This Sorcerer turns into a Lightning Turret that channels Elemental Nova to decimate all enemies on sight. Additionally, Lightning Blast provides very high single target DPS that can quickly defeat dangerous threats. This build has been one of the signature Sorcerer setups since FoE came up with it during the Beta stages of the game.
Thanks to The Ashen Crown you are able to cast Lightning Elemental Nova where you aim your cursor. You need this Unique to play this build!
The Sorcerer stays away from threats while in combat but has plenty of tools to protect himself in case enemies get too close. Flame Ward is an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can save him even from the most dangerous attacks. The build also has decent mobility thanks to Teleport. This Movement Skill grants great defensive buffs and casts 3 Elemental Novas on use.
Overall the Elemental Nova Sorcerer is an amazing build capable of defeating all the content in the game. It's also great to compete in the Endless Arena, even in Hardcore. If you are looking for an easy to play caster capable of dominating all enemies on screen in a matter of seconds, this build is perfect for you!
Flame Ward
Lightning Blast
Teleport
Focus
Elemental Nova
This article assumes you have a Level 70 Character. Reach Level 70 with our Sorcerer Leveling Guide.
You need The Ashen Crown to play this build. Check our Unique Item Farming Guide for tips!
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
Amazing AoE & CC ✔
Great Single Target DPS ✔
Great Defensive Support Skills ✔
Insane Scaling With Gear & Uniques ✔
❌ Requires a Unique
❌ Channeled Playstyle
❌ Uses 2 Damage Skills
❌ Requires Game Knowledge
Skills
Elemental Nova
Channelled Elemental Nova is your main Damage Skill. It has a huge AoE thanks to Elemental Expanse and great Damage Nodes like Spark Charges. Capping is Crit chance its easy with Lightning Nova and Charged Destruction.
Alternative Skills & Tips
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 all the Cast Speed, Spell Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Multiplier Nodes.
- Rift Bolt provides a bit of Leech and is crucial for sustain early on.
- Investing points into Elemental Affinity and Elemental Ascendance helps cap Elemental Resistances.
- Whirling Snow grants Chill chance to all your Spells.
- Calculated Destruction is crucial to raise your Spell Critical Strike Chance.
- The Spark Novas from Distant Spark are great for applying Ailments.
- Recollection and Archmage are a must have for most Sorcerers.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
This Sorcerer wants to position itself on a safe spot, far away from its enemies while channelling Elemental Nova. 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
- Buff yourself by casting Teleport.
- Cast Lightning Blast to gain Lightning Aegis.
- Choose a spot where it's safe to stand for a short duration.
- Aim at your enemies and start channelling Elemental Nova.
- Use Flame Ward defensively before you take Damage.
- Refresh your Teleport defensive buffs by casting it before they expire.
- Recast Lightning Blast when the Lightning Aegis buff expires.
- Use Focus to generate Mana.
Mapping
- Use Focus efficiently to gain Haste for the maximum duration possible.
- Get the Comet Rush Node for Teleport while mapping for the Cooldown it provides for it.
- DPS dangerous enemies and the Echo Bosses with Lightning Blast.
- Use the Elemental Novas from Teleport to clear trash mobs while mapping and rushing the objective.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your defensive buffs and keep them active.
- Use Lightning Blast as it does more single target DPS than Elemental Nova.
- Flame Ward can save you from incoming Damage. Time it against dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.
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 or Endurance Threshold 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
- Capped Endurance
- 2000 - 3300 Health
- 45%+ Armour (while channelling)
- 300+ Mana
- 30 - 50+ Intelligence
- 600% - 1200%+ Increased Damage
- 300%+ Spell Critical Strike Multiplier
- 40% - 70%+ Movement Speed
Gear Progression
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. Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use is a must have for Belts.
Milestone 2
Farm Prism Wraps and The Ashen Crown with Legendary Potential. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot.
Milestone 3
Aurora's Time Glass is a great addition to this build for survivability. If you manage to get Necrotic Resistances on your Catalyst, the transition to this Unique from a Bone Amulet is way easier.
Milestone 4
Focus on finishing your Adorned Arcane Idols with Increased Lightning Damage While You Have Lightning Aegis and Increased Lightning Damage (Doubled If You Have Over 300 Max Mana). These Idols are great for increasing your DPS. Get them as well rolled as possible and make sure you have at least 300 Mana to double the effect of the Suffix.
Milestone 5
You can also farm Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros for your Relic slot. It drops from the Emperor of Corpses in the Reign of Dragons Monolith Timeline and can be deterministically farmed there. Its Ward generation can't be fully utilized due to the Channelled nature of the build, but it's still a solid option for the other stats.
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
- Hunger of the Void
- Mysteries of the Deep
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Embers of Immortality
Note: Don't target farm Normal Blessings. Get to Empowered Monolith as fast as you can.
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:
- Farm 4 Adorned Arcane Idol with Increased Lightning Damage While You Have Lightning Aegis and Increased Lightning Damage (Doubled If You Have Over 300 Max Mana). These Idols are great for increasing your DPS. Get them as well rolled as possible and make sure you have at least 300 Mana to double the effect of the Suffix.
- Use the rest of your Idols slots to cap the rest of your Resistances. This is especially important to complement your high rolled Empowered Blessings.
- These Small Idols also provide useful prefixes like Armour, Mana and Increased Stun Chance.
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 uses two powerful Damage Skills; Elemental Nova for AoE and Lightning Blast for single target. Both are Lightning Spells that scale with the same stats to deal big Crits to your enemies. This Sorcerer also has great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers and the Unique Items it can take advantage of.
- Adaptive Spell Damage: With the amount of Damage Multipliers this build has access to, you want to stack as much Flat Damage as possible. Nodes like Spell Slinger and Archmage grant raw Adaptive Spell Damage and are extremely valuable for DPS.
- Adorned Arcane Idol: Increased Lightning Damage While You Have Lightning Aegis and Increased Lightning Damage (Doubled If You Have Over 300 Max Mana) are great for increasing your DPS. Get these Idols as well rolled as possible and make sure you have at least 300 Mana to double the effect of the Suffix. They are a priority when it comes to scaling this build and its main source of Increased Damage.
- Intelligence: Elemental Nova and Lightning Blast gain 4% Damage per point or Intelligence. It also provides %Spell Critical Chance thanks to Calculated Destruction. Additionally it grants 4% Ward Retention per point.
- Spell Critical Strike Chance: It's easy to cap with a good Implicit on your Crystal Skull plus some Intelligence and %Spell Critical Strike Chance on your gear.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. Arcane Obliteration 50% on its own. Build as much as you can on your gear.
- Grand Mysteries of the Deep: Since the build attacks so fast and has so many hits, it is extremely easy to apply 10 stacks of Lightning Resistance Shred to your targets. 10 stacks increase the Damage enemies take by 50%. 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 Lightning Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 40%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly.
- Shock: This Ailment reduces Lightning Resistance by 5% per stack. Stacks up to 10 times, increasing the Lightning Damage enemies take by 50%
- Cast Speed: The faster you attack the more Spells you cast and Ailments you apply. While channelled Elemental Nova doesn't scale with it, Lightning Blast does. It's still valuable to trigger the Hypercharge Node.
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.
Recommended End Game Activities
Last Epoch has multiple end game activities with completely different roles and rewards. All the builds in Maxroll.gg have been tested and are designed to complete all available content. However, not all builds excel at doing the same activities. Make sure you are familiar with the end game strengths and weaknesses of your character.
The Monolith of Fate is the main end game system. Most of your character gear upgrades are found here. Once you get all of your desired Empowered Blessings, you can start pushing Corruption to increase your chances at finding incredible Exalted Items. The Monolith of Fate rewards speedy builds that are able to target farm Echo Reward Nodes or stack Timeline Stability as fast as possible.
This Sorcerer is an insane Monolith of Fate farmer. It's very safe, has great AoE and single target. It can rush objectives and it's great for farming difficult content in high Corruption.
Monolith Goals
Your goals in the Monolith of Fate will differ greatly depending on what build you play and what stage your character progression is at. Here are the objectives you should aim at when playing this build:
- Reach Empowered Monolith as fast as possible.
- Farm your Combat Empowered Blessings. Prioritize gaining Timeline Stability and fight the Timeline Bosses as often as possible. Once you are done with one Timeline, move to the next one. Reach 200 Corruption to farm your desired Blessings faster, as it unlocks a 5th option to choose from after you defeat a Timeline Boss. Defeat the Shade of Orobyss to gain and transfer Corruption between Timelines.
- Get your Drop Rate Empowered Blessings.
- Farm for key Uniques.
- As you farm for Uniques, stack Corruption as high as your gear can handle. The higher Corruption you do, the more Items you find. Get your character ready for the other end game activities.
Monolith Modifiers
Every time you choose an Echo a Modifier comes attached with it, adding difficulty and changing how enemies behave. These Modifiers stay active for a maximum of 6 Echoes and stack with each other. Some Modifiers can handicap your build immensely while others can almost be ignored. Monolith Modifiers scale with Corruption and increase the Item Rarity of Echoes. Ideally you want to do the hardest content possible, without delaying your clear times. Keep up Item Rarity as high as you can without it slowing you down.
Easy Modifiers
- Enemy Critical Strike Chance (Once you have 100% Critical Strike Avoidance).
- Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently.
- Rare enemies have high speed and crit chance until approached.
- Rare enemies regenerate health.
Avoid these Modifiers
- Enemy chance to receive a Glancing Blow.
- Enemy Critical Strike Avoidance.
- Enemy chance to Dodge.
- High health enemies take less damage.
- High health enemies deal increased damage.
- Increased enemy Movement Speed.
- While bossing: enemies Enrage at half health and enemies gain Frenzy and Haste when hit.
Learn more about the Monolith of Fate with our Empowered Monolith Guide.
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 the Elemental Nova Sorcerer is a great build capable of completing all the content in the game. It has good AoE, amazing DPS and great survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers and powerful Unique Items.
- This build requires The Ashen Crown to be played.
- Use Elemental Nova for AoE and Lightning Blast for single target DPS.
- While they are not mandatory, Prism Wraps and Aurora's Time Glass are great Uniques that you want to get to scale the build to its full potential.
- Teleport is an amazing Movement Skill that grants great defensive buffs on use.
- Flame Ward is an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can save you from incoming Damage. Time it against dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.
- Use Focus to generate Mana.
Credits
Written by Lizard_IRL.
Reviewed by Facefoot, McFluffin
