Welcome to the Dive Bomb Falconer! It's time to call down your pet Falcon for huge damage in a large area! This build is good at speed farming maps with its AoE and single target is great due to the high added damage effectiveness of Dive Bomb! Are you ready to call down your bird of prey to gain the advantage against your enemies?
Spam Bow Explosive Trap to buff the Falcon's Damage with Ranger's Mark, which gives a 20% chance on every Bow Hit to buff your Falcon with +1 Melee Damage. With every Trap that explodes your Falcon also gains Penetration thanks to Sky Signal! With all the Cooldown Recovery Speed you get from Free Lofting Bird, United Assault, and Coordinated Assault you can spam Dive Bomb very often!
While the build does not require any Uniques to function, Falconry scales excellent with Talons of Valor and Mourningfrost. Rain down Explosive Traps allowing you to stack the +25 Melee Falcon Damage multiple times as you deal Critical Strikes. Your Falcon's stats scale with your own through Trained to Hunt, Go For the Eyes!, and Exposed Weakness, allowing you to unlock your Falcon's true potential!
Overall, Dive Bomb Falconer is a great build for any type of content. It excels at clearing Monolith Echoes fast and the single target damage of Dive Bomb is incredible for bossing. If you like the playstyle, you really can't go wrong with this build!
This build guide assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Falconer Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- Very Fast
- Unkillable Pet
- Very Good Damage
- Good At All Content
- Low Health Sustain
- Mana Management
- Vulnerable When Not Moving
- Maxing The Build Requires Uniques
Skills
Explosive Trap
Explosive Trap is your primary skill. Blast Rain transforms it into a Bow skill allowing you to rain traps down from the skies. Boost your Falcon's Damage through Sky Signal and reduce the Cooldown of Dive Bomb with Free Lofting Bird as every trap detonates!
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.
- Since we're almost always moving Evasion is a huge Damage Reduction buff. Paired up with Tailwind for even more Damage Reduction.
- With the right gear and the Haste buff from Agility you spend a lot of time well over 100% Movement Speed, making the damage buff from this node very strong.
- To achieve 100% Glancing Blow take Dodge and Parry, Cloak of Shadows, Poise, and Deflect and Weave. You put Block Chance on gear thanks to Deflect and Weave converting it to Glancing Blow
- Draining Arrows gives you 40 health on Explosive Trap hits since Blast Rain converts it to a Bow Attack.
- Finesse Them helps you achieve 100% Critical Strike Avoidance with a good rolled Grand Survival of Might blessing.
- Handler paired with Go For the Eyes! helps your Falcon achieve 100% Critical Strike Chance.
- Outlander's Tenacity raises your Endurance Threshold based on your maximum health. When your health falls below your Endurance Threshold you get up to 60% Damage Reduction.
- Ranger's Mark helps boost your Falcon's damage since you are always spamming Bow Explosive Trap.
- With Intuitive Connection you are not interrupted when casting Aerial Assault and Dive Bomb allowing you to spam Bow Explosive Trap even more.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
To maximize both your damage and defenses you want to keep moving as much as possible. This means a healthy dose of Aerial Assault and Explosive Trap while using Dive Bomb strategically on enemies for huge damage!
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Stay on the move and use Aerial Assault on cooldown. Using Aerial Assault near Rare and Boss enemies creates an extra Shadow Falcon using Featherstorm.
- Use Dive Bomb against tanky enemies and packs.
- In extended fights, find a safe spot near enemies to cast Smoke Bomb. Try to stay in the Smoke Cloud to gain damage from Smoke Blades.
- Use Falcon Knives, the Falconry active ability, if you need extra damage while Dive Bomb is on Cooldown.
Mapping
- Run to the objective using Aerial Assault and Dive Bomb on cooldown. Most of the enemies nearby are killed by Dive Bomb's huge area of impact.
- Use Smoke Bomb on Rare enemies along the way.
- Upon reaching the objective:
- If it's a single enemy cast Smoke Bomb then spam Explosive Trap and Dive Bomb until they are dead.
- If it's a group follow a similar strategy by using Smoke Bomb on cooldown near large groups or tanky enemies, then target enemies with your Explosive Trap and Dive Bomb rotation.
Bossing
- Use Smoke Bomb on cooldown as long as it's safe to do so.
- Use Explosive Trap on the boss and then Dive Bomb every time it's off cooldown.
- Aerial Assault around to dodge boss mechanics.
Advanced Skill Tips
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 other defensive layers, while fitting as much Health related Affixes into your gear 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 Critical Strike Avoidance
- 50-60% Endurance
- 2000 - 3000 Health
- 20% - 30%+ Dodge Chance (Pre Buffs)
- 100% Glancing Blow
- 1000+ Armor (Pre Buffs)
- 350%+ Minion Critical Strike Multiplier
- 30%+ Bow Attack Speed
- 350%+ Critical Stike Multiplier
- 100%+ Bow Critical Strike Chance
- 50% - 75%+ Movement Speed (Pre Buffs)
- 80+% Increased Mana Regen
- 80+ Dexterity
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 Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes is capped. Remember that Woven Flesh is always an option early on. Farm this by killing the Abomination in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Get a good pair of boots with Movement Speed. Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Increased Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Fit any Increased Minion Damage you can into open prefix slots. Your Falcon is a minion, but it can't be targeted or killed so don't worry about defensive minion stats like Increased Minion Health, Minion Dodge Rating or Minion Health Regen.
Milestone 5
When all your core Defenses are covered, start stacking Dexterity to increase your armor with Stymphalian Feathers and boost your Falcon's DPS drastically with Falconer's Journey.
Milestone 1
Until you cap your Critical Strike Avoidance with a well rolled Grand Survival of Might and your Falconer passive Finesse Them, you can wear Woven Flesh.
Milestone 2
Make sure you have enough Mana Regeneration to sustain spamming Explosive Trap. You can reduce Dive Bomb to 0 mana cost and gain mana on its use with Sapping Strikes.
Milestone 3
When all of your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Your Falcon gets your Increased Damage, Critical Strike Chance, and Critical Strike Multiplier through Trained to Hunt, Go For the Eyes!, and Exposed Weakness respectively, so scale your stats where you have room.
Milestone 4
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances, Endurance and Critical Strike Avoidance. Your goal is to have items with 4 valuable T5 Affixes, also known as T20.
Milestone 5
While they are not mandatory, there are several Uniques that really push the build to its full potential. Mourningfrost gives you flat Damage per Dexterity and your Falcon gets a percentage of your flat Damage through Avian Arsenal. Talons of Valor gives your Falcon +25 Melee Falcon Damage on Critical Strikes and stacks up to 4 Times.
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. Health Regen Per Second is a priority as we have very little leech for health sustain here.
Milestone 2
Farm Bleeding Heart, and Talons of Valor. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot. Bleeding Heart is a common drop that is target farmed on The Age of Winter Timeline.
Milestone 3
Farm Mourningfrost. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot. Mourningfrost is a common drop which is target farmed on the Spirits of Fire Timeline. Make sure to stack Cold and Physical Resistance in all open suffix slots to counter their reduction through stacking Dexterity.
Milestone 4
Focus on finishing your Idol set up. Prioritize well rolled Adorned Majasan Idol with Shared Critical Strike Multiplier with Bow Critical Strike Chance as suffix. Rember your Falcon will get your Bow Critical Strike Chance as its generic Critical Strike Chance.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items and Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and in the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes are technically possible.
Milestone 2
Get as close to perfect rolls for all of your Empowered Blessings and find all of your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
Seal Resistances everywhere you can to keep up your defenses. Put Dexterity on every piece of gear for a big damage boost, although your damage is high enough at this point that Defense should be your primary focus.
Milestone 4
Continue farming Mourningfrost, Bleeding Heart, and Talons of Valor 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
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental Items that you might craft, trade or find! The possibilities are endless!
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 Damage for your build early on.
Pick up these Normal Blessings on your way to Empowered:
- Emptiness of Ash
- Spirit of Command
- Survival of Might
- Bones of Eternity
- Light of the Moon
- Memory of Masters
- Boon of the Scarab
- Vigilance of the Damned
- Apex of Fortune
- Scales of Greed
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:
- Take Grand Emptiness of Ash for the Critical Strike Multiplier. This boosts your Falcon through Exposed Weakness
- Grand Spirit of Command boost your Falcon Damage even more!
- A good rolled Grand Survival of Might with Finesse Them caps your Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Block Chance from Grand Bones of Eternity gets converted to Glancing Blow through Deflect and Weave.
- Take Grand Light of the Moon as having a larger Mana pool is always beneficial.
These Empowered Blessings are flexible and depend on your current needs and goals.
These are valuable Empowered Drop Rate Blessings for this build:
- Grand Memory of Masters helps you find Damage and Area with Dive Bomb helm shards.
- Grand Boon of the Scarab.
- Grand Vigilance of the Damned helps find the Talons of Valor.
- Grand Apex of Fortune.
- Grand Scales of Greed Gold on hand is always good.
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:
- For a huge damage boost, find and equip four Adorned Majasan Idol with Prefix Shared Critical Strike Multiplier and Suffix Bow Critical Strike Chance.
- For Defense instead of Offense, you can stack as much Health as possible equiping Stout Lagonian Idol with Increased Health prefix and Flat Health suffix.
Other useful Idol Affixes
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 is focused around consistent and fast paced movement with lots of large Dive Bomb hits clearing everything in your path. The playstyle needs high Movement Speed and Dodge because you go fast, avoid getting hit and all of your buffs up. You also want to ensure that we're taking the right stats to scale Falconry and Dive Bomb so Flat Damage, Crit Multi, and Bow Critical Strike Chance are what you aim for.
- Minion Flat Damage: You want to get as much Flat Damage as possible. Tactician, Talons of Valor, and Added Falcon Melee Damage on Helm/Chest implicits are your main sources. Your Falcon is also granted a % of your flat damage through Avian Arsenal.
- Bow Flat Damage: Any amount you can get partially applies to Falconry and Dive Bomb thanks to Avian Arsenal.
- % Minion Damage: Any increase to Minion Damage is welcomed.
- Increased Mana Regeneration: Explosive Trap can be Mana intensive and you want to be able to spam it as much as possible. You need a large amount of Mana Regen to make this happen so this is a priority, especially early on. Get as much as you need to make the build feel good.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: You want as much Critical Strike Multiplier as possible, with 10 stacks of Exposed Weakness your Falcon will get 250% of your Critical Strike Multiplier.
- Critical Strike Chance: The Falcon receives your highest Critical Strike Chance through Go For the Eyes! so scale Bow Critical Strike Chance to above 100%. Your Falcon also gets an additional 5% base Critical Strike Chance from Handler.
- Dexterity: You get both Increased Damage and Dodge Rating from this stat. With Mourningfrost you also get Flat Damage which you transfer to the Falcon through Avian Arsenal.
- Penetration: Penetration subtracts from resistances, causing a source of damage to deal more damage. You can get it on your Weapon with Physical Penetration and Minion Physical Penetration.
- 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 23.7% increased Physical Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 57.2%. With the amount of hits the build has from spamming Explosive Trap, the stacks ramp up quickly.
- (Minion) Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Minion's Crits deal. Finesse Them, Needle Like Precision, and Shared Critical Strike Multiplier on Idols provide a lot of it.
- Evasion and Tailwind: You're moving constantly and only stopping when it's safe, so these two sources provide a tremendous amount of reliable Damage Reduction. As long as you don't make a mistake and take a big hit while standing still you're very resistant to damage.
- Dodge: The stats Dexterity, Dodge and %Dodge allows you to reasonably reach between 30% and 40% permanent Dodge before buffs and on top of Dusk Shrouds.
- Glancing Blows: You achieve 100% chance through Deflect and Weave, Poise, Cloak of Shadows, and Dodge and Parry. You take 35% less damage from Hits with Glancing Blows.
- Health: This build can stack a decent health pool despite not having double suffixes from body armour. It's very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers this Falconer has access to.
- Health Regen: Scale Health Regen Per Second and Health Regeneration on Helm, Boots, and Gloves to give yourself good Health Sustain.
- Critical Strike Avoidance: Getting crit means you take double damage, so avoiding that is a must. You cap this through the blessing Grand Survival of Might and Finesse Them.
- Endurance: At cap this stat provides you with a 60% damage reduction for any damage taken below your Endurance Threshold, which is 20% of our maximum health for this build. This scales well with Outlander's Tenacity giving you increased Endurance Threshold. By scaling Endurance you mitigate the risk of one shots and also provide yourself with a chance to recover from DoTs by out health regenerating them at low health.
- Movement Speed: Reduces the reaction time needed to avoid attacks. The faster you move, the faster you can get out of danger!
- Dusk Shrouds: Each grants 5% Glancing Blow Chance and 50 Dodge Rating. Rapid Concealment in Smoke Bomb provide them.
- Armour Mitigation: Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, and Stymphalian Feathers, your Armour easily reaches 30%+ Mitigation.
- Health on Crit: Finesse Them is your main way of sustaining your Health pool. Your Falcon can deal an absurd amount of Hits with Featherstorm and Falcon Strikes, refilling your Health pool easily.
- Slow/Chill: Greatly reduce the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. They are must haves on most builds, especially once you reach hard content with insane speed modifiers.
- 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. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
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 Dive Bomb Falconer is a great build that can deal with all the content in the game and clear Bosses faster than almost any other build in the game.
- Go very fast while increasing your damage and survivability with Agility, Tailwind and Raptor's Wings. The faster you go, the better!
- Your Increased and Flat Damage affects your Falcon through Avian Arsenal and Trained to Hunt.
- Your Critical Strike Chance affects your Falcon through Go For the Eyes!.
- Your Critical Strike Multiplier Affects your Falcon through Exposed Weakness.
- While they are not mandatory, Uniques like Talons of Valor and Aurora's Time Glass can raise this builds Offense and Defense respectively.
- Fully embrace the playstyle of the build and enhance it with every component, making full use of the Evasion and Tailwind Nodes that reward you for going fast and not getting hit.
- Assassinate your enemies without having to be close! Target Dive Bomb from afar and kill most enemies in a single hit.
Credits
Written by Boardman21.
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL, Tenkiei.