Welcome to the Harvest Lich build guide. This Lich transforms into its horrific Reaper Form to unleash sweeping Necrotic melee attacks. Swing your scythes with Harvest while using Death Seal to empower yourself with Damage and Defense buffs.
The Harvest Lich thrives and has the tools to survive brutal close ranged encounters. The build has great mobility thanks to Reap and Transplant. Bone Curse provides additional utility, survivability and Damage.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However, Items like Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs and Titan Heart provide amazing tankiness for the build. Omnis, Siphon of Anguish and Shattered Chains turn this build into an absolute monster, capable of dealing great DPS while being extremely tanky. The investment to maximize this build is considerable, so it is not recommended as a starter.
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 grim reaper melee build that destroys enemies and is able to survive the hardest encounters, this build is perfect for you!
Reaper Form
Bone Curse
Transplant
Death Seal
Harvest
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!
Two Movement Skills ✔
High Movement Speed ✔
Good Single Target DPS ✔
Great Scaling With Gear & Uniques ✔
❌ Limited AoE
❌ Active Playstyle
❌ Heavy Gear Investment
❌ Defensive Tools Require Timing
Skills
Reaper Form
This is a Reaper Form build. Thanks to the Unholy Dominion Node, Transplant doesn't share Cooldown with Reap, a new Skill granted while you are Transformed. This ability provides incredible offensive and defensive buffs with nodes like Rapid Destruction, Soul Shroud and Vile Shroud.
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 Nodes with Intelligence, Health, Attack Speed, 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 Leech with Soul Maw and Ageless Ascetic.
- Elixir of Death is crucial for survivability.
- Three Plagues and Mind Over Body boost your Damage substantially.
- If you need more Critical Strike Chance, take out points from Necrotic Energy and allocate them into Darkguard.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
Dive in while spamming Harvest to wreak havoc on your enemies. 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.
- Proc or cast Bone Curse.
- Cast Death Seal when enemies are nearby for its buffs.
- Spam Harvest at anything you see.
- Cast Reap and Transplant to juke or dive into enemies.
- Keep your Reaper Form active by staying in combat and leeching.
Mapping
- 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.
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
- 3000 - 5000 Health
- 50% - 75% Armour
- 140+ Intelligence
- 130%+ Attack Speed
- 600%+ Increased Damage
- 500%+ Melee Critical Strike Multiplier (with Odachi)
- 40% - 70%+ 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 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
Start building Intelligence and 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
Aim for T5 Level of Harvest to invest more Points into its Skill Tree.
Milestone 5
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 %Health Prefix and Health Suffix.
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
- Bastion of Divinity
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Body of Obsidian
- 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:
- Get 4 Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Health suffix.
- You also want 3 Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix. This build can get an absurd amount of Health just from Idols.
- One Stout Lagonian Idol with %Health Prefix and Cold Resistance Suffix is usually needed in this build. If you have enough Resistance, go for Health Suffix.
- You might need extra Resistances out of your Idols early on, so keep an eye for anything useful until you get your final setup.
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 unleashes Harvest on enemies, dealing high Necrotic Crit Damage with a fast Attack Speed. 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.
- Intelligence: Harvest gains +1 Melee Necrotic Damage per point of Intelligence. This Flat Damage is not affected by the 70% Damage Effectiveness of the skill, instead we get the full value.
- Flat Melee Damage: Most of this builds Flat Damage comes from Intelligence. Harvest has 70% Damage Effectiveness for added damage, which makes scaling direct Flat Melee Damage less efficient.
- Attack Speed: Attack faster for more Damage and Ailments.
- % Increased Damage: Anything that increases Necrotic Melee Damage is welcomed.
- Critical Strike Chance: With 35% Base Crit on Harvest thanks to 3 points in Iron Mouths, we only need ~185% Increased Critical Strike Chance to cap it. Deathbringer and the Reaper's Curse Node inside of Reaper Form give this build tons of Critical Strike Chance. Omnis implicit covers the rest of the Crit Chance, but in case you don't have this Amulet or the implicit on it is rolled poorly, you can put a few points into Darkguard.
- 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.
- Necrotic Resistance Shred: Since the build attacks 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). We get it by speccing into Harrowing Blade in Harvest.
- 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.
- Doom: Granted by Siphon of Anguish, this Ailment greatly increases the Melee Damage taken by enemies. 4% per stack, maximum 4 stacks. Shattered Chains scales this further, with an extra 5% more Melee Damage per stack.
- Finality: This Node in Harvest provides a Cull. Great for Bossing.
- Poison Chance: Useful to take advantage of Death Inside, we get this from Putrid Reaper, Pustulent Presence and Aura Of Decay. 10 stacks of Poison on the enemies is needed to reach the maximum 30% more Damage multiplier from Death Inside.
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 Lich is an amazing Monolith of Faith farmer. It's very mobile, has great speed and single target. It's really fast at rushing objectives and is amazing 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. You need at least 200 Corruption to have a chance to drop an Omnis by killing the Shade of Orobyss.
- 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
Summary
Overall, the Harvest Lich is a grim reaper 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 Harvest and obliterate your enemies.
- 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, Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs, Siphon of Anguish, Shattered Chains, Omnis and Titan Heart are great Uniques that you want to get to scale the build to its full potential.
- If you manage to get it, Death's Embrace with Legendary Potential will boost your DPS through the roof.
Credits
Written by Volca.
Reviewed by LizardIRL, Facefoot