Necromancer Leveling Guide
Last Updated:April 11, 2025|Changelog
This Necromancer leveling build summons an army of minions, destroying everything in its path. We start with Summon Skeleton and Summon Bone Golem and end up with 5 Summoned Skeletal Mages, Summon Bone Golem and a massive Assemble Abomination. On the side, you use Dread Shade to make them stronger and faster.
The Necromancer plays at range and let his minions take hits for him. In this build we take advantage of Summon Bone Golem's and Assemble Abomination's massive Health and Threat to tank potential danger, while Summon Volatile Zombie provide your recovery and extra damage when needed.
Overall, the Minion Army Necromancer is an amazing leveling build, with strong offensive capabilities and taking the potential threats away from you. It scales really well from the early levels to the end-game with powerful item bases and passive tree points. This combination makes Necromancer leveling look easy.
Check out the Campaign Guide for an in depth breakdown of the campaign.
Gameplay
As we level the power of skills evolve, with some becoming stronger while others get weaker. To account for this, we transition from a setup that is optimized for early game to one that is more suited to tackling endgame content.
Early Setup
Use this setup until you unlock Summon Skeletal Mage.
- Summon your Skeletons and Summon Bone Golem.
- Spam Rip Blood until you unlock Summon Volatile Zombies for extra damage when needed.
- On bosses, use Bone Curse for extra damage.
- Use Transplant to move quickly through the chapters.
Final Setup
- Summon your Summon Bone Golem, Skeletal Mages and Assemble Abomination.
- In order to summon a good Assemble Abomination you want to Summon Skeletons and Summon Skeletal Mages. Once Assemble Abomination is summoned, remove Summon Skeleton from your hotbar.
- Refresh Dread Shade on your Summon Bone Golem.
- Use Summon Volatile Zombie to boost your damage and recovery when needed.
Key Leveling Notes
- Keep your character at the area level by killing monsters.
- To use this guide, you need to maintain at most a 5 level difference with the area.
- Press C to open the character sheet to find your level and TAB to find the area level.
- Only collect loot that serves as an upgrade.
- The loot filter reveals many items that might not be an upgrade for your character.
- If your inventory is full, stick gear with high value affixes in your stash and sell the rest.
- Don't sell gear that has high value affixes to a vendor.
- Instead, keep it to use later or destroy it with a Rune of Shattering or Rune of Removal.
- Always get the best weapon you can.
- Weapons are a core part of your power and getting a higher level base boosts your damage significantly.
- Early on, you can buy them at the
Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town and in the End of Time town. - After level 40, they don't sell you higher item bases.
- If you want to enter the Monolith of Fate early, unlock all the passive points and idol slots from quests first.
- By the time you complete chapter 7, you will be ready to tackle the Monolith of Fate content.
- Crafting is powerful and important for enhancing your gear.
- Press F and place your item in the crafting interface to level up its affixes and craft new ones!
- Adding health or vitality on a few empty affix slots can increase your HP by a significant amount!
If you need help with crafting, check the Beginner Crafting Guide.
Skills and Passives
Passives and Skills provide powerful effects that dictate the playstyle of a Class and its Masteries. Remember that you can allocate Passives in the first half of any Mastery regardless of the one you chose.
Click on the Arrows at the top and on the Bar at the bottom to see Passive and Skill Trees Progression
Gearing and Side Quests Step by Step
Itemization is a vital aspect of your journey in Last Epoch. While prefixes and suffixes matter, what sets Last Epoch apart is the power of item bases. Many items have potent implicit attributes that can rival or even surpass modifiers.
Level 1 to 10
Items
- On the Shade's Root Staff of the Coven prioritize Minion Melee and Spell Damage and Minion Melee and Bow Damage.
- Commander's Silver Ring of Deflection is the best source of movement speed early on.
- Use Scholar's Skull Cage of Deflection, Imbued Brass Amulet of Deflection and Scholar's Defiled Bones of Deflection for extra damage early on.
- On Vital Leather Boots of Lucidity, prioritize Movement Speed and Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed to enhance your mobility.
Side Quests
- Storeroom Sabotuers for 1
Passive point. - Evacuation Quest for 1 Passive point.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 11 to 25
Items
- Start equipping Idols with Vitality, any type of resistance, Health and Shared Physical Damage.
- At level 21 equip Parrying Bearded Axe of the Coven. It is the best weapon for the build until Horned Staff. If you haven't dropped one by level 21, gamble it at the Gambler NPC in the Council Chamber town or in the End of Time town.
- Commander's Gold Ring of Deflection provides significant elemental resistances, outshining other options at this level.
- Scholar's Witch Hat of Deflection, Scholar's Initiate Robes of Deflection and Scholar's Leather Gloves of Deflection provides a lot of Mana and Mana Regeneration, increasing the number of Summon Volatile Zombie you can cast.
Side Quests
- Erza's Ledger Quest for 1 Passive point and Avarice.
- Don't talk to the Gambler NPC before completing this quest, otherwise you can't get Avarice.
- The Upper District Quest for 1 Passive point.
- An Ancient Hunt for extra
Idol slots. - The Lesser Refuge Quest for 2 Passive point.
- The Corrupted Lake Quest for 1 Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 26 to 40
Items
- Warrior's Turquoise Amulet of Life and Commander's Turquoise Ring of Deflection are extremely powerful bases for this build.
Side Quests
- Hidden Gems Quest for 1 Passive point.
- The Sapphire Tablet Quest for 1 Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Level 41 to 58
Items
- Scholar's Arcane Bracers of Purity and Scholar's Coven Robes of Deflection are nice upgrades to your Mana and Mana Regeneration.
- Reptilian Spidersilk Sash of Insulation is a powerful base that helps you fix your Cold res when combined with Vital Heoborean Boots of Life.
Side Quests
- A Heoborean Cure Quest for extra Idol slots.
- Liberating the Nomads Quest for extra Idol slots.
- After defeating the Frostroot Warden boss and completing chapter 7 quests, you have reached the cap of 15 Passive points and 8 Idol slots. You can dive into the Monolith of Fate or you can choose to finish the campaign for a reward of +1 to all attributes.
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Early Monolith
Items
Important At this point, you have access to most of the best item bases in the game. Your upgrades come from prefixes and suffixes on items instead of the implicits.
Here is a recap of the best item bases :
- Weapon : Horned Staff or Bearded Axe
- Helmet : Coven Hat
- Body Armour : Coven Robes
- Belt : Spidersilk Sash or Praetorian Belt
- Boots : Heoborean Boots and Solarum Greaves
- Gloves : Arcane Bracers
- Amulet : Bone Amulet or Turquoise Amulet
- Rings : Turquoise Ring
- Relic : Runed Bones or Cursed Bones
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.
Monolith Progression
After beating the Abomination timeline boss and completing your first timeline, you have the choice to go between The Stolen Lance timeline and The Black Sun timeline. Go for The Black Sun timeline.
You want to do timelines on the right-hand-side of the Monolith progression as they provides more relevant Blessings for your character progression.
Level progression includes 1-10, 11-25, 26-40, 41-58 and Early Monolith, scroll to find the correct tab.
Necromancer Uniques
If you are lucky you might get a Rune of Ascendance while leveling. Use this first on boots to get unique boots such as Eterra's Path.
Keep an eye out for useful Uniques such as Death Rattle, Reach of the Grave, Arek's Bones Eterra's Path, Usurper's Mandate, Ribbons of Blood, Ravens' Rise and Arboreal Circuit.
Gear Stats Priorities
Best Prefixes
- Level of Summon Skeleton until you have 5 points in the Necromancer Passive Tree.
- Level of Summon Skeletal Mage, Level of Summon Bone Golem, Level of Summon Volatile Zombie, Level of Dread Shade and Level of Assemble Abomination
- Increased Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions
- Minion Damage
- Increased Skeletal Mage Damage
- Mana and Mana Regen
- Mana Regeneration
- Critical Strike Chance For Skeletons And Skeletal Mages
- Cast Speed
- Volatile Zombie Speed and Damage
- Vitality
Best Suffixes
- Minion Melee and Spell Damage
- Minion Spell and Bow Damage
- Cold Penetration and Minion Cold Penetration
- Health
- Hybrid Health
- Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance
- Health
- Armour
- Dodge Rating
Idols
- Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions
- Minion Cold Damage
- Critical Strike Chance For Skeletons And Skeletal Mages
- Health
- Healing Effectiveness
- Health
- Health
- Vitality
Loot Filter
Loot Filters are critical in Last Epoch. Highlighting all the related valuable Item Bases, Affixes, Uniques and Idols is crucial to your character's progression. As your gear gets better, remember to hide the rules that are no longer useful to avoid screen clutter.
Link : Download Lootfilter
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Summary
This Necromancer leveling build shines in its offensive capabilities. It melts everything in its way, making it a very solid mastery to play during the campaign.
- Before 5 points in the Necromancer Passive Tree, summon your Summon Skeleton and Summon Bone Golem.
- After that milestone, summon your Summon Bone Golem, Summon Skeletal Mage and Assemble Abomination.
- To summon Assemble Abomination use Summon Skeleton and Summon Skeletal Mage. Once it is summoned, remove Summon Skeleton from your hotbar.
- Refresh Dread Shade on your Summon Bone Golem.
- Use Summon Volatile Zombie to boost your damage and recovery when needed.
- Cap your Physical Resistance early to make the campaign look easy.
What's Next?
Congratulations, you completed the campaign and your first 3 Monoliths Timelines! What awaits you is unlocking Empowered Monolith after pushing through The Reign of Dragons, Spirits of Fire, The Age of Winter and The Last Ruin Timelines and activating the beacon in the middle of them. Then you can dive into dungeons, empower your character further and test your limits at the Arena leaderboard.
Check out our Necromancer Guides and find the perfect Necromancer Endgame build for you.
Explore the Monolith of Fate with our Beginner Guide and learn how to farm Dungeons.
Credits
Written by Terek.
Reviewed by Tenkiei.