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Spellblade Leveling Guide

Last Updated: March 4th 2024

Patch 1.0

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This Spellblade leveling build unleashes deadly waves of Cold to exterminate everything on the battlefield. The build utilizes Firebrand to get massive Shatter Strike casts.

The Spellblade goes into melee and generates wards to stay alive. Flame Ward is an incredible Defensive Skill with tons of Damage Reduction that can save him even from the most dangerous attacks. It also benefits from ward gained on melee hits and from Firebrand tree. The build has decent mobility thanks to Flame Rush which grants great defensive buffs on use.

Overall this Shatter Strike Spellblade is an amazing leveling build. It provides amazing damage which can one shot monsters and even some bosses in the campaign, while scaling really well into the end game. It is also a really good defensive build with high ward generation and its 2 charges of Flame Ward, making it one of the best mastery for leveling.

Campaign Gear Planner
Specialized Skills

Check out the Campaign Guide for an in depth breakdown of the campaign.

Pros
  • Easy Gearing
  • Very Good Damage
  • Multiple Layers of Defense
  • Amazing Scaling With Gear
Cons
  • Respec Multiple Skills
  • Builder Spender Playstyle
  • DPS Downtime After Rotation
  • Defensive Skills Require Timing

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 Shatter Strike.

  • Glacier is your single target and clear.
  • When you are low on Mana, use Mana Strike.
  • Use Teleport to move quickly through the chapters.
Skills to put in your Hotbar

Mid Campaign Setup

Use this setup until you unlock Firebrand.

  • Shatter Strike is your single target and clear.
  • When you are low on Mana, use Mana Strike.
  • Use Enchant Weapon to boost your damage.
  • Use Teleport to move quickly through the chapters until you unlock Flame Rush.
  • Use Flame Ward to protect yourself from danger.
Skills to put in your Hotbar

Final Setup

  • For single target use Firebrand to build up 6 stacks and consume them with Shatter Strike.
  • When clearing, reduce the number of Firebrand stacks in accordance to the monster health.
  • When you are low on Mana, use Firebrand.
  • Use Enchant Weapon to boost your damage.
  • Use Flame Rush to move quickly through the chapters.
  • Use Flame Ward to protect yourself from danger.
Skills to put in your Hotbar

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
Level 11 to 25
Level 26 to 40
Level 41 to 58
Early Monolith

Level 1 to 10

Items

  • On the Cryomancer's Root Staff of Glory prioritize Spell Damage and Chance to Ignite on Hit.
  • Scholar's Silver Ring of Deflection is the best source of movement speed early on.
  • Shade's Runic Scroll of Life provides a substantial spell damage boost early on.
  • On Scholar's Leather Boots of Deflection, 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 at Level 10
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, Health on Kill, Chance To Bleed On Hit, Chance To Poison On Hit and Chance To Ignite On Hit.
  • As we transition to Shatter Strike, Split Greatsword and Shattering Imperial Warblade of Hunger are the best weapon base available.
  • You also want to switch your amulet to Cryomancer's Jade Amulet of Life for its Melee Attack Speed implicit.
  • Scholar's Gold Ring of Deflection provide significant elemental resistances, outshining other options at this level.
  • Scholar's Weathered Crown of Life provides a lot of Mana, increasing the damage window.
  • Avarice gives you a decent chunk of elemental resistances and leech.

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 at Level 25
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.

Level 26 to 40

Items

  • Scholar's Sapphire Ring of Deflection, Opulent Robes and Mage's Opulent Robes of Life are going to be a great help to sustain the mana cost of Shatter Strike.
  • Once you spec into Gemini in the Spellblade Passive Tree, switch to dual wielding one-handed swords like Cryomancer's Falchion of Hunger.

Side Quests

  • Hidden Gems Quest for 1 Passive point.
  • The Sapphire Tablet Quest for 1 Passive point and extra Idol slots.
Items at Level 40
Items on planner are for displaying item bases and affixes only. Ignore level requirements.

Level 41 to 58

Items

  • Cryomancer's Bone Amulet of Life is the best amulet base in the game as it gives a lot of resistances, which gives you more space for suffixes on your gear.
  • Equip a Scholar's Celestial Helm of Life as well as Critical Strike Chance on your items. Combined, you need at least 144% to cap your critical strike chance.
  • Deft Nagasa Scymitar of Hunger is one of the best weapon base for this build.
  • Eviscerating Scrying Eye of Life is a great damage boost for the build.
  • Cryomancer's Spidersilk Sash of Lucidity is a powerful base that helps you fix your cold res when combined with Scholar's Heoborean Boots of Deflection.

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 at Level 58
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 : Crystal Sword
  • Helmet : Runed Visage or Lunar Helm
  • Body Armour : Celestial Raiment or Opulent Robes
  • Belt : Spidersilk Sash or Praetorian Belt
  • Boots : Heoborean Boots or Solarum Greaves
  • Gloves : Avarice
  • Amulet : Bone Amulet
  • Rings : Sapphire Ring
  • Relic : Scrying Eye or Warding Scroll
Items in Early Monolith
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.

Spellblade 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 or Suloron's Step.

Keep an eye out for useful Uniques such as Yrun's Wisdom, Woven Flesh, Prism Wraps, Aurora's Time Glass, Suloron's Step and Diothaen's Bloody Nib.

Gear Stats Priorities

Best Prefixes

Damage
Defense
Utility
  1. Level of Shatter Strike, Level of Firebrand, Level of Enchant Weapon, Level of Flame Ward and Level of Flame Rush
  2. Melee Attack Speed
  3. Cold Penetration
  4. Critical Strike Multiplier
  5. Critical Strike Chance
  6. Cold Damage
  7. Melee Damage
  8. Intelligence
  1. Vitality
  2. Melee Damage Leeched as Health
  1. increased Area for Area Skills

Best Suffixes

Damage
Defense
Utility
  1. Chance to Bleed on Hit and Chance to Ignite on Hit until you unlock Firebrand.
  2. Chance to Shred Armour on Hit
  3. Cold Penetration and Minion Cold Penetration
  1. Health
  2. Hybrid Health
  3. Fire Resistance, Lightning Resistance, Cold Resistance, Elemental Resistance, Physical Resistance, Necrotic Resistance and Void Resistance
  4. Health
  5. Chance to Chill on Hit
  6. Chance to apply Frailty on Hit and Chance to apply Frailty on Melee Hit
  7. Chance to Slow on Hit
  8. Armour
  9. Dodge Rating
  1. Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed

Idols

Damage
Defense
  1. Chance to Bleed on Hit, Chance to Ignite on Hit and Chance to Poison on Hit until you unlock Firebrand.
  2. Melee Cold Damage
  3. Increased Cold Damage (Doubled If You Have Over 300 Max Mana)
  4. Shared Cold Damage
  5. Chance To Apply Frostbite With Cold Skills
  1. Health
  2. Health
  3. Vitality
  4. Ward Per Second
  5. Mana Spent Gained as Ward

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.

Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.

Summary

This Spellblade leveling build shines in its offensive and defensive capabilities. It kills bosses in seconds, makes you straight up immortal, making it a very good mastery during the campaign.

  • Glacier is your main damaging skill before switching to Shatter Strike once you unlock your mastery.
  • If you are low on Mana use Mana Strike, then Firebrand once you unlock it.
  • Use Firebrand to reach max stacks before using Shatter Strike.
  • Activate Enchant Weapon for a big damage boost.
  • Use Flame Ward to protect yourself from danger.
  • Use Flame Rush to move quickly through the chapters.
  • Always change your Staff to the best base possible for your level when Glacier is your main damage skill.
  • Always change your Sword to the best base possible for your level when Shatter Strike is your main damage skill. Use two handed swords before you spec into Gemini, then switch to one handed swords.
  • 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 Spellblade Guides and find the perfect Spellblade 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.

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