Death Seal Lich Guide
Last Updated:July 13, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Death Seal Lich Guide. This Lich transforms into its horrific Reaper Form to unleash a cascade of deadly Spells. Hit your enemies with Rip Blood while empowering the destructive Waves of Necrotic energy released by Death Seal and dive into the fray of battle to obliterate everything around you.
The Death Seal Lich thrives and has the tools to survive the most brutal close range encounters. Death Seal provides powerful buffs and releases pulsing Waves of Death around you while it's active that deal massive Damage. The build has great mobility thanks to Reap and Transplant. Bone Curse provides additional AoE clear, DPS and survivability.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However, Marina's Lost Soul is crucial for the build. Additionally, Items like Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Mortality's Grasp, Red Ring of Atlaria, Omnis and Nihilis turn this build into an absolute powerhouse, capable of dealing insane DPS while being super tanky.
Overall this powerful Lich is an amazing build capable of crushing all the content in the game, even in Hardcore. If you are looking for a dark caster that destroys enemies and is able to survive the hardest encounters, this build is perfect for you!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Lich Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
Skills
Reaper Form
This is a Reaper Form Lich build. This Transformation provides incredible offensive and defensive buffs with Nodes like Reaper's Curse, Rapid Destruction, Soul Shroud and Vile Shroud. While on Reaper Form you gain the ability to Reap. Take Unholy Dominion so it doesn't share Cooldown with Transplant.
- Some Skills showcase extra Skill Points in case you find +Level of Skills that may not be included in the Planners.
- This Death Seal is very flexible and highly depends on your gear. Adjust the Skill Tree based on your current needs and try to get Exalted Level of Death Seal on your Helmet and a well rolled Omnis as soon as possible.
- Consider investing Points into Deathtouch Scythe and Executioner inside Reaper Form if you don't need the defenses provided by Soul Shroud and Vile Shroud and want more DPS.
Passives
Passives provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives on the first half of all Masteries regardless of the one you chose.
- Take Nodes with Intelligence, Health, Cast Speed, Spell Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier.
- Investing points into Forbidden Knowledge helps cap Necrotic Resistance.
- Dance with Death has great synergy with Death Seal's Deadlock Node.
- Get tons of Spell Leech with Soul Maw and Ageless Ascetic.
- Elixir of Death is crucial for survivability.
- Three Plagues and Necrotic Energy boost your DPS substantially.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
Dive in while spamming Rip Blood to stack Damned Stacks on yourself with Marina's Lost Soul and scale Doomcall's Damage as much as possible. Stay in combat and leech to keep Reaper Form up as long as possible. Make sure you are familiar with enemy mechanics to know when to use your Support Skills to stay alive. Pay attention to the telegraphed attacks of your enemies and stay out of their range.
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Transform into Reaper Form.
- Toggle Bone Curse.
- Spam Rip Blood at anything you see.
- If you have Marina's Lost Soul casting Rip Blood grants a Damned Stack on you.
- Get near enemies and cast Death Seal for massive Damage from its pulsing Waves.
- Use Reap and Transplant to juke or to dive into enemies.
- Keep spamming Rip Blood and wait for Death Seal's Cooldown before going in again.
Mapping
- Let Death Seal kill enemies as you cruise through the Echoes.
- Time Reap and Transplant apart to always be on the move.
- Use the Haste gained from releasing Death Seal efficiently while your Movement Skills are on Cooldown.
- Save your Death Seal Cooldown for the Echo Boss, if there is one.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your buffs and keep them active.
- Save either Reap or Transplant for emergency situations.
- Use Death Seal and Elixir of Death to mitigate incoming Damage. Time them against dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.
- Keep your Reaper Form active by staying in combat and leeching.
- This build can be scary to play due to Low Life and the self-inflicted Damned stacks. Learn your limits and use the build's Spell Leech effectively to stay alive!
- Target dangerous mobs first and finish them fast with Death Seal.
- Transplant is a blink and can be used to go over incoming attacks or terrain.
- Use a Potion preventively before you engage dangerous enemies to proc Elixir of Death.
- Get at least 1 Large Immortal Idol or Huge Immortal Idol with Chance To Fear On Hit to keep CC enemies when you dive them.
Learn more about how to maximize your gameplay in the Build Scaling section of this guide.
Gear
Gearing in Last Epoch revolves around finding Items and then using the powerful Crafting System to enhance them. As long as an Item has Forging Potential left, players can upgrade or modify their Affixes up to Tier 5. However, the powerful Exalted Tier Affixes are drop only and can't be modified by players.
Using the correct Item Bases allows you to make use of their amazing Implicits, this is fundamental for gearing efficiently. Combine Implicits, Passives, Idols and Blessings to cap your Resistances and stack as many other defensive layers as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final Empowered Blessings of your build while gearing. Finish up by farming Uniques with Legendary Potential and Sealing Affixes into Exalted Items to unleash all of your build's power!
Here are the Stat Goals for this build:
- Capped Resistances
- Capped Less Damage Taken From Crits
- Capped Endurance
- 3000 - 6000+ Health
- 50% - 75%+ Armour
- 100%+ Cast Speed
- 65 - 100+ Intelligence
- 600%+ Increased Damage
- 300%+ Spell Critical Strike Multiplier
- 60% - 100%+ Movement Speed
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with two valuable T5 Affixes. The Defensive rolls on T5 Suffixes are very important at this stage as they can easily cap all your Resistances when combined with Item Implicits, Idols, Blessings or Passives. Get a Weapon with double T5 offensive Prefixes as soon as possible.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance or Less Damage Taken From Crits is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. It can be farmed by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Farm Marina's Lost Soul. This Unique is crucial for the build to scale its Damage.
Milestone 5
Additionally, farm Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs and Mortality's Grasp. This build can be very Unique heavy, so its good to include the ones that shine even without Legendary Potential as soon as possible
Milestone 5
Aim for T5 Level of Death Seal on your Helmet and T5 Level of Reaper Form on your Body Armour to invest more Points into their Skill Trees. Level of Rip Blood and Level of Bone Curse are also great finds.
Milestone 6
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and look for any Idols that can help you cap all your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Try to find a Large Immortal Idol with Chance To Fear On Hit to Crowd Control enemies.
Milestone 1
Upgrade your T20 set up with Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes.
Milestone 2
When all of your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Chance To Shred Armour on Hit, Critical Strike Multiplier, Spell Critical Strike Chance, Intelligence and Cast Speed are very important to scale the DPS of the build.
Milestone 3
Get Chance to Apply Frailty on Hit to decrease the Damage enemies deal to you. This Ailment is really important and should always be kept in mind.
Milestone 4
Farm Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Mortality's Grasp and Marina's Lost Soul with Legendary Potential. Remember, the Nemesis encounters in Echoes can give your regular Uniques Legendary Potential.
Milestone 5
Omnis is a great addition to this build for the valuable +1 To All Skills. Farm it by killing the Shade of Orobyss at 200+ Corruption. Don't be intimidated! You only need one with high Fire Resistance, the rest of the Resistances rolls don't need to be that high.
Milestone 6
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance. Keep an eye for Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Chance To Fear On Hit or Health Suffix.
Milestone 1
Upgrade you setup with T7 Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner, but prioritize the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits. Make sure to Seal highly efficient low tier Affixes.
Milestone 2
Farm Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Mortality's Grasp, Marina's Lost Soul and Omnis with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot.
Milestone 3
If you manage to get two Red Rings of Atlaria you must prioratize itemizing Intelligence to reach the 180 Attribute requirement. This amazing Item provides an amazing layer of tankiness for the build, crucial for pushing Corruption.
Milestone 4
Focus on finishing your Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Chance To Fear On Hit or Health Suffix. You also want Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with high tier Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and on the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes and Legendary Potential are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all your Empowered Blessings and find all your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Continue farming Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Marina's Lost Soul, Red Ring of Atlaria and Mortality's Grasp with the maximum Legendary Potential you can find. Remember that some of these Items are extremely hard to get with multiple Legendary Potential. Good luck with the chase!
Milestone 4
Get a GG rolled Nihilis for the stats it provides.
Milestone 5
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental Items that you might craft, trade or find! The possibilities are endless, so be open to explore new options. Good luck with the chase!
Learn the basics for crafting gear with our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Check our Unique Item & Set Farming Guide and learn how to get them!
Want to know more about Legendary Items? Check our Legendary Guide!
Blessings
Completing a Timeline in the Monolith of Fate lets you choose one of several randomized Blessings from its unique pool. Their benefits are permanent and persist even outside of the Monolith of Fate.
Empowered Blessings are a fundamental part of all builds, so getting the correct ones for each is key.
The sooner you reach Empowered Monolith, the faster you can start farming your desired Blessings!
Normal Blessings are not important as they are eventually replaced by Empowered Blessings. However they can still be a great source of Resistances, Critical Strike Avoidance or Life Leech for your build early on.
Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:
- Echo of Solarum
- Emptiness of Ash
- Hunger of the Void
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Embers of Immortality
- Promise of Death
- Body of Obsidian
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
Reaching Empowered Monolith unlocks all the level 100 Timelines and the ability to farm Empowered Blessings. Unlike Normal Blessings, these need to be farmed until you get the desired ones for your build. It is extremely important to get this set up as fast as possible to free up affix slots on your gear. Remember, the more value you get from your Blessings, the easier it is to craft efficient gear!
These are the core Combat Empowered Blessings for this build:
- Get Grand Resolve of Humanity for the Resistances it provides.
- Work on Grand Bastion of Divinity for its Lightning Resistance.
- Farm Grand Bulwark of the Tundra and Grand Body of Obsidian for a huge survivability boost.
- Finally, farm Grand Emptiness of Ash for even more Damage.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Sight of the Outcasts is very valuable to help you find Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Chance To Fear On Hit or Health Suffix. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Farm Grand Cruelty of Formosus to find more Wands.
- Lastly, take Grand Slumber of Morditas to find more Relics.
Learn how to farm Blessings fast with our Advanced Monolith Strategies.
Idols
Idols grant your character bonuses when equipped in the dedicated Idol Container. Unlock all the slots of your Idol Container by completing the Campaign and some of its Side Quests. Remember that some Idols are Class specific and you won't be able to equip them with other non-compatible Classes.
These are the Idols recommended for this build:
- Get 4 Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix. For the Suffixes aim for 1 with Chance To Fear On Hit and 3 with Health. The Fear is crucial to keep enemies away from you.
- You also want 4 Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix. This build can get an absurd amount of Health just from Idols.
- You might need extra Resistances out of your Idols early on, so keep an eye for anything useful until you get your final setup.
- Health
- %Health
- Vitality
- Armour
- Elemental Resistance
- Lightning Resistance
- Fire Resistance
- Cold Resistance
- Void Resistance
- Physical Resistance
- Poison Resistance
- Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions
- Armor granted by Bone Armor
- Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed With Transplant
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Idol Slots.
Learn how to be efficient with Idols with our Advanced Idols Setups Guide.
Build Scaling
This build spams Rip Blood to stack Damned Stacks on yourself with Marina's Lost Soul and scale Doomcall's Damage as much as possible. Scale Death Seal's Damage to deal big Crits to enemies around you. This Lich also has great survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Low Life: Death Seal enables the Low Life playstyle thanks to Deadlock. In combination with the Dance with Death Passive and the Corrupted Consciousness Node, this ability provides incredibly Damage buffs for its duration.
- Flat Spell Damage: With the amount of Damage Multipliers this build has access to, you want to stack as much Flat Damage as possible. Your Profane Wand and the Necrotic Energy Passive grant tons of Necrotic Flat Spell Damage. Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs also grants a good amount on Potion use.
- Self-inflicted Damned: Stack this Ailment on yourself thanks to Marina's Lost Soul and scale Doomcall's Damage as much as possible.
- Cast Speed: Attack faster for more Damage, Ailments and stacks of Damned on yourself.
- Intelligence: Rip Blood, Bone Curse and Death Seal gain 4% Damage per point of Intelligence.
- % Increased Damage: Anything that increases Necrotic Spell Damage is welcomed.
- Spell Critical Strike Chance: Deathbringer, Darkguard and the Reaper's Curse Node inside of Reaper Form give this tons of Spell Critical Strike Chance. It's easy to cap it with a good Implicit on your Crystal Skull.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. Clairvoyant Insight grants 50% on its own. Build as much as you can on your gear.
- Grand Promise of Death: Since the build attacks pretty fast and has many hits, it is extremely easy to apply 10 stacks of Necrotic Resistance Shred to your targets. 10 stacks increase the Damage enemies take by 50% (20% for Bosses). This Blessing plays a big part on your Damage output, so make sure you roll it nicely (45%+) and as early as possible.
- Chance To Shred Armour on Hit: Each stack of this Ailment reduces enemy Armour by 100 for 4 seconds and stacks infinitely. Enemies have 0 Armour by default and it can go into the negatives. At -1000 Armour a target takes 16.5% increased Necrotic Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 40%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly.
- Penetration: Three Plagues grants 24% Necrotic Penetration.
- Mark for Death: Bone Curse's Sigil of Mortality Node inflicts this Ailment that reduces All Enemy Resistances by 25%, causing them to take extra Damage.
- Low Life: Death Seal enables the Low Life playstyle thanks to Deadlock. When active it provides 33% Damage Reduction. Combined with the Desperate Shroud Node, this ability grants incredibly Defensive buffs for its duration.
- Endurance: A defensive mechanic that allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. Due to the Low Life nature of the build, endurance has insane value for this build. Your base Endurance Threshold is 20% of your total Health by default.
- Bone Armor: Transplant provides this buff. It grants Flat Armour and Damage Reduction. Keep it always up while mapping with Bone Curse's Marrow Thief Node.
- Intelligence: Aside from gaining Damage per point of Intelligence with your Skills, this build also gains defenses from it. Reaper Form's Soul Shroud and Vile Shroud Nodes allow you to gain Resistances and Armour based on your total Intelligence.
- Chance To Fear On Hit: The Fear provided by the Large Immortal Idols helps keep enemies Crowd Controlled.
- Elixir of Death: Gain 50% Physical and Necrotic Damage Reduction while this buff is up. Combine it with the Damage Reduction granted by Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs to turn into a juggernaut while you use a Potion and cast Death Seal.
- Health: This build can stack an insanely high Health pool that is very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers the Lich has. Acolytes have access to Large Immortal Idols with %Health; not all Classes have access to these amazing Idols! The more Health you have, the better the buffs granted by Death Seal's Desperate Shroud Node are.
- Armour Mitigation: This build can get really high Armour. Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, Death Seal's Desperate Shroud Node, Grand Bulwark of the Tundra Blessing and Reaper Form's Soul Shroud Node you reach 50% to 75%+ Mitigation.
- Spell Leech: Ageless Ascetic and Soul Maw provide insane Leech for the build. This is especially important to stay alive while using Death Seal in Reaper Form.
- Slow: Greatly reduces the Movement Speed of your enemies.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds. Stacks 3 times.
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 crucial 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.
Video Guide
COMING SOON!
Summary
Overall the Death Seal Lich is a horrific powerhouse capable of defeating all the content in the game. It has amazing single target DPS and great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers.
- Transform into your Reaper Form and stay in combat to keep it up as long as possible.
- Spam Rip Blood to stack Damned Stacks on yourself with Marina's Lost Soul and scale Doomcall's Damage as much as possible.
- Death Seal enables the Low Life playstyle thanks to Deadlock. When active it provides 33% Damage Reduction and a 66% Damage Multiplier. Combined with the Desperate Shroud and Corrupted Consciousness Nodes, this ability grants incredibly buffs for its duration.
- The build has access to two great Movement Skills: Transplant and Reap.
- While they are not mandatory, Marina's Lost Soul is crucial for the build. Additionally, Items like Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Mortality's Grasp, Red Ring of Atlaria, Omnis and Nihilis are great Uniques that you want to get to scale the build to its full potential.
Credits
Written by Lizard_IRL.
Reviewed by McFluffin.