Terek has been playing Last Epoch consistently since 2020, along with streaming and creating videos on YouTube. He fell in love with Last Epoch after putting too many hours into PoE and D3, so much so that he decided to speedrun it! He has been consistently pushing boundaries of what is possible in Last Epoch through his speedruns and has established most of the leveling strategies used today. Learn about Skills and Passives for the Rogue Bladedancer Leveling Build.
Passives
Passives 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. Powerful skills and nodes are usually found in the masteries tree.
Don't spend any passive point past 20 points invested until you get your Mastery!
Skills
Puncture
Puncture is your first specialized skill. It gives you tons of Bleed chance through Bloodthirst. After you unlock your mastery, replace it by Dancing Strikes.
Shift
Shift is your movement and second specialized skill. Use it to move around quickly and time it properly to become immune to incoming damage thanks to Shadowslip. This setup also provides a short Movement Speed buff.
Umbral Blades
Umbral Blades is your third specialized skill. It is used as a clearing and bossing ability dealing incredible single target damage. Shadow Daggers are applied when you use it, dealing massive damage due to the guaranteed Critical Strike and Added Damage Effectiveness multiplier at 450%.
Dancing Strikes
Once you get your mastery, respec Puncture for Dancing Strikes. It is used as a filler in between Umbral Blades casts. It revolves around boosting Shadow Daggers damage. Ideally we want to keep stacks Rhythm up at all times.
Smoke Bomb
Smoke Bomb is your fourth specialized skill and provides great offensive and defensive buffs. Smoke Blades gives you 400% increased damage for your Umbral Blades. Moonlight Bomb and Shrouded in Darkness gives you great defense.
Decoy
Decoy is your fifth specialized skill and a very powerful support skill. Aside from its multiple temporary buffs, it Taunts enemies, making it your best defensive tool.
Gameplay
As we level the power of skills shift, 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
- At level 5 spec Puncture and use it as your main damage skill until you unlock Dancing Strikes.
- At level 8 spec Shift and to move quickly through the chapters.
- At level 20 spec Umbral Blades. Don't use it until you get Lethal Darkness, Cacophony of Steel and Precision Cuts. You also need to equip a dagger for this setup to work.
- Use Decoy to taunt monsters.
Final Setup
- When you unlock your mastery respec Puncture for Dancing Strikes. Use it on single target after getting at least 1 Umbral Blades on the target.
- Use Umbral Blades for clearing and single target. Only one blade can hit the same target.
- At level 35 spec into Smoke Bomb and use it to massively boost your damage and defence.
- At level 50 spec into Decoy. Use it to taunt monsters and get out of dangerous situations.
- Use Shift to move quickly through the areas and leave behind Umbral Blades thanks to the shadow generated when you use it.
