Welcome to the Bladedancer leveling guide. A Bladedancer flits in and out of shadows, each movement another deadly cut. She dashes out of the reach of her enemies easily, only to engage again at a time of her own choosing. When she does, she deals incredible melee damage and damage over time.
While the Rogue in general has fast paced gameplay, the Bladedancer specialization excels in assassin-like movement and blades, allowing you to move quickly from enemy pack to pack, cutting them to pieces. With this guide, you learn how to quickly level a Bladedancer that deals devastating damage to your foes from the shadows.
This leveling build centers around throwing spinning Umbral Blades, using Synchronized Strike, fast movement skills, and dealing hit damage by applying the Shadow Daggers ailment. Your dashes also throw additional Umbral Blades, giving you a consistent source of damage even on the move. Despite your high damage, you can be a bit squishy so you need to rely on Decoy to Taunt enemies and Smoke Bomb to keep important defensive buffs up.
Check out the Campaign Guide for an in depth breakdown of the campaign.
- Easy Gearing
- Fast and Mobile
- Massive Damage
- Powerful Supporting Skills
- Delayed Damage
- Reactive Playstyle
- Has to Respec 1 Skill
- Can't Facetank Everything
Gameplay
As we level the power of skills evolve, with some becoming stronger while others get weaker. To account for this, we transition from a setup that is optimized for early game to one that is more suited to tackling endgame content.
Early Setup
Use this setup until you spec into Umbral Blades and have a dagger equipped.
- Use Puncture as your main damage skill.
- Use Shift to move quickly through the chapters.
- Use Decoy to taunt monsters.
Final Setup
You need to equip a dagger for this setup to work.
- For single target spam Umbral Blades to quickly apply Shadow Daggers until you unlock Synchronized Strike. Then use Synchronized Strike for a burst of damage and Shift to regain mana.
- For clearing Umbral Blades are left behind when we use Shift, killing enemies behind us and boosting our Movement Speed.
- In dangerous situations use Decoy to taunt monsters.
- Use Smoke Bomb to massively boost your damage and defense.
Key Leveling Notes
- Keep your character at the area level by killing monsters.
- To use this guide, you need to maintain at most a 5 level difference with the area.
- Press C to open the character sheet to find your level and TAB to find the area level.
- Only collect loot that serves as an upgrade.
- The loot filter reveals many items that might not be an upgrade for your character.
- If your inventory is full, stick gear with high value affixes in your stash and sell the rest.
- Don't sell gear that has high value affixes to a vendor.
- Instead, keep it to use later or destroy it with a Rune of Shattering or Rune of Removal.
- Always get the best weapon you can.
- Weapons are a core part of your power and getting a higher level base boosts your damage significantly.
- Early on, you can buy them at the
Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town. - After level 40, they don't sell you higher item bases.
- If you want to enter the Monolith of Fate early, unlock all the passive points and idol slots from quests first.
- By the time you complete chapter 7, you will be ready to tackle the Monolith of Fate content.
- Crafting is powerful and important for enhancing your gear.
- Press F and place your item in the crafting interface to level up its affixes and craft new ones!
- Adding health or vitality on a few empty affix slots can increase your HP by a significant amount!
If you need help with crafting, check the Beginner Crafting Guide.
Skills and Passives
Passives and Skills provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives in the first half of any Mastery regardless of the one you chose.
Click on the Arrows at the top and on the Bar at the bottom to see Passive and Skill Trees Progression
Gearing and Side Quests Step by Step
Itemization is a vital aspect of your journey in Last Epoch. While prefixes and suffixes matter, what sets Last Epoch apart is the power of item bases. Many items have potent implicit attributes that can rival or even surpass modifiers.
Level 1 to 10
Items
- On Blighted Bastard Sword of Conflagration prioritize Chance to Bleed on Hit and Chance to Ignite on Hit. DoT damage in the early game is really high.
- Dexterous Silver Ring of Deflection is the best source of movement speed early on.
- Blighted Jade Amulet of Life provides a decent attack speed boost early on.
- Dexterous Venom Phial of Deflection provide decent amount of poison chance on hit early on.
- On Vital Leather Boots of Deflection, prioritize Movement Speed and Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed to enhance your mobility.
- On Rogue's Bandit Helm of Deflection try to get Level of Puncture, it has a huge impact in your damage.
Side Quests
- Storeroom Sabotuers for 1
Passive point. - Evacuation Quest for 1 Passive point.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 11 to 25
Items
- Start equipping Idols with Vitality, any type of resistance, Health, Health on Kill, Chance To Bleed On Hit, Chance To Poison On Hit and Chance To Ignite On Hit.
- Equip two Eviscerating Sacrificial Knife of Acid once you spec into Umbral Blades.
- Dexterous Gold Ring of Deflection provides significant elemental resistances, outshining other options at this level.
- Rogue's Weathered Coins of Deflection is an easy access to Armor Shred, which is a big part of your damage.
- Warrior's Plated Belt of Life provides a lot of armor, boosting your survivability.
- Avarice gives you leech rate, a very rare stat, boosting your survivability as well a decent chunk of elemental resistances.
Side Quests
- Erza's Ledger Quest for 1 Passive point and Avarice.
- Don't talk to the Gambler NPC before completing this quest, otherwise you can't get Avarice.
- The Upper District Quest for 1 Passive point.
- An Ancient Hunt for extra
Idol slots. - The Lesser Refuge Quest for 2 Passive point.
- The Corrupted Lake Quest for 1 Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 26 to 40
Items
- Starting from this level you can drop a Large Shadow Idol with Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers . This is a huge damage boost so be on the lookout for it.
- Eviscerating Kris of Acid is the best dagger for this build by a large margin. You want the +(30-65)% Critical Strike Multiplier implicit to roll as high as possible and have Melee Damage Leeched as Health on at least one dagger or on your gloves. If you haven't dropped two by level 27, gamble them at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town or in the End of Time town.
Side Quests
- Hidden Gems Quest for 1 Passive point.
- The Sapphire Tablet Quest for 1 Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 41 to 58
Items
- Eviscerating Bone Amulet of Acid is the best amulet base in the game as it gives a lot of resistances, which gives you more space for suffixes on your gear.
- Rogue's Scalebane Coat of the Ox gives you a lot of poison resistance.
- Catapult's Plated Gauntlets of Insulation gives a decent amount of endurance. You want to prioritize Melee Damage Leeched as Health on gloves to free up prefixes for your weapons.
Side Quests
- A Heoborean Cure Quest for extra Idol slots.
- Liberating the Nomads Quest for extra Idol slots.
- After defeating the Frostroot Warden boss and completing chapter 7 quests, you have reached the cap of 15 Passive points and 8 Idol slots. You can dive into the Monolith of Fate or you can choose to finish the campaign for a reward of +1 to all attributes.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Early Monolith
Items
Important At this point, you have access to most of the best item bases in the game. Your upgrades come from prefixes and suffixes on items instead of the implicits.
Here is a recap of the best item bases :
- Weapon: Kris or Katana (you need at least 1 dagger)
- Helmet: Gorgonscale Coif, Umbral Visage, Scalebane Grimace or Leather Mask
- Body Armour: Brigandine Armour, Gorgonscale Coat or Scalebane Coat
- Belt: Spidersilk Sash or Praetorian Belt
- Boots: Heoborean Boots or Solarum Greaves
- Gloves: Engraved Gauntlets
- Amulet: Bone Amulet
- Rings: Gold Ring and Ivory Ring
- Relic: Weathered Coins or Antidote Vial
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Monolith Progression
After beating the Abomination timeline boss and completing your first timeline, you have the choice to go between The Stolen Lance timeline and The Black Sun timeline. Go for The Black Sun timeline.
You want to do timelines on the right-hand-side of the Monolith progression as they provides more relevant Blessings for your character progression.
Level progression includes 1-10, 11-25, 26-40, 41-58 and Early Monolith, scroll to find the correct tab.
Bladedancer Uniques
If you are lucky you might get a Rune of Ascendance while leveling. Use this first on a belt to get a unique belt such as Vipertail, Thorn Slinger, Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding or Legacy of the Quiet Forest.
Keep an eye out for useful Uniques such as Zerrick's Ambition, Suloron's Step, Li'raka's Claws, Riverbend Grasp, Mourningfrost, Bleeding Heart and Arboreal Circuit.
Gear Stats Priorities
Best Prefixes
- Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers
- Level of Synchronized Strike, Level of Shift, Level of Umbral Blades, Level of Smoke Bomb and Level of Shadow Cascade
- Melee Physical Damage, Throwing Damage and Throwing Damage and Reduced Mana Cost
- Critical Strike Multiplier
- Critical Strike Multiplier while dual wielding
- Physical Damage and Melee Damage
- Increased damage while wielding a dagger and Throwing Physical Damage
- Dexterity
- Vitality
- Melee Damage Leeched as Health
Best Suffixes
- Chance to Shred Armour on Hit
- Health
- Hybrid Health
- Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance
- Health
- Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit
- Chance to Slow on Hit
- Chance to Chill on Hit
- Armour
- Dodge Rating
Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed
Idols
- Chance to Bleed on Hit, Chance to Ignite on Hit and Chance to Poison on Hit until you use Umbral Blades
- Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers
- Critical Strike Multiplier while Dual Wielding
- Physical Penetration while wielding a Dagger
- Increased Area with Dancing Strikes
- Increased Armour Shred Effect
- Chance to Shred Armour on Melee Hit
- Increased Damage while wielding a Dagger
- Health
- Health
- Vitality
- Dodge Rating if Hit Recently
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Highlighting all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
Link : Download Lootfilter
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Summary
This Bladedancer leveling build is unmatched in speed and damage. You kill enemies almost before you see them and the build is super fun to play!
- Use Umbral Blades until you unlock Synchronized Strike to kill monsters instantly.
- Throw Decoy to distract your enemies. Take advantage of this to reposition and DPS.
- Stack the Smoke Blades buff from Smoke Bomb to destroy bosses.
- Use Shift to move quickly through the chapters, generate extra Umbral Blades and regenerate mana.
- When you get to level 16, despecialize Puncture for Umbral Blades.
- At level 27, look for Kris to get a massive damage increase.
- Cap your Physical Resistance early to make the campaign look easy.
- Get Melee Damage Leeched as Health to recover health instantly.
What's Next?
Congratulations, you completed the campaign and your first 3 Monoliths Timelines! What awaits you is unlocking Empowered Monolith after pushing through The Reign of Dragons, Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and activating the beacon in the middle of them. Then you can dive into dungeons, empower your character further and test your limits at the Arena leaderboard.
Check out our Bladedancer Guides and find the perfect Bladedancer Endgame build for you.
Explore the Monolith of Fate with our Beginner Guide and learn how to farm Dungeons.
Credits
Written by Terek.
Reviewed by Dredscythe, Echohack, Lizard_IRL, McFluffin, Raxxanterax and Tenkiei.