting the additional Gaze of Orobyss, the item is destroyed. This allows you to quickly build large Corruption boosts.

For those unfamiliar, Gaze of Orobyss is a mechanic found within Empowered Timelines. This stackable bonus acquired from defeating Timeline bosses rewards additional Corruption the next time you defeat a Shade of Orobyss. We have some other improvements coming to Gaze of Orobyss to make it a smoother mechanic, but we’ll dive more into that in the upcoming QoL post.



Patch 1.1 will be introducing 30 new Unique Items to be found and built around. Most of these will be able to be found throughout Eterra, though a select few can only be found through the new bosses. Today, we’re sharing a few examples of the new Uniques you’ll be able to find on July 9th.





Thank you everyone for taking the time to join us for today’s Blog Post, covering new features coming with Harbingers of Ruin. Make sure to keep your eyes out for the upcoming post on some of the Quality of Life and other changes coming in just a couple weeks time, followed by the patch notes prior to the release of Patch 1.1 Harbingers of Ruin on July 9th at 11:00am CT!

Greetings Travelers!

Last Epoch 1.1 - Harbingers of Ruin is just over the horizon, and with its Launch on July 9th, we once again will be bringing two new Twitch Drops.

First off: Head on over to www.lastepoch.com/twitch and make sure your accounts are correctly linked.

Starting July 9th, you can head on over to the Last Epoch category on Twitch and look for users who have drops enabled. Then, watch for at least 2 hours each day on any drops-enabled stream to be rewarded that days drop!

There are two cosmetic items available and they will be available three times each - in case you miss it the first or second time. You will not be able to get the same drop multiple times.

Schedule: July 9th - 14th

• Tuesday July 9th - Gloomfeather Cosmetic Pet
  
• Wednesday July 10th - Midsummer’s Dream Cosmetic Back Slot Item
  
• Thursday July 11th - Gloomfeather Cosmetic Pet
  
• Friday July 12th - Midsummer’s Dream Cosmetic Back Slot Item
  
• Saturday July 13th - Gloomfeather Cosmetic Pet
  
• Sunday July 14th - Midsummer’s Dream Cosmetic Back Slot Item
  

Any creator who is streaming Last Epoch can enable these drops. Make sure to find a streamer from an amazing pool of creators on July 9th - when Last Epoch 1.1: Harbingers of Ruin launches.

Hello Traveler,

Today is a very special day in Eterra and we invite you to celebrate. The Summer Solstice is upon us and with it the warmth and light of the summer sun is here to guide us through to the end of the year. On this day we come together to recognize all we have achieved thus far when the celestial light illuminates the world in vibrant detail.

In ancient times, more than 12,000 years ago, people celebrated the turning of the world and the life and death of the seasons. The Summer Solstice was one of the greatest celebrations, marking the day when the sun hung highest in the sky and the day was longest. This tradition has survived the test of time and is still celebrated around the world today. In many cultures, people gather for festivals in reverence of the sun and the bounty it offered.

These celebrations last for three days at minimum, encouraging community and an abundance of food and drink. Bon-fire jumping was, and still is, a popular tradition and it was believed the highest jump would predict the height of the crops for the year. While we don’t have many fires to jump in Eterra, we still think the Primalist would win. Once the food had been eaten and the drink imbibed, they would settle down around that bonfire to share stories and record their history as the the day drew to an end.

But just as they welcomed the longest day, we must acknowledge the approach of the longest night. On the horizon, a darkness brews, a harbinger of despair that we can do little to stop. We must prepare. Eterra needs your help.

[h2]The Light Before The Dark[/h2]

The Headmasters at the College of Welryn worry for the history of Eterra currently scattered throughout the land; and while they have tasked the Last Archives Researchers with recovering this knowledge, they are not best suited for the trials outside of the library sorting system. In their plight, the Headmasters have now reached out to you, Traveler.

Eleventh Hour Games and Last Epoch is proud to bring you a very special Lore Hunt Event! Keep your eyes on our Forums on July 3rd where we will be revealing the details of the event and how to participate.
Then, on July 12th, at 11am CST, join your fellow Travelers in a race to discover the secrets of Eterra and protect this ancient knowledge before it is lost forever.