Ballista Falconer Guide
The Ballista Falconer lays down her Ballista and unleashes a constant flow of Ballista Bolts to annihilate any opposition. Buffed by your trusted Falcon through Aerial Assault, you swiftly dispose of any threats.
Ballista serves as your main source of Damage, with short bursts supported by Falconry. The Ballista Falconer has incredible mobility and utility thanks to Aerial Assault, Smoke Bomb, Falconry and Decoy.
This is a ZHP build, focused entirely on maximizing Damage with no regard for Defense.
The setup doesn’t require any Uniques to function, but it can take advantage of many. Items such as Uethrin's Stand, Phantom Grip, and Mourningfrost are amazing for unleashing the build's potential.
The Ballista Falconer is a powerful build that has insane damage potential. It excels in many situations, though its extremely aggressive playstyle comes at the cost of survivability. If you're looking for a fast-paced, turret-style build that goes all-in on damage, this setup is perfect for you. Welcome to the Ballista Falconer!
This build is a ZHP (Zero Hit Points) setup, meaning it does not invest in traditional defenses like Armor, Resistances, or Health. Instead, it relies entirely on Dodge and Silver Shrouds to prevent death.
If you prefer a tanky playstyle or struggle with reaction-based gameplay, this build may not be for you.
Play at your own risk!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Rogue Leveling Guide.
Check our Tier Lists to know how this build performs in the current patch.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
Skills
Ballista
Ballista is your main damage dealing ability. With Perfect Aim, Shared Enhancements and Contaminating Shots, your own stats and Ailment chance also apply to your Ballistae. Efficient Construction is essential to lower the skill's Mana Cost. Elixir of Construction and Care Package provides Damage and Potion sustain, which is excellent with Experimental Mana on Potion Use.
- Aerial Assault & Smoke Bomb: If you want a Movement Skill with Immunity, remove the Traversal Tag from Aerial Assault with Storm on the Horizon, and allocate Cloaked Incursion in Smoke Bomb.
- If playing in a party, consider using Purging Fumes and Shared Concealment from Smoke Bomb for their ability to affect other Allies. If you do, remove 2 point from Lingering Fumes.
- Early on, if you need to cap your Ballista's Critical Strike Chance, consider the second point into Sharpened Tips.
Skills showcase extra Skill Points in case you find +Level of Skills that may not be included in the Planners.
Passives
- Allocate Coordinated Fade to activate when you use Ballista. In this setup, 2 points are allocated. This means Ballista needs to be the second Skill on the Action Bar, from left to right. If you want Ballista somewhere else on your Action Bar, make sur to allocate the correct amount of points in Coordinated Fade.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Use a Potion regularly to benefit from Elixir of Construction.
- Summon Ballistae at a sustainable pace for your current Mana Regen.
- Use Aerial Assault to Buff the Ballistae and move around the map. With Experimental Minions Transported with Traversal Skills on your Boots, a number of them are teleported to you as you land.
- Employ Falcon Strikes as Crowd Control and to Cull enemies when needed.
- Throw Decoy when in danger to give yourself some breathing room.
- Make use of Smoke Bomb as an extra Movement Skill when needed, and to avoid telegraphed attacks. Make use of its Invulnerability window and its Silver Shroud!
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your Defensive and Offensive Buffs and keep them active.
- Use Decoy to distract the Boss. Take advantage of this window to reposition or deal damage.
- Avoid telegraphed attack and reposition with Smoke Bomb.
- Use Falcon Strikes to Cull when the Boss is low enough.
- Keep track of your Silver Shroud stacks. This mechanic is a powerful defensive tool which guarantees to Dodge the next hit. This proves to be great especially against Boss mechanics that can be Dodged, enabling you to ignore them completely when you have Silver Shroud up.
- Using Aerial Assault in combination with Experimental Minions Transported with Traversal Skills improves your clear speed drastically as you make much better use of every single Ballista's duration and can reposition them willingly.
Gear, Idols & Blessings
- Ballista's damage benefits massively from Dexterity and Intelligence scaling. Get as much as you possibly can.
- Get more maximum Ballistae from Uethrin's Stand and Max Ballista and Increased Ballista Attack Speed.
- Mourningfrost enhances Dexterity scaling by adding 1 Flat Cold damage per point of Dexterity.
- Levels of Ballista are very high value. Get The Kestrel, Phantom Grip, and Level of Ballista on the Relic.
- Phantom Grip also helps achieving 100% Critical Strike Chance. Remember, both your Crit and Minion Crit apply to Ballista.
- Zeurial's Hunt is the best Legendary Quiver base due to its high Flat Lightning Damage.
- Death Rattle provides Intelligence and Minion Affixes. This Amulet is a staple for Crit Minion builds.
- Grab Orian's Descent for its high Intelligence. Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding is another good option.
- Critical Strike Avoidance and Added Dodge Rating boosts both offense through Finesse Them and defense by increasing Dodge.
- Make sure to get Chance to Shred Armor on Hit. Combined with Increased Armor Shred Effect on Idols, this provides a great Damage increase.
- Shared Critical Strike Multiplier on Idols provides amazing damage since Ballista also benefits from your stats.
Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Build Scaling
Offensive Stats
- Dexterity
- Intelligence
- Flat Physical Shared Bow Damage
- Flat Cold Shared Bow Damage
- Increased Shared Physical Damage
- Increased Shared Cold Damage
- Increased Shared Critical Strike Chance
- Increased Shared Critical Strike Multiplier
- Increased Critical Strike Avoidance
- Shared Physical Resistance Shred
- Shared Physical Penetration
- Armor Shred Chance
- Movement Speed
Defensive Stats
- Dodge
Scaling Tips
- Dexterity: This is the main scaling Stat for Ballista and also provides Flat Cold damage thanks to Mourningfrost. Additionaly, it scales Ballista's Placement Speed thanks to Agile Engineering.
- Intelligence: Grants a damage multiplier for Ballista through the Tactician node in Aerial Assault.
- Perfect Aim and Shared Enhancements allows your Ballistae to benefit from your stats.
- Level of Ballista: Every additional level you gain is substantial, as Ballista receives a significant damage boost from each extra point.
- Finesse Them: This passive allows you to scale Critical Strike Avoidance, which in turn boosts Ballista's Critical Strike Multiplier.
- Silver Shroud: As long as you have one up, the next hit you take is Dodged instead. Allocate points into Coordinated Fade to activate when you use your Ballista for an easy way to get uptime on Silver Shrouds.
- Dusk Shroud: Each grants 5% Glancing Blow Chance and 50 flat Dodge. Smoke Bomb provides them while standing inside of its fog.
- Decoy: Gives you some breathing room by drawing enemy attention.
Our Damage Explained Article covers all you need to know to scale Damage.
Learn all you need to know to scale Defense with our Defense Explained Article.
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Making sure you highlight all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is necessary to ensure your character's progression. Click on the Generate Loot Filter button down below then use the Paste Clipboard Contents button in-game to import it!
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
FAQ & Mechanics
Once a guide is released, many players have questions on why and how we are approaching certain choices. In this section you can find the answers to the questions that have been asked the most.
The goal is to deal so much damage that enemies are eliminated before they even have a chance to attack. For any attacks that do reach you, Silver Shrouds ensure a guaranteed Dodge, granted by Smoke Bomb and Coordinated Fade. A high % Dodge Chance also adds to your survivability. While this build demands a specific playstyle, it rewards you with extremely high damage and auto-targeting, often leading to off-screen kills.
Mourningfrost provides a solid amount of Flat Cold damage. Increased Cold Damage is the best damage blessing you can obtain from the Ending the Storm Timeline.
Since there are no more high-value points left to invest in these skills, you can opt for a Movement skill with Immunity by removing the Traversal tag from Aerial Assault using Storm on the Horizon. Then, allocate Cloaked Incursion in Smoke Bomb.
This change is especially useful in fights where immunity frames provide a significant advantage, such as against Abberoth or Shade of Orobyss.
Video Guide
Summary
The Ballista Falconer summons many Ballistae and Buffs them with Tactician from Aerial Assault. This Falconer is amazing at completing all the content in the game.
- This is a ZHP build focused entirely on maximizing Damage with no regard for Defense.
- Summon many Ballistae and move with them, thanks to Experimental Minions Transported with Traversal Skills .
- Stack as much Dexterity and Intelligence as you can to increase their Damage.
- Get a comfortable amount of Mana Regeneration to freely summon Ballistae.
- Your Crit stats apply to Ballista.
- Your Damage stats also apply to Ballista, but at a reduced % Effectiveness.
- While they are not mandatory, Uniques Items like Uethrin's Stand, Phantom Grip, and Mourningfrost provide significant damage increases and unleash the build's full potential.
Credits
Written by BinaQc.
Content Reviewed by Lizard_IRL.