LizardIRL has been playing Last Epoch at a high level for years. He has invested a huge amount of time learning the game, theory crafting builds and making educational content. By the time LE Multiplayer launched, he already had thousands of hours driven by his competitive nature and desire to improve. His builds and min/maxing rules have shaped the meta, establishing him as a top build maker and theory crafter. LizardIRL livestreams his Rank 1 Arena pushes and has dominated both SC and HC ladders. Learn how to scale your Damage and Defense in the Golem Necromancer Build to reach the different Endgame Activities like the Monolith, Dungeons and Arena.
Build Scaling
This Necromancer spams Rip Blood on its Summon Bone Golem to make it proc as many Bone Shatters as possible; a powerful Minion Spell that always Crits thanks to the Dread Shade buff. This build also has great survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Rip Blood: Must be spammed to trigger as many Bone Shatters as possible. Use Blood Infusion to buff the Golem and to apply Ailments to enemies hit by the Blood Splatters.
- Minion Power: Your minions gain Minion Power based on your Character Level. By level 100, they deal 45% More Damage and take 45% Less Damage (Multiplicative with other modifiers).
- Minion Melee Flat Damage: You want to get as much Flat Damage for your Summon Bone Golem as possible, since the build has tons of Damage Multipliers provided by its Skill Tree, Dread Shade and Bone Curse.
- Cast Speed: The faster you cast Rip Blood on your Summon Bone Golem the more Bone Shatters procs.
- Intelligence: Summon Bone Golem gains 4% Damage per point of Intelligence. Additionally, each point of Intelligence provides 4% Ward Retention.
- Minion % Spell Damage: Anything that increases Minion Spell Damage is welcomed.
- Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance: Dread Shade's Egoism Node grants 100% Crit Chance to your Golem while it's active.
- Minion Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your minions Crits deal. Get as much as you can! Death Rattle provides tons on its own.
- Bone Curse: Thanks to the Merciless Node, you can also apply this Curse to your Minions. Spiked Bones and Barbed Construct are great enhance this buff.
- Level of Summon Bone Golem: Get this Prefix on your Helmet to invest extra Points into its Tree.
- 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, the stacks ramp up quickly.
- Mark for Death: This Ailment that reduces All Enemy Resistances by 25%, causing them to take extra Damage. Get it from a Large Immortal Idols with Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit.
- Grand Fury of the North: You can grab this Blessing if you wish to enhance your Damage further, but it's not really efficient as the Summon Bone Golem's Bone Shatter has some Necrotic and Fire Base Damage provided by Moonlight Pyre. 10 stacks of Physical Resistance Shred increase the Physical Damage enemies take by 50% (20% for Bosses).
- Bone Armor: Transplant provides this buff. It grants Flat Armour and Damage Reduction.
- Armour Mitigation: This build can get decent Armour. Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, Grand Body of Obsidian and Grand Bulwark of the Tundra Blessings, Flat Armour from Transplant and Bone Armor you reach 40%+ Mitigation.
- Ward: A shield above your Health that is generated by certain effects, rapidly decays over time and is protected by Armour Mitigation. Your Ward is generated thanks to Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros. The build can reach more than 15k Ward with investment.
- Ward Retention: Reduces the rate of Ward decay.
- Intelligence: Each point of Intelligence provides 4% Ward Retention.
- 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 more Ward that can generate Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros.
- Endurance: A defensive mechanic that allows you to take up to 60% less Damage while below a certain Health threshold. Due to the Ward nature of the build, endurance is not as valuable as it is for pure Health setups. Your base Endurance Threshold is 20% of your total Health by default.
- Healing: Rip Blood's Quenching and Hematology Nodes and Summon Bone Golem's Hunger Node provide insane Healing for the build. This is especially important to Heal up all the Health consumed by Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros to generate even more Ward.
- Chill and Slow: Are Ailments that 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. Apply it with Rip Blood's Blood Splatters.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use.
- Chance To Fear On Hit: The Fear provided by the Large Immortal Idols helps keep enemies far away. Apply it with Rip Blood's Blood Splatters.
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 Necromancer is a great Monolith of Fate farmer. It's very safe, has good AoE and single target. Since it's also a fairly tanky build, it's an amazing setup for farming difficult content in high Corruption.
Monolith Goals
Your goals in the Monolith of Fate 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.
- Farm Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros. It drops from the Emperor of Corpses in the Reign of Dragons Monolith Timeline and can be deterministically farmed there.
- Get your first Drop Rate Empowered Blessing in the Fall of the Outcast Monolith Timeline as you farm Ribbons of Blood for the amazing stats it provides.
- Finish up 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.
Dungeons are another important end game activity. All of them have an unique reward system attached that can only be accessed by defatting the Boss guarding it. They are divided by 4 Tiers of difficulty; it might take you some time to have a character strong enough to defeat Tier 4. Remember, Dungeons require specific Keys to enter them.
This Necromancer is an amazing Dungeon farmer and insane Boss killer. Thanks to the Ward generated by Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros and its amazing single target DPS, it has a good time with all Dungeons, even on T4.
Dungeon Tips
When it comes to Dungeons, each build has different needs and should focus on the ones that fulfill them. Remember, each Dungeon comes with an unique Dungeon Skill. Make sure you are familiar with the different Dungeon Skills, Boss fights and Rewards before you attempt them.
Recommended Dungeons for this build:
- Temporal Sanctum: Since the build uses some Uniques, it requires to interact with the Eternity Cache often in order to upgrade any desirable Uniques you find with Legendary Potential. The Boss fight against Chronomancer Julra is very easy for any Necromancer, as many of her telegraphed attacks can be dodged with Transplant. This build can also tank most of its attacks with the Ward generated by Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros.
- Lightless Arbour: While the gold sink in the Vault of Uncertain Fate is not necessary for this build to progress, it has a decent time dealing with The Mountain Beneath and, as long as you keep your Ward up with Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros, it's hard to die by a single mechanic. The Stone Titan's Heart is easier, just make sure to use Transplant to go over its moving lasers. Run this Dungeon when you have some excess Gold, be careful as it gets expensive really fast!
- Soulfire Bastion: Make sure you pay attention to the Damage type on the floor while fighting Fire Lich Cremorus and save Transplant to blink over the big telegraphed attacks. Overall this Dungeon and the Soul Gambler are low priority as nothing attached to them is relevant for the build.
Remember, if you struggle to do a particular Dungeon you can always dedicate a different character that shines against it to earn its reward. This is not possible if you play in any of the Solo Game Modes.
Check all of our Dungeon Guides if you want to learn more about their Bosses and rewards systems.
Use everything explained in the Gameplay and Build Scaling sections of this Build Guide to defeat them.
The Endless Arena is the main competitive game mode. It's all about the Ladder! While you might get some upgrades, the other end game activities are far superior for gearing up. The Endless Arena is not for everyone and only the best builds and players can reach the top. You need an Arena Key or an Arena Key of Memory to enter.
This Necromancer build is good for competing in the Endless Arena, especially because of its DPS. However, the moment your Golem's survivability gets out-scaled by the enemy's Damage and it starts dying, your run can be over quickly.
Endless Arena Tips
Adjusting your playstyle to the build you are playing is mandatory to reach high waves. Use the easy early waves as a practice tool; learning about wave management, developing good habits and limit testing your build are very important things to become a better Endless Arena player.
Tips for playing this build in Arena:
- Make sure you always keep track of all 4 enemy packs. New waves do not spawn as long as there are two enemies of the current wave alive. Finish them up at the right time!
- Fight 1 spawn at a time, manipulate the enemy pathing with your positioning and engage on your terms.
- As a ranged build it is crucial to be far away from the spawns and the enemies. Find a safe spot!
- Enemy homing projectiles are really dangerous for this build. Juke them with Transplant or hide behind your Summon Bone Golem.
- Keep track of your Golem's buffs; if they expire at the wrong time it can be dangerous!
- Reset your Summon Bone Golem if it loses to much Health.
- Target dangerous mobs first. Press the "A" key to give commanda to your Summon Bone Golem.
- Hold either Transplant for emergency situations.
Eager to get competitive? Check our Arena Guide!
