Last Epoch News

Hello Travelers, and welcome to day three of the pre-patch blog posts!

Healing Hands is a skill which has existed in the Paladin tree for quite some time, without being able to be specialized. There’s various reasons we waited to create a tree for this skill, one of the bigger reasons being that we wanted this type of skill to be able to support nodes which help cooperation with other players.

With our release of Last Epoch on February 21st, Healing Hands will finally be getting its long awaited skill tree. While Healing Hands at its core offers a large amount of support, focusing on healing, one should remember that the Paladin is not a back-line player. Healing to a Paladin means more than mending wounds, but also healing the world of its evils. As such, Healing Hands offers a great deal of customization for offensive ability as well, including multiple ways to make it a directly damaging ability.



As a baseline, Healing hands is an ability which casts a medium sized area of effect which heals all allies, including yourself for an immediate burst, and applies a heal over time for three seconds.





Both heals from the ability scale with Increased Healing Effectiveness, as well as the nodes on the skill tree. This grants Healing Hands not only strong immediate recovery, but also provide a fairly strong heal over time to help keep yourself and allies nice and healthy. As a Paladin, Healing Hands can offer very strong competition to even Life Leech as a source of health sustain, in addition to its specialization options.

[h2]Cleric’s Hammer[/h2]

Cleric’s Hammer grants Healing Hands a chance to trigger on any melee attack, up to a 100% chance with the full four points assigned. This imbues all melee attacks to provide healing to all allies and yourself in the area. When combined with other options on the tree, this can also effectively convert any melee attack into an offensive spell melee attack, synergizing well with many of the Paladin’s hybrid melee and spell abilities.





[h2]Hand of Aurelus[/h2]

More favorable towards ranged damage? Hand of Aurelus allows Healing Hands to instead synergize with direct Smite casts, adding its own healing area to smites. Combined with Searing Light, adding Damage to Healing Hands’ area of effect, Healing Hands can further augment Smite builds with the additional hit damage.





[h2]Divine Bolt[/h2]

Healing Hands also adds support for Divine Bolts. By picking up the Divine Catalyst node, you will cast a number of Divine Bolts with every direct use of Healing Hands. Further, with just one point in this node, all sources of Divine Bolt will scale with the nodes in the Healing Hands tree.





[h2]Rahyeh’s Chariot[/h2]

Healing Hands can also be converted to a Traversal ability, charging to a target location casting Healing Hands upon arrival. This adds a 6 second cooldown to Healing Hands, however, unlike Lunge, Rahyeh’s Chariot does not require a target to move to.





[h2]Seraph Blade[/h2]

Prefer to channel your healing powers through your blade? Taking this node will convert Healing Hands into a Melee Attack. converting Spell Damage from the tree into Melee Damage. A heavy hitting melee attack which also provides strong healing, Seraph Blade embodies the strongest aspects of the Paladin Mastery.





[h2]Unbroken Prayer + Skyfall[/h2]

Who doesn’t like a good Sky Beam? By assigning Unbroken Prayer, converting Healing Hands into a channeled ability, you can further specialize it into Skyfall. By paying an additional mana cost each second, you will deal additional fire damage over time while channeling Healing Hands, scorching clear a path of righteousness.







Thank you for again joining us today in this coverage of the Paladin’s Healing Hands skill tree. Offering potential as both a support ability, a damaging ability, triggers, or direct casting, Healing Hands offers the Paladin a number of new ways to build. Healing Hands still remains available at 5 points invested into the Paladin Tree, meaning you can also pick up Healing Hands as either a Forge Guard or Void Knight should you theory-craft such a use.

Tomorrow we’ll be recapping the coverage of Item Factions, Falconer, and Warlock for all the Travelers just recently joining us, or who may have missed the previous information releases. Then on Sunday we’ll be covering some of the new Item bases, Item Affixes, and Unique Items coming with the release of Last Epoch on February 21st!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to day two of the pre-patch blog posts!

In today’s post we’re having a look at some of the new and updated enemies coming to the world of Eterra on February 21st. These enemy updates also marks the point where we have officially completed changing all models in Last Epoch to fully custom created models.

This is largely a visual post showing off the new models our amazing enemy design team has put together. Get your eyes ready, and mind steeled for new horrors arriving in Eterra with the release of Last Epoch.



[h2]Void Prophet[/h2]

The Void Prophet will replace the current Void Clerics. We’ve also reworked this enemy’s abilities to make them a bit more fair. There should be far fewer Travelers suddenly evaporating in the presence of Void Prophets without clear telegraphing.



[h2]Mildly Corrupted Cultist[/h2]

A perfect example of “everything is relative”, the Mildly Corrupted Cultist is replacing many of the generic cultist enemies. This enemy gives a fair representation of the common result of what happens to a humanoid when coming into contact with the Void.



[h2]Corrupted Cultist[/h2]

Of course, the prior begs the question of “relative to what?” The Corrupted Cultist is the result of the continued effects of the void on humanoid victims, and comes in to replace many of the ranged Cultist Enemies throughout the Ruined Timelines.



[h2]Bone Scavenger[/h2]

One of the new Imperial Era enemies coming to Last Epoch, the Bone Scavenger displays some of the military might of the Immortal Empire with this ambushing pack creature.



[h2]Bone Sculptor[/h2]

The Bone Sculptor is another Imperial enemy which you will find in the Immortal Empire’s Ranks. The Bone Sculptor is a necromancer, capable of creating hordes of zombies if left unattended; Though they aren’t afraid to get their own hands dirty as well.



[h2]Flame Paladin[/h2]

Rahyeh’s forces are also seeing some bolstering in the coming war with the updated Flame Paladin. On top of a brand new look, the Flame Paladin will also be bringing new abilities to the field, helping them stand out from the standard rank and file.





The release of Last Epoch will also see updates to some player minion models. Today we’re going to have a look at three of the updates with the Primal Scorpion, Primal Sabertooth, and Primal Raptor! We know these companions well, so for these ones, we’ll let the updated models speak for themselves.

[h2]Primal Raptor[/h2]



[h2]Primal Scorpion[/h2]



[h2]Primal Sabertooth[/h2]





Alongside new enemy models, we’re also adding 17 new armor sets across all classes in 1.0. Rather than “Set Items”, Armor sets are base items which have a cohesive visual model between the armor pieces. These are all part of the base game as armor you will find while playing, not MTX (purchased microtransactions). Today we are showcasing 10 of these new Armor Sets.

[h2]Sentinel Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Rogue Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Primalist Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Acolyte Armor Sets[/h2]





[h2]Mage Armor Sets[/h2]







Thank you for joining us for day two of the pre-patch blog posts, taking a look at some of the new enemies and models coming February 21st. We hope you enjoy these visual improvements as much as we do, as the team continues to improve on our techniques and tools, continually pushing our visual standards ever further. Join us again tomorrow as we take a look at the long awaited Skill Tree for the Paladin’s Ability: Healing Hand!

Hello Travelers,

Welcome to the first blog post of the pre-patch blog posts leading up to launch! For all the new Travelers joining us for 1.0, pre-patch blog posts occur during the week before Patch Day, in which we talk about some of the prominent features coming with the latest update. We will have a post every day, culminating in the Patch Notes on February 19th. Of course, the three most prominent features coming in 1.0 are Item Factions, the Falconer, and the Warlock; however, these are certainly not the only features arriving with our release of 1.0!

Back in November, we talked about some of the updates coming with 1.0 (November Developer Blog). When covering Tempest Strike, we mentioned that the change to Tempest Strike’s mechanics left a gap in the Primalist class for a low cost, spammable generator. Without further ado, and to kick off these blog posts, let’s start by covering the new Primalist Skill - Gathering Storm, as well as some of the new Tempest Strike features coming February 21st.



Gathering Storm will become available to all Primalists at level 2, replacing Ice Thorns. Those who have been following our posts for a while may remember we intended to remove Ice Thorns but wanted to have a new skill to implement in its place.



“Strike at your enemy with a mighty lightning powered storm. When you use Gathering Storm and hit at least one enemy, you gain a Storm Stack. Every second you expend a Storm Stack to cause a Storm Bolt to strike a nearby enemy. This interval is reduced by 2% for every stack you currently have.”

With higher stack counts firing off Storm Bolts at greater rates, Gathering Storm is an ability that is about pressing the attack for greater reward. By the time you reach 50 Storm Stacks, there is zero delay between consuming stacks to generate Storm Bolts, so a greater stack count is always beneficial.

Gathering Storm costs zero mana by default, and inherently gains 4% increased damage per point of strength to the Melee Attack, while each point of Attunement grants it +1 spell damage for Storm Bolt.



In its tree, you will find various ways to generate, spend, and manage stacks and gain different effects from Storm Stacks. It’s also worth noting that old references to the “Lightning” ability in the Shaman Passive tree, and some of the other abilities, have been changed to Storm Bolt. All instances of Storm Bolt use Gathering Storm’s Storm Bolt - even when your Primal Wolves cast it. Meaning these additional Storm Bolt triggers synergize very well with Gathering Storm to create a quite frenetic storm of lightning.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can customize Gathering Storm through its skill tree.

[h2]Frostbringer[/h2]

Frostbringer converts Gathering Storm and Storm Bolt’s Base Damage from Lightning to Cold, and converts Shock chance to Frostbite chance. This offers a great route for those looking for more crowd control through freeze, and damage over time with Frostbite.





[h2]Ranged Spell Conversion[/h2]

With Lagonian Diplomacy and a Staff, Gathering Storm can be converted completely to a spell. Striking out with Storm Bolts directly, this node allows you to put complete focus into the spell aspects of Gathering Storm, though with an added mana cost.





[h2]Dual Wielding Support[/h2]

What would a skill about pressing the attack be without some dual-wielding support? The Two Eyed Storm node grants your Storm Stacks the ability to strike two enemies for the price of one; so long as you have a weapon in each hand.





[h2]Whirlwind Tactics[/h2]

For those that like to synergize their builds with Minions, you’ll also find support for this within Gathering Storm. One such node, Whirlwind Tactics, expends a number of Storm Stacks whenever you use a Companion ability.







As we covered in November’s Dev Blog, Tempest Strike has been reworked in functionality while keeping the same theme. Tempest Strike is now a powerful high-cost combo ability which triggers a Tempest with each strike, rather than a chance for a spell effect that it had previously.





While we talked a bit about how the skill was mechanically changing, at the time we were still making changes to the ability, and weren’t quite ready to show the tree for it. So today, as we are covering the new Primalist Skill, we also want to show everyone some of the new skill tree options coming to Tempest Strike.

[h2]Druid’s Call[/h2]

Supporting transformations, Druids Call allows you an option to turn Tempest Strike into a melee triggered ability while transformed. I’m sure there’s many lightning Werebears out there who just had their ears perk up at the idea of adding another skill to the repertoire.





[h2]Tempest Sacrificing[/h2]

In Tempest Strike’s tree you will find a number of nodes that allow you to sacrifice one of the Tempests in order to gain attack speed. Though do be aware, removing a Tempest does not remove the corresponding Strike. You’ll also find opportunities to synergize with other abilities for further spell combos, such as with the Ceaseless Typhoon node, which grants a chance to cast Tornado each time you trigger Wind Tempest in the combo.





[h2]Totem Support[/h2]

With the Looming Gale node, you will convert Tempest Strike into a Tempest Totem which casts the three Tempests in sequence without the melee attack. This also converts the ability into a minion ability by changing it to a totem, allowing Tempest Strike to fit into other totem and minion builds.





[h2]Tempest Focus[/h2]

Just want to keep it simple and add more Tempests? We’ve got you covered. Granting any of the strikes a chance to cast one of the tempests means you can lash out with multiple tempests on each strike. Pick a specific Tempest to focus on, or just trigger more of all of them, the choice is yours.







Thank you for joining us for this look at some of the updates coming to the Primalist with the new Gathering Storm ability, and reworked Tempest Strike ability. We look forward to seeing all the new Primalist, and in particular Shaman builds you all come up with.

We also want to take this opportunity to provide advanced notice concerning launch preparation. To get our servers set up for release, we will be taking the servers down 24 hours prior to launch.

Join us again tomorrow as we look at some of the new enemy models and animation updates we’ve made for 1.0 as we get ever closer to the release of Last Epoch!