Welcome to the Shadow Daggers Falconer Guide. Do you like to fly? I mean, literally? Thanks to Aerial Assault, you can do just that while dropping Umbral Blades on enemies below and proccing Shadow Daggers! This build is one of the fastest in the game, with a very short Cooldown on our Movement Skill, which also happens to be the primary source of our damage. Speaking of damage, this build has excellent clear thanks to explosions that reach most of the screen. Single target is also solid, and defenses are very good, making this an excellent all around option that is especially good at farming.
To deal our damage we proc Shadow Daggers from Umbral Blades and Puncture. However, we never cast these skills directly. Instead, we proc Umbral Blades through Aerial Assault and Puncture through Net. This simplifies the rotation substantially and makes room for Smoke Bomb and Decoy for support. Rounding out the rotation is Falconry, which is required for Aerial Assault
While the build does not require any Uniques to function, we get substantial value out of several. Siphon of Anguish provides us with multiple valuable affixes, and our defenses are turbo charged from Smoke Weaver. Finally, Advent of the Erased offers both defense and cooldown reduction on our primary skill thanks to Frenzy giving us more procs of Skyward Swoop.
Overall, the Shadow Daggers Falconer is a great build for any type of content. It excels at clearing Monolith Echoes fast but the speed and tankiness also make it great for Dungeons and Arena. If you like the playstyle, you really can't go wrong with this build!
This build guide assumes you have Unlocked Aerial Assault in the Falconer passive tree.
Reach Aerial Assault with our Falconer Leveling Guide.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- Tanky
- Exceptionally Fast
- Very Good Damage
- Good At All Content
- Somewhat Minion Reliant
- Some Mana Management
- Vulnerable When Not Moving
- Maxing The Build Requires Uniques
Skills
Umbral Blades
Umbral Blades applies an absolute ton of Shadow Daggers thanks to Lethal Darkness and Plumed Daggers. We cast it through Aerial Assault and use both Cacophony of Steel and Explosive Blades to maximize our damage (this is different than the Bladedancer version because of the position of our attack being front facing instead of trailing behind, where having a longer uptime on Cacophony of Steel would be ideal to take out enemies). Since we're scaling Shadow Daggers damage and not Umbral Blades we can convert it to Cold for the Chill. Don't put this on your hot bar. Instead use Falconry.
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.
- Since we're almost always moving Evasion is a huge damage reduction buff.
- With the right gear and the Haste buff from Agility we can spend a lot of time well over 100% Movement Speed, making the damage buff from this node very strong. Plus it pairs well with Advent of the Erased.
- Raptor's Wings is another great node for Advent of the Erased, plus it provides a small damage multiplier.
- Swift Assassin and Once provide extra benefit since Shadow Daggers has both Melee and Throwing tags.
- While Pursuit is a decent damage buff, the main benefit it provides is Movement Speed.
- Tailwind grants a substantial Damage Reduction and Movement Speed buff that is easy to double almost 100% of the time.
- Health is hard to come by, so Shroud of Dusk and Wilderness Scout have significant value for our survivability, even on Low Life setups.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
To maximize both our damage and defenses we want to keep moving as much as possible. This means Aerial Assault is used primarly, with Net only filling in for single target or a quick burst on packs.
Skill Usage/Rotation
- Stay on the move and use Aerial Assault on cooldown. Either aim for large packs, or for one of the corners of your screen. This maximizes your distance traveled.
- Use Net against tanky enemies and packs. Make sure to use the skill directly on top of them for maximum Shadow Daggers stacks. Using this skill requires you to stop moving, which disables the damage reduction from Agility, so be careful not to use this in overly dangerous situations.
- In extended fights, find a safe spot near enemies to cast Smoke Bomb. Try to stay in the Smoke to gain damage from Smoke Blades.
- If the enemies become overwhelming, use Decoy to taunt them and buy some time.
Mapping
- Run to the objective using Aerial Assault on cooldown. Most of the enemies nearby will be killed from Umbral Blades. Shifting near enemies will make it easier for Umbral Blades to find its target.
- Along the way, use Net on Rare enemies along the way that don't go down easily from Aerial Assault.
- Upon reaching the objective, use Smoke Bomb, then spam Aerial Assault on cooldown, aiming for groups of enemies or large targets. Sprinkle in Net when Aerial Assault is on cooldown.
Bossing
- Use Smoke Bomb on cooldown as long as it's safe to do so. Make sure to stay in the smoke as much as possible
- Aerial Assault into the boss on Cooldown.
- Use Net when Aerial Assault is on cooldown.
- Use Decoy in emergencies when you need a breather or to keep adds off of you.
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 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
- 50-60% Endurance
- 2000 - 3000 Health
- 30% - 40%+ Dodge Chance (Pre Buffs)
- 1000+ Armor (Pre Buffs)
- 35%+ Armor Shred Chance
- 175+ Flat Phys Damage
- 200%+ Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers
- 250%+ Critical Strike Multiplier
- 50% - 75%+ Movement Speed (Pre Buffs)
- 20+% Cooldown Reduction
- 30+ Dexterity
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
Get a good pair of boots with Movement Speed. Fit as much Health into your gear as possible. Hybrid Health and Increased Health are extremely valuable, but can be hard to find early on. Use regular flat Health until you find them.
Milestone 4
Fit any Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers wherever you can without sacrificing too much defense. If you have any Large Shadow Idols with Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers and don't need your idol slots for resistances, or were lucky enough to find one that also has Elemental Resistance, use them.
Milestone 5
While you look for this basic set of gear, start farming your Empowered Blessings and continue to look for any Idols that can help you cap all of your Resistances momentarily or increase your Damage output. Be on the lookout for Stout Lagonian Idols with good rolls of Increased Health and Added Health. Use them as soon as you no longer need those slots for resistances.
Milestone 1
Once you cover your Void Resistance with a well rolled Grand Echo of Solarum Blessing, replace your Crusader Gauntlets with Eternal Gauntlets for their DoT defense.
Milestone 2
When all of your core Defenses are covered, start working on your Damage. Get Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on your Eternal Gauntlets. Also get Dexterity, Critical Strike Multiplier and any extra Increased Shadow Daggers Effect you can fit into the build.
Milestone 3
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.
Milestone 4
While they are not mandatory, Siphon of Anguish, Smoke Weaver and Advent of the Erased have insane synergy with this build and you should start farming them now. Siphon of Anguish can be easily farmed from Shade of Orobyss. Smoke Weaver and Advent of the Erased are random world drop, so either use Rune of Ascendance or farm the appropriate Timelines for the specific Unique Echo reward.
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 priority on your belt to remove DoTs.
Milestone 2
Farm Smoke Weaver and Siphon of Anguish with Legendary Potential. Aim for the indicated Affixes in the Planner for each slot.
Milestone 3
Focus on finishing your Idol set up. Prioritize well rolled Increased Shadow Daggers Effect or Health Prefixes depending on whether you need more offense or defense. On your suffixes use Elemental Resistance as needed and switch to Increased Armour Shred Duration when resistance capped. Keep looking for double health Stout Lagonian Idols at the highest possible rolls.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items and 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 of your Empowered Blessings and find all of your desired Idols with the best in slot Prefixes and Suffixes.
Milestone 3
If you can seal a decent Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on your amulet you can hunt for a pair of Li'raka's Claws with at least 2LP and put Hybrid Health and Throwing Damage on them for a big damage boost without sacrificing too much defense.
Milestone 4
Continue farming Siphon of Anguish, Smoke Weaver, and Wings of Argentus 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!
This setup goes full Low Life, which has the theoretical highest EHP (Effective Health Pool) and allows us to take full advantage of Healing Gust and Gustborne Guard. It requires a lot of gear to get set up, but the chase is worth it if you want to push high Corruption.
Milestone 1
Farm a Cleaver Solution, Exsanguinous, Last Steps of the Living and Gloves with Exalted Experimental Ward per Missing Health. Cleaver Solution and Exsanguinous are random world drops. Last Steps of the Living drops from Formosus the Undying in Blood, Frost, and Death. The Experimental Gloves are from Exiled Mages. Make sure to remove Siphon of Anguish and any other sources of Leech you have.
Milestone 2
Farm a Twisted Heart of Uhkeiros with at least 1 LP and slam Strength into it. A perfect rolled version will net you 32 Strength plus 20% increased health. Farm this from Emperor of Corpses in the Reign of Dragons Timeline.
Milestone 3
Stack as much Strength as you can on the rest of your gear. It's possible to get ~100 Strength with this setup, which is 400% Increased Ward Retention and Armor.
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
- Bastion of Divinity
- Rhythm of the Tide
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Protection of Heorot
- Resolve of Grael
- Heart of the Caldera
- Bulwark of the Tundra
- Embers of Immortality
- Body of Obsidian
- Bones of Eternity
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 Resistances, start with Grand Echo of Solarum
- If you are lacking Critical Strike Avoidance, start with Grand Survival of Might. A high roll on this Empowered Blessing can be combined with a tier 5 Critical Strike Avoidance to completely cap it.
- Go for Grand Bulwark of the Tundra next Grand Embers of Immortality to get a big damage reduction boost and finish up with Grand Rhythm of the Tide to supplement your sustain.
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 Shadow Idols with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect and Elemental Resistance or Increased Armour Shred Duration. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Take Grand Subtlety of Slaughter to help you farm Smoke Weaver.
- Lastly Grand Memory of Masters and Grand Hope of the Beginning helps you find more Rogue Increased Shadow Daggers Effect Shard.
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:
- Look for Large Shadow Idol with Increased Shadow Daggers Effect or %Health and Elemental Resistance or Increased Armour Shred Duration. Use Shadow Dagger Prefixes If you need damage, otherwise go health. For suffixes take Elemental Resistances until capped then go with the Armor Shred.
- You also want four Stout Lagonian Idols with %Health. Look for flat Health Suffix or Resistances if needed.
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 is focused around consistent and fast paced movement with lots of large Shadow Daggers crits clearing everything in our path. The playstyle needs high Movement Speed and Dodge because when we're going fast and not getting hit we're at our best with all of our buffs up. We also want to ensure that we're taking the right stats to scale Shadow Daggers so Flat Damage, Crit Multi, and Physical Penetration with Shadow Daggers are what we push for.
- Flat Melee/Throwing Damage: With 340% Added Damage Scaling from Shadow Daggers we can never have too much Flat Damage. Thanks to Shadow Daggers having both Melee and Throwing tags, the Passive nodes Swift Assassin and Once will provide a double benefit. Try to get Melee Physical Damage on a Legendary Smoke Weaver to really boost your damage!
- Physical Penetration With Shadow Daggers: Since we don't get Physical Penetration anywhere else in our build and we're only scaling Physical Damage, this stat effectively works as a multiplier for all of our damage. Prioritize your helmet and get as much as you can on your idols without sacrificing too much HP.
- Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your Crits deal. We stack this heavily on gear. You can add a Legendary Li'raka's Claws if you can fit it in. The gloves only give Throwing Crit Multi but it's a huge amount so the damage increase is noticeable.
- 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. We get a lot of Armour Shred from Puncture, so with some Increased Armour Shred Duration on Idols and 100-200% Chance To Shred Armour on Hit on our gear we can easily shred over 10k Armour
- Dexterity: We get both Increased Damage and Dodge Rating from this stat. It's not a priority in gearing and we can get most of our Dexterity from passives, but fitting this in wherever we have room is a nice bonus.
- Increased Damage: We get a lot of this from Passives and Dexterity so we don't really need much on our gear.
- Evasion and Tailwind: We're moving constantly and only stopping when it's safe, so these two sources provide a tremendous amount of reliable Damage Reduction. As long as you don't make a mistake and take a big hit while standing still you're very resistant to damage.
- Dodge: The stats Dexterity, Dodge and %Dodge allow us to reasonably reach between 30% and 40% permanent Dodge before buffs and on top of Silver Shrouds. Getting a well rolled Smoke Weaver makes a huge difference for Dodge scaling. Evasion Tactics and Tailwind give us a nice boost to our Dodge rating.
- DoT Damage Reduction: Along with Evasion and Tailwind which also provide reduction for dots, we have Crimson Shroud stacks from Concealed in Carnage on Smoke Bomb. Needless to say, this build performs very well against DoTs!
- Silver Shrouds: As long as you have one up, the next hit you take is Dodged instead. You also gain 100 Ward per Silver Shroud once they proc to Dodge the incoming attack. Use Smoke Bomb in high intensity fights to get a free dodge, or if you want to maximize your damage on a boss you can always try to time their mechanic with it instead of running away!
- Glancing Blows: We only have 51% by default, but if we haven't been hit recently it increases to 100%. A successful Glancing Blow reduces hit damage taken by 35%. This equates to about 11% average damage reduction. Thanks to Shroud of Dusk we also have a 32% chance to gain a stack of Dusk Shroud when hit. Each stack gives us 5% Glancing Blow chance.
- Armor Mitigation: We can get a solid amount of Armor with this build, which can be scaled much higher with the Low Life or Strength Stacking variants. With Grand Body of Obsidian, Evasion Tactics and Stymphalian Feathers we can get about 1000-2000 Armor.
- Decoy: Crazy support skill that Taunts. While Taunted, enemies focus the Decoy instead of attacking you. Can be used unspecced.
- Health: This build can stack a decent health pool despite not having double suffixes from body armour. It's very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers this Falconer has access to.
- Leech: A well rolled Siphon of Anguish is sufficient Leech for this build, but we can add even more with a Sealed Melee Damage Leeched as Health on our weapon or gloves. Even though we don't leech the throwing part of our damage it makes no difference since the leech we do have can top us off almost instantly.
- Chill: This is an Ailment that greatly reduces the Action and Movement Speed of your enemies. We get ours from Coldsnap Strike on Umbral Blades, which frees up a suffix slot on our gear for other defenses.
- Frailty: This Ailment reduces the Damage dealt by enemies by 6% for 4 seconds and it stacks 3 times. We get ours from Incapacitate on Shadow Cascade. This frees up a suffix slot on our gear.
- Ward and Ailment Cleansing on Potion Use: Cleanse all Ailments on Potion use. This is especially valuable for clearing high damage DoT stacks.
- Critical Strike Avoidance: Getting crit means we take double damage, so avoiding that is a must. We cap this through the blessing Grand Survival of Might and one tier 5 Critical Strike Avoidance suffix, preferably on our crafted ring.
- Endurance: At cap this stat provides us with 60% damage reduction for any damage taken below our Endurance Threshold, which is 35% of our maximum health for this build thanks to Outlander's Tenacity. By scaling Endurance we mitigate the risk of one shots and also provide ourselves with a chance to recover from DoTs by out leeching them at low health.
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 Shadow Daggers Falconer is a great build that can deal with all the content in the game and clear it faster than almost any other build in the game.
- Go very fast without sacrificing damage or survivability. The faster you go, the better!
- Fully embrace the playstyle of the build and enhance it with every component, making full use of the Evasion, Tailwind and Poise Nodes that reward you for going fast and not getting hit.
- Fly into the center of packs and blow them up!
- Use Decoy to distract and group your enemies. Take advantage of this to reposition and DPS.
- Take advantage of Smoke Weaver, Siphon of Anguish and Advent of the Erased to really turbocharge the playstyle.
Credits
Written by McFluffin.
Reviewed by Lizard_IRL