Wraith Necromancer Guide
Last Updated:July 13, 2024|Changelog
Welcome to the Wraith Necromancer build guide. This Necromancer uses Summon Wraith and Summon Volatile Zombie to summon a horrific Minion army. The dark and forbidden knowledge of the dead is used to unleash total destruction across the battlefield. The unending barrage of Fire projectiles and explosions of this build makes it an authentic visual spectacle.
You NEED 2 Adorned Immortal Idols with Chance for Summon Wraith to summon a Flame Wraith instead to play this build. Don't worry, they are easy to find!
Cast Dread Shade to buff your Summon Wraith's Damage tremendously. Once you have a few summoned, cast Drain Life on them to generate Mana. The build also has decent mobility and utility with Transplant.
This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However Items like Aberrant Call, Phantom Grip, Julra's Obsession, Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte, Last Steps of the Living, Exsanguinous, Snowblind and Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding take the build to the next level.
Overall this depraved Necromancer is an amazing build capable of crushing all the content in the game. If you are looking for a dark summoner with a powerful undeath army capable of obliterating Bosses in seconds, this build is perfect for you!
This article assumes you have a Level 70 Character.
Reach Level 70 with our Necromancer Leveling Guide.
You need 2 Adorned Immortal Idols with Flame Wraith conversion to play this build.
If you are looking for a different playstyle, check all our Build Guides!
- High Ward
- Ranged Minions
- Insane Single Target DPS
- Great Scaling With Gear and Uniques
- Needs Specific Idols
- Very Active Playstyle
- High Buff Management
- Requires Uniques To Really Shine
Skills
Summon Wraith
Thanks to Flame Wraith and Adorned Immortal Idols with Chance for Summon Wraith to summon a Flame Wraith instead, your Summon Wraiths are always Fire and Ranged; combine this with Locus Of Death to turn them into deadly turrets. Spirit Link and Dawn of the Fall grant extra Crit Chance.
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, Vitality and Minion Cast Speed.
- Investing in Forbidden Knowledge helps you cap your Resistances.
- Aegisfall boosts your DPS substantially. With enough Minion Cast Speed, you only need 4 Points in it.
- Frantic Summons provides tons of Cast Speed.
- Moonlight Pyre grants an amazing amount of base Damage.
- Get as many Points as you need in Rite of Undeath to cap your Resistances.
Make sure to complete the Campaign to get all your Passive Points.
Gameplay
This Necromancer wants to position itself far away from danger while casting Summon Wraith and Summon Volatile Zombie. 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
- Summon a few Summon Wraiths.
- Buff them with Dread Shade.
- Cast Drain Life on top of your Summon Wraiths to generate Mana and gain buffs. This is also key to cap your Resistances with Contempt.
- Summon Summon Wraiths up to your limit.
- Once you reach the Summon Wraiths cap, spam Summon Volatile Zombie.
- Use Transplant to juke, move or the buffs it provides.
- Refresh Dread Shade whenever it expires.
Mapping
- Transplant on Cooldown towards the objective.
- Summon Summon Wraiths while you wait for Transplant's Cooldown.
- Use the "A" key to ensure your Minions target the desired enemies.
- Let the Summon Wraiths kill enemies as you cruise through the Echoes.
- Maximize the Haste provided by Transplant is active.
Bossing
- Take advantage of all your buffs and keep them active as much as possible.
- Pre summon all your Summon Wraiths before aggroing the Boss.
- Save Transplant for dangerous telegraphed Boss attacks.
- Spam Summon Volatile Zombie for increible burst Damage. Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding with Experimental Volatile Zombie on Potion Use is key to spawn tons of Summon Volatile Zombies in quick succession..
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 stack other defensive layers into your gear as efficiently as possible. Plan ahead for your next upgrades and consider the final 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 Less Damage Taken From Crits
- 2500 - 3500+ Health
- 40% - 75%+ Armour
- 50 - 80+ Intelligence
- 80% + 150% Cast Speed
- 5000 - 10000+ Ward
- 300%+ Minion Critical Strike Multiplier
Gear Progression
Milestone 1
Aim for good Item Bases with four 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.
Milestone 2
Make sure your Critical Strike Avoidance or Less Damage Taken From Crits 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
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
Get an Aberrant Call to unleash the true power of Summon Wraith. This extremely powerful Unique Staff is quite common and you should be able to obtain one easily.
Milestone 5
Look for Phantom Grip and Death Rattle. This build can be very Unique heavy, so it's good to include the ones that shine even without Legendary Potential as soon as possible.
Milestone 6
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 or a Adorned Immortal Idol with Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit to increase the Damage enemies take.
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
When all your core Defenses are covered, start working on scaling your Minion's Damage with Intelligence and %Increased Minion Critical Strike Chance. Get Cast Speed to increase your DPS drastically.
Milestone 3
Get Aberrant Call, Phantom Grip and Death Rattle with Legendary Potential. Remember, the Nemesis encounters in Echoes can give your regular Uniques Legendary Potential.
Milestone 4
Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte is another great addition to the build. Be open to what the Weaver's Will upgrades provide and hope for GG ones!
Milestone 5
Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding with Experimental Volatile Zombie on Potion Use is key to spawn tons of Summon Volatile Zombies in quick succession. Get one as soon as possible!
Milestone 6
As you finish up your Empowered Blessings keep a decent Health pool, capped Resistances and other defensive layers. Keep an eye for all your desired Idols.
Milestone 1
Upgrade you set up with T7 Exalted items, high value Sealed Affixes or ideally both. Obtain the Affixes included in the Planner and keep prioritizing the indicated Item Bases for their Implicits.
Milestone 2
Get Exsanguinous to transition into the Low Life setup: which greatly increases the defenses of the build thanks to the Ward generation it provides. Farm Exsanguinous by completing Unique Chest Reward Echoes in the Blood, Frost and Death Monolith Timeline.
Milestone 3
Complete you Low Life setup with Last Steps of the Living. Farm it in the Empowered Blood, Frost and Death Monolith Timeline by slaying Formosus the Undying. Pair it with a Legendary Snowblind for their amazing synergies.
Milestone 4
Keep farming Aberrant Call, Phantom Grip and Death Rattle with the max Legendary Potential you can find.
Milestone 5
Julra's Obsession is a great addition to this build for its properties. This item can be farmed by killing Chronomancer Julra in T3 Temporal Sanctum Dungeon. It always drops with 1 Legendary Potential. Get Cast Speed on them.
Milestone 6
Focus on finishing your Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix and Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit, Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions, Health or Ward Retention Suffixes. You also want useful Suffixes for you Adorned Immortal Idols with Chance for Summon Wraith to summon a Flame Wraith instead.
Milestone 1
Keep upgrading your gear with Exalted Items with high tier Sealed Affixes. Get every stat in the right place and on the correct Item Base. Min/Maxing your gear in Last Epoch can be pushed to the extreme as Items with multiple Exalted Affixes and Legendary Potential 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 Aberrant Call, Phantom Grip, Julra's Obsession, Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte, Last Steps of the Living, Exsanguinous, Snowblind and Jungle Queen's Chaps of Holding with high Legendary Potential. Remember that some of these Items are extremely hard to get with high Legendary Potential.
Milestone 4
Feel free to experiment with any crazy Unique, Legendary or Experimental Items that you might craft, trade or find! 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
- Memory of Light
- Bastion of Divinity
- Light of the Moon
- Survival of Might
- Persistance of Will
- Resolve of Humanity
- Bulwark of the Tundra
- 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:
- Get Grand Resolve of Humanity for the Resistances it provides.
- Grab Grand Light of the Moon for the Mana.
- Farm Grand Bulwark of the Tundra and Grand Body of Obsidian for a huge survivability boost.
- Finish up by farming Grand Memory of Light for additional Health.
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 Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit, Health or Ward Retention. Once you find all your Idols, you can switch to the Grand Winds of Fortune and focus on Uniques instead.
- Take Grand Slumber of Morditas to find more Relics. Alternatively, you can get Grand Vision of the Aurora to find more Amulets.
- Lastly, farm Grand Chill of Death to find more Staffs.
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 2 Adorned Immortal Idols with Chance for Summon Wraith to summon a Flame Wraith instead Prefix. Look for useful Suffixes like Resistances, Health, Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions or Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit.
- You also want 4 Large Immortal Idols with %Health Prefix. For the Suffixes get Critical Strike Chance For You And Your Minions, Health, Ward Retention or Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit. Acolytes can get an absurd amount of Health just from Idols.
- 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 Necromancer deals massive Damage with Summon Wraiths and Summon Volatile Zombies, powerful Minions that destroy everything on sight. This build also has great survivability thanks to the multiple defensive layers it can take advantage of.
- Aberrant Call: This Staff is extremely powerful for the build. Get it as soon as possible.
- Minion Power: Your minions gain Minion Power based on your Character Level. By level 100, they deal 45% More Damage and take 45% Less Damage (Multiplicative with other modifiers).
- Minion Spell Flat Damage: You want to get as much Flat Damage for your Summon Wraiths and Summon Volatile Zombies as possible, since these Minions have tons of Damage Multipliers provided by their Skill Trees and the Dread Shade buffs.
- Cast Speed: The faster you cast your Minions the better.
- Minion Cast Speed: The faster your Minions attack, the more Damage they do.
- Intelligence: Summon Wraith and Summon Volatile Zombie gain 4% Damage per point of Intelligence. Additionally, each point of Intelligence provides 4% Ward Retention.
- Minion % Spell Damage: Anything that increases Minion Spell Damage is welcomed.
- Minion Spell Critical Strike Chance: Get as much Crit as you can. Phantom Grip] is amazing for the Flat Crit it provides.
- Minion Critical Strike Multiplier: Increases the Damage your minions Crits deal. Get as much as you can!
- 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 17% increased Necrotic and Fire Damage, while at -4000 Armour it takes 40%. With the amount of hits the build has, the stacks ramp up quickly. Your Wraiths apply it easily thanks to the Aegisfall Node.
- Mark for Death: This Ailment that reduces All Enemy Resistances by 25%, causing them to take extra Damage. Get it from a Large Immortal Idols with Minion Chance To Apply Mark For Death On Hit.
- Contempt: Use this amazing Node on Drain Life to cap all your Resistances.
- Bone Armor: Transplant provides this buff. It grants Flat Armour and Damage Reduction.
- Armour Mitigation: This build can get insane Armour. Just with the implicit Armour from your gear, Grand Body of Obsidian and Grand Bulwark of the Tundra Blessings and all its buffs you reach 75%+ Mitigation easily.
- Ward: A shield above your Health that is generated by certain effects, rapidly decays over time and is protected by Armour Mitigation. Your Ward is generated thanks to Summon Volatile Zombie. Transition to Low Life gear to generate stable Ward thanks to Exsanguinous and Last Steps of the Living. The build can reach more than 10k Ward with investment.
- Ward Retention: Reduces the rate of Ward decay.
- Intelligence: Each point of Intelligence provides 4% Ward Retention.
- Health: This build can stack an insanely high Health pool that is very effective when combined with all the other defensive layers the build has. Acolytes have access to Large Immortal Idols with %Health; not all Classes have access to these amazing Idols!
- Vitality: Tahnks to the Martyrdom Node inside Dread Shade it grants tons of Flat Armour.
- Armor Mitigation: This build can get extremly high amounts of Armor, surpassing the 75%+ Mitigation mark.
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. Click on the Generate Loot Filter button down below then use the Paste Clipboard Contents button in-game to import it!
Here is the Endgame Loot Filter for this build:
Learn how to load and make Filters with our Loot Filter Guide.
Video Guide
COMING SOON!
Summary
This Necromancer uses Summon Wraith and Summon Volatile Zombie to summon a horrific Fire Minion army. It has insane single target DPS and decent survivability thanks to its multiple defensive layers.
- Thanks to Flame Wraith and Adorned Immortal Idols with Chance for Summon Wraith to summon a Flame Wraith instead, your Summon Wraiths are always Fire and Ranged.
- Summon Volatile Zombie provides amazing Ward generation and additional Damage.
- Dread Shade is crucial to enhance your Minion's Damage thanks to Nodes like Dying Coven, Grim Fate and Lingering Doom.
- Transition to Low Life to generate stable Ward thanks to Exsanguinous and Last Steps of the Living.
- Use Transplant to juke, move or refresh the buffs it provides.
- This setup doesn't require any Unique to function. However Items like Aberrant Call, Phantom Grip, Julra's Obsession and Death Rattle take the build to the next level.
- If you are looking for a dark summoner with a powerful undeath army capable of obliterating Bosses in seconds, this build is perfect for you!
Credits
Written by Lizard_IRL
Reviewed by McFluffin, Facefoot