Harvest Lich Guide
Last Updated:April 11, 2025|Changelog
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!
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 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.
- Because this is a melee build, we don't invest much into spell damage scaling. For this reason, abilities like Death Seal and Bone Curse are used for utility and buffs instead of direct damage. Points in Nodes inside Death Seal such as Mortal Pulse, Cycle of Decay and Curdled Flesh are not required, and you can adjust the allocation of these Points to your liking. For example, Flesh Pact can be helpful for some extra healing.
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.
- Manually cast Bone Curse to activate Cursed Limbs.
- 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.
- Keep your Reaper Form active by staying in combat and leeching.
- This build can be scary to play due to Low Life and being melee. Learn your limits and use the build's 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.
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
- 100% Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes
- 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.
Milestone 1
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Intelligence, Melee Attack Speed, Critical Strike Multiplier and Chance To Shred Armour on Hit to increase your DPS drastically.
Milestone 2
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 3
Farm Siphon of Anguish for the Doom chance it provides. It's a common drop from Shade of Orobyss in any Monolith of Faith Timeline. You can farm this Unique while you look for Empowered Blessings.
Milestone 4
Increased Area for Area Skills is an useful stat for this build, getting it on at least one piece of gear helps with clearing. It's also an option on the gloves, in place of Melee Attack Speed.
Milestone 5
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. Keep an eye for Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix.
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
Farm Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs with Legendary Potential. It's a common Relic that provides great buffs when using a Potion. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot.
Milestone 3
Look for Shattered Chains with Legendary Potential. This Belt grants more Damage per stack of Doom and other valuable stats. Getting Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use on it is crucial. Farm it by killing the Shade of Orobyss at 120+ Corruption.
Milestone 4
Farm Death's Embrace with Legendary Potential. This is a rare item to find, but if you manage to get one with T7 Melee Attack Speed on it, it's the best possible weapon for the build. Harvest consumes mana with this weapon, so you need to either have Mana Gained On Harvest Use on your Body Armour or build Mana Regeneration.
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. High rolls are not be necessary but the Item itself could take significant time to farm. At the same time, farm Siphon of Anguish with Legendary Potential.
Milestone 6
Farm Titan Heart with Legendary Potential. This item provides a lot of %Health and Damage Reduction. Health Regen is disabled when using this item, but it's not a big downside for this build since it relies on Leech for sustain. Get at least Intelligence on it.
Milestone 7
Focus on finishing your Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix. You also want Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health Prefix and Health Suffix. The Suffixes on these Idols can also have Resistances, use them as needed.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with 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 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, Shattered Chains, Siphon of Anguish, Omnis and Titan Heart 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!
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.
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:
- If you are lacking Critical Strike Avoidance, start with Grand Survival of Might. If you're building Reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes, go for Grand Despair of Flesh or Grand Resolve of Humanity instead.
- Work on Grand Resolve of Grael and Grand Bastion of Divinity for their Resistances early on. Whenever that is not needed, grab Grand Bulwark of the Tundra and Grand Crash of the Waves for a huge survivability boost.
- Farm the best rolled Grand Body of Obsidian you can get. It grants a large amount of Flat Armor that helps increase the survivability of the build.
- Get 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 Health Suffix. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Farm Grand Favor of the Wengari to find more Death's Embrace. If you'd rather find more Odachi, get Grand Ambition of the Empire.
- 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 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.
- 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 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.
- 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 incredible 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.
- 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 and Grand Body of Obsidian Blessings and Reaper Form's Soul Shroud Node you reach 50% to 75%+ Mitigation.
- 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.
- Chill and Slow: Ailments that greatly reduce the Action and 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. 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