Welcome to the Season 3 Hype Week Day 3! For all of you Acolyte fiends, this one is for you. So grab a femur or two and follow us into the darkness as we get into the new Lich and Necromancer changes coming August 21st.
New Lich Skill - Flay
In Season 3, Lich gets a new skill to take to the field with Flay. Flay is a new Melee and Spell attack skill hybrid that is specific to the Lich Mastery, and becomes unlocked at 30 points invested in the Lich passive tree. When you use the Flay Skill, you will first Spirit Step a short distance towards an enemy if you aren’t within range, and then perform a narrow, rending slash.
Each enemy killed by the Melee Attack will release a Blood Eruption, a Spell dealing Physical damage in an area. Enemies can be hit by both Flay and all Blood Eruptions that occur. With built-in movement to close the gap on your foes with no cooldown, you may find yourself stepping through the shadows, rapidly eliminating foes like flickers of light in the night.
[h2]Flay Skill Tree Nodes[/h2]
Flay’s core functionality allows for a number of playstyles already, with movement, melee, and spell components. The tree also allows for specialization into the initial Melee Attack, the Blood Eruption, or both for a truly hybrid build. Lets take a look at some of the options you’ll be able to find in Flay’s skill tree to customize it to your style.
[h3]Deadly Plot[/h3]
Everyone likes scaling methods, and with Deadly Plot you’ll obtain the ability to scale Flay with your mana pool. For a small additional mana cost, Flay and all skills triggered by its skill tree deal 5% more Spell damage per point per 100 maximum Mana. This includes skills which have their own skill tree, such as Rip Blood, and Chaos Bolts so long as they are triggered by Flay’s Tree.
[h3]Transference[/h3]
When hitting a boss or rare enemy with Flay’s melee attack, your active Aura of Decay can be transferred to be centered instead on that enemy for 6 seconds. While the Aura is attached to the enemy, the Lich can move away from the area and no longer be harmed by the self-inflicted ailments from Aura of Decay!
[h3]Damage Conversions[/h3]
Damage Types are a critical part of any skill, allowing synergy with like-typed skills. Flay by default is a Physical skill, though it offers the ability to convert damage types, allowing synergy with more skills, items, and passives depending on how you want to play it.
[h3]Corrupted Blood[/h3]
With corrupted Blood, all Bleed chance from all sources is converted to poison. Poison doesn’t have a hit component, so you will still be “hitting” with physical damage, while stacking deadly poisons on the enemy.
[h3]Frostblight[/h3]
Lich is also getting more access to cold damage, with Frostblight converting Flay’s base damage to cold, and Bleed chance from all sources to Frostbite. The cold touch of death indeed.
[h3]Soul Ripper[/h3]
In the mood for flesh-melting? Soul Ripper converts the base damage of Flay to Necrotic, and all sources of Bleed Chance are converted to Damned Chance instead.
[h3]Executioner’s Tithe[/h3]
Flay will also be introduced with a special new Unique from one of our long-time community supporters who goes by the name “Heavy”. Many of you know that Heavy has been a big part of our community since our early days, contributing to the Beesfriends Community Guides program, the Community Tester program, as well as being highly active in the community helping fellow players.
Executioner’s Tithe was created as part of our old “Design a Unique” Supporter packs that were available in our early days. While we aren’t currently offering this tier of supporter pack, we love seeing the community’s unique ideas, and working with the community to bring new and exciting playstyles to Last Epoch. If you have idea’s for Unique Items, make sure to head on over to our suggestions forums and let us see them!
Following up on Death’s Embrace, Executioner’s Tithe is the second Unique from Heavy designed with the Acolyte, and specifically the Lich in mind.
Granting Added Damage from Melee Damage to Chaos Bolts, and several lines calling out Harvest, it may not be immediately apparent how well this item fits into Flay. With strong hybrid damage support, boosts to Mana, and Mana sustain, this weapon offers near-perfect strengths for synergizing with Deadly Plot and Flay’s Spell triggers.
For the Item’s background, we’ll actually let Heavy describe his thoughts and intentions behind the item:
When I started to brainstorm this Unique, I had two primary goals in mind: Enable a Hybrid Melee & Caster playstyle, and give an ability a cooldown for more potent offense and utility.
My most played game, Marvel Heroes, did offensive cooldowns a lot and even though Last Epoch tries to avoid them for the most part I wanted to give that feeling of harvesting an entire mob pack with one button press.
On top of that I always liked when Mana is more than just a resource that you empty and refill, but if it actually benefits your character, the more you have from it so I tried to combine this with the new opportunities that Flay provides to create a possible new archetype: Mana Stacking Lich.
This goes hand in hand with the theme of “collecting the souls of your slain enemies” and really underlines the sinister history of this weapon.
Skill Changes
In Season 3, Acolyte is seeing a large number of changes across the base Acolyte, Necromancer, and Lich masteries. This includes changes to Harvest, Death Seal, Dread Shade, and more. Today we’ll we’ll be showcasing one skill from each of the base Acolyte class, Necromancer, and Lich. Many more changes and updates are coming to the Acolyte in just 8 days, so this is just a taste.
[h2]Acolyte - Rip Blood[/h2]
Rip blood is seeing a very big change to its base functionality: It now hits all enemies in a line in front of you instead of targeting a specific enemy. Each enemy hit still creates an orb of blood that returns to heal you.
[h3]Blood Bond[/h3]
Blood Bond causes Rip Blood to attach a Blood Tether when you hit a Boss or Rare Enemy. With this, Blood Tether has also seen a fairly significant buff.
[h3]Blood Tether[/h3]
While not a strict subskill of Rip Blood, Blood Tether is also getting a facelift in Season 3. Blood Tether now offers scaling with the number of bleeds on the target, making it a very potent ailment for single target damage.
[h3]Carnage[/h3]
With Carnage, you can now combine Rip Blood with Marrow Shards, getting more bang for your buck against both packs of enemies, and Bosses.
[h2]Necromancer - Summon Abomination[/h2]
For those who truly enjoy bringing things back from the dead, or creating from the undead, we have updated Necromancer’s Assemble Abomination ability. By far the biggest change to Abomination has been the changed base functionality, where it no longer decays health over time by default.
The Abomination now also remembers the minions it was assembled from. Whenever those kinds of minions are available, the Abomination will devour them to restore its health. It will not devour other players’ minions though, so you will be safe as a minion player playing alongside an Abomination. Well, your minions won’t be consumed anyways!
[h3]Tower of Bones[/h3]
With Tower Of Bones, your Abomination’s Stomp ability will have a shorter cooldown, scaling the damage and Area of Stomp with each Bone Golem absorbed. By default, you may only be able to have one Bone Golem at a time, though there are ways to get many more, synergizing with this new node.
[h3]Dead Eye[/h3]
Another new Abomination node, Dead Eye, utilizes Skeletal Archer’s powers to cast Eternal Arrow with a 100% chance to Recurve. By also offering added damage per Intelligence, this node also grants a way to add considerable amounts of added damage, which is normally quite scarce to come by.
Various new skill tree nodes and adjustments to others will allow your to assemble the Abomination to your liking. Go forth, discovery and create the ultimate monstrosity!
[h2]Lich - Aura of Decay[/h2]
Aura of Decay is a skill that once lived in the limelight, before becoming forgotten behind the stage. We’re giving Aura of Decay a number of powerful changes to bring it back as a strong option in the Lich’s toolkit.
With the rebalanced Aura of Decay, you now take 30% less poison damage from all sources (from 50%); however, you also take 50% less damage from your own Aura of Decay. This is multiplicative with the less poison damage taken from all sources. Overall this means you’ll be taking less damage from your own Aura of Decay at a base line, at the cost of being a bit less resilient against enemy poisons.
[h3]Damage Conversion[/h3]
Damage conversion remains a strong node choice to allow for synergy across different skills, items, and passives. Aura of Decay is no different, and now offers new methods to convert its damage type.
Armorbane has been replaced with Blood Font. This converts Aura of Decay to Physical, inflicting Bleed instead of Poison. All of Aura of Decay’s effects related to Poison and Poison Resistance are converted to Bleed and Physical Resistance.
Icarian Poison has been replaced with Cold Death. This new node converts Aura of Decay to Cold, inflicting Frostbite instead of Poison. All of Aura of Decay’s effects related to Poison and Poison resistance are converted to Frostbite and Cold Resistance.
[h3]Putrid Bombs[/h3]
Putrid Bombs has been reworked. Previously, Putrid Bombs caused you to leave behind a Putrid Bomb every 2 seconds while Aura of Decay was active. With the rework, while Aura of Decay is active, you leave behind a Putrid Bomb whenever you use a traversal skill or Evade. Putrid Bombs now explode after a 1 second delay (from 2 seconds) and now have 250% effectiveness of your chance to poison on hit (from 25% increased poison effect and 100% increased duration).
[h3]Fester[/h3]
Fester is a new node added in Loathing’s old position, while Loathing has been moved. While stationary with Aura of Decay active, you gain two stacks of Fester per second, up to 3 maximum stacks per point. You lose two stacks per second while moving. Fester grants your active Aura of Decay 6% more damage per stack. You’ll also find additional nodes behind Fester granting further power for the risk of standing in place.
Passives Changes
Alongside a new skill, and many skill changes, the Acolyte is also receiving a number of new and rebalanced passive nodes. Today we’ll be sharing just five of these changes coming in Season 3; however there are many, many more changes to have fun with Beneath Ancient Skies.
[h2]Lich[/h2]
[h3]Executioner[/h3]
Executioner is a new Node available to the Lich, after spending 25 points in the Lich Tree. With Executioner, you will now be able to dual wield, equipping an axe or dagger into your off-hand. It also grants a 20% increase to Attack and Cast Speed, with the drawback of taking 8% increased damage. Being able to dual wield grants Lich a host of new build opportunities, as well as now being able to match the Reaper Form visual style. Other Dual Wield nodes in other classes will also be receiving this treatment: being adjusted to 8% increased damage taken, and granting increased Attack and Cast speed.
[h3]Accursed Feast[/h3]
Accursed Feast is a new node replacing the old Corrosive Consciousness passive. Accursed Feast grants 6% of damage leeched as health, 66% increased health leech, and 66% increased leech rate, but leech stacks drop off when you reach 66% health instead of 100%. If you manage to find a way to prevent your health from reaching 66%, such as with another Lich Passive, you can prevent leech stacks from ever falling off early.
[h3]Impact Ward[/h3]
Impact Ward is being added replacing Symbol of Decay. It grants 3% less damage over time taken per point, and has a 3 point threshold bonus which grants the passive effect “all damage over time taken bypasses ward.” This offers a unique way to interact with ward, and make use of health leech and a hybrid health pool, while still leveraging ward to absorb hits.
[h2]Necromancer[/h2]
[h3]Forbidden Teachings[/h3]
Forbidden Teachings is a new node in the old position of the moved Blades of the Forlorn passive. This new passive grants +1 Intelligence and +1 Vitality per point. It has a 3 point threshold bonus which grants 1% increased minion critical strike chance per intelligence and 1% more minion damage over time per vitality. Who doesn’t like more scaling vectors?
[h3]Effigies[/h3]
Effigies has been reworked. Previously Effigies would grant you a chance to consume a minion stealing its health for yourself when you take a hit while at low health. It now grants 2% of damage taken redirected to your lowest health minion per point. It also provides a 3 point threshold bonus which grants the passive effect “When one of your minions dies, your other minions restore health equal to 20% of its maximum health”. Now your minions can be meat shields, whether they want to be or not.
Closing
The College of Welryn will not be happy… not that we care much. We’re here for the dark and forbidden knowledge after all. A new season is a call for celebration, a reason to reconnect with old friends and to construct new ones. If the Acolyte makes it easier to do that, then who are we to stop you? Thank you for joining us for Day 3 of Season 3 Hype Week. Tune in tomorrow for Day 4, where we will cover some of the Beastmaster Minion changes, Quality of Life updates, and Minion AI Updates.
