During your Last Epoch Campaign Playthrough, there may be times when you feel underpowered. While such moments are not unusual for new players, they can still prove frustrating and detract from the overall experience. This guide, delves into effective strategies to enhance the power of your character, ensuring a smoother journey through the Campaign.
Shop and Gambler
One of the primary ways of gearing up in the campaign is utilizing the vendor NPCs. The shop provides straightforward upgrades, while the Gambler introduces an element of chance with each purchase. Mastering these two systems is essential to guaranteeing your Campaign progress is smooth. This section will go into details on how to best utilize both NPCs to increase your character power.
Shop
The Shop NPC serves as a crucial component to your early gearing in Last Epoch. Always visit the shopkeeper after portaling back to town as this is key part of your itemization during Chapter 1. In the next chapters, visit him only when you are missing gear pieces. The best part? Acquiring essential gear won't break the bank, as the costs are relatively modest. Make this strategic stop to efficiently gear up your character without denting your gold reserves.
The Shop refreshes every 15 minutes and each time you complete main quests.
During the first chapter, be on the lookout for:
- Boots with Movement Speed and Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed.
- Belts with Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed
- Any two handed weapon with Chance to Ignite on Hit or Chance to Bleed on Hit.
- Any Silver Ring.
- Any piece of equipment with affixes matching your damage type, such as Spell Damage, Damage Over Time or Melee Damage for example.
- Any piece of equipment with Health or Physical Resistance.
After the first chapter, you can add to that list any weapon with a better base and/or better affixes, as well as items with any type of resistance, but focus on Void Resistance for chapter 2 and 3. Weapons with Chance to Ignite on Hit or Chance to Bleed on Hit start loosing their efficacy after chapter 3 for most builds.
Gambler
The Gambler becomes a key part of your gearing in the mid-to-late stages of the Last Epoch Campaign. As you progress, this NPC becomes your go-to resource to acquire weapon upgrades. Investing a decent amount of Gold in this endeavor can yield a good weapon to propel your character power forward.
Furthermore, the Gambler offers a clever way of getting rare affixes. By gambling low cost item bases, you can target specific affixes, which is a good approach for securing class-required affixes on gear pieces like helmets, body armor and relics.
You can always refresh the Gambler if you can't find the item bases you are looking for, it won't cost you much Gold.
Item Upgrades
Increase your character power in Last Epoch by choosing the correct weapon for your build, utilizing crafting to enhance your equipment with desired affixes and taking advantage of guaranteed uniques from quest reward.
Weapon
Choosing the right weapon for your build greatly impacts your character's power. For this reason, you should typically prioritize two-handed weapons over one-handed ones in the campaign. The damage from the implicit scales higher, as do the affixes, which also means you spend less resources crafting your weapon.
However, there are some cases where this rule doesn't apply:
- If you play a Spell Paladin, you should use a wand and a shield instead as most of your flat damage comes from your passives, which require a shield.
- If you play a Rogue using Shadow Daggers, you should dual wield to take advantage of the crit multi of Kris. This is also the case for the Spellblade if you play Shatter Strike as you want to dual wield swords for Cold Steel.
- If you play any Minion build, look for weapon bases that have minion related stats like Oak Sceptre, Skeletal Sceptre, Sickle, Soul Harvester, Dragonbone Axe, Bearded Axe, Obsidian Axe, Bone Scythe and Horned Staff.
- For Totem builds, you can still use any minion related weapon, but you also have Shamanic Staff.
- Marksman builds should uses bows and I recommend using the Salvaged Bow until you can equip an Obsidian Bow for bleed builds.
For more information on how damage works check out our Damage Explained.
Crafting
Enhancing your gear power through crafting is key to progressing in Last Epoch. Gather Affix Shards, which are essential for crafting, by defeating monsters and from Shrine of Shards. You can also extract Affix Shards from items you come across during your journey, so keep those items in your inventory for later extracts. Craft items seamlessly by pressing F anywhere in the game.
To extract Affix Shards from items, use Rune of Shattering. These runes allow you to extract a random amount of Affix Shards, with the quantity capped at the tier of the affixes extracted. Acquire them either from drops or by purchasing them for 2000 Gold from Shop NPCs.
For high-value affixes, opt for Rune of Removal. These runes guarantee the extraction of an affix with the number of shards corresponding to its tier. Keep in mind that this method involves a random affix and consumes Forging Potential. Rune of Removal can only be obtained through drops, so they should be used sparingly.
Use Rune of Discovery to fill up item with tier 1 affixes in the first few chapters. As you level up, you unlock higher tiers on items, so getting more tier 1 affixes early is very valuable.
For more information on crafting check out our Beginner Crafting Guide.
Unique quest reward
Chapter 2 offers you the choice between 2 quests, Erza's Ledger that rewards Avarice and Artem's Offer which rewards Gambler's Fallacy. I recommend Avarice for most builds as elemental resistance is a good generic defensive stat and the Increased Leech Rate is very valuable to any build that uses Leech.
Resistances
Each chapter of the Last Epoch campaign focuses on particular resistance types. While it's not essential to cap every resistance, strategically prioritizing them can significantly enhance your survivability. This section guides you through the optimal resistances to focus on for each chapter, ensuring your character power is enough to face the dangers that lie ahead.
As a general rule of thumb, always prioritize Physical Resistance as it's the most common damage type and most melee attacks deal Physical Damage.
- Chapter 2 and 3: Void Resistance.
- Chapter 4: Necrotic Resistance.
- Chapter 5 and 6: Physical Resistance.
- Chapter 7: Cold Resistance.
- Chapter 8: Cold Resistance and Lightning Resistance.
- Chapter 9: Poison Resistance.
Once you go into the end game, focus primarily on Physical Resistance and Necrotic Resistance for the first timeline. Then start building up other types as you advance in the next timelines.
For more information on item defense works check out our Defenses Explained.
Summary
- Use the Shop whenever you can during chapter 1 and whenever you need extra loot in the campaign.
- Use the Gambler in the later half of the campaign for weapons upgrades.
- Favor two-handed weapons unless you play a Spell Paladin, Minion, Totem or Marksman build.
- Choose to complete the Erza's Ledger quest for Avarice.
- Prioritize on capping your Physical Resistance first as it's the most common damage type.
- Focus on Void Resistance during chapters 2 and 3, Necrotic Resistance in chapter 4, Physical Resistance in chapters 5 and 6, Cold Resistance in chapter 7, Cold Resistance and Lightning Resistance in chapter 8 and Poison Resistance in chapter 9.
Credit
Written by Terek
Reviewed by Tenkiei